MUSIC
Tokio Myers
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
JJJJ
Returning to Edinburgh for the first night of his UK tour, Tokio Myers was in a humble,
appreciative mood. It was during last summer’s Fringe that he composed his transformative cover of The Weeknd’s Angel, which he went on to perform on The X Factor with Rita Ora, consolidating his mainstream appeal after winning Britain’s Got Talent.
Rendered live here, the track retained plenty of the original’s bombastic impact, but the plaintive sampled vocal sustained the swagger while giving it a piercingly pure, yearning quality.
A classical pianist and percussionist energised and inspired by old-school electronica and raw hip hop elements, Myers is a classic crossover act – the bitter political
pill of Baltimore, an appeal for social justice and reflection on deprivation, is couched in a steady beat and a hypnotically beautiful, even poppy confection, that never comes close to losing its alternative edge.
Whether standing atop his piano, prostrating himself across it in blissed out calm or intensely gripping a drumstick in his mouth as his fingers dance across the keys, Myers is a composed stage presence.
And his reinterpretations of others’ work flips them on their head, with Robert Miles’ Children suddenly characterised by sinister horns and jungle-like rhythms.
More compelling though, arguably, are the crashing synths of Our Generation, a heady maelstrom of noise.
Unprepared for the demanded encore, Myers closed gracefully with Debussy’s Clair De Lune in its entirety, having earlier played his breakthrough mash-up of the piece with Ed Sheeran’s Bloodstream.
JAY RICHARDSON