Cameron Winter review – Geese wunderkind whittles confident rearrangements in an intimate show

Hearing Cameron Winter croon of God, Jesus and the devil in the former Methodist chapel of Manchester’s Albert Hall may seem appropriate, but this superficial link belies the 23-year-old’s talent for the secular and absurd. Winter works primarily in contrasts: poppy instrumentation with off-kilter song structures; lyrics that are abstract yet never impenetrable; boyish charm wrapped in the confidence expected from a singer-songwriter twice his age.

In this intimate show, Winter hunches over his piano, whittling away at songs as if the audience are peering through the window of his private rehearsal space. It would be the more conventional choice for him to tour with a band, especially after the one-two punch of his solo debut album Heavy Metal late last year and his band Geese’s Getting Killed in September. But Winter doesn’t do things simply: every song tonight gets a new arrangement. He tickles and pummels reverb-soaked keys in ways that transform and reconstruct Heavy Metal’s foundations into something more alive than the recording. It is stripped back, but never stark.

Artists often perform unrecognisable versions of their songs – much to the dismay of sing-along-ready fans – but Winter’s rearrangements feel completely free of pretension and audience hostility. Rather than feeling pushed out of Winter’s performance, we are invited in. It is a rare thing, in a crammed, sold-out show, to feel as if you’re bearing witness. The Brooklyner’s sense of melody and pitch is deft. Live, his songs find new melodic landscapes and enter soulful, even jazzy, new territories. While his idiosyncratic, bleating drawl has aggravated some listeners, Winter’s live vibrato is undeniably effortless whether he belts or whispers.

The crowd chuckles in moments when the playful song dynamics demand audience silence and space to breathe, when long sustained notes fade into the contours of the Albert Hall’s ceiling. It becomes so quiet at times that you can hear feet shuffle, yet not a whisper of chatter. There is an impulse to compare Winter with icons of decades gone: Dylan, Cohen, Reed. But comparison robs Winter of his engrossing artistry. Thanks to his unfaltering earnestness on stage, by the time he bellows out “God is real! I’m not kidding this time!”, you can only agree.