Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

Streets streaked with rain, railway tracks running over the arches of the bridges: Milan's autumn, around the revived Tunnel, seems the ideal setting for the folk shadows evoked by the music of Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. First, though, the genealogy of American songwriting is carried on through the voice of Harper Simon, the thirty-eight-year-old son of Paul Simon, who recently made his recording debut. It's not easy for him to catch the attention of a distracted crowd, armed only with an acoustic guitar and a gentle voice: Simon Jr. tries with a couple of crowd-pleasing covers, like "I'll Be Your Mirror" by Velvet Underground and "This Is Where I Belong" by Kinks. Even though live the country-folk shadings of his own songs (from "Shooting Star" to the romantic "Berkeley Girl") seem to grow even slighter and more timid, Harper looks surprised by every round of applause he manages to draw.

But, as expected, it's only when the dark silhouette of Mark Lanegan appears on stage that the ovations really ignite: dressed in black like a new "Man In Black", he stands impassively at the microphone, waiting for Isobel Campbell to take her place on stage alongside the four members of the backing band. It's on him that the expectations of an evening that quickly sold out are focused. Yet the real star is actually the blonde Scot standing beside him, her gaze lowered to the buckle of her cowgirl belt: it's largely thanks to her, in fact, that the songs on the three albums this odd couple have made so far exist. Songs of timeless stature, written with the empathy of someone who has found a piece of herself within the American tradition. Isobel Campbell's role seems to have grown increasingly independent over time, so much so that on the latest album, "Hawk", Lanegan's place was taken on a couple of occasions by a songwriter of the newest generation, Willy Mason.

In the half-light of a rippling backdrop, Isobel's ethereal voice and Mark's cavernous one come together over the muffled pulse of "We Die And See Beauty Reign". Then drums and guitar grow more forceful for the biting "You Won't Let Me Down Again", which wouldn't have been out of place among the pages of Lanegan's solo album "Scraps At Midnight". The pair first pay tribute to the crepuscular tones of Townes Van Zandt, with a tense "Snake Song", and then to Jeffrey Lee Pierce of Gun Club, with a western-flavored reinterpretation of "Free To Walk", recently included on the tribute album "We Are Only Riders".

Amid the organ swells of "Come Undone", Isobel Campbell sits at the cello, letting the bow tremble: as she likes to say, Mark's voice reminds her precisely of that deep sound. "I give him light and he gives me weight, otherwise I'd float away..." More prosaically, Lanegan sums it up: "We're just a boy and a girl singing, nothing more and nothing less". One's thoughts naturally turn to the Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra pairing, though the mood hanging over "Who Built The Road" seems to recall instead the duets of Nick Cave's "Murder Ballads".

Although the inadequacy of the sound system occasionally ends up breaking the more intimate atmospheres, the chiaroscuro of songs like "Ballad Of The Broken Seas" and "The Circus Is Leaving Town" still manage to captivate. Lanegan retreats backstage for a few minutes, leaving the stage to Isobel Campbell alone for the dreamy brushstrokes of "To Hell And Back Again" and "Saturday's Gone". Isobel's past among the ranks of Belle And Sebastian is then recalled by the pop lightness of a tambourine-driven "Honey Child What Can I Do?" and the melancholy Christmas-carol feel of "Time Of The Season".

Neither of them hands out smiles, nor do they engage with the audience. Each stays in their own corner of the stage, focused only on their own microphone, leaving all the alchemy to the interplay of their voices: only a stumble during the nursery-rhyme cadence of "(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?" draws an amused exchange of glances. Over the notes of "Back Burner", Isobel Campbell's whispers into a vintage microphone take on an intriguing sensuality, while "Salvation" turns leaner than ever: "I went out in that bad old world to roam / And I was like a stranger coming home", Lanegan murmurs in his fateful voice.

The seduction of "Come On Over (Turn Me On)" warms up the crowd ahead of the finale, entrusted to the driving, Dylan-esque blues of "Get Behind Me". The dark sense of incompleteness of "Revolver" ("Still missing something / You've never known what it was") introduces the encores, which — following a now well-established setlist — bring back Hank Williams' "Ramblin' Man", the duo's first single, included on "Ballad Of The Broken Seas". For the farewell, though, Lanegan digs even further back, into his own personal catalogue: from the days of "Bubblegum" comes the nagging riff of "Wedding Dress", a passionate plea on the edge of ruin: "Will you walk with me underground / And forgive all my sicknesses and my sorrows?". And like two lovers who have said their goodbyes, Mark and Isobel disappear into the darkness, each going their own way.

Photo by Andrea Rocca

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