One of the few genuine British visionaries at work today: Richard Dawson at the Barbican reviewed

How hard must it be to make music that sounds like no one else? And how unrewarding, often, as well? Music consumption has been refined by streaming services to encourage listeners towards songs that sound like ones you already like; pop songwriters, driven by those same algorithms, strive to write songs whose entire purpose is to deliver something familiar within the first 30 seconds. Richard Dawson, a partially sighted and portly Geordie with lank, greying hair, who walked on to the Barbican’s stage wearing a vintage Newcastle United tracksuit top and blinking as if he’d expected the room to be empty, makes music that sounds like no one else, even with the sparsest of accompaniment.

Dawson always denies he’s a folk singer, in the same way Matt Hancock denies he’s incompetent: we all know he has to say it, but we all know the truth. Nevertheless, there’s something in what Dawson says. Though much of his set is him and a guitar (with some a capella songs, too – indeed, what could be more folk than a 12-minute a capella song about a murdered quiltmaker?), the way he plays that guitar sets him apart.

For much of his 70 minutes or so at the Barbican, he was playing what looked like a Fender Jazzmaster, through a little amp. He wasn’t hitting his strings hard, but he was turned up high, emphasising the percussive quality of his playing (you can tell he has listened to a lot of heavy metal). And though he fingerpicked, as folk players often do, his thumb came down on the top string every time, creating a hard, dense drone that underlay everything. At the same time, though, the other fingers might be picking arpeggios, or letting melody lines tumble.