Waldo’s Gift wow Trinity, Bristol for album launch show

Jazz-rock fusion trio Waldo’s Gift provided one of Bristol’s first post-lockdown gigs, an understandably ecstatic evening in Trinity’s smaller room. Three years later they have sold out the venue’s much bigger main hall and the atmosphere is nearly as electric as it was previously. The opening solo set comes from Crimewave, wielding guitar, laptop and crash pad behind strangely beguiling lyrics. The effect is oddly retro – 90s style reimagined through 21st century tech – and it’s a suitably energetic and intelligent warm-up for what follows.

Waldo’s Gift are essentially a live band, born from a weekly improv residency, and it has taken them a decade to finally make Malcolm’s Law, a studio album of nine one-take tracks launched with this UK tour. They crash into a metal rock riff, the kinetic Harry Stoneham’s exultant bass and James Vine’s enormous drum sound roiling behind Alun Elliot-Williams stripped down hard guitar. Everyone grins (on and off stage) and they shift to album opener ‘Candifloss’, Elliot-Williams trademark liquid semiquaver arpeggios looping dazzlingly over cool bass grooves and measured, minimal drums.

There’s a sudden shift – another band trademark – and everything tightens into an in-your-face rock finale. Then they improvise a number that’s no less structured, with evocations of deep bass music as the silvery guitar fades in and out of a shifting drum narrative, sub-bass gravelling throughout. Waldo’s Gift’s music is a distillation of so many influences combined and recombined – fractured drum and bass, post-reggae, four-to-the-floor techno, rock and post-rock, even a deconstructed Radiohead cover. Their unerring judgement of what to play and when to change reveals their collective musicality as well as their considerable musicianship. And they are unashamedly crowd-pleasing, deploying EDM strategies like holding back for ‘the drop’, tight-lipped restraint making the unleashing more impactful. It works – this crowd are certainly well pleased – and those taking the album home should be equally happy tomorrow.