The double bill at Yes Pink Room is an excellent example of the “two for.” A pair of artists, both of whom I would happily pay to see. Flora Hibberd and Hannah Cohen are mutually complementary acts, different enough from each other to offer contrasts while also not being so disparate as to be jarring. They share the accolade of recently recording with Sufjan Stevens. Unfortunately, such are the economics of modern touring, let alone his fragile health, they are unable to pack him in their suitcase or tour van to accompany them.
While Hibberd’s forthcoming album Mammoth, due for release on 16 October, is embellished with synths, pedal steel, brass and flutes, her eight-song set tonight offers the bare backbone of her songs, just Hibberd and her guitar. It does allow the opportunity to focus on the quality of her voice, pitched somewhere between Cate Le Bon and Joan Baez. Canopy, taken from her debut album Swell, stands out as she gives stern looks at the audience, acting out the song’s emotions (“I am storing up my rage like a fortune / you are angry at your body.”) On Mammoth’s title track there are prerecorded beats and Bowling Ball has a fuller backing track. Shelley and a version of traditional song Tailor & the Mouse are other highlights. While by her own admission the songs are quiet, the audience listen attentively throughout and offer hearty cheers at the end. Hibberd returns to Manchester with a full band to perform at Gullivers on 11 November. Prior to that, a glowing review of Mammoth is guaranteed to appear on this website.
Emerging out of dry ice and harsh but blurry lighting that makes her barely visible comes Hannah Cohen and her band. Considering the range of styles and moods displayed on her most recent album, 2025’s Earthside Mountain, which forms a substantial proportion of tonight’s performance, it is no surprise that the set refuses to conform to the traditional arc of giddy rush followed by mid-set lull before building to a big climax. The varied dynamic is apparent in the opening pairing of the airy, Minnie Riperton-esque Dusty and the resigned, AOR yearning of Mountain.
A handful of new songs are dotted throughout the set, suggesting that when a new album emerges it will match Earthside Mountain’s supreme standards. Recent standalone single, Golden Chain, is more folky and allows focus to fall on Cohen’s gorgeous voice. The fact that all Bandcamp proceeds from the song go to translifeline.com is indicative that she is on the side of the angels.
Some of what appeared to be lesser songs on Earthside Mountain take flight tonight, especially Draggin’ on which Cohen’s voice soars, hitting some sensational high notes, and it also highlights the quality of her band on a song whose music somehow combines country, rock and disco to great effect. Similarly, Dog Years gets new legs as it uses the quiet-loud dynamic especially well moving from its inward-looking verses to eardrum bursting keyboards.
The impact of her songs can be seen as she dedicates This Is Your Life from 2019’s Welcome Home to an audience member who has earlier told her that the song saved his life. Her versatility was apparent in her choice of cover, a surreal cocktail jazz take on Peggy Lee’s Me and My Shadow which was preceded by Cohen recounting an anecdote she had told by someone who had seen Lee performing in later life in a wheelchair, berating her band and smoking while having an oxygen tank with her.
Fortunately, Manchester tonight is resuming its reputation for righteously wet weather after the interminable summer heatwave so Summer Sweat is not a description of dripping walls in the venue. However, it does have the feel of a long-lost classic New York slow disco slow number, all sinuous grace and astonishing high notes from Cohen. After this ecstatic penultimate tune, Cohen is now in a giddy mood as she introduces closing song Rag with a rambling monologue about moving to the Catskill mountains and the community there. Wisely noting that everyone has an interesting story to tell and it is just a matter of asking them the right questions, she then goes on to free associate about creating rag merchandise and being on the rag. It is a peculiar but charming introduction to a downbeat, reflective closing song so is in keeping with her idiosyncratic approach to the set.
Earlier Cohen’s nervous between song conversation suggests nervousness about the quietness of the audience and lack of any loudmouths. From the boisterous acclaim at the set’s end, it is clear that they are engrossed, soaking up and enjoying a set that takes them in many different, satisfying directions. Moments like Draggin’ and, especially, Summer Sweat will live long in the memory.
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
