Robin and Bina Williamson's concert at Pulse Wholefoods in Cardiff

Having got back to Cardiff I luckily managed to get one of the last tickets to the Sunday concert. The tickets were limited in number and sold out fast. Pulse Wholefoods is a shop not a venue for live performances but this is being changed with the setting up of a new café and stage area.

Of course, because the space inside the shop is limited, this leads to a far more intimate experience for both performers and the audience of around 40 people. Robin and Bina Williamson's set was perfect for the occasion.

I had heard Bina's early efforts as a backing vocalist many years back when she accompanied Robin on some recordings he was doing at the time but I was very pleased to discover that she has become a real professional performer in her own right both as a singer and musician.

Robin and Bina Williamson work together so well on stage because they create a perfect balance of voices that compliment each other, and with both musicians playing various instruments. Robin plays harp, acoustic guitar, mandolin and whistle and Bina accompanied their songs on bowed psaltery, auto-harp and assorted percussion.

The songs were all new ones to my ear. There were none of Robin's old songs or any of the Incredible String Band ones but a whole new repertoire that he and Bina had put together that mixed original lyrics and melodies with traditional folk, spirituals, psalms, blues and a large helping of both Celtic and Indian influences. I don't remember the titles of the songs apart from one called Adam and Eve .

Robin's main instruments were very much in use with him mainly playing either the harp or his Taylor acoustic guitar. He also played the mandolin on one song and a very large whistle on another.

Bina explained that she speaks Hindi and Punjabi and both these Asian languages found their place in songs that got sung and played including a Punjabi wedding song with which the couple ended their second set. It was a perfect marriage of the East and West.

Robin Williamson has always been known for his skills as a multi-instrumentalist and ability to absorb and use many ethnic music sources and instruments into his range. The Incredible String Band had been a pioneering folk-rock group that had been one of the first to use the sitar in their recordings. Now all these years later, Bina has brought songs in Asian languages into her performances with Robin, and it seems a natural progression.

In many ways I can see Robin and Bina Williamson's performance together as incorporating the best parts of the Incredible String Band and condensing and distilling it down into a new and unique form of musical creativity.

At the end of the second set and encore Robin explained that the performances that he and Bina had made at Pulse Wholefoods were intended not only to show their personal support for the place and to raise funds for the shop but also to open the door for the future use of the space in this way. Acoustic performers, poets and storytellers will be able to appear there and Pulse will be much more than simply a shop. It will be a performance space and mini-arts centre. It already has paintings on display on the wall.

Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant has said of Robin and Bina Williamson: "What Robin and Bina do is pure beauty through simplicity." I would agree with him on that.

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.