Kono Michi @ The Caves, 27 October

As a virtuoso violinist and regular collaborator with Yo Yo Ma, there is an expectaiton amongst the small audience in The Caves this evening for Michi Wiancko's side project, Kono Michi, to be interesting and confidently arranged. Yet the results are to the contrary, and often staggeringly so.

Surrounding herself with session musicians, Wiancko adopts the plural pronoun of a solo artist attempting to blend into the romanticism of the band dynamic. However, the claims of 'we are..' and 'our new record is...' lose currency when she forgets the surname of bass player Richard Crawford in her introductions.

In this live setting, Wiancko's clearly exquisite playing gets lost in some truly boring attempts at full band arrangements. When successful, as on Cherry Blossoms from her album 9 Death Haiku, her brooding sound is comparable to that of an unsettling lounge act from a David Lynch film. However, for the most part, these live adaptations are overwhelmingly disappointing, dirgy, and obvious.