Alice Phoebe Lou
Words: Sean Moore/ Photos: Kenneth Coles
It’s almost hard to believe such a powerful and intoxicating voice comes from the 26 year old female chanteuse who stands barely 5 feet tall, yet can command a room and crowd at the drop of a note. Such was the case Friday night when Alice Phoebe Lou took the stage and began belting out “Something Holy” off of her incredible album Paper Castles. The crowd was entranced by the South African-born, Paris and Berlin-transplanted singer-songwriter who defies any attempts to pigeonhole her sound into any one specific genre. If compelled, I would say her music is like a cross between Angel Olsen, Aldous Harding, and newcomer Faye Webster, with the powerfully honest lyricism of Big Thief’s, Adrienne Lenker. Her voice carried through the large space of Port City Music Hall as if drifting on the air, but then, very easily whipped around, much like her long blonde hair with her dance moves, as she cried out some of her lyrics in a combination of sadness, pain, and joy.
Her voice is a powerful instrument, especially when she uses it to tackle heavy subjects like love, heartbreak, and with one particular song, a stalker. Alice Phoebe Lou clearly takes her position as a female songwriter seriously and a great way to promote her strong feelings towards the importance of feminism, whether she is explaining the origins of one of her songs or simply singing it. What could easily make her fit into the folk/blues category is spun around with the added tinge of the keyboards and synthesizer on a handful of songs, transforming her sound into something you could very possibly hear in a bar on any given night. “Nostalgia” and “Galaxies” are examples of these mesmerizing, techno-beat dance tunes.
After “Something Holy,” Alice slowed it down with the opening track from her 2016 album Orbit, “Girl on an Island” and I swear you could have heard a pin drop in the room. Phoebe’s band left the stage after a few more songs and she took a seat behind the keyboard and played what she said was “the first song I wrote specifically with the keyboard,” and it sounded beautiful in the quiet space with the appreciative audience hanging on every note. With a decent catalogue of her own songs, Lou even found time to include a cover song “Want Me” from a rather obscure artist named Puma Blue, which I can only assume she added her own flair to as it sounded like it fit perfectly within her own repertoire.
Although I fully appreciated her full-band songs, it was the moments of quietness and forced concentration during “Girl on an Island” and “Fynbas” that really stood out for me. She has a way of singing that had me feel like I was the only one in the room, yet when I looked around, I saw other people standing with their eyes closed and a smile on their faces like they were feeling the same way.
Alice can sing in a hauntingly low, almost muted voice, only to then belt out high notes oftentimes within the same song, as I witnessed last night during the aforementioned opening song, as well as “My Outside” and “Skin Crawl.” These two songs alone are incredibly honest songs that Alice explained “touch on the sexual and verbal harassment that leads to larger problems of sexism and sexual aggression.” The former being mostly about “burning the patriarchy,” which got a wild response from all the women in the crowd. Towards the end of the song, Alice’s band led the charge with powerful crescendo while she danced with no inhibitions and encouraged everyone else to do the same.
She ended her set with perhaps her most popular song, “She” which the crowd absolutely loved and I could tell many of them had been waiting with heavy anticipation for her to play it. It’s easy to understand why this particular song was on the shortlist for 2018 Academy Awards Oscars’ category of “Best Original Song,” having been featured in the Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Only in her mid-twenties, Alice Phoebe has already racked up an impressive catalogue of songs as well as critical praise. Seeing her live it’s easy to see why she has earned the praise.
Alice Phoebe’s short east coast tour, which only included four tour stops Philly, Cambridge, and Brooklyn, surprisingly found her finally playing Portland, Maine. The crowd showed their appreciation throughout the night. When I attend shows like this, I feel lucky to be amongst a small crowd of like-minded folks who understand the greatness of an artist like Alice Phoebe Lou. But, at the same time, I want there to be far more people in the room, taking in the powerfulness of Lou and her songs. It’s an internal battle between taking ownership of an independent artist that you’ve discovered and wanting them to be discovered by far more people. I hope the next time Lou makes her way to Portland, the crowd doubles in size, because that just means that even more people will have become mesmerized by the strength of her songwriting and her voice.
