This is the fourth time I’ve seen Salty Brine and The Living Record Collection, and yet it’s still a little tricky to describe exactly what takes place in one of their shows without it sounding like a ridiculously complicated affair, and maybe an even outright bizarre one too. Yet despite this frontman Salty makes it look like an effortless magic trick, and each has been a delight to witness.
The short explanation is that in each show they’ll perform a well known or critically acclaimed album, and either during the songs or inbetween numbers Salty not only explores the themes on it, but also how the lyrics can be linked to a classic novel. And then to make it a little more varied and intriguing a concoction he incorporates elements of his own life in to each and every narrative.
The first show I saw of there’s covered The Smith’s The Queen Is Dead, how some of the lyrics echo key sequences from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstine, and yet also reflect times from Shelley’s existence and a very specific aspect of Salty’s life. And not only did they make the album feel fresh and alive again for the first time in decades, but certain parts were laugh out loud funny, before switching to achingly bittersweet. And then it became celebratory of what Shelley achieved, before addressing the unfortunate fact as to how problematic Morrissey is nowadays. All of which combined made for a stunning piece of musical theatre.
The same has applied to each of the other productions I’ve been fortunate enough to catch, and this fourth show was their best yet. This time around the album performed was Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the book The Diary Of Anne Frank, while Salty used excepts from his own diaries when he was in his twenties to tie it all together. Now this might sound like the kind of material which would be bleak to examine, and Anne and her family’s fate is never forgotten, but it’s also a celebration of a life that even under horrendous circumstances was able to contain elements of joy.
Neutral Milk Hotel’s album is the perfect accompaniment to the various twisting narratives, especially as it references Frank’s infamous diary, while Salty’s own diary entries gave them the opportunity to celebrate two very different instances of first love. A curious mixture indeed then, but one that made for an eccentric, funny, smart and almost endlessly insightful show. There really isn’t anything quite like this out there, and due to that I can’t wait to see what Salty Brine and his extremed talented cohorts will offer up next.
Sarah Stringer