Louis Cole, Roundhouse review - nothing is everything

London's iconic Roundhouse, packed to the rafters, provided the perfect setting for the UK premiere of Louis Cole's groundbreaking album nothing – his fifth album and third on Brainfeeder. This one-night-only performance, featuring Cole with an orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley, delivered electrifying musicianship, fascinating stylistic mash-ups, and melodies that imprinted themselves on your consciousness.

Released last August to critical adulation, nothing presented something far more ambitious than an orchestral rehash of greatest hits. The LA-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and Knower co-founder composed, produced and arranged an entirely fresh suite, with 15 of its 17 tracks being brand-new creations. That Cole reportedly spent nine months mixing the album suggests a Steely Dan-like attention to its sonic quality.

From the dramtic opener “Ludovici Cole Est Frigus” and ecstatic choruses of “A Pill in the Sea” and “These Dreams are Killing Me”, to the hyperactive moto perpetuo of “Weird Moments”, Cole’s arrangements were packed with ear-catching detail while still creating enough musical space to feature the the core band and the respective orchestral sections, which traversed electropop, classical, funk and jazz with ease. "Things Will Fall Apart" highlighted a favourite Cole device, a sudden textural drop-out giving way to a beatific coda featuring just voices and strings. 

Cole's close collaborators were out in force: backing vocalists Fuensanta, Laura Polence, Līva Dumpe, Marta Arpini, Sanem Kalfa and Genevieve Artadi (Cole's Knower collaborator and fellow Brainfeeder artist), alto saxist David Binney, bassist Sam Wilkes, guitarist Thom Gill, and keys player Israel Strom all lending their distinctive artistry to achieve Cole's singular vision.

"Life" erupted with Psycho-like string stabs before launching into a breakneck groove, Cole and Wilkes locking in with telepathic precision and an incendiary solo from Binney dialling up the intensity even further. The official video (appended at the end of this review) captures Buckley's perfect deadpan after its pinpoint conclusion: "Disgraceful... alright, let's move on."

The ludic delights of "Who Cares 2" delivered perhaps the evening's most startling juxtapositions – gloriously consonant repetitions giving way, with nothing but a triangle strike as warning, to pounding, Rite of Spring-like dissonances, before floating off into shimmering vocal clusters.

The strings-only title track (Cole's self-professed favourite) offered a moment of Mahlerian beauty that also resonated through the touching coda of "Let It Happen," originally from Cole’s 2022 album Quality Over Opinion.

The first of two encores, the strings-only threnody “Doesn’t Matter” possessed something of the elegiac quality of Arvo Pärt with its slowly shifting string lines, before this remarkable, life-affirming evening concluded with a rambunctious reprise of “Life”.

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Watch "Life" from nothing