IAM THE MANIC WHALE
VENUE THE CAMDEN CLUB, LONDON
DATE 06/11/2023
SUPPORT TOM SLATTER
Looking relaxed and disarmingly presenting like an ordinary singersongwriter armed with an acoustic guitar,
Tom Slatter
embarks on a set that embraces darkness, fantastical events, weird characters, wry humour and twisted poignancy. Bookended by the sinister gloom and jarring jauntiness of Some Of The Creatures Have Broken The Locks On The Door Of Lab 558 and the thought-provoking portrait of homelessness and everyday magic that is Wizards Of This Town, he throws out gorgeously fragile love songs set during the apocalypse. There’s also the 20- minute, multipart TheMiser’sTale, which describes (via mysterious metal claws, a brain in a jar and a giant skeleton pulled out of the Thames) how an old man manages to be not quite as dead as his relatives think he is. Merely hinting at his extensive and extraordinary back catalogue, Slatter is warmly received.