This review got trimmed significantly for publication in the Post. I am pleased to note that my description of Midnight Movies as “art-wave” survived the editor’s blue pencil. 

Love the Rock & Roll Hotel.  Can’t wait to hear some actual rock & roll there.

Here’s my original version:

Alexi Murdoch has never been in much of a hurry.  At the Rock and Roll Hotel Sunday night, the Scottish indie balladeer took 90 minutes to crawl through just 11 of his dreamy, languid folk songs.

Murdoch is used to making audiences wait.  After releasing his debut EP, “Four Songs,” in 2002, he took four years to follow it up with a full album.  In between, one of the songs from his EP, “Orange Sky,” became a breakout hit, appearing in a Honda commercial and several FOX TV shows.  (The song was also used in “Garden State,” but did not appear on that film’s kingmaking soundtrack album.)

All that licensing money must buy a lot of studio time. 

Or maybe just a lot of guitar-tuning time.  Murdoch, accompanied only by a second guitarist until his opening act, the Los Angeles art-wave band Midnight Movies, joined him onstage in the latter half, didn’t expand his material with jams or solos, or introduce them with rambling anecdotes.  Mostly, he tuned.  It’s ironic that a performer so obsessive about minute variations of his sound could be so indifferent to other, arguably more important elements of successful performance, like pacing.  But the Rock and Roll hotel is an acoustically supple room, and when Murodch finally did get around to singing, both his vocal and his hypnotic guitar tones were rich and warm.  When he remembered several hundred people were staring at him, Murdoch was gracious, thanking the near-capacity crowd for venturing out on a Sunday night for his first local gig.

While the show was uneven, individual performances were lovely.  “Dream About Flying” was all menace, Murdoch’s fingerpicked guitar figure conjuring an atmosphere of paranoia while Midnight Movies’ rhythm section steadily built up tension.  Other collaborations were less convincing: When Murdoch sang “Breathe,” with its “Don’t forget to . . . “ refrain, he might have been addressing Midnight Movies vocalist/drummer Gena Olivier, who tried to sing backup, but couldn’t seem to raise her voice above a whisper. (She wasn’t playing drums at the time.)

Murdoch saved the evening’s strongest performance, the elegiac “Blue Mind,” for last.  Unfortunately, with the hour approaching 1 a.m. and a new work week looming, much of the audience hadn’t stuck around to hear it.