Paul Thomas Saunders [Live]

BY HAMISH PAYNE
THURSDAY, 24TH APRIL 2014

Paul Thomas Saunders has done something quite interesting. He has written music that is a fag-paper away from being boring, but has miraculously ended up being absolutely brilliant. There seems to be a pinch of something in his music that makes each song feel a bit more - a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. The 24 year old has just released his debut album, Beautiful Desolation on Atlantic Records (quite a big-dog-deal for a first-timer) and it seems that their faith is well-placed.

His dramatic, thumping, slightly 80s, dreamy and poppy music worked well on-stage. He filled the room with thick noise, and his offering was reaped with hungry appreciation. Not only was the music good, but he was fun, too! Definitely not a shrinking violet, he spent a good proportion of the non-music-time being surprisingly charming. Everyone loves jokes. ‘Good women’ is the first single from the album, and was stonking live.

I would like to make the most special mention to the absolutely sublime support on the evening. Charlie Cunningham, to whose music there is a link at the bottom of the page, is astonishingly good, and someone we at The Boatshed think deserves, based purely on the songs he writes, to be the most famous and successful artist in the world. Almost completely seriously.