Parenthetical Girls, Lido, Berlin, December 3rd

All the flourishes of Entanglements without the overwhelming waves of orchestral complexity - the reworked Parenthetical Girls set, songs shrunk down to fit in the hands and mouths of four people, somehow makes all the beautiful little emotional aches of their album all the better to take hold of you, and all the better to enchant you. Zac Pennington leaps from the stage to force his way through the crowd, putting himself on display, acting out lyrics with incisive little movements of his hands. The band match this with musical deftness and a talent for playing off one another.
They played for around forty minutes, and I wish they had played for forty more. I also wish they had played 'A Song For Ellie Greenwich.' I'm still a little bit mad about that.











{all images by a}

Parenthetical Girls - A Song for Ellie Greenwich
Parenthetical Girls - Four Words (live in Cardiff - full set)

You can buy Entanglements, my favourite album of the year, by going here. It seems there will be no Parenthetical Girls Christmas release this year, sadly, though the above bootleg and this session should be consolation enough.