Ohlayindigo at the L.I.P.A. 2015 Showcase. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is always a different beat in which your life to. Those that hear it are blessed by which ever deity or Humanist thought they prescribe to, those that don’t, those that stick to the tried and trusted beige without experiencing the colourful option are in some respects doomed to live in a world infested by the dull and creatively obtuse.

To hear that different beat, to listen with careful poise, is to take on board someone else’s interpretation of events, of meaning, it might not sit well but at least you have listened before passing judgement.

In Ohlayindigo, that different beat strikes loud and with distinction, it hammers out with purpose and pride and reminds an audience of a time before such beats were consigned to the rubbish pit of the 1990s. It is enthused with great pop vocals and the stirring resoluteness of a shifted heartbeat, a heartbeat groping in the darkness for a like-minded sense of purpose but happy enough to take a hammer on its own against the biggest bell until someone else stops, looks up at the regulated chaos and decides to join in.

To listen to that Ohlayindigo beat is to appreciate anoter voice and realise again that all music voices should be heard, especially when there is passion within its delicate exterior. For Ohlayindigo, a different beat in an afternoon where the power of the guitar and the sweeping gesture of the piano were the order of the day, that beat was remarkable and infectious.

Ohlayindigo, Zak Shrapnell and Dan Stokes offer much as part of their showcase at the Paul McCartney Auditorium, so much in fact that the infectious nature of their music, marvellously out of step with the other acts of the day, was enjoyable and agreeable, It was the beat that danced without having the side effects of a genre perhaps arguably best left where it belongs.

In tracks such as Wonderland, If These Walls, Golden Chains, the utterly compelling Take Me To The Moon and perhaps appropriately Heartbeat, what passed was a sense of accomplishment, a differing side to the same tale being fascinatingly drawn upon and in that Ohlayindigo must and should be congratulated.

Rhythmically appreciative, musically inspired with dramatic pop overtones, Ohlayindigo were a diamond in a box full of jewels in the latest L.I.P.A. showcase and one with enormous value.

Ian D. Hall