HONNE w/ JONES at Triple Rock, Minneapolis (05 Aug 2016)

Jones

When Grammy-favorite Sam Smith calls your music “f*#king beautiful” to his 6.5 million Instagram followers, you know you’re probably on to something.  London singer Cherie Jones, who goes by the moniker JONES, showed us just what that meant, opening the evening with a brief twenty-five minute culled from last year’s Indulge EP and full-length, New Skin (due Oct 7^th, via 37 Adventures).



Joined only by a guitarist, JONES musically comes from a dreamy r&b/indie pop sound that has similarities to Solange, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Leona Lewis, with vocals as smooth as newly spun silk. Apparently a fan of one-word song titles, ‘Deep’, ‘You’, ‘Hoops’ , ‘Melt’, and the set-closing ‘Indulge’ (that had the audience clapping along) all shimmered with an elegant sheen amidst vulnerable lyrics and heartbroken themes.



Though HONNE (本音) is actually a Japanese word meaning “real intention”, the Somerset UK electro-Northern Soul duo of frontman Andy Clutterbuck and multi-instrumentalist James Hatcher;  is anything but from Japan, though they do seem to emit their “real self” and “true meaning” into their music, which also fits the description of the word.



The group, rounded out as a live band by Naomi Scarlett on backing vocals, Duayne Sanford on drums, and Amadu Koroma on bass guitar, plays a mostly mid-tempo pop/blue-eyed smooth soul blend that sounds like vintage Quincy Jones producing James Blake and even harkens back to late ‘80s bands like Johnny Hates Jazz, Breathe, and Deacon Blue.

The opening ’Warm on a Cold Night’ was appropriate playing in a location that knows all about temperature extremes, ‘Good Together’ showed its subtle gospel influences, and ‘The Night’ started sparsely on piano, before flowering into a widescreen song that was reminiscent of some Curt Smith-sung Tears for Fears songs.



Though only beginning their US tour, ‘No Place Like Home’ (from their 2015 Over Lover EP), a mid-set song about homesickness echoed effectively with the help of JONES, who was brought back on stage, to reprise her verses from the recorded version.



British singer Izzy Bizu wasn’t available to tour, so HONNE did the next best thing to end their main set, as backing vocalist Scarlett more than filled the part on the collaborative single, ‘Someone That Loves You’.



Chants of “one more song” were answered in triplicate as the encore began with only Clutterbuck and Hatcher returning, and Clutterbuck saying, “we’ve just come out to tell we can’t play one more song…” to jeers, then redeeming himself by exclaiming “… we’re gonna play three more songs!”



The slower ‘Woman’ (released by the band on Valentine’s Day) was a swooning ballad, prompting the band to ask audience members to hug each other mid-verse, ‘Loves the Jobs You Hate’ turned into a bass showcase by the nimble-fingered Koroma, and ‘All in the Value’ shone some sunshine despite the somber synths and lyrics about a relationship breakup.



With larger festivals taking up most of the band’s fall dates, HONNE only seems to be moving upward, and expect the buzz for JONES to continue as her debut album releases this fall.  Despite the relatively simple names, some musical acts are still worth the extra search for.