Free At Noon: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Piano & Voice

Alec Ounsworth says he’s only about 20 shows into his current piano-and-voice iteration of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but make no mistake: His Free At Noon performance was immediately revelatory. Because even though there has always been a beauty and elegance inside of the swirling guitar-band music that CYHSH has always been known for, there’s been a lyrical and structural brilliance to the music that isn’t always readily apparent.

This version corrects that right away. Sitting at a warm-toned upright piano, Ounsworth delivered a set of songs that showed how many levels he’s working on. Whereas the early word when Clap Your Hands was breaking out was to the effect of, “He sounds like David Byrne,” what the piano-and-voice versions reveal is that there’s some of the best bits of Bowie balladry here, with a lyricism that’s keeping pace with Dan Bejar of Destroyer, as well. 

Even the older songs sound topical now. In his intro to a very moving performance of “Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood,” Ounsworth says: “The indignity of suffering at the hands of people who are making it up as they go along is something I have always had trouble with.” That sentiment, as well as the song itself, has both a permanence and an immediacy to it. It’s like what they say about poetry: It’s the news that stays news.