Caught up in a song, No. 5: Shingai Shoniwa
The Noisette finds a summer of love in a prog-rock classic
By Christy Mannering
Published: July 13th, 2007 | 11:00am
Noisettes’ vocalist-bassist Shingai Shoniwa, co-vocalist-guitarist Dan Smith, and drummer Jamie Morrison barely have time to sit down and untie their shoes. The London trio has just finished touring the States on the heels of its April 14, 2007, sophomore release What's the Time Mr. Wolf? and is currently on the European leg of its summer 2007 tour, with shows scheduled through September 2007. But the band isn’t complaining. For the Noisettes, touring is a dream come true, and their album is the talk of the town, even if they’re not actually finding time to sleep.
On stage, there’s certainly nothing sleepy about Shingai Shoniwa. The lady behind the Noisettes started her musical career with dreams of the circus life. And though that desire changed, Shoniwa is known for her acrobatic performances, and she’s definitely comfortable in the skintight magenta pants she adorns on What's the Time Mr. Wolf?’s cover. Here, in her own words, Shoniwa talks about what initially inspired and influenced her style and music during one “sticky hot summer in South London at the end of the ’90s.”
SHINGAI SHONIWA ON FUSION ORCHESTRA’S <I>SKELETON IN ARMOUR
I'm 16 and haven’t been home since Thursday. It’s now Sunday! The summer holiday has been a hazy, cosmic voyage of discovery. As autumn draws close, the sunsets will beam down kaleidoscopic displays of some of the most memorable sky-fires of my burning youth.
Leo doesn’t know that I'm 16, or at least that’s what I think! I met him at the Paradise Bar in New Cross with my dear friend and adventuring partner Cat. Paradise had a trippy, tropical, aquatic theme embedded in the ceiling. It looked like it was about to rain seahorses and shipwreck pieces from the Armada Era. Cat is 17, so when we exchange stories on life, or our respective hopes and fantasies concerning it, I assume that Leo reckons that I’m that age too. We'll share worlds in some shape or form with him from that season onwards.
I am blown away by Cat. She paints horses, as we imagine them in a world without blinkers. We wear wartime, old men's pants over electric tights, and matching hats with furry catlike ears: hers black to compliment her maple complexion, mine hickory-colored, as the sun had lent me an onyx glow. We ride around on our battered bikes that have names like Rainbow Spike and Mutiny on the Amistad.
We are invincible. The alleyways, the parks, pubs, and even the rooftops of housing estates in South London are just as much playgrounds to us as the postcard perfect Kentish villages that we journey to by bike and train — our satchels filled with ale, teacups, snacks, ink, colorful picnic rags, portable tape players, Super-8 cameras, and smokeables.
Leo becomes my first love. Upon our first exchange of mix-tapes to each other, a track titled “Have I Left the Gas On,” by Fusion Orchestra [Skeleton in Armour, 1973] blows me away. I have never heard anything like it before. Jill Saward’s vocals soar and cut through the song like the blade of a sword — bejeweled with rubies on its handle, held with feline grace and theatrical command. I like, for example, her teasing playfulness with lyrics like: “Come show me love / to excite the animal.” Her execution of the word “scan” showcases an effortless prowess, and she was laughing as she seduced us all.
The key thing that unites us this summer is music. Our journeys would not be complete without the mix-tapes we make for each other. But what sticks out for me is Fusion Orchestra. They were a phenomenally exciting band with a short-lived career that shot past what was left of the English psychedelic prog-rock scene in the late ’70s, like a comet.
Issue #35
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