The Courtyard, a grade II listed building just off Old Street became the chosen music venue for Josef Salvat’s sold out debut show.
Setting the scene of exclusivity, the intro; a deep pulsating rhythm and a beacon of light shadowed his mic silenced the room to attention.
Savat hit my radar from a personal recommendation over a year ago when he dropped his oh so intimate track ‘Hustler‘. Taking to the keys, he told the crowd he wanted to perform it exactly how it was intended when written. Stripped back with no band, this song was a stand out; showing the glimpse of charm which first attracted me to his art. A promising change from his first few tracks, it’s unfortunate the atmosphere didn’t build after this seeing him glide through the keys and vocal register like an eagle. But with caption of the night “welcome to my first and last show of 2014” he came across a little defeatist rather than thrilled.
Earlier this year he hit blogosphere with his ‘In the Prime’ EP. Namely the gorgeous ‘Open Season‘ winning over some personal favourites, The Line Of Best Fit, The FADAR and Breaking More Waves. Imagine Spring and birds calling you will get an essence of why this man has a niche. The keyboard part of his set being a secret garden full of wellbeing and the rest more Central Park or should we go a little closer to his Australian roots, Kakadu national Park. After a solid delivery of lyrics about going into the wilderness maybe we are onto something with this outdoors concept. Performing tracks from this EP was a given, but it was a surprise his glistening rendition of Rihanna’s single ‘Diamonds‘ didn’t make the set.
Currently Salvat falls into a slower version of The Hoosiers, an adaptation of maroon 5 and the male moodiness of Lana Del Ray. Give this guy some more time to find his feet and he could win a few more hearts.