Between having a clarinet concerto at the Proms and a duo project with violinist Pekka Kuusisto this autumn, the singer, songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane is touring with Roomful of Teeth, the virtuoso US vocal ensemble whose founding members include Caroline Shaw.
Elevator Songs, which he wrote for them in 2023, is a darkly whimsical piece somewhere between a concept pop album and a song cycle. We are in a wormhole of a hotel, where the elevator – cue chimes – takes us to what seem like parallel worlds. Kahane’s songs deal deftly with grief, divorce and death, but within his style – tuneful, melancholic, full of twisty harmonies – it was the comedic ones that hit most immediately here.
