Jarboe featuring Joy Von Spain / Dawn Terry / Sade Arellano (live at Strange Brew)

Bristol
19 May 2026

A combination of shitty weather, traffic jams and next to zero parking led us to unfortunately miss out on all but the last track from Sade Arellano’s set. Bloody shame, but I was secretly hoping that the sterling slice of dark folk we actually witnessed was the set’s best.

After a short interval, Dawn Terry filled the venue with a deep accordion drone, looped over and layered, fleshed out by a deep baritone sing-a-long. This was a melancholic, angst-smeared tour de force, closely followed by her second song about vengeance, full of cycling drum fall and moan.

Kitted out with a mobile microphone, Dawn solemnly wandered into the seated audience brandishing a machete, the narrative flexing a slippery bloodbath. This was heavy, unapologetic theatrics that couldn’t be ignored.

In contrast, Jarboe’s set sedately sizzled on sparse keys and vocal abstracts bouncing between the duo of herself and Joy Von Spain, ambushed in trance-like diction and whispered power plays. Compared to the candle-lit ghost dances of a previous encounter at The Exchange a few years back, this was a seated display of force.

Luminescent and tactile, her words like attentively rounded obsessions, prying in there, lingering on the edge of your mind’s eye — plaintive chant morphing in and out of spoken word, constantly unfolding something hidden in a word or sentence.

An Appalachian purr accenting “You See Through Me” parallels, curling warmly round “Walking A Tightrope”‘s narrative, leading to a beguiling lungful sustain (that amazes) and a horror show of gnarled violence that comes out of nowhere. A satisfying dexterity Jarboe can pull off at the drop of a hat as the serene easily sisters something deeply sinister, slipping its skin to resurface a disquieting sweetness.

Strange angels pouring into the on-screen fractal shapes and patterned orbits. Jarboe silhouetted, long hair flowing over her face, upturned hands to her solemnly pointed words, occasionally raising them in alter-like reverence to the intensity. A connection you feel, washed by a constant wash of atmospherics from her laptop, Joy Von Spain supplying backing vocals to brooding brokenness.

A piano style that spears, scenically stretches, inks the darkened heart of “Holiness” succinctly. A droned ambience that holds well to the dark corona of “Ode To V”, a word-whorled “Sacrificial Cake” surprise that totally captivates, tendrilled in turbulent after images. Curving reflections that catch “Choir And Night Fox” from the recent Sightings LP in churchy tonalities that twist and turn to a backing track scooped in live overdubs.

That pre-recorded birdsong of “Vireo Serenade” mesmerising the audience in a dance of harmonic vocals and wind-scattered notes. This was spell-bindingly magical, all ending (far too quickly) on the slow bleeding perspectives of “Illusory”.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-