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November 2016 – upcoming gigs – the glorious 12th: some of many gigs scattered around England on my birthday tomorrow – Mother, North Sea Radio Orchestra, ILL, Nick Costley-White, India McKellar, Alice Zawadski, Merrick’s Tusk, Snowapple, Captives On The Carousel, Mark Lewandowski, Steve Strong, Shield Patterns, Jamie Safiruddin, The Yossarians, Boy & A Balloon, Bruxa | Cosa, Ed Dowie, Carl Woodford, Andy Or Jenny, Patrons…

Tomorrow I turn forty-six. About half of those years have been spent as an on-and-off writer, scrambling round the edges of music and music culture, attempting to understand this great amorphous art form with its thousands of doors and voices. I had a sombre, or at least a serious, preamble planned: one of those reflective commentator essays that you see on many of the more literate blogs. I threw it away.

Instead (and in keeping with what ‘Misfit City’ has been up to for most of the year), here’s a particularly long garland of gig notices. It’s not here to illustrate any particular school of thought, being the usual melange of tastes and forms – jazz, folk, art-punk, acoustic singer-songwriter, prog, performance art, drone, classical fusion and lush noise. It’s that particular kind of broad, inconsistent, credibility-trampling aural palette which (back when I started doing this in the mid-’90s), wasn’t suggested much outside of the pages of ‘Organ’ or the less austere corners of ‘The Wire’, or indeed ‘Misfit City’; but which now seems to be almost a mainstream stance.

Some other day – perhaps some other birthday – will be the right time for an essay or a grand declaration. If I’ve got a point to make right now (if only by implication and example), it’s that at a tired, fairly battered forty-six I’m still curious, still enthusiastic, still in the business of learning; at a time and place in life which might otherwise ossify my tastes and reduce music to just another commodity or flattened signifier. Spread out over this post are details on concerts, all of them in England, all of them scattered across my birthday. There’s no way I could attend all of them, even with an entirely free hand, but all of them attract me; and at any one of them you’d have found me leaning against a wall, pen and pad in hand, taking notes, looking for new thoughts.

I’ve already posted about the iamthemorning/Tim Bowness teamup for the iO Pages festival, but I can’t really squeeze in the flight to the Netherlands. (Besides, I’m catching them in London on Monday). I’ve also posted about the evening’s Hallkvist/Taylor/Goller/Hayward jazz-fusion show (plus a side order of Charlie Stacey) at the Lambeth art incubator of IKLECTIK, as part of an update on Charles Hayward’s burst of late-year shows. Since that one’s in London, it’s a more likely option for me; but also down at IKLECTIK, in the early afternoon, London jazz incubator Jazz Nursery will be joining in with the ongoing EFG London Jazz Festival in order to present a couple of young bandleaders with relatively accessible projects.

Well, why not start there – start mellow…

Guitarist Nick Costley-White has a trio featuring Conor Chaplin on double bass and David Ingamells on drums and offers fresh, swinging takes on Jerome Kern and Cole Porter (with the leader described by ‘Jazz News’ as “a classy player with an elegant and subtle way with a good tune”). Bassist Mark Lewandowski (“sonorous, fluent… an indispensable part of our scene” – ‘London Jazz’) sets aside his busy calendar as a sideman to compose for and lead a quartet of American drum legend Jeff Williams (Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano etc) as well as tenor saxophonist Tom Challenger (Brass Mask, Wedding Music, Dice Factory, Ma) and pianist Liam Noble (Stan Sulzman, Bobby Wellins, many records as leader).

Jazz Nursery/EFG London Jazz Festival presents:
Nick Costley-White Trio + Mark Lewandowski Quartet
IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Saturday 12th November 2016, 2.30pm – information

It looks as if this particular Mark Lewandowski band is too new to have been recorded, but here’s a clip of the Costley-White Trio at work:

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Were I up in the north-west I’d be listening to something entirely different, tempted by ‘Liberate yourself from my vice like grip’, the R.D. Laing-inspired exhibition/concert/happening that’s playing at Islington Mill in Salford. Set up by contemporary art organisation Broken Grey Wires, it’s part of their scheme to create safe psychological spaces for people with various mental health issues; to use art as “a facilitator for recovery… to encourage people to make something special for themselves”, following Laing’s own suggestion that “madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through.”

(Yep – I know how to relax on my own special days.)

For the musical component, co-curators Fat Out have put together a typically eclectic and Mill-ready line-up of mostly local bands. Included are soundscaping folk-indie/jazz-shoegaze performance artists Mother, psychedelic folk-rock jam-jivers The Yossarians and colourful, blippy post-punk femme/art/pop troupe ILL (proudly strident champions of “disobedient noise” who believe in “creating music until something tingles, and performing dance noise until something bleeds”, and who were namechecked in ‘The Guardian’ today as one of the fifty new pop projects shaping the future). Also on the bill are ambient improvisers Andy Or Jenny, the “atavistic” Berlin-based Welsh looptronica singer Bruxa | Cosa, and landscape-ghosting Peak District ambient-pop duo Shield Patterns.

For the ongoing exhibition BGW have brought in various artists who explore mental health, gender, identity and subjective reality in their work (Lizz Brady, Robert Good, Amy Mizrahi, David Sheery, Kirsty Harris, Paul Kindersley, Jared Pappas-Kelley, Alexander Storey Gordon) all of whom raise so many questions, options and ways of seeing that I’d go on for ages trying to clumsily summarise them. Instead, I’d suggest that you follow them up on Facebook through the second info link below…

Broken Grey Wires & Fat Out present:
‘Liberate yourself from my vice like grip’
Islngton Mill Arts Centre, James Street, Salford, M3 5HW, England
Saturday 12th November 2016, 6.00pm – information here and here

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If I were in Durham, I could make up for missing one-man post/math/trip-hop band Steve Strong‘s set of simultaneous guitar-loops/drums/electronic-noise hybrids at Wakizashi last month, by catching up with him up at his Empty Shop show in Durham – alongside the trepidatious post-hardcore of Plymouth four-piece Patrons and the blitzing sentimental charge of Derby trio Merrick’s Tusk (currently touring their melodic, heart-on-sleeve half-emo rock around the country). While I was at it, I could feel as if I was contributing more to the community than just the usual couple of hours of head-nodding. (See more about the constructive, cohesion-building Empty Shop ethos here.)

Sapien Records Ltd/Empty Shop presents:
Steve Strong + Patrons + Merrick’s Tusk
Empty Shop HQ, 35c Framwellgate Bridge (above ‘Ciao Ciao’), Durham, DH1 4SJ, England
Saturday 12th November 2016, 8:00 pm – information here and here

India McKellar

If in Sheffield, I’d probably be in a softer mood, heading over to the Regather co-op for one of their cosier gigs: the second of the recently-established acoustic evenings run by local cello/voice/guitar folk duo Captives On The Carousel.

This week (in addition to the Carouselers usual warm starting set), the night’s playing host to two other Sheffield-area singer-songwriters – India McKellar, whose previous adventures on piano, as a traditional Celtic harpist and as a onetime prog-rocker have set her up well for her matured, quietly captivating role as Laurel-Canyon-by-way-of-West Riding adult songwriter; and rootsier Drake-and-Jansch-inspired guitar-and-banjo picker Carl Woodford.

Captives on the Carousel present:
Captives Vol. 2: India McKellar + Carl Woodford + Captives On The Carousel
Regather Works, 57-59 Club Garden Road, Sheffield, S11 8BU, England
Saturday 12th November 2016, 7.30pm – information

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Alice Zawadski

Back in London, I’d also be tempted (were it not already sold out) by Alice Zawadski’s Joni Mitchell evening down at Brasserie Zedel. I’m not keen on the institution of the average cover version, and embarrassingly average covers of Joni songs are the bane of many an acoustic evening: honeytraps for earnest women with guitars who cover them reverently, winsomely and really badly. Every time, I picture Joni seething in the audience, her notorious strongmindededness in full bullish effect: snarling at the women onstage, cursing them out for skipping her weird tunings, for ignoring the orchestral conception behind the compositions, or for just sugaring the fine vinegar.

This one might well be different, for several reasons. One is that Alice already comes with acclaim, experience and enough background to serve the songs – extensively trained in both jazz and classical skills, a violinist and arranger as well as a singer, she’ll be thinking on maybe as many levels as Joni herself. Another is that her gig partner and pianist Jamie Safiruddin has racked up time and plaudits accompanist and/or musical director with prime British jazz, ballad and folk interpreters Ian Shaw, Claire Martin and Barb Jungr and Ben Cox, as well as pop adventures with Will Young (plus he already has Joni-form, having “played Edith And The Kingpin with exquisite poise” according to ‘The Arts Desk’).

A third reason is that this is primarily a jazz gig; Jamie and Alice joined by Seafarers saxophonist Matthew Herd, bassist Conor Chaplin (strolling over from the earlier Costley-White trio show), drummer and Conor’s Fabled buddy and drummerWill Glaser. No matter how many copies of ‘Blue’ you pitch at my head, I’ll always maintain that Joni was at her original best when diving into jazz, interweaving with Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius as her words kaleidoscoped, her notes ached and flexed and the potential in the arrangement spanned and fanned. Alice is promising Joni’s most well-worn hits and folky standards (‘Big Yellow Taxi’, ‘A Case of You’, ‘Woodstock’) but also “lesser-known gems from throughout her long and fruitful back-catalogue”, and it’s not always that you get the chance to hear someone dipping into the more challenging territories of ‘Hejira’, ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’ or ‘Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter’.

Here are the details for anyone who’s a better ligger/doorstaff wheedler than I am; and below that’s a clip of Alice at work with saxophonist Joe Wright on a song which, even if it’s not quite Joni, shows what her mind and approach could be bringing to the Mitchell catalogue.

Jamie Safiruddin & Alice Zawadski
The Crazy Coqs @ Brasserie Zedel, 20 Sherwood Street, Soho, London, W1F 7ED, England
Saturday 12th November 2016, 9.00pm – information

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As for me, I can only guarantee that I’ll be in one particular place tomorrow. At noontime I’ll be in the Union Chapel, at one of the Daylight Music shows which I constantly plug here but all to often have to miss. Accompanied by family (and perhaps even a few unexpected friends), I’ll be down there listening to the soft, distracted keyboard songs of Ed Dowie; watching the charming and daffy Dutch folk-pop trio SnowApple delight and dazzle an audience in a fizz of swapped instruments, leapt genres, blended voices and eye-catching outfits; taking in the interstitial battered-pop moments from Boy And a Balloon‘s Alex Hall; and finally immersing myself in the ringing, humming chamber-ensemble arrangements of Craig Fortnam’s North Sea Radio Orchestra as they navigate (in a bright-toned weave of nylon-strung guitar, bassoon, strings, keyboards and voice) between the Britten-esque and the kosmische, between gurgling Vernon Elliott and sighing Robert Wyatt, between the hopping pulse of downtown minimalism and the Anglican warmth of a Wiltshire harvest festival.

Maybe Daylight shows are at the cuddlier end of what interests me within this blog; but it’s also fair to say that, out of everything covered here, perhaps the rambling, all-points Daylight positivity reflects ‘Misfit City’s own attitude best of all. And in a similar spirit… say hello if you see me there.

Arctic Circle presents:
Daylight Music 238: North Sea Radio Orchestra + Snowapple + Ed Dowie + Boy & A Balloon
Union Chapel, 19b Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 12th November 2016, 12.00pm – free event (suggested donation: £5.00) – information here and here

Tags: Alexander Storey Gordon, Alice Zawadzki, Amy Mizrahi, Andy Or Jenny, Arctic Circle (promoter), Boy & A Balloon, Bruxa | Cosa, Captives On The Carousel, Carl Woodford, Charles Hayward, Charlie Stacey, Conor Chaplin, Craig Fortnam, David Ingamells, David Sheery, Daylight Music (event), Durham (England), Ed Dowie, editorial, Empty Shop (promoters), iamthemorning, ILL, India McKellar, Jamie Safiruddin, Jared Pappas-Kelley, Jeff Williams, Joni Mitchell, Kirsty Harris, Liam Noble, Lizz Brady, London (England), Mark Lewandowski, Matthew Herd, Merrick's Tusk, Mother, Nick Costley-White, Noel Taylor, North Sea Radio Orchestra, Patrons, Paul Kindersley, Robert Good, Ruth Goller, Salford (England), Samuel Hällkvist, Sheffield (England), Shield Patterns, Snowapple, Steve Strong, The Yossarians, Tim Bowness, Tom Challenger, Will Glaser, wretched self-justification

October 2016 – upcoming gigs – a transatlantic 15th October – avant-pop with Trevor Wilson, Jackson Emmer and Michael Chinworth in Asheville, North Carolina; classical fusion with Emily Hall, Ryan Teague, Resina and Lucy Claire at Daylight Music (London); folk and psaltery groove with Jausmė and Sian Magill at the Magic Garden (London)

12 Oct

More by chance than design, today’s preview post (for Saturday 15th) covers both sides of the Atlantic.

I’ve been following (and tracing back) the career of singer/songwriter Trevor Wilson for a while now – from his cross-genre experiments at Bennington College to his scatter of solo records and his more recent work steering the eerie/joyous glee-pop unit Anawan. Having opted to leave New York (after one last concert in his Brooklyn base), he’s now upped sticks to North Carolina and settled in the “art mecca” city of Asheville, where he’s wasted little time, not just putting down roots but making them work. Details on his first post-New York concert below:

Trevor Wilson + Jackson Emmer + Michael Chinworth
‘The Back 40’, 60 Craggy Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina, 28806, USA
Saturday 15th October 2016, 6.30pm – free event (donation suggested) – email for more details

Trevor says “after some months of finding my way around, I’m very excited to announce my first performance here. Remarkably, I will be joined by none other than Anawan members Ethan Woods and Michael Chinworth, as well as two new singing partners, Jeremiah Satterfield and Laura Franke. Michael will perform a set, and so will Jackson Emmer, one of my oldest and dearest friends. This will all happen in a backyard farm just through the woods from my house in West Asheville. It will be an outdoor, bonfire-style concert, and we’ll convene at 6:30 to chit chat and snack. I’ll be performing some Anawan material with Ethan and Michael, as well as some new material with Laura and Jeremiah.”

The new material may or may not relate to Trevor’s upcoming new album ‘Sour Songs’ which he describes as featuring “the most direct, pop-oriented, and fun tracks I have ever created. They’re based around the keyboard, and a lot of them feature electronic beats. It’s definitely a departure, but it feels honest, and really connected to where I am at right now. I truly can’t wait to share them with you.”

Meanwhile, here’s an appropriately rural clip from a few years ago, featuring Trevor singing in the fields (albeit up in Vermont), plus an Anawan video from around the same time.

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On the same Saturday, back in London, it’s another day and another Daylight Music show. Following last week’s organ-and-voice extravaganza, the Daylighters continue to happily mull over ten years of presenting everything from electronic bleeps to uke-toting folkies via unusual instruments and classical inroads. This week leans more towards the latter…

Arctic Circle presents:
Daylight Music 236: Emily Hall + Ryan Teague + Resina + Lucy Claire
Union Chapel, 19b Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 15th October 2016, 12.00pm – free event (suggested donation: £5.00) – information

Emily Hall writes contemporary and avant-pop-slanted takes on the classical song cycle, instrumental narrative and opera. This has led her into commissions for (among others) London Sinfonietta, London Symphony Orchestra, BBCNOW, the Brodsky Quartet and Opera North. It’s also led to collaborations with the likes of the English author Toby Litt (who co-wrote her song-cycle on the diverse “everyday wonder and lurking fear” nature of motherhood, ‘Life Cycle’ – see the excerpt above) and Icelandic poet/occasional Bjork lyricist Sjón, who crafted the words for her haunting trio opera ‘Folie à Deux’.

The latter begins with a man singing an awed paean of worship to an hillside electricity pylon and goes on to explore the consequence of a religious frenzy being transmitted from one person to another, and a relationship in isolation succumbing to the weight of a wild delusion. It’s scored for two singers and a pair of harps (one acoustic, the other electromagnetic) and you can listen to it in full below.

There’ll probably be samples of these plus Emily’s other works in the Daylight showcase. She will be accompanied by Khoros Choir and by classically-inclined singer-songwriter Ana Silvera. Emily has also helped to invent a triggering instrument-cum-mobile, which fits in a suitcase, so with any luck she might be bringing that along too.

Bristolian multi-instrumental composer/producer Ryan Teague has followed a gradually developing path from his minimalist electronic roots which has incorporated classical, electronic, acoustic and soundtrack work and approaches learned from all these fields (as well as from gamelan, a form which informed his ‘Storm Or Tempest May Stop Play’ piece premiered last year at Daylight Music).

Ryan’s upcoming album, ‘Site Specific’ features full-band music pulling in influences from impressionistic early-’70s electric jazz. His performance on Saturday sees him accompanied by bass clarinettist Gareth Davis, electric pianist/synthesizer player Dan Moore and drummer Mark Whitlam.

Karolina Rec is an Warsaw-based cellist and composer working with improvisation and texture under the project name of Resina. In addition to her own work, she’s been involved with several Polish bands and projects including Kings of Caramel, Cieslak and Princess, Nathalie And The Loners, and Anthony Chorale. Here’s a little of her textured post-classical performance looping:

There will also be contributions by composer-performer Lucy Claire. She’s a late addition and there’s not much news on exactly what she’ll be doing. Her work stretches from soundscapes and soundtrack to deeper and more involved contemporary classical works, so she might be performing anything from a between-acts soundscape to a tape-and-keyboard piece to stints on the in-house pipe organ and piano. Here’s a taste of some of what Lucy does:

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In the evening, Lithuanian-born singer-songwriter/kanklės player Jausmė and novelistic folkie Sian Magill return to south London’s Magic Garden, following up their show back in July.

Jausmė + Sian Magill
Heavenly Sunday Folk @ The Magic Garden, 231 Battersea Park Road, Battersea, London, SW11 4LG, England
Sunday 16th November, 9.00pm – free event – information

The last time Jausmė was here, she was duetting with cellist Nicole Collarbone. This time, she’s on her own. Although she usually labels her songcraft and instrumentalism (voice and kanklės, plus the occasional effects pedal) as “urban etherealism”, and generally lets it fall somewhere between its Baltic roots and her adopted home of Milton Keynes (when she’s not guesting on other people’s techno and sub-bass tracks), she’s billing this Saturday’s music as “soul, jazz and folklore”. This either means that she’s found a new smoothed-out direction for her psaltery songs, or uncovered a new twist. Come and see. Meanwhile, here are two of her songs played out on the grasslands. (The second one might provide some explanation…)

Building on what looks like a fruitful gig friendship with Jausmė, Sian Magill brings more of her detailed folk songs into play – immaculate and quietly smouldering; modern-traditional; emotion-soused but steeped in intelligence.

Tags: Ana Silvera, Anawan, Asheville (North Carolina - USA), cello music, Emily Hall, Jackson Emmer, Jeremiah Satterfield, kanklės music, Khoros Choir, Laura Franke, listening to women, London (England), Lucy Claire, Michael Chinworth, Resina (Karolina Rec), Ryan Teague, Sian Magill, Trevor Wilson, women of heart and mind

October 2016 – upcoming London gigs – Vlad Miller’s Notes From Underground at MAP Café (6th); Honeyfeet and Dila V & The Odd Beats at Magic Garden (8th)

4 Oct

A quick note on two London gigs this week, taking place at a couple of London’s more lively out-of-the-way venues in Kentish Town and Battersea, but rooted much further eastward. (No. Not Upminster.)

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Vlad Miller- Notes From Underground
MAP Studio Café, 46 Grafton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 3DU, England
Thursday 6th October 2016, 8.00pm – information

Jazz quartet Notes From Underground are led by pianist and composer Vlad Miller, London-based musical director of the Moscow Composers Orchestra (providing a meeting point for creative Russian jazz musicians for around two decades now) as well as a key part of London world music ensemble Ancestral Collective. Vlad’s compositions form the foundations of the band – strongly influenced by Russian musical tradition, and steeped in a parallel tradition of narrative. While wordless, each piece draws on fable, history or cryptic jokes to tell a story embellished by colourful collective improvisations. Subject matter has included the Cold War, Diaghelev and The Ballet Russe, the farce and gallows-humour fraughtness of the fraught relationship between artists and the Kremlin, the lives of insects and the travails of a cruise ship in peril in the White Sea.

The band also features Indian-inflected contrabass guitarist Leslee Booth (Branco Stoysin Trio), drummer Dave Rohoman (onetime drummer for Ian Dury in Kilburn & The High Roads, subsequently an explorer on the London improvising scene) and saxophonist-of-a-hundred bands Adrian Northover (currently working with Jazz-Thali, The Custodians, The London Improvisers Orchestra, Trip-Tik, The Remote Viewers, the Thelonious Monk-interpreting Hard Evidence trio and many more).

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Honeyfeet + Dila V & The Odd Beats + DJ Pony + DJ Joplin Parnell
The Magic Garden, 231 Battersea Park Road, Battersea, London, SW11 4LG, England
Saturday 8th October, 8.00pm – free event (before 8.00pm; door fee after that) – information

Down at the Magic Garden, ill-kept Mancunian folk/R&B secret Honeyfeet are playing a free gig (well, free if you arrive early enough). Mixing “ethio-trad, barrel-house pop, cowpunk and folk-hop” (I think that only one of those is a typo) and fronted by imposing power-coquette Ríoghnach Connolly, they’ve been storming their way around festivals for nearly ten years now, sharing and showcasing their mixture of jollity, oomph, raunch and macabreness with songs about “eating people, dancing on graves and infidelity… but it’s not all bad news.”

It takes quite a band not to be intimidated by the smouldering verve and dark wit of Honeyfeet when on the same bill, but Dila V & The Oddbeats will certainly carry off their support slot with a dynamic vigour of their own. Another band with an earthy and captivating frontwoman – Dila Vardar – they work Mediterranean and Eurasian folk from Turkey, Spain, Greece, Roma culture and the Baltic states (including vigorous dashes of rebetiko and bolero) through flangers and wah-wah. The result’s a sinous turbo-driven take on psychedelic folk, taking it away from its usual Anglo-Afro-Celtic circles and sending it roaring around several thousand years of cultural meeting points from the middle of the world.

DJ sets from Joplin Parnell and the mysterious Pony intersperse and round off the evening… and that’s all for now. Should be enough to satisfy.

Tags: Adrian Northover, almost acoustic, Ancestral Collective (world-jazz band), Dave Rohoman (David Newton-Rohoman), Dila V & The Odd Beats, DJ Joplin Parnell, DJ Pony, Honeyfeet, Leslee Booth, MAP Studio Cafe (promoters), Moscow Composers Orchestra, Notes From Underground (jazz band), quartet music, The Magic Garden (promoter/venue), Vlad Miller (Vladimir Miller)

September/October 2016 – upcoming gigs – Jane Siberry on tour in Britain and Ireland (9th Sep – 7th Oct) with The Blackheart Orchestra, Balsamo Deighton, Ruth, Delilah Montagu, LeeSun and Carol Laula

5 Sep

This week, Jane Siberry embarks on her first tour of the British Isles for a good while.

Whelan’s, 25 Wexford Street, Dublin 2, Ireland, Friday 9th September 2016, 8.00pm (with Ruth) – information
The Queens Hall, 85-89 Clerk Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9JG, Scotland, Friday 16th September 2016, 7.30pm (with Carol Laula) – information
The Convent, Convent Lane, South Woodchester, Stroud, GL5 5HS, England, Sunday 18th September 2016, 9.00pm (with The Blackheart Orchestra) – information
Henry Tudor House, Barracks Passage, Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury, SY1 1XA, England, Monday 19th September 2016, 8.00pm (with The Blackheart Orchestra) – information
The Trades Club, Holme Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8EE, England, Thursday 22nd September 2016, 8.00pm (with The Blackheart Orchestra) – information
The Greystones, Greystones Road, Sheffield, S11 7BS, England, Friday 23rd September 2016, 7.30pm (with Delilah Montagu) – information
Kitchen Garden Café, 17 York Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham, B14 7SA, England, Sunday 25th September 2016, 7.30pm (withThe Blackheart Orchestra) – information
St John’s Church, St John’s Street, Farncombe, Godalming, GU7 3EJ, England, Wednesday 28th September 2016, 7.45pm (with The Blackheart Orchestra) – information
The Stables, Stockwell Lane, Wavendon, Milton Keynes, MK17 8LU, England, Thursday 29th September 2016, 8.45pm (with LeeSun) – information
Brighton Unitarian Church, New Road, Brighton, BN1 1UF, England, Friday 30th September 2016, 7.30pm (with The Blackheart Orchestra) – information
Chapel Arts Centre, St Oaks Memorial Hall, Lower Borough Walls, Bath, BA1 1QR, England, Sunday 2nd October 2016, 8.00pm (with Balsamo Deighton) – information
St James Theatre, 12 Palace Street, Westminster, London, SW1E 5JA, England, Monday 3rd October 2016, 7.15pm (with The Blackheart Orchestra) – information
Stromness Town Hall, Church Road, Stromness, Orkney, KW16 3BA, Scotland, Friday 7th October 2016, 7.30pm (solo show) – information (note – this date is listed on some places but not currently on Jane’s own site, so check before committing)

Sometimes, to her chagrin, Jane’s been tagged as “the Canadian Kate Bush” – a tag which is at least as constrictive as it is helpful. Unfair as it might be, the comparison holds true and is a good place to start. Early musical developers, women of a similar age and independent-mindedness, Jane and Kate both realised their full powers and creative approaches during a boomtime of studio-bound 1980s art pop. Pioneering later self-propelled female studio auteurs, both kept absolute control of their songwriting and mastered enough of the necessary technology to dictate form as well as content, working as meticulous musical painters, dramatists and refractors. Both have favoured carefully-chosen instrumentation, sonorities and song structures, neither of which necessarily follow common practise or expectations (and neither of which they’ve felt obliged to stick to, preferring to change formulae whenever inspiration and craft took them there). Most crucially, both of them have a sweeping emotional effect on listeners, transcending both genre and gender.

The differences, though, are as significant and illustrative as the similarities. Genius notwithstanding, Kate’s creativity was cosseted in an indulgent arts-and-crafts family background, and the recording and development deal she’d gained by her mid-teens ensured that she didn’t have to slog her way up with hard gigging in parallel with grinding dayjobs. This, plus the overwhelming commercial success which came from her first single onwards, ensured the shape and circumstances of her work to come. Hers was a unfettered imagination fuelled by spliff and arts and cocooned in recording studios, voraciously processing mythology and literature to spin out detailed and immersive storydramas in pop form, all contained within a wary privacy she’s maintained to this day. In some respects Kate’s never left the book-lined bedrooms of her childhood: she’s simply extended them, and grown within the bigger space she made there.

Jane’s, on the other hand, has been a less charmed or settled road. An uneasy family life and childhood led to a voyage into a university degree which soon morphed, dissatisfied, from music to microbiology, then work as a waitress in order to self-fund a tightly-budgeted debut record. Perhaps it’s these elements which have inspired the elements of research quirk and observational stillness in parts of her songcraft, from the twinkling electronic dissections of beachlife on her first hit (Mimi On The Beach) to the moments, when in otherwise warm and involved musical landscapes she appears to pull back, tilting her gaze askance, casting a cool bright birdlike eye on the matter: not necessarily making conclusions, but grabbing a quick and open assessment of what’s going on, whether or not details have fallen into a conclusive pattern.

Certainly her songcraft reflects an edgier, more marginal, creative life; intelligent and existential, but fully in touch with the irrational and perverse. While Kate’s catalogue dramatizes odd states and situation, Jane’s songbook seems more of a recounting. She has, in moments of straightforward generosity or acceptance, delivered art-pop singalongs such as The Life Is The Red Wagon or the rapturous k.d. lang duet Calling All Angels; in bouncier times, she’s delivered songs about dogs and people or childhood hockey games. When certain moods have taken her, she’s carved out monumental, borderline-impenetrable audio-literary mysteries such as The Bird In The Gravel.

Yet she’ll also touch uneasily, obliquely, but always openly on subjects such as alcoholism and mental disturbance which might or might not be first-hand, and in ways which tide the listener into the heart of the situation – the compulsive, brittle, confessional dream-suite Oh My My which swallows up the second half of 1989’s ‘Maria’; the title track to ‘The Walking (and Constantly)’, which casts a heartbreaking light on the trudge and hysteria of grieving; or the disturbingly open-ended half-story of The Lobby (a incomplete, displaced female narrative with a chillingly sad tune, which might be about dementia, bereavement, social defiance or a mixture of all three).

Over thirty-five years Jane’s music has flowed and curved from her early folk-and-synths period to the grand studio-as-instrument art-pop shapings of ‘The Walking’ and ‘When I Was A Boy’ to the embracing of tones from Canadian country, big-band soul and Celtic fusion. In more recent years, you can hear her conceptual thumbprint (if only in the shape of an elusive transmitted meme and method) in the work of a newer crop of independent female songwriters such as Jenny Hval. Her latest record, the crowd-funded ‘Ulysses’ Purse’, takes elements of all of these strands only to strain and diffuse them into gentle atmospherics around a core of some of Jane’s finest songs to date.

As with form, so with content. As Jane turns sixty, the focus of her songcraft has turned towards the significant but under-explored passage out of middle-age, in which neither work or life is over and done yet, but old disagreements must be put to rest and the scattered aspects of personhood and affection allowed to settle into the character you’ll need to take you through the next stage. Perhaps committed to communicating the album’s simplicity in action as well as concept (and perhaps transforming her budget restrictions into a broadening of the message), Jane’s been touring it low-budget and solo, with the minimum of instruments. For the British gig, she’s even laid some troubadour plans to make the journey between gigs on foot (when possible), accompanied only by her dog.

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The range of Jane’s tour guests – straightforward, but telling in tone – suggest that she’s put active thought and choice into the arrangements.

In the studio, The Blackheart Orchestra‘s Chrissy Mostyn and Richard Pilkington sometimes make the mistake of corraling multi-instrumental skills into recordings which over-egg and over-slick the substance of their songs. Live, however, is where to catch them and where everything works: with Richard carrying out carefully-timed and layered instrumental changes under Chrissy’s storyteller guitar and full, mesmeric voice, their compelling, atmospheric storytelling pop comes into focus. They’re with Jane for around half of the tour dates, an arrangement and environment which seems set to bring out the best in them: maybe not so much a learning environment as one which might convince them to bring their leaner, more spontaneous live strengths fully back into their recordings.

In place for the Bath date, Balsamo Deighton (a spinoff duo from late Brit-country band The Storys, featuring sometime theatre-musical star Steve Balsamo and former Deighton Family singer Rosalie Deighton) have a confident, Gram-and-Emmylou/Alison Krauss-inspired West Coast sound, nicely reflecting Jane’s own rootsier country leanings (as well as providing a more traditional songwriting style for her to kick off from).

For the Edinburgh show, Jane’s scored a coup by enticing her friend Carol Laula into a support slot. Carol’s one of those adult pop artists – thoroughly successful in their own sphere – who can slip clear away from the radar of younger, more experimentally-inclined listeners only to rush back in unexpectedly, a welcome gust of fresh air and vision. Noted for the warmth, engagement and humility of her gigs, Carol is another tourmate choice reflecting a past and current aspect of Jane – this time, the rapport with an audience through melodic and personal openness, the dedication to dynamiting preciousness in favour of rapport.

https://youtu.be/uhPWH3g2ONY

Kerry-based popster Ruth (who opens the first show of the tour at Whelan’s in Dublin) is less of an established quality, having only begun making a name for herself this year/ That said, her debut single Who Are You Living For? has already revealed prodigious depth and subtlety. Exploring anger, hurt, sympathy, reproach and concern in a single package, tied together with rapier-sharp insight: one to add to the list of big-hearted/let-down woman songs. While I suspect that Ruth might be turning up to the Siberry gig with minimal instrumentation, it also shows that she can flush a current dancetronic wallpaper-of-sound production style with the vivid intelligent personality of the expert singer-songwriter, moving from probing Wurlitzer-chime verses to explode into a grand CCM pop chorus. Ruth’s next single, out this month, is called Queen Of The Con. Clearly I’ll need to pay careful attention.

Similarly fresh on the scene but much, much more elusive is Delilah Montagu, who’s supporting at Sheffield and who keeps a bizarrely low media profile, with nary a song or a picture to be found to help build a profile. Apparently a gifted Joni Mitchell/Laura Marling-inspired singer and guitarist, she’s another early starter (first song written at eight, work being performed by choir and orchestra by the time she was eleven), and while she’s apparently been making a small, solid splash at selected regional folk festivals this year, her highest profile one seems to have been supporting similarly obscure art-folk trio Paradisia in a Stoke Newington pub cellar.

It seems as if this new support slot’s a jump up for Delilah… or maybe not. Despite the radio silence, she already comes garlanded with industry praise (from the likes of Simon Climie), and a little digging does reveal that she’s a scion of the eye-wateringly costly liberal-arts school Bedales, who’ve already rolled out pop alumni such as Marika Hackman, Lily Allen, baritone moodist Gabriel Bruce and blues-rocker Leah Mason – plus Cara Delevingne – and for whom she scored the school musical ‘Sound of The Night Feather’ before graduating). Everything about Delilah seems to mutter “carefully groomed for stealth success”, but, as ever, you can’t fake that kind of a thing in front of a cult audience like Jane’s; so I’m assuming that whoever picked her (and it could well be Jane herself) knows what they’re doing.

Amongst the tour guests, maybe the closest to Jane in terms of spirit is LeeSun, who’s supporting her at Milton Keynes. Korea-born, Canada-raised and now Leeds-based, Lee originally comes from witty, deceptively whimsical jazz-pop (if her Calgary-recorded, Wurlitzer-chiming 2011 debut, ‘Prime’, is anything to go by – check it out, since it’s a secret gem, and in line with Jane’s own lighter, perkier musings). Since then, changes in life and perspective have led her towards stretched-out, semi-spiritual chamber pop ballads which explore from the creche to the cosmos: swaddled but epic, tinted with rocking lullaby rhythms and touches of sleepy string jazz. I’m not sure what she’ll bring to the party at this point – hopefully some of the brave, open fragility of her recent singles, some of the Blossom Dearie wit of ‘Prime’, and some of the cool, defiant, musing commentary that’s evident from her podcasts in which she questions the way in which a patriarchal Western world distorts her situation (single mother, south-east Asian roots, self-possessed singleton) into that of some kind of resident alien.

Tags: Balsamo Deighton, Bath (England), Birmingham (England), Brighton (England), Carol Laula, Delilah Montagu, Dublin (Ireland), Edinburgh (Scotland), Farncombe (England), Hebden Bridge (England), Jane Siberry, LeeSun, listening to women, London (England), Milton Keynes (England), Paradisia, Rosalie Deighton, Ruth, Sheffield (England), Shrewsbury (England), Steve Balsamo, Stromness (Orkney - Scotland), Stroud (England), The Blackheart Orchestra, The Deighton Family, The Storys, women of heart and mind

August 2016 – upcoming British tours – Kiran Leonard & Secret Admirer (22nd-27th), joined variously by Early Ghost, Sweet Williams, Felka and DUDS.

13 Aug

Wildly experimental Oldham songwriter and multi-instrumental pop wizard Kiran Leonard (who comes across on record as a latterday Todd Rundgren, but who shows more of his affinity with loose-limbed avant-garde noise rock when playing live) is out on another English mini-tour towards the end of the month.

As before, Kiran’s taking out his freeform power-pop quartet of himself, Dave Rowe, Dan Bridgwood Hill and Andrew Cheetham, but he also seems to be expanding his touring circus of Manchester music, as burbled below…

“Boy am I excited for this… If that wasn’t enough to make me grin like a fool from ear to ear, we’ll be joined by Manchester’s finest Nick Ainsworth, almost known as Secret Admirer! accompanied by some sort of incomprehensible supergroup (“the stunning Cheeseman” logging two sets a night behind the kit, Edwin Stevens aka Irma Vep on bass I think, Aldous RH on keys, the legendary Jon Collin on guitar!? what!?! and that’s not all ! Sweet Williams w/ us in Brighton ! Early Ghost w/ us in LDN! DUDS w/ us in Manchester! Mint jamz wall to wall woooowwwwww. Alright? So come and see!”

Full tour dates:

The Louisiana, Wapping Road, Bathurst Terrace, Bristol, BS1 6UA, England, Monday 22nd August 2016, 7.30pm (with Secret Admirer) – information
Patterns, 10 Marine Parade, Brighton, BN2 1TL, England, Tuesday 23rd August 2016, 7.30pm (with Secret Admirer + Sweet Williams) – information
The 100 Club, 100 Oxford Street, Soho, London, W1D 1LL, England, Wednesday 24th August 2016, 7.30pm (with Secret Admirer + Early Ghost) – information
The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester, M1 7HE, England, Friday 25th August 2016, 7.00pm (with Secret Admirer + DUDS) – information
The Trades Club, Holme Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8EE, England, Sunday 27th August 2016, 8.00pm (with Secret Admirer + Felka) – information

I’ve dredged up some of the usual support band aural evidence below –
the faux-West-Coast post-punk surfings of DUDS (complete with bobbing reminders of Syd Barrett and Link Wray), a little of Sweet Williams’ deep-blues/dream pop hybrid (from their upcoming new album in September), a delightful twangy chunk of Early Ghost’s grand and well-made pop, and a shot of the bewildered/bewildering world of Secret Admirer.

Possibly due to late scheduling, Kiran hasn’t mentioned Felka, the striking young Keighley-based folk duo who are joining in at the Hebden Bridge show. Here are a couple of videos of Felka’s Rose and Tanisha at work, showing off their sharp-witted folk storytelling with its dips into country, blues, and even Elizabethan catches.

Tags: Bradford (England), Brighton (England), Bristol (England), DUDS, Early Ghost, Felka, Hebden Bridge (England), Kiran Leonard, listening to women, London (England), Manchester (England), Oldham (England), Salford (England), Secret Admirer, Sweet Williams

July 2016 – video premiere – North Sea Radio Orchestra’s cover of Robert Wyatt’s ‘The British Road ‘

27 Jul

It’s nice to have a ‘Misfit City’ premiere once in a while. This is the brand new video clip for The British Road, North Sea Radio Orchestra‘s cover version of a Robert Wyatt song. It’s from NSRO’s new album ‘Dronne’ which is coming out on the band’s own label The Household Mark on 9th September. The song itself will be out as a download single on August 5th: the video’s another genius pocket production by Chaos Engineers.

Singalong time:

Those foreigners are at it again
When will they learn to fight like our men?
There’s nothing new under the mirror
And it’s time for one more bedtime story
Get beauty sleep for morning glory
How can I rise if you don’t fall?

Robert Wyatt originally recorded The British Road for his 1985 album ‘Old Rottenhat’: it’s also on the ‘Mid Eighties’ compilation. It’s part of a set of songs composed in “a conscious attempt to make un-misusable music” which was done in the face of covertly (or nakedly) aggressive right-wing politics appropriating or co-opting songs for cheerleading or for broadcast padding. The song itself is a typically cryptic Wyatt threading of oblique satire and Dada-jazz playfulness over a friendly, ever-so-slightly plaintive melody, taking glancing swipes at petty nationalism and irritable torpor as it rolls along. (If you’re weary of all of the recent Brexit sabre-rattling and bottlecough, it’s a real restorative.)

North Sea Radio Orchestra: ‘Dronne’

The NSRO take on The British Road immediately bears their own stamp. Elements are blended in from early English airs to Germanic-electronic organ haze; there are dewdrop metallophones and passionate bird-flight string parts; there’s budding pastoralism charged with bursts of motoric minimalism; and there’s a kernelled heart in Craig and Sharron Fortnam’s softened everyperson vocals, ever-so-slightly shaded by a touch of Wyatt Cockney. It originally stems from a 2014 concert night performance of Wyatt’s music for the Nuits de Fourviere Festival in Lyon, which Craig was invited to direct and arrange. As well as producing both this and other NSRO arrangements of assorted Wyattisms, the event had a profound effect on Craig’s approach to the rest of ‘Dronne’:

“Being the composer and producer has led to me having total control over all aspects of making NSRO records. This way of working is, of course, a double-edged sword, as spontaneity and inspiration can be lost under all that control. Robert Wyatt seems to tread the line between the two with great skill, incorporating lots of elements of chance into his albums. Re-working his songs while trying to maintain freedom within the arrangements has been a great inspiration while making ‘Dronne’. This record features lots of improvising which I have edited and manipulated; certain accidents within have been left intact – these elements of chance are a real antidote to the necessary microscoping and control-freakery needed to create NSRO records.”

If you’re interested, French experimentalist Pascal Maupeu recorded another version of this song six years ago, under his Mop Meuchiine alias – part grinding industrial underpass music, part Krautrock ice-cream van, part rough-edged chamber ensemble (while still finding space for a banjo). Here it is.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on ‘Dronne’, you can pre-order it now from Rough Trade, Piccadilly Records, iTunes and Amazon.

For more ‘Misfit City’ coverage on North Sea Radio Orchestra and its related bands (including some very early NSRO work indeed), click here.

Tags: Craig Fortnam, Mop Meuchiine, North Sea Radio Orchestra, Pascal Maupeu, premieres, Robert Wyatt, The Chaos Engineers (audio-visual producers)

June 2016 – upcoming gigs – Merz’s English tour with Julian Sartorius (12th-19th) plus The Sound Book Project, Hayley Ross, Megan Carlile and Christopher Anderson

9 Jun

In 1999 Merz popped up, apparently out of nowhere, with the Many Weathers Apart single. It was delightfully bizarre – there were deck scratches, a warbling rubber-guitar lick, a screaming soul sample. Merz himself was a crowy, androgynous pop squawk riding on a reverbed conga boom as big as the circling horizon. A hippy priest with a boombox, plugged into the metaphysical mainline, he sang in fluttering scraps about separation, connection and rainstorms and somehow tied them all together. The equally out-there follow-up, Lovely Daughter, was a sideswipe at subjugation and exploitation – ostensibly about young brides, but perhaps also about outflanked cultures. It sounded like Anthony Newley trapped in a tropical aviary, sprinkled with reggae-dust while tussling with Prince and Beck. Refreshingly, both songs were modest hits.

A bold debut album followed, on a Sony subsidiary. Merz surrounded the darting, hummingbird heart of his songcraft with paper-chain folk guitar, string orchestras and rain-dewed colliery brass bands, as well as what sounded like tips of the hat to Public Enemy, Sinatra and Van Morrison. He also added psychedelic flourishes, looted with elan, from a range of sources (be they worldbeat, Eurodance, the buccaneering edges of late-‘90s club culture, or acid-fuzzed corners of the Incredible String Band’s cottage). Unfortunately, 1999 wasn’t the best year for innovative eclectic-pop. However unfairly, Merz seemed to be at the tail end of a wave of experimentalists riding in Björk’s cooling wake. In the face of a much bigger wave of Latin disco and lighter entertainment, the hoped-for bigger hits didn’t happen for him. The album sold indifferently, the record deal foundered, and Merz walked. In music business terms that should have been the end of a familiar and often-repeated story. A&R takes a punt on something unusual; it rapidly runs out of steam; and the pet eccentric promptly drops back into obscurity, a footnote for geeks.

For Merz, in fact, all of this was simply one chapter of work; and it hadn’t even been the first chapter. Under his real name, Conrad Lambert, he’d been recording and releasing songs for over a decade before Many Weathers Apart broke cover. Even though that stage monicker turns out to have been a chance appropriation (rather than a nod to Kurt Schwitters), Merz had, from an early age, followed the connective prompts of a Bahá’í upbringing and a personal artistic bent (which had had him picking up the bagpipes as a first instrument at the age of six). His own restless nature spurred him on to early travelling, and would later drive the adult Conrad to make homes from town to town and from country to country. Ultimately, parting company with Sony and with an audience of turn-of-the-millennium hipsters just seems to have been another thing to shrug off. Merz had different things to do. Even if he didn’t quite know what they were yet. Then, as now, open possibilities beckoned… and security was a straitjacket.

As for the obscurity, that’s a matter of perspective. Merz seems to been quietly and steadily embraced by continental Europe (perhaps one of the reasons why he now makes his home in the Swiss Alps). His albums – including last year’s ‘Thinking Like A Mountain’ – are persistently and publically hailed across magazines and online review sites as the welcome surfacings of an inventive, tuneful and touching mind. If, in spite of this, he still remains cult it’s partly because it seems to suit him. Musically, he’s mellowed without slackening. As with Geddy Lee, what was once a strident corvine vocal has matured into a warmer, more human sound without losing its fundamental chirp. Across time he’s delivered songs which might only rarely touch the earth but which flutter and roost in stray corners of the mind for years; from the Northern-brass love-call of Lotus to the offset rhythms and flamenco fairing of Goodbye My Chimera, the melding of baroque harpsichord waltz and bubbling phuture-pop on Dangerous Heady Love Scheme, and the melding of Buckleylalia with blootering, breakneck industrial techno in the recent Ten Gorgeous Blocks.

At the core, today’s Merz is a roaming twenty-first century folk troubadour – centred around voice, a keyboard or laptop and a single fingerpicked guitar, making the most of both local ingredients and things intercepted en route. He’s based around instinctive heart rather than roots, and around spontaneous initiative rather than the solidity of tradition; spurred on by intuitive choices of collaborators, such as British electro-concrète producer Matthew Herbert. His current musical foil, wingman and licensed disruptor is Swiss drummer and sound artist Julian Sartorius, whom Merz met while recording his ‘No Compass Will Find Home’ album, and whom he subsequently allowed to strip out and repurpose his songs to form a further album’s-worth of startling drum-and-vocal renditions

As for his tours, they manage to be both quietly exhilarating and easy to miss. Ducking around and under the radar, they mount a clear challenge to the business of tired pop promotion. He seeks to make concerts – like live art works – unique and permanently memorable to the attendees, taking care over matters like time, place and involvement. In addition to fairly familiar arty venue types (picture galleries, music churches and house concerts), last year’s ‘In Intimate’ tour took in a village chapel, a working-men’s club and an Air Force Legion hall: even a cow barn, a Scottish castle, a yurt, a forest clearing, a railway arch, and a snooker club. This season’s tour isn’t quite as unusual, although it returns to a couple of In Intimate venues (in Middlesbrough and Oswestry). Elsewhere, Merz seems to have gone where he was invited… and made sure that it was either somewhere interesting or somewhere that strives (sprouting rock clubs in transient locations, or the sites of hopeful songwriter nights).

Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Centre Square, Middlesbrough, TS1 2AZ, England, Sunday 12th June 2016, 2:00 pm (Merz solo show & discussion) – information
Praha Bar, 22-24 The Borough, Hinckley, LE10 1NL, England, Monday 13th June 2016, 7.00pm (Merz solo show + Megan Carlile) – information
Sonic Imperfections @ The Montague Arms, 289 Queens Road, Peckham, London, SE15 2PA, England, Tuesday 14th June 2016, 7.00pm (with Julian Sartorius) – information
The Green Door Store, 2-4 Trafalgar Arches, Lower Goods Yard, Brighton Train Station, Brighton BN1 4FQ, England, Wednesday 15th June 2016, 7.00pm (with Hayley Ross + Julian Sartorius) – information here and here
Cafe Kino, 108 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3RU, England, Thursday 16th June 2016, 7.00pm (with Julian Sartorius) – information
Hermon Chapel Arts Centre, Chapel Street, Oswestry, SY11 1LF, England, Friday 17th June 2016, 7.30pm (with Julian Sartorius + The Sound Book Project) – information here and here
Hey! Manchester @ The Eagle Inn, 18-19 Collier Street, Salford, M3 7DW, England, Saturday 18th June 2016, 7.30pm (with Julian Sartorius) – information
The Cumberland Arms, James Place Street, Byker, Newcastle-upon- Tyne, NE6 1LD, England, Sunday 19th June 2016, time t.b.c. (with Julian Sartorius + Christopher Anderson) – information

For many of the shows Merz will be playing as a duo alongside Julian Sartorius, who’ll also be playing a solo drumkit set to open the concert. On some evenings, support acts will be drawn from more straightforward singer-songwriter turf – in Hinckley, sixteen-year-old local open-mic promoter Megan Carlile; in Newcastle, local acoustic bard-of-observations Christopher Anderson; in Brighton, Hayley Ross (who leans towards a classic ‘70s style and expression but with a darker, cruel-hinting edge and occasional bursts of garage rock).

To counterbalance, at Oswestry support comes from the altogether stranger Sound Book Project, a sextet of multimedia artists and musicians (including a pair of Pram members) who use books as noisemakers and instruments – “wound, sprung, strummed, slapped and thrown” as well as being modified or miked-up – in an experimental, slightly fetishistic celebration of the sensuality of bound text as opposed to digital media, and the way in which sounds trigger memories and associations.

Similarly, the opening show at Middlesbrough’s MIMA is somewhat different from the others: it marks the closure of ‘When Now Becomes Then: Three Decades’, MIMA’s exhibition of the work of British abstract/gestural painter and printmaker Basil Beattie. Over two hours spread across the ground floor galleries, Merz will play songs from his repertoire which “allude to Beattie’s paintings both from a visual and spiritual point of view” and promises “a roving and impressionistic solo set.”

Tags: Amy Sterly, Brighton (England), Bristol (England), Christopher Anderson, drumkit music, Hayley Ross, Hey! Manchester (event), Hinckley (England), Julian Sartorius, Manchester (England), Max Simpson, Megan Carlile, Merz (Conrad Lambert), Middlesbrough (England), multimedia, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (England), Oswestry (England), Pram, Salford (England), Sam Owen, Scott Davies, Sonic Imperfections (event), The Sound Book Project, Thom Snell, Two Dogs

June 2016 – upcoming London experimental gigs – spiritual improv with Firefly at IKLECTIK (8th); electronic research-pop with ALMA, worriedaboutsatan, and Chagall at Whispers & Hurricanes (9th)

4 Jun

Here are a pair of imminent shows showcasing various directions in experimentation (from spiritual politics and improvisation to pop soundscaping and music technology) at two of London’s most undersung but exciting current venues.

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IKLECTIK Arts Lab presents:
Firefly
IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Wednesday 8 June 2016, 8.00pm – more information

Firefly is an improvising project led by Barcelona-born singer Cristina Carrasco, whose past work includes jazz, rock, soul and bossa nova. For the past five years Cristina has been working in free improvisation and experimental sound (she’s a recent alumnus of Cleveland Watkiss’ Stardust People’s Choir project, and also studied with voice improvisers Víctor Turull and Inés Lolago) and aims to combine this work with her other career in community arts and education, working towards promoting “equality and social integration, prioritising the idea of music and its benefits as a main element to heal any kind of society.

Cristina describes ‘Firefly’ as “a tribute to the surrender of human capacity. When we connect with our inner sound we are part of the universal vibration, we are in the present moment opening new channels of communication and creating expression. So, welcome to a free improvisation and experimental sound trip, where our soul leads the musical journey.” For this Firefly evening, Cristina will be joined by composer and broadcaster Daniel James Ross (Roddart, Mega Trio, ‘Beethoven Was Wrong‘) on electronics, former Goldie collaborator Justina “J Eye” Curtis on piano, and the remarkable arts-and-culture polymath Ansuman Biswas on percussion.

No soundclips for this one – you’ll just have to guess and attend…

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Chaos Theory Promotions presents: present:
Whispers & Hurricanes: Alma + worriedaboutsatan + Chagall
New River Studios, 199 Eade Road, Manor House, London, N4 1DN, England
Thursday 9th June 2016, 7.30pm – more information

“We take our night of weirdly wonderful new downtempo sounds to one of London’s best new artist community venues, New River Studios. This month sees artists blending electronic production, post-rock and brand new technology.

“Alternative post-rock/pop duo ALMA – a project from Codes In The Clouds members Pete Lambrou and Ciaran Morahan (the former also of Monsters Build Mean Robots) – deploy a loop station, multiple delay pedals, a piano and strings to create a slow-moving, high-flying soundscape of luscious gravitas. Their sound has grasped the heartstrings of many, and led to them recently completing an extremely successful UK tour with Nordic Giants as well as a slot at Mutations Festival alongside Lightning Bolt, Metz, John Talabot and Chelsea Wolfe. At this gig, they’ll be launching their new double A-side single The Lighthouse/While Nothing, featuring remixes by maybeshewill and Message To Bears.

“worriedaboutsatan are a Manchester-based electronica band made up of Thomas Ragsdale and Gavin Miller (also known for their other project Ghosting Season). They incorporate swirling ambient melancholia, skyscraping post-rock guitar atmospherics, dark house and pounding slo-mo techno. Since starting life as a bedroom project back in 2006, the band has always retained a strong DIY ethos, and pride themselves on being very much a live band, rather than just another electronic project with a laptop. They’ve so far shared stages on tours and supports with a diverse array of musicians, such as Ólafur Arnalds, Clark, Dälek, Apparat, Errors, Pantha du Prince, HEALTH, Vessels, and many more.

“Chagall (Chagall van den Berg) is a multimedia vocalist, songwriter and producer from Amsterdam. Singing live, she creates and triggers her rich electronic production, vocal effects and visuals by moving, bending and swaying her mi.mu gloves – wearable “gestural” technology developed with a team including Imogen Heap). Having spent some time on Universal/EMI’s roster, Chagall decided to quit the major label life and now prefers to make her way through Europe’s independent and underground music scene. Her live performance is unlike anything you’ll have witnessed.”

Tags: Ansuman Biswas, Beethoven Was Wrong (radio show), Chagall, Chaos Theory (event/promoter), Ciran Morahan, Codes In The Clouds, Cristina Carrasco, Daniel James Ross, Firefly, Gavin Miller, Ghosting Season, Goldie, IKLECTIK Art Lab (promoters), Imogen Heap, Justina Curtis, London (England), maybeshewill, Mega Trio, Message To Bears, mi.mu gloves (instrument), Monsters Build Mean Robots, Pete Lambrou, Roddart, Thomas Ragsdale, unusual instruments, VLMV (ALMA), Whispers & Hurricanes (event), worriedaboutsatan

March 2016 – upcoming gigs – Schnellertollermeier on tour in Ireland and England (with guest showings by ReDiviDEr, Taupe, Tasmin A, Lambhorn, Shatner’s Bassoon and Motherese); bassfest in Southampton (with Steve Lawson, BassDbler, Grant Sharkey, A Ninja Slob Drew Me); Steve Lawson and Poppy Porter’s synaesthesic show in Guildford.

6 Mar

In a few days time, Swiss avant-rock trio Schnellertollermeier begin a tour of Ireland and England. The group’s mellifluous name cutely overlaps and portmanteaus those of each of its members – bass guitarist Andi Schnellmann, guitar player Manuel Troller and drummer David Meier – but also mirrors their working method. Their music, too, is an overlap – a mosaic of small obsessive note-figures either written or improvised, which all three pick up on and play with almost neurologically tight collective timing. They’re also masters of dynamics, able to play each fragment at clean moth-wing softness or biting punk fuzz-roar at will and in sync as the moment demands.

They’re not quite rock, despite the electric power-team lineup and the locked, riffing minimalism. They’re not quite jazz, although they function on a similar level of technical assurance, small-group telepathy and potentially mutative rhythm. They describe themselves as “a little about quiet, and a lot about anger, silliness and precision,” which is one way of drawing a loose line around their bag of impetus.If they’re anything, Schnellertollermeir are an unconstrained cellular dance – fizzing on what’s initially a fixed grid of possibilities, then working around it at ever-smaller, ever-more-complex levels of detail and option; using slivers of math-rock, post-hardcore and free-jazz idiom to get themselves there.

The other quote they toss out is that the group “sounds like classic literature, where you have to keep on re-reading a sentence until you understand. But when you have finally understood, you understand a lot more.” Listening to them myself, they’re more like a tremendously extended Peter Blegvad palindrome – clever, obscurely arch, coasting on the brink of tumbledown nonsense but staying in place and in grace by a touch of sheer skill and a hinting at a good deep-level joke to share.

Dates:

The Roisin Dubh, Dominic Street, Galway, Ireland, Wednesday 9th March 2016, 9.00pm – more information
Fred Zeppelin’s, 8 Parliament Street, Cork, County Cork, Ireland, Thursday 10th March 2016– free event – more information
The Loft @ The Grand Social, 35 Lower Liffey Street, Dublin, 1 D,, Ireland, Friday 11th March 2016, 8.00pm (with ReDiviDeR)
DROP The Dumbulls @ The Bull, 2 Dublin Street, Liverpool, L3 7DT, England, Sunday 13th March 2016
The Mother’s Ruin, 7-9 St. Nicholas St, Bristol BS1 1UE, England, Monday 14th March 2016 (with Lambhorn) – more information
LUME @ IKLECTIK Art Lab, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Lambeth, London, SE1 7LG, England, Wednesday 16th March 2016 (with Taupe)
Number 39, 39-41 Bridge St, Darwen, Blackburn, BB3 2AA, England, Thursday 17th March 2016 (with Tasmin A) – more information
Fusebox @ The Fox & Newt, 9 Burley Street, Leeds, LS3 1LD, England, Friday 18th March 2016, 8.00pm (with Motherese and guests) – more information
Dulcimer Bar, 567 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, M21 0AE, England, Saturday 19th March 2016 (with Shatner’s Bassoon) – more information

While most of the tour appears to be one-act concerts for Schnellertollermeir alone, at points it sweeps up interesting local bands as well. Unfortunately I can’t find out much about the Darwen support act Tasmin A – apart from the fact that she’s a tourmate and backing singer for JD Meatyard (a.k.a. John Donaldson of Levellers 5) – but the Dublin gig features ReDiviDeR, an anagram-fixated two-horns-no-chords quartet led by drummer/composer Matt Jacobson with Derek Whyte (bass) and Nick Roth (alto sax) and Colm O’Hara (trombone), playing “downtown grooves , catchy melodies and collective improves” and taking inspiration from Charles Mingus, Steve Coleman, Deerhoof and Phil Ivey. In support at the Bristol gig are the “instrumental surf prog” band Lambhorn, while the London gig features Taupe (the hip hop and heavy metal-quoting “power-jazz commando team” who first showed up on my radar at last year’s Manchester Jazz Festival).

Surprisingly for a Manchester show, the gig at the Dulcimer Bar doesn’t feature any of the masses of experimental projects which throng the city. Instead, “six-piece madcap surrealists” Shatner’s Bassoon (a double-drum pile-on of jazz and wayward electronics barely containing Michael Bardon, Ollie Dover, Joost Hendrickx, Andrew Lisle, Johnny Richards and Craig Scott) hop across the Pennines from Leeds. The Leeds gig itself features Motherese – a teamup of vocalist/violist Aby Vulliamy, pianist/singer Laura Cole (of Metamorphic) and improvising singer Maria Jardardottir. Motherese aren’t even playing their first gig for a couple of days yet, so I’ll feature more about them in the next post.

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Steve Lawson (bass guitar virtuoso, loop musician, occasional avant-garde teddy bear and unstoppable Twittergob) can generally be relied upon to conceive, or latch onto, interesting gigs. With his own work spanning from textural ambience and tasteful but outgoing songwriter accompaniment to New Age, multi-collaborator jazz fusion and even political death metal (and since he’s a man who’s perpetually enthused by new contexts to explore) he’s naturally going to be drawn to more unorthodox events… and, generally speaking, not the standard type of unorthodox events either. This month he has two of them in southern England.

Innovate Guildford Festival of Science and the Arts presents:
Poppy Porter & Steve Lawson
G Live, London Road, Guildford, GU1 2AA, England,
Saturday 12th March 2016, at some point between 10.00am and 4.00pm – free event – more information

“As a synaesthetic, abstract artist/jeweller Poppy Porter has a visual response to sound – she specialises in making jewellery inspired by the abstract shapes and colours of her synaesthetic inner landscape, and her art is mostly object-centred (as she puts it, “sound goes into my ears and art comes out of my hands”). Steve Lawson is a solo bassist who is best known for his improvised music and whose art is almost solely performed.

The duo perform in a collaboration that follows the evolving process of the work between them. Steve plays, building a layered, improvised sonic landscape to which Poppy responds by drawing what she “sees” synaesthesically (shape, colour, movement). Steve then reacts to what has been drawn, using the fresh drawings as a visual score and improvises further. A feedback loop is created between them. Although Poppy and Steve’s individual art forms are different, there is a meeting of minds that pushes beyond the physical object or sonic creation giving rise to a visual, musical, aural and performance element in the work.

Following the performance, the audience will have an opportunity to have a go at drawing the music themselves. The idea of this workshop is to get the audience to try looking at the world in a different way. Rather than drawing an object, Poppy and Steve ask the audience to have a go at expressing how the music affects them. Paper and pencils will be provided and the audience can then listen to Steve play and express what the music is telling them in whatever way they choose with the art materials. We hope that the audience will be inspired to look at creating art in unusual ways and become aware of how we all think and express ourselves differently.”

For the precise performance time, it’s probably best to check on Steve’s Facebook or Twitter accounts closer to the time. This event is part of a larger one-day festival of imagination and practical application taking place in Guildford over the course of a day. Further details and a promo video are below:

“Innovate Guildford will ignite the imaginations of young and old through a stunning showcase of innovation taking place in Guildford – from cutting-edge research to a sneak preview into the future. Our free festival is for everyone and will particularly appeal to young people – to inspire and nurture the scientists, engineers, artists and innovators of tomorrow.”

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Steve’s second March event is more familiar territory for him, since it’s what’s described as “a night of genre-defying solo bass performances from some of the most innovative bass players around.” Pretty much a plural version of the day-job, then.

Gigs In The Gallery presents:
“Sorry To Hear You’re a Bassist!” – Steve Lawson + BassDbler + Grant Sharkey + A Ninja Slob Drew Me + Greyum May (DJ sets)
The Art House, 178 Above Bar Street, Southampton, SO14 7DW, England
Thursday 17th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information

J.D. Short, a.k.a. BassDbler, grew up playing alternative rock and hardcore in Chicago, Nashville, Indianapolis, and Louisville before studying music formally and moving on to build guitars for Rickenbacker. It was only on his relocation to New Zealand that he developed an affinity for electronic music and realised that it held a similar DIY ethic to the music of his youth. The resulting approach also partially inspired by science fiction (specifically Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ saga) described by Aquarius Records as “bass-heavy dubstep electro-prog ambience” has been revealed on a pair of albums: ‘Slow Blade Penetrates The Shield’ and its slightly-more-acoustic follow-up ‘Machine & Ghola’. When not working on BassDbler projects J.D. creates film scores and works as music director for the Giant Fire Breathing Robot website and podcasts.

In 2013 singing/songwriting/double-bass-playing Grant Sharkey (previously a member of Southampton drum-and-two-basses absurdists Toupé) pledged to independently record and release an album every six months over a period of twenty years. Now it’s 2016 and he’s up to six albums – one of which is a single forty-five-minute song (dealing with “how amazing live music is compared to a life of television”), while another he wrote while recovering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome surgery on both wrists.Usually the albums are recorded around Grant’s bass and voice with drums and assorted guest vocals added later, although ukelele and other sounds aren’t unknown.

Grant’s most recent effort is the combined album/political concept ‘Ignoramus’, which was released into the wild last November and which is (depending on how you look at it) either a set of double-bass-plus-voice songs or a philosophical/political manifesto for a new nation based on questioning our current course as a species, or probably both. It follows up and inverts some of the portrayals in his previous, nationalism-inspired album ‘Goon’ – “the five-part life-cycle of someone that doesn’t ask any questions about their situation.”

Another Southampton act – A Ninja Slob Drew Me – is extended-range seven-string bass player Daniel James, who since 2007 has created “moody, mostly instrumental albums” of finger-tapped ambience and distortion, citing post-rock, film soundtracks and trip hop as influences. After four albums as a solo act, Daniel introduced violinist and vocalist Jo Stevens into the project last year as a full partner, with their first album as a duo due to arrive later this year.

Former Ozric Tentacles/Firebird bass player Greyum May (more recently occupied with his own psychedelic/progressive project Keepers Brew) will be playing host but (as far as I know) will be staying off the bass himself in favour of playing a DJ set of “the best in bass-heavy tunes.”

Headlining, Steve Lawson will presumably be offering what he usually offers – deftly melodic bass playing which he’ll simultaneously loop, layer, warp, e-bow and KAOSS-Pad into semi-improvised minimal-maximal solo orchestrations which mingle jazz tunefulness, crowd-pleasing rock directness, and the textured rhythmic detail of prime electronica. Half of the time it won’t sound like a bass, and a third of the time it’ll sound like nothing on earth; with the added bonus being that you won’t necessarily need to be a hardened avant-gardener to appreciate it.

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More gig news shortly…

Tags: A Ninja Slob Drew Me, Aby Vulliamy, Andi Schnellmann, Andrew Lisle, bass guitar music, BassDbler, Blackburn (England), Bristol (England), Colm O'Hara, Cork (Ireland), Craig Scott, David Meier, Derek Whyte, Dublin (Ireland), duo music, Fusebox (event), Galway (Ireland), Grant Sharkey, Greyum May, Guildford (England), IKLECTIK Art Lab (promoters), Johnny Richards, Joost Hendrickx, Lambhorn, Laura Cole, Leeds (England), Liverpool (England), LUME (event), Manuel Troller, Maria Jardardottir, Matt Jacobson, Metamorphic, Michael Bardon, Motherese, Nick Roth, Ollie Dover, Poppy Porter (jeweller), ReDiviDer, Schnellertollermeir, Shatner's Bassoon, Southampton (England), Steve Lawson, synaesthesia, Tasmin A, Taupe, Toupe, trio music

February 2016 – upcoming gigs – London end-of-month assortment – Project Instrumental play string quartets for free; Eddie Parker’s Mister Vertigo ascends again; an even more diverse Daylight Music than usual (with Stick In The Wheel, No Cars and Alabaster dePlume)

24 Feb

Two shows coming up on the Friday…

Friday Tonic presents:
Project Instrumental
Central Bar @ Royal Festival Hall @ Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, Waterloo, London, SE1 8XX, England
Friday 26th February 2016, 5.30pm – free event – more information

“Making its Southbank Centre debut in quartet form, players from Project Instrumental invite you to greet Friday evening sipping on the sonorities of some 21st-century string quartets. Described as “simply knockout” (Alex Julyan, Wellcome Trust Fellow) and selected as a Time Out London Critic’s Choice, Project Instrumental brings thrilling performances to unbounded audiences. Instrument-inspired, rather than genre-led, the group evolves around a core of strings and what can be done with them, across genres and instrumental combinations, to create truly enlivening performances, for anyone. Bold, imaginative and boundary defying, this virtuosic group strips back the peripherals with their straightforward contemporary approach to, to create not just concerts, but experiences.”

Programme:

Thomas Seltz: String Quartet No.1
Joby Talbot: String Quartet No.2
Nico Muhly: Diacritical Marks
Bryce Dessner: Tenebre

Though Project Instrumental haven’t made this explicit, all of the contemporary classical composers whose quartets are being played either originally stem from, or confidently dip into, a broad field of popular music. Nico Muhly has long been a byword for latterday classical/pop crossovers, balancing operas and contemporary music ensemble commissions with arrangements and co-writes for Grizzly Bear, Björk, Antony and the Johnsons and Philip Glass. Joby Talbot spent nine years playing on and expanding Neil Hannon’s chamber-pop songs for The Divine Comedy before moving on to a diverse compositional career of ballets, concerti, orchestral and choral works and madrigals (while still doing film scores and arrangement works relating to pop, such as his reworking of songs by The White Stripes for choreographer Wayne McGregor). Bryce Dessner is still best known as half of the guitar/compositional team for Brooklyn indie-rock darlings The National, but balances this against a powerfully prolific output of orchestral, percussion, film and installation-based instrumental works, as well as classical improvisation with the Clogs quintet and work curating Cleveland’s MusicNOW New Music festival for ten years.

Even the most obscure of the four, Thomas Seltz, spent his teenage years recording and touring as a rock guitarist and songwriter with French rock bands (most notably TORO) before making the shift to classical composition at the University of Edinburgh from 2006. Since then, he’s maintained his interest in the classical/popular faultline, writing an electric bass guitar concerto (for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and John Patitucci), ‘Awesome X’ (a comic opera about reality TV) and ‘Mandarin’ (a concerto written for Chinese erhu player Peng Yueqiang and Edinburgh crossover-chamber ensemble Mr McFall’s Chamber).

All four composers refuse to be pigeonholed either by their established classical reputations or by their current or past roots/impingements upon pop and rock, seeing it all as a set of disciplines between which they can step as they choose. Seltz’s quartet (completed only last year) documents and honours his musical history, in particular his transition from rock musician to contemporary composer, via rock-inspired “strong dynamic, rhythmic and melodic elements”. Talbot’s possesses a wheeling dovelike softness in its graceful minimal approach, while Dessner’s takes tips from Reich, Adams and Glass but explodes them with a hoedown vigour. Sidestepping his confessed anxieties regarding the emotional exposure of the form, Muhly’s is bookended by an emphasis on lively ticking mechanisms and accents, counterbalanced by a more rhapsodic (and possibly concealing) middle section.

It seems as if this Project Instrumental set (or most of it) will be repeated at a National Portrait Gallery Late Shift appearance on April 1st (PI have been performing versions of it since at least last November). I’ll repost details closer to the time. Also in April, look out for a Britten Sinfonia mini-tour featuring a Bryce Dessner premiere.

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Eddie Parker’s Mister Vertigo
The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, England
Friday 26th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve been crossing paths with Eddie Parker on record, in concert and (on a few occasions) in person. Back in the ‘80s he was a key member of the raucous, expansive yet deceptively deep-thinking jazz band Loose Tubes, holding his own as both player and composer alongside Django Bates, Steve Berry, Chris Batchelor and many others who went on to shape both pre-millennial British jazz and what came afterwards. While Loose Tubes may always be Eddie’s best-known gig (he also went on to play and write in the sequel band Delightful Precipice), like most jazz musicians he has form elsewhere; having worked as part of John Stevens’ Freebop and as an outstanding soloist and collaborator in the band of South African pianist Bheki Mseleku, as well as leading various groups including the “quartet of twenty instruments” Twittering Machine. In all of these projects, he’s known predominantly for the assured brilliance of his flute playing. Elegant and assertive, full-toned and flexible without ever being forced, it’s an expression of a supple mind-muscle which can shape-shift from tripping lightness to pooling shade in a single graceful motion.

Eddie should, however, be at least as well regarded for his skill as an all-in composer. Drawn from his early training in avant-garde classical, fleshed out by his immersion in jazz, and characterized by both an egalitarian ethos and a sophisticated-magpie taste for eclectic listening, his compositions draw on a vast array of ideas, influences and traditions. Around jazz touchstones such as Gil Evans, Mahavishnu, Eric Dolphy and Weather Report swim disparate seasonings and elements – South Africa, Stravinsky and Debussy; Elizabethan chamber music; salsa and progressive rock; mantras and mediaevalism; Bartok, Berg, Berio and Brazilian – but never in a mere showy and dyspeptic jam of ideas.

Many composers (jazz or otherwise) turn out music which seems to be disassociated from their day-to-day personality, or which is at least canted towards a slightly different space or a stand-alone ideal. This is not the case with Eddie. His tunes and arrangements are a clear reflection of the man himself – by turns committed, kind, cheeky, bucolic and fiery; all with a glittering riverine current of lively intelligence and an eye on the small details of the world. He’s also pretty lucid as regards talking about them – his own blog comments on early and recent material that he’s written for Loose Tubes are well worth reading.

These skills haven’t gone unrecognised, and commissions for Eddie from the Apollo Saxophone Quartet and Ensemble Bash are just part of it: but there’s also been immensely valuable community composing, promotion and guidance work from Eddie, such as his efforts with with Impro Integrated and his ongoing children’s educational project Groove On. His 2001 endeavour ‘People Symphony’ picked up on the human and cultural complexity of London, sprawling via public performance and collective practise across four London boroughs and thirty pro musicians plus students of all ages, abilities and disabilities, joining in a rich stew of Indian, Brazilian, African and Turkish-inspired music mingled with jazz, rock and pop. All of this is memorable – still, in the process of digging up information for this news post, it struck me how little information on it survives. Perhaps much of Eddie’s work is like most jazz performances – a collision of opportunity and uniqueness tied to a particular time and place, a particular coming-together of people which (especially on a good night) results in a grand flare of cooperation and shared memory, echoing on in the minds and the rolled-out histories of those who were there, but forever unknown to everyone who was outside that room on that night. Maybe there’s something precious in that, but I can’t help but feel that there should be more memory, more awareness… a fuller appreciation of what’s gone down and soared up.

Rather than go on in this vein, instead I’ll be a little more positive and draw the attention to Eddie’s longest-running concern: his Mister Vertigo sextet, who play in London this weekend. Eddie’s longterm cohorts Steve Watts (double bass, another Loose Tuber), Julian Nicholas (saxophone) and Mike Pickering (drums) have been in the band since its mid-‘90s inception, while the newest recruits are up-and-coming guitarist Rob Luft (replacing John Parricelli) and pianist Matt Robinson, who follows in the footsteps of Troyka’s Kit Downes and the band’s long-standing original piano maverick Pete Saberton (who died in 2012). As a unit, Mister Vertigo is a light-footed, easily accessible ensemble whose apparent breeziness subtly disguises the opportunity to experience Eddie’s compositional work up close and intimate. Expect fine playing, a warm chamber of illuminated discourse and wide-ranging thought.

Embeddable examples of Eddie’s work are thin on the ground, but here’s a brief video of Mister Vertigo in action (albeit with Eddie leading from keyboard rather than flute) plus a Debussy-inspired piano piece from Groove Music…

Incidentally, Eddie’s occasional keyboard work has developed into a fuller occupation in recent years, due not least to his work as one of a battalion of keyboard players in the vintage analogue synth group The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, for which he also composes. He’s just released an album of synth compositions called ‘The Exoplanets Suite’, which will be launched at the Mister Vertigo gig (copies should be available there for about £12.00, but can also be ordered via Eddie’s Facebook page).

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The following evening, there’s a Daylight Music afternoon with no particular theme… or, to put it another, an afternoon of their own free eclectica.

Daylight Music presents:
Daylight 217: Stick In The Wheel + No Cars + Alabaster dePlume
Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 27th February 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (£5.00 donation suggested) – more information

Stick In The Wheel are a folk band from East London. Championed by John Kennedy (Radio X/Mercury judge) and fresh from winning fRoots Magazine’s 2015 Album of the Year, they’re “ripping apart the preconceptions surrounding folk music to retrieve the tender, beating heart at the centre of traditional English culture” (CLASH Music) – as the band themselves put it, “this is our culture, our tradition.”

No Cars is a Japanese pop band formed and based in Hackney, London UK – a mixture of rock, garage, gipsy, swing, jazz, calypso, punk, Punjabi etc. with a Japanese pop twist.

Alabaster dePlume (Gus Fairbairn), is a performer, writer and musician. Since 2011 he has produced three albums on Manchester label Debt Records, toured Europe as a solo performer, produced short films, and written/performed a play with circus-aerial in Dublin. He has also presented a series of combined-arts events, and his recordings are played on national radio, most recently described as “cheerfully uneasy” on Radio 3.

Joel Clayton – from Indo-Anglo folk-fusioneers (and unlikely steampunk-scene heroes) Sunday Driver, and sometimes known as trappedanimal – joins us on sitar in our fourth/in-between slot this week.

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News on March concerts coming up shortly…

Tags: Alabaster DePlume, Arctic Circle (promoter), Bheki Mseleku, Bryce Dessner, Daylight Music (event), Eddie Parker, Eddie Parker's Mister Vertigo, flute music, Joby Talbot, Joel Clayton, John Stevens, Julian Nicholas, London (England), Loose Tubes, Matt Robinson, Mike Pickering, Nico Muhly, No Cars, Project Instrumental, Rob Luft, sitar music, Steve Watts, Stick In The Wheel, string quartet, Sunday Driver, The National, Thomas Seltz

February 2016 – upcoming gigs – interlocking British tours by Yorkston Thorne Khan, Toby Hay/Jim Ghedi and Laura Moody offer Anglo-Indian crossover folk, fingerstyle guitar, folk baroque and cello bewitchment.

10 Feb

I didn’t catch up with this next tour until a couple of its January dates had gone by, but it’s still worth catching up with the rest of it:

“Yorkston/Thorne/Khan are an experimental group that includes James Yorkston (hailed as one of the most “influential singer/songwriters on the Scottish folk scene”), Suhail Yusuf Khan (award winning sarangi player and classical singer from New Delhi) and Jon Thorne (best known as jazz double bass player with electro outfit Lamb). The trio are currently touring to support their collaborative debut album ‘Everything Sacred’, which was released in mid-January 2016.

This is Scottish-Irish-Indian-English music in the raw – Yorkston’s familiar steel guitar strings pulled, pushed and bent into more unfamiliar acoustic drones, the bass dropping anchors through the floor. Rather than world music per se, this sounds more idiosyncratic, a temporary structure bivouacking by the side of the indie-folk, art music tradition, while its widening horizons extend back to the Sixties heyday of the Incredible String Band, and forward to this singular album’s satellite orbit over the folk music, Indian classical and indie music of today – all these musical ley lines threaded into a new kind of eclectic, domestic setting.

James: “Playing together as Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, we tackle a wide array of different sounds and songs. Alongside pieces of our own, there’s a fair chunk of improvisation, plus covers of Ivor Cutler’s Little Black Buzzer and Lal Waterson’s Song For Thirza. Jon’s jazz background definitely comes to the fore, as does Suhail’s devotional singing and outstanding sarangi playing. I just do my best to keep up…”

Dates:

The Bicycle Shop, 17 St Benedicts Street, Norwich, NR2 4PE, England, Tuesday 16th February 2016 – more information
The Junction 2, Clifton Way, Cambridge CB1 7GX, England, Wednesday 17th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
Eat your Own Ears @ Warwick Arts Centre (Studio), University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, England, Thursday 18th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
Irregular Folk @ St Barnabas Church, 15 St Barnabas Street, Oxford, OX2 6BG, England, Friday 19th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
Fruit, 62-63 Humber Street, Hull, HU1 1TU, England, Saturday 20th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
Opus presents Gadabout @ Yellow Arch Studios, 30-26 Burton Road, Sheffield, S3 8BX, England, Sunday 21st February 2016 (with Laura Moody + Toby Hay/Jim Ghedi) – more information
Belgrave Music Hall, 1A Cross Belgrave Street, Leeds, LS2 8JP, England, Tuesday 23rd February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester, M1 7HE, England, Wednesday 24th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
The Old Queen’s Head, 44 Essex Road, Islington, London, N1 8LN, England, Thursday 25th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
Canton St John Music @ St John the Evangelist Church, St John’s Crescent, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1NX, Wales, Saturday 27th February 2016 (with Laura Moody + Toby Hay/Jim Ghedi) – more information
Komedia, 22-23 Westgate Street, Bath, BA1 1EP, England, Saturday 28th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information
Exeter Phoenix, Bradninch Place, Gandy Street, Exeter, EX4 3LS, England, Sunday 29th February 2016 (with Laura Moody) – more information

Playing support on all of the dates apart from Norwich (and joining in for a few songs in the headlining set) is singer-songwriter and cellist extraordinaire Laura Moody, whose songs sometimes touch on the same areas of kinetic fantasy as Kate Bush, Tori Amos or Joanna Newsom, sometimes dip into the cool small details of a Julia Holter or Anja Garbarek, and sometimes summon up the haunting folk-contralto reveries of Kathleen Ferrier. Just before the tour starts, Laura will be playing her own London solo show, as follows:

Tina Edwards presents:
Laura Moody
Pizza Express Jazz Club, 10 Dean Street, Soho, London, W1D 3RW, England
Tuesday 16th February 2016 – more information

Laura: “I’ve seen so many amazing performers at Pizza Express Jazz over the years – Kurt Elling, Ian Shaw, Gwyneth Herbert (and just one jazz/rock gig that I went to in terrible error and possibly may have feigned illness at so I could leave) – so I’m both excited and honoured to have been invited by music journalist and broadcaster Tina Edwards to play my music on that stage. It’s my first truly central London gig for a little while and as well as playing a load of tunes I will also be having an onstage chat with Tina, so you can get to hear some hilarious anecdotes about how some of these songs came about. But most importantly you can listen to a woman hitting herself with her own cello bow while you eat an American Romana with extra mozzarella.”

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In addition, the Sheffield and Cardiff gigs on the Yorkston Thorne Khan tour (21st and 27th February respectively) features extra support by Toby Hay and Jim Ghedi, following their appearance at Daylight Music earlier in the month. These shows, and more, dovetail into a Hay and Ghedi tour over the whole of February and the beginning of March.

From Sheffield and Rhayader respectively, Jim and Toby are young (yet assured and accomplished) masters of both fingerstyle acoustic guitar and the resurgent, omnivorous stylings of folk baroque. Both are seasoned performers and collaborators. During years of travelling, Jim has appeared on bills or in ensembles with James Blackshaw, Richard Dawson, Dead Rat Orchestra, Cam Deas, C Joynes, Stephanie Hladowski, Alasdair Roberts, Alex Nelson’s Death Shanties, The Big Eyes Family Players and Trembling Bells. While less widely travelled than Jim, Toby is rapidly becoming a British folk festival veteran and has taken support slots to Ryley Walker, Songhoy Blues and Marika Hackman.

Playing as a duo, they collectively draw sonic and compositional inspiration from African music (particularly kora music), Bert Jansch, jazz, Indian ragas, ancient Welsh harp music, Eastern European folklore, the Beat writers and John Fahey’s American Primitivism. For more details on how some of this turns out, there’s a ‘Misfit City’ review of Toby’s first EP here, plus a couple of videos below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAUaKzjfaCc

One of the main follows up to that Daylight Music appearance is a west Yorkshire show alongside two other formidable local talents:

Toby Hay/Jim Ghedi Duo + Dean McPhee + Saif Mode
Fuse Art Space, 5-7 Rawson Place, Bradford, BD1 3QQ, England
Wednesday 17th February 2016 – more information

You’ve already read about Jim and Toby, so here’s the information on the other two performers:

“Dean McPhee is a West Yorkshire-based solo electric guitarist who plays a Fender Telecaster through a valve amp and effects pedals. Dean is a self-taught guitarist and has developed a unique style of playing over years of improvisation and experimentation. His influences include British folk, dub, Krautrock, post-rock, Moroccan trance and modal jazz. “The hallmark of McPhee’s style is a picked bassline and free-ranging variations on melodic ideas via a mesmerising progression of harmonics, cleanly picked notes, full chords and string-bending arabesques.” (‘The Wire’)

Saif Mode is the moniker of Ben Hunter. He improvises with modular synths to create dense sonic landscapes that are unique to each performance “marry(ing) meditative drones and techno improvisations, recalling the utopian dreams of the Atomic Age and the simple piety of the early church… equally at home on bills with improvised analogue electronica and raw black metal…” (Sheffield Anti Fascist Network).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6C7WGJbQGM

The remaining dates of the Hay & Ghedi tour (including the Daylight Music appearance and their Yorkston Thorn Khan support slots) are below:

JT Soar , 2 Aberdeen St, Nottingham, NG3 1JB, England, Thursday 11th February 2016 – more information
White Peakhouse Gallery , Rutland Square, Buxton Road, Bakewell, DE45 1BT, England, Friday 12th February 2016 – more information
Daylight Music @ Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England, Saturday 13th February 2016 (free/pay-what-you-like event with Paperface + Dearbhla Minogue + The Leaf Library) – more information
House show, Leeds, England, Thursday 18th February 2016 – more information
CARAD Rhayader Museum and Gallery , East Street, Rhayader, Powys, Wales, Friday 19th February 2016 – more information

All Hallows Hall , 13 All Hallows Road, Easton, Bristol, BS5 0HH, England, Saturday 20th February 2016 – more information

Opus presents Gadabout @ Yellow Arch Studios, 30-26 Burton Road, Sheffield, S3 8BX, England, Sunday 21st February 2016 (supporting Yorkston Thorne Khan + Laura Moody) – more information

Canton St John Music @ St John the Evangelist Church, St John’s Crescent, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1NX, Wales, Saturday 27th February 2016 (supporting Yorkston Thorne Khan + Laura Moody) – more information
Regather Co-Op , 57-59 Club Garden Road, Sheffield, S11 8BU, England, Friday 4th March 2016 – more information

Toby and Jim will also be joining forces in Sheffield during late February for this theatre show:

The Travelling Shadow Theatre presents:
“The Death Curiosities”
Moor Theatre Delicatessen, 17 The Moor, Sheffield, S1 4PF, England
Thursday 25th & Friday 26th February 2016 – more information

“Come on a journey inside an old cabinet to discover what forgotten objects remain….Stories unravel to reveal a beautifully vulgar and woeful celebration of the macabre…. Told through live shadow puppetry and music, ‘The Death Curiosities’ is a beautiful and mesmerising story exploring the unquestionable trimmings of death. Live musical accompaniment by Jim Ghedi, Toby Hay and Josh Kelson.”

More gig news shortly, including William D. Drake in Italy and a look at various upcoming classical music events…

Tags: acoustic guitar music, Arctic Circle (promoter), Bath (England), Bradford (England), Cambridge (England), Cardiff (Wales), cello music, Coventry (England), Daylight Music (event), Dean McPhee, electric guitar music, Exeter (England), guitar fingerpicking, James Yorkston, Jim Ghedi, Jon Thorne, Laura Moody, Leeds (England), London (England), Norwich (England), Oxford (England), Saif Mode, Sheffield (England), Suhail Yusuf Khan, The Travelling Shadow Theatre, Toby Hay, Yorkston Thorne Khan

February 2016 – upcoming gigs – Paperface, Jim Ghedi & Toby Hay, Dearbhla Minogue (The Drink, The Wharves) all play Daylight Music; a glimpse of the From Now On 2016 festival in Cardiff; Laura Cannell, Rhodri Davies, Milo Newman & Matt Davies bring ‘The Lost City of Dunwich’ to Bristol;

9 Feb

Continuing with the flow of London gigs on Saturday 13th, before glancing further afield:

Daylight Music 215: Paperface + Jim Ghedi & Toby Hay + Dearbhla Minogue
Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 13th February 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation £5.00) – more information

Direct from the Daylight Music press mill:

“Paperface has just released (from his lighthouse studio) his critically acclaimed debut album ‘Out Of Time’, inspired no doubt, by the choppy waters of the Thames lying in one direction, and the urban sprawl that lies in the other. He is probably up there hard at work on his next creation right now (weather permitting, of course).

https://youtu.be/unQjJAFd5gs

We also welcome instrumental guitar duo Jim Ghedi and Toby Hay. Sheffield-based Jim’s influences range from African music, jazz and Eastern European folklore. Toby is from near Rhayader in mid-Wales: he is influenced by Indian Ragas, African Kora music and ancient Welsh harp music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAUaKzjfaCc

Dearbhla Minogue is a singer and guitarist in both The Drink and The Wharves. She will be playing electric guitar and doing some band songs as well as songs written to be played solo – and a couple of folk covers.

The brilliant The Leaf Library will be our in-between performer this week creating some weird and wonderful soundscapes – the icing on our Daylight Music sonic cake!”

(There’ll be more about Jim Ghedi and Toby Hay in the next post – this is a busy month for them…)

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Looking for further news on shows by Laura Cannell (mediaevalist improviser on fiddles and double recorder, previously covered here), I came across this:

Shape and Chapter present:
From Now On Festival 2016 @ Chapter Arts Centre, 2 Market House, Market Rd, Cardiff, CF5 1QE, Wales
Friday 12th-Sunday 14th February 2016 – more information

“From Now On returns for the third year to fill Chapter with adventurous, fresh and boundary pushing music. Over three days you will be able to delve into a multi-genred soundscape of analogue dance, ancient re-imaginings, improvisation, silky balladry and lo-fi punk. We have sourced significant international visitors and some of the most intriguing performers working in Wales and the UK today.

As part of the celebrations, Chapter Cinema will be screening a compelling programme of music film and we are proud to present our first artist in residence. Acts include US experimental pop luminary Julia Holter; surreal electronic trio Stealing Sheep; paradoxical medieval/improv fiddler Laura Cannell; Bas Jan, a new krautpop trio from Serafina Steer; ambient explorer Mark Lyken and minimalist synth duo Happy Meals. Meilyr Jones will be presenting new work informed by his recent exploits in film and theatre that will be made in residence in the week leading up to the festival. Anna Homler & Stephen Warwick present a dance- and film-led performance of ‘Breadwoman’, a version of Tim Parkinson’s anti-opera ‘Time With People’; and Sweet Baboo invites you to join his ‘Synthfonia Cymru’, a collaborative synth performance.

We also have an alternative Valentine’s Day orgy of bands and short films curated by Club Foot Foot. In the cinema H. Hawkline soundtracks ‘Gwaed Ar Y Ser’ and experimental Welsh music films from CAM Sinema.”

(Other acts confirmed include Apostille, Sleeper Society, Club Foot Foot, L’Ocelle Mare, and Laura J Martin.)

Laura plays From Now On during Saturday 13th February. On the following day she’ll be crossing the Severn to play this event:

Onomato Collective present:
‘The Lost City Of Dunwich’ (featuring Laura Cannell, Rhodri Davies, Milo Newman and Matt Davies)
Café Kino, 108 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3RU, England
Sunday 14th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information

“Onomato are delighted to bring together four artists to sonically explore the mystery and intrigue that surrounds the submerged town of Dunwich on the coastal region of Suffolk, East Anglia.

“Matt Davies and Milo Newman will construct an 8-channel sound installation of their on-going work ‘By the mark, the deep‘. Utilising their field recordings from the waters of Dunwich’s ruins they will create a sonic framework for Laura Cannell with her evocative over-bowed fiddle and recorder, and un-traditional harpist Rhodri Davies to respond to.

Hailing from the region, Laura Cannell’s music draws on ‘folkish mysteries and the stark landscapes of East Anglia’s coasts’ and the event will begin with a conversation about a shared fascination with Dunwich’s esoteric submerged town.”

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More very soon…

Tags: Apostille, Arctic Circle (promoter), Bas Jan, CAM Sinema, Club Foot Foot, Daylight Music (event), Dearbhla Minogue, From Now On (event), Gwaed Ar Y Ser, H. Hawkline, Happy Meals, Jim Ghedi, Julia Holter, Laura J. Martin, L’Ocelle Mare, London (England), Mark Lyken, Matt Davies, Meilyr Jones, Milo Newman, Paperface, Rhodri Davies, Serafina Steer, Sleeper Society, Stealing Sheep, Sweet Baboo, The Drink, The Wharves, Tim Parkinson, Toby Hay

February 2016 – upcoming London gigs – the Jonny Gee Quartet play Archway jazz; an evening of Bad Elephant music with The Gift, Twice Bitten, Tom Slatter and jh; Teeth of the Sea + Ramleh at Electrowerks; The Centrals + Picturebox in Whitechapel

9 Feb

I’ve grumbled before about the encroachments and exclusions which lurk in the ongoing gentrification of London, but there are positive sides too. In Archway, amongst the brush-ups and the shouldering aside of community resources for what looks like the usual drive towards more and more luxury flats (see here for some of the fallout from that) there are sundry encouraging pop-ups and lower-key investments.

One such is the move of the Forks and Corks cafe from the edge of Parliament Hill to a new location, livening barren and wind-sucked plaza outside Archway station. Ensconsed in a former betting shop, twenty seconds walk from the tube station, they cook up deli food and serve craft beers, ciders and wines in an atmosphere of comfy sofas, child-friendliness and an encouraging make-do and mend spirit. Part of the latter includes a battered old piano, which in turn is leading to music evenings…

Jazz in Archway presents:
The Jonny Gee Quartet
Forks & Corks, 2 Archway Mall, Junction Road, Archway, London, N19 5PH, England
Friday 12th February 2016, 8.00pm – free event – more information

The Quartet are Jonny Gee (leader and double bass), Mick Foster (saxophone), Dan Hewson (piano) and Andrea Trillo (drums). From the photo, you can tell that they don’t take themselves too seriously, but don’t expect the same to apply to the music. Although you can expect a breezy, funky and accessible take on acoustic jazz, it’s going to be played by some serious musicians – most of them bandleaders in their own right – who don’t see why joy and sunniness can’t flood their playing. Between them they draw on years of experience with jazz, classical and dance forms (having collectively clocked up work with Stan Sulzmann, Ravi Shankar, Mike Garrick, Jacqui Dankworth, Zoë Rahman, The Sixteen, Pete King, the London Jazz Orchestra, Dave O’Higgins, Jon Toussaint, Jerry Dammers and Antonio Forcione). Not a bad collective draw for a scruffy, warmed-up concrete box in the middle of Archway…

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Still in London, on the 13th there’s the usual wash of Saturday gigs – acoustica, contemporary prog, electro-psych and power electronics, and lo-fi pop. Let’s make a start on that.

Bad Elephant Music have been one of the most industrious of British cottage labels this past year, putting out a steady and careful stream of latterday prog, post-prog, folk rock and sophisticated AOR albums. This home gig should live up to the label’s familial reputation…

Bad Elephant Music/House of Progression/Prog Magazine present:
An Evening of Bad Elephant Music: The Gift + Twice Bitten + Tom Slatter + jh
Boston Music Room, 178 Junction Road, Tufnell Park, London, N19 5QQ, England
Saturday 13th February 2016, 7.00pm – more information

Straight from the Elephant’s mouth:

“With their powerful and hypnotic songwriting, The Gift are supreme purveyors of the storytelling art and the perfect band to headline this event. The band will be staging a performance of their classic first album, ‘Awake And Dreaming’. 2016 sees the 10th anniversary of this long-deleted album, and to celebrate its birthday BEM will be reissuing it in a deluxe version, with brand new design. It is available for sale bundled with pre-ordered tickets for the evening, and also at the show. It won’t be on general release until later in the year, so this is a unique opportunity to get your copy and hear the album before it’s in the wild.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-lZZOpG6yg

Twice Bitten will be making a rare live appearance, following BEM’s release of their first ever CD, ‘Late Cut’, in 2015. Formed in 1982, this legendary ‘heavy wood’ duo performed with most of the second-wave progressive rock bands of the Eighties, and will be well-known to anyone who frequented the Marquee back in the day. In keeping with their idiom, this appearance represents the launch event for ‘Late Cut’ – only six months after its release!

Tom Slatter‘s music is a listening experience like no other, with epic songs and deliciously dark storylines. Tom has eccentricity, inventiveness and mad genius at the core of everything he does – musician who is continually re-inventing himself. Tom is currently working on his fifth full-length album, a followup to ‘Fit The Fourth’, released by BEM in 2015. Tom certainly knows the meaning of ‘left field’ when it comes to the ideas and execution of his steampunk prog.

jh‘s uniquely British songwriting is a testament to his love of the album as an art form and his to his integrity as a musician. His eclectic yet cohesive music is full of melodies that will glue themselves inside your head. ‘Morning Sun’, an anthology of jh’s first three albums, has been a favourite for many visitors to the BEM store, and 2016 will see the release his first new collection of material since 2013′s ‘So Much Promise’.”

LATE UPDATE:

Unfortunately Rog Patterson – one half of Twice Bitten – has suffered a slipped disc in his neck, and is unable to even hold a guitar, let alone play one. Twice Bitten have, therefore, had to withdraw from An Evening of Bad Elephant Music. However… all is not lost! At the eleventh hour We Are Kin have stepped into the fray with a special acoustic performance of songs from their album ‘Pandora’.

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Something a little noisier…

Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
Teeth of the Sea + Ramleh
Electrowerkz @ Islington Metal Works, 5 Torrens Street, Islington, London, EC1V 1NQ, England
Saturday 13th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information

Having just finished a British tour in support of their fourth album, ‘Highly Deadly Black Tarantula’, Teeth of the Sea (returning to one of their London home-venues) have shown up in ‘Misfit City’ before. Their driving part-electronic instrumentals – packed with wailing guitars, rasping analogue synths and effected kaleidoscopic trumpet – owe equal debts to counterculture techno and to the aggressive end of psychedelic rock. ‘The Guardian’ has described their sound as “a more malevolent Morricone… widescreen and atmospheric throughout, but with a sense of dread running through its veins.” That’s close enough to nail it, though I’d also salute the four-to-the-floor beats, the cavernous space echo, and the dark pop shimmer that seals their overall appeal. Lurking epic dread notwithstanding, a Teeth of the Sea gig is also a grand black-winged dance party – a huge Gothic laugh.

In support are Ramleh, whose lengthy and intermittent history dates back to the early ‘80s when they were launched as a solo power electronics project by founder and constant member Gary Mundy. As Gary and collaborator Philip Best developed, their sound generators, tunnelling shock-noise and lacings of screamed and hateful imagery gradually gave way to more flexible live instrumentation and more cryptically-inclined song-texts. Gary would become one of the key members of another crew of brutal noise-rock improvisers, Skullflower, whose explorations and personnel both contributed to Ramleh’s second and more psychedelic incarnation, which lasted through to the late ‘90s.

Since reuniting for a second time in 2009 (this time without Philip Best, now concentrating on the transcendently confrontational noise of his Consumer Electronics project), Ramleh have honed their sound to what you’ll hear on their newest album ‘Circular Time’ – dark guitar peals, blipping synth tones, pillared bass and supple, controlled-demolition drum-and-percussion flexings which can skulk in a kind of dubby minimalism or engage in furious death-spiral embraces of crowded noise. The Ramleh you see at this concert could be the rock trio version (Gary, Antony diFranco, Martyn Watts) or the drumless duo version of Gary and Anthony (I’m guessing that it’ll be the former…)

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There’s just time to quickly mention this one too…

The Centrals + Picturebox
The Urban Bar, 176 Whitechapel Road, Whitechapel, London, E1 1BJ, England
Saturday 13th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information

“The Centrals return to The Urban Bar in Whitechapel. Expect a fast-paced set full of catchy scrappy numbers that rarely break the 3min barrier. No messin’. Alongside them will be Picturebox, with their unique brand of lo-fi pop music from the cathedral city of Canterbury.”

Tags: Andrea Trillo, Antony diFranco, Dan Hewson, Electrowerkz (event), Gary Mundy, jh, Jonny Gee, Jonny Gee Quartet, London (England), Martyn Watts, Mick Foster, Paperface, Picturebox, Ramleh, Teeth Of The Sea, The Centrals, The Gift, Tom Slatter, Twice Bitten, We Are Kin

January 2016 – upcoming gigs (mostly London) – jazz/Indo/groove/lyrical shapes at Cafe Oto with Emanative & Collocutor Duo, Earl Zinger, Sarathy Korwar and Sealionwoman; Medway garage, film snaps, Paris pop and hauntological folk in Putney with The Senior Service, French Boutik and Of Arrowe Hill. Plus Nerve Toy Trio in Warrington.

23 Jan

And another inevitable January gig update, as expected…

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(Baba Yaga’s Hut presents)
Emanative & Collocutor Duo featuring Earl Zinger + Sarathy Korwar + Sealionwoman (+ more tbc)
Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England
Friday 29th January 2016, 8.00pm – more information

Baba Yaga’s Hut bring us an evening of cosmic jazz explorations.

Emanative & Collocutor Duo is a teamup between saxophonist/flautist Tamar Osborn and drummer/mixologist Nick Woodmansey. Tamar’s history includes work with Africa Express, Dele Sosimi and The Fontanelles: she currently leads eclectic, hypnotic modal septet Collocutor (with Josephine Davies, Simon Finch, Marco Piccioni, Suman Joshi, Maurizio Ravalico and Afla Sackey) which mixes jazz and minimalism with Afrobeat and Ethiopian ideas, Indian classical and polyphonic choral music. In recent years, Nick’s work as leader of the Emanative project has seen him take the helm for British cosmic jazz. The Duo allows Nick and Tamar to take and blend aspects and ideas from both projects in a slimmer, tighter context. Guesting with the Duo on chants and vocals is Earl Zinger, the reggae-toaster-inspired alter ego of acid-jazz veteran and former Galliano frontman Rob Gallagher (whose post-Galliano work has included jazz band Two Banks Of Four and who’s also currently working as William Adamson).

Three tastes of the project are below – a duo version of Albert Ayler/Mary Maria Parks’ ‘Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe’;an Emanative remix of a Collocutor track; and an Emanative track from last year with strong Collocutor contributions.

This is (I think) the second gig for the Duo – there’s been at least one other well-received show in July 2015, at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington). That gig also featured Sealionwoman, the playful, driving voice-and-double-bass duo whose shape-changing jazz and blues songs have enchanted ‘Misfit City’ for several years now. They’re making a return appearance at this gig too. (Here’s my my 2013 eyewitness account of them, again; plus a chunk of video from the very same show.)

In between Sealionwoman and the Duo comes Indian classical/fusion percussionist Sarathy Korwar. Dividing his time between London and Pune, Sarathy trained as both tabla and drum kit player and specialises in applying Indian classical rhythmic ideas to non-Indian percussion instruments, blending in aspects of improvisation and intuition.

More people may be added to the bill at the last moment…

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On the following evening, there are shades of garage, mod, Parisiana and spooky folk.

(Retro Man Blog & Damaged Goods Records present)
The Senior Service + French Boutik + Of Arrowe Hill
The Half Moon, 93 Lower Richmond Road, Putney, London SW15 1EU, London, England
Saturday January 30th 2016, 7.30pm) – more information

Playing ‘60s-styled instrumentals, The Senior Service feature four musicians who, between them, have moved through many of the garage bands from the Medway scene – including The Prisoners, The James Taylor Quartet, The Solarflares, The Masonics, and assorted Billy Childish bands. Jon Barker (Hammond organ), Graham Day (guitar), Darryl Hartley (bass guitar) and Wolf Howard (drums) are inspired by John Barry/Ennio Morricone/Barry Gray soundtracks, Stax rhythm’n’blues (Booker T & The MGs) and early Mod (Small Faces). Damaged Goods Records release their debut single, Depth Charge, this month (with a full album to follow).

In support are French Boutik, who (inspired by their Paris home) blend ideas from 1960s French pop such as Serge Gainsbourg and Yé-yé with classic Motown and Burt Bacharach, all with a modernist pop twist.

Opening the evening are Of Arrowe Hill – Adam Easterbrook’s “hauntological” rock group who are now midway through their second decade of work. Expect their usual mix of country blues and acid folk with lo-fi psychedelia, with Adam backed by ex-Aardvarks rhythm section Ian O’Sullivan and Jason Hobart.

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Finally, further north (much further north) there’s this:

(Marpexke Productions presents)
Nerve Toy Trio
The Saracen’s Head, 381 Wilderspool Causeway, Warrington, WA4 6RS, England
Saturday 30th January 2016, 9.00pm

Nerve Toy Trio (guitarist Tony Harn, bass player/pedalist David Jones and drummer Howard Jones) are playing their first gig of the year, back in their hometown.

Although I’ve posted about Tony before (covering his first three albums as a solo player – start here and work backwards) I don’t think I’ve posted about the Trio before. All are veterans of an underrated and overlooked Warrington art-rock scene of the 1980s which (although notable for launching Tim Bowness) was squeezed between and overshadowed by neighbouring ferments in Manchester and Liverpool. They spin out an echoed, textured fusion-rock which spans from delightfully airy to tight-and-bumptious, and which thrives on understated juxtapositions which are always earnest, cheeky or interesting, – setting a pinch of Hendrix squall against Cheshire pastoralism; Pat Metheny harmonic glitter alongside romantic Steve Hackett peals; Rush power riffage in alternation with Robin Guthrie spangle.

With their melodic, rococo flourishes and outright proggy roots, sometimes the Trio come across as uncertain time travellers – hopping and picking across four decades of art rock and fusion while still ultimately homesick for the treasures of their teenage listening – but for me that just adds to their charm. The clip below shows their mellower side and a flash of their muscle: the gig’s in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support if that’s any more of a draw. Nerve Toy Trio still seem like a band who’ve not quite found their audience yet. If you’ve read this far and are still interested, perhaps it’s you they’re looking for.

Tags: Albert Ayler, Baba Yaga’s Hut (event/promoter), David Jones (bass guitarist), Earl Zinger, Emanative & Collocutor Duo, French Boutik, Howard Jones (drummer), listening to women, London (England), Mary Maria Park, Nerve Toy (Nerve Toy Trio), Of Arrowe Hill, Sarathy Korwar, Sealionwoman, The Scaramanga Six, The Senior Service, Tony Harn, Warrington

January 2016 – upcoming gigs (mostly London) – Daylight Music brings classical on the 23rd (Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Experience Ensemble, Roger Doyle, Ok Bertie! and Jim Bishop) and pop on the 30th (The Wave Pictures, The Leaf Library and Citizen Helene); plus Martin Creed, William D. Drake and Stephen Evens in Brixton.

22 Jan

This should be the last of the January gig updates, though I always speak too soon… Don’t forget that The Bleeding Hearts Club Winter Escape is still on in Brighton on the 23rd.

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(Daylight Music presents)
Daylight Music 212 – Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Experience Ensemble + Roger Doyle + Ok Bertie! + Jim Bishop
Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 23rd January 2016, 12.00pm – free entry – more information

“Three decades ago, a group of London musicians took a good look at that curious institution we call the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and decided to start again from scratch. The Ann & Peter Law Experience Scheme gives talented young musicians a chance to perform with the Orchestra. In this concert the musicians on the scheme perform together, by themselves, for the first time, just a few weeks after finishing at the OAE Academy. It looks as if we’re going to be treated to some Haydn (Symphony No. 85 ‘La Reine’, the nickname originating because the work was a favorite of Marie Antoinette) plus the Romance written by his original London sponsor, Johann Peter Salomon.

Roger Doyle is known for his pioneering work as composer of electronic music. He has worked extensively in theatre, film and dance, in particular with the music-theatre company Operating Theatre, which he co-founded.

Ok Bertie is the moniker of Robert Szymanek, a singer-songwriter, composer, and visual artist living in London. Bertie’s debut album of songs is called ‘Music From A Crowded Planet’, and is due for release in 2016. It’s accompanied by the ground breaking Crowded Planet iOS app, created in collaboration with developer Matthew Hasler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjxN60bdLOE

Sonic Brute mainstay Jim Bishop will also join us to take the Henry Willis organ out for a spin and bring us some time travel themed melodies: it’s time to go Bach to the Future!”

…or in my case, back to the past. Jim Bishop was at University with me long ago, and set some of my words to music for a body-issues revue at the Edinburgh Fringe. Jaunty.

More Daylight news further down…

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(Brixton Hill Studios presents)
Martin Creed & His Band + William D. Drake + Stephen Evens
The Windmill, 22 Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, London, SW2 5BZ, England
Tuesday 26th January 2016, 8.00pm – more information

“As part of Independent Venue Week, tonight our lovely neighbours Brixton Hill Studios take over the venue with some special guests!

Perhaps best known for winning the Turner Prize back in 2001, Martin Creed has been actively making music since the early ’90s. Creed writes direct, compelling songs with the ability to both perturb and amuse. Think the rhythmic punk of Ian Dury and the wit and pop nous of Glasgow’s Postcard Records. He has released records on both Moshi Moshi and his own Telephone Records label.

William D. Drake is a keyboardist, pianist, composer and singer-songwriter. He is best known as a former member of the cult English rock band Cardiacs, whom he played with for nine years between 1983 and 1992. He has also been a member of The Sea Nymphs, North Sea Radio Orchestra, Nervous, Wood, Lake of Puppies and The Grown-Ups, as well as pursuing a career as a solo artist. His fifth album ‘Revere Reach’ came out in summer 2015.

Armed with a battered guitar, a Casiotone and a few pedals, Stephen Evens (better known as Steve “Stuffy” Gilchrist, erstwhile leader of Stuffy/The Fuses and drummer with Graham Coxon, Cardiacs, Charlotte Hatherley and The Scaramanga Six) presents songs that mix the likes of Yo La Tengo & Ivor Cutler with broken friendships and human error.”

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(Daylight Music & The Hangover Lounge present)
Daylight Music 213: The Wave Pictures, The Leaf Library + Citizen Helene
Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 30th January 2016, 12.00pm – free entry – more information

“The Wave Pictures will be launching their brand new, vinyl-only album ‘A Season In Hull’ at the Union Chapel on 30th January. The album was recorded on acoustic guitars in one room, with a bunch of their friends, live in to one microphone on singer Dave Tattersall’s birthday, January 28th, 2015. The songs were written as quickly as possible and the recording captures that specific moment in all its spontaneous, thrilling and immediate glory. As Tattersall elaborates: ‘That’s what this is – a one-microphone happy birthday recording.’

London quintet The Leaf Library (who create “droney, two-chord pop that’s stuck halfway between the garage and the bedroom, all topped with lyrical love songs to buildings, stationery and the weather”) have just released their debut full-length album ‘Daylight Versions’. The record is full of wonderfully woozy, drone-pop tunes about meteorology, the seasons and the incoming sea; from songs about the ghostly Suffolk coastline to the slowly rising waters of London marshes.

Citizen Helene is a singer, songwriter and guitarist from London whose blend of sunshine pop, psychedelic folk and jazz has been described as ‘baroque and beautiful’ by Darian Sahanaja (of the Brian Wilson band) and ‘like the love child of Karen Carpenter and Brian Wilson’ by ‘Word’ magazine.”

Tags: Arctic Circle (promoter), Brixton Hill Studios (event/promoter), chamber ensemble, Charlotte Hatherley, Citizen Helene, Daylight Music (event), French Boutik, Graham Coxon, Jim Bishop, listening to women, London (England), Martin Creed, Ok Bertie!, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Experience Ensemble, orchestral music, Roger Doyle, Stephen Evens, Stuffy/The Fuses, The Hangover Lounge (event), The Leaf Library, The Scaramanga Six, The Wave Pictures, William D. Drake

January 2016 – upcoming gigs – new Daylight Music season begins with Strange Boy, Partikel and The Duke St Workshop; Brighton staves off the chill with The Bleeding Hearts Club Winter Escape

15 Jan

Here’s another adjustment to the gig schedule, since Daylight Music have just announced their first 2016 season with a day’s notice and I’ve just heard about something else down in Brighton. Quickly, then…

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Daylight Music 211 – Strange Boy, Partikel + The Duke St Workshop with Laurence R. Harvey + Ed Dowie
Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 16th January 2016, 12.00pm – free entry – more information

“Strangeness abounds at Daylight Music this week, with a splendidly unsettling start to the season. The Duke St Workshop are an electronic duo from Wigan making imaginary soundtracks, primarily to cold cases from the late 1960’s to the present time. Their new album, ‘Tales Of H.P. Lovecraft’ is a spoken-word collaboration with established horror actor and performance artist Laurence R. Harvey (of ‘Human Centipede’ fame).

Partikel are regarded as one of the most forward looking groups on the European jazz scene. Three London-based musicians, led by saxophonist Duncan Eagles, combine their various favourite musical elements to create a very particular sound of their own.

Rounding off the wondrous weirdness is Strange Boy, melding the beautiful songwriting of Kieran Brunt with the intricate soundscapes of Matt Huxley. Expect delicate melodic lines and crisp electronic textures wrapped up in soaring string arrangements.

Ed Dowie will also join us to pay tribute to David Jones on the 200 year old Henry Willis Organ.”

Daylight Music are justifiably proud of their cosy-meets-challenging gig rosters, and this upcoming season looks as if it will be no exception. From Daylight pilot Ben Eshmade – “the new season… includes music which ranges from electro-salsa to J-pop (and) brings you shows bound with even more ideas, surprises and themes, like our time travel special and a celebration of all things Cornish. The Hangover Lounge are returning, after their hugely successful shows in the past, and they’ll be taking over Daylight Music at the end of January for a special gig, including an album launch from The Wave Pictures. Another first this season will be a live set generated on an ipad app, thanks to the artist Ok Bertie!”

As usual, I’ll pass on previews of these gigs as they pop up, but if you want to read the schedule as it stands now, it’s here.

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Brighton’s Crayola Lectern are playing the Lewes Psychedelic Festival in March, and from following up on that for the previous post I also found out about this:

The Bleeding Hearts Club Winter Escape (presented by Bleeding Hearts Recordings)
Coachwerks, 19 Hollingdean Terrace, Brighton, BN1 7HB, England
Saturday 23rd January 2016, 3.00pm – more information

From Bleeding Hearts Recordings – “as we’re often sick of the winter by mid-January we decided to organise an indoors escape from the wintry grimness. This will be our third Saturday show at the Coachwerks but our first all-dayer. The show will be packed with music, poetry and performance art. Hopefully we’ll have time to organise food. Of course there is already a dangerously good bar run by Bartlebys Brewery in the venue. Entry incentive: £3.50 before 5.00pm (the acts on early will be amazing), £5 after 5.00pm (still a bonkers bargain). Get in touch if you’d like to help us out on the day.”

Although the Coachwerks Facebook page suggests that the venue’s permanently closed, I’ve been reliably informed that it’s open (Brighton anarchy). Confirmed to play at the Winter Escape are the aforemention Crayola Lectern and The Creaking Chair (both of whom specialise in a kind of kosmische-Anglica, complete with wit, smiles, drift and the occasional tearstreak); “sadcore/badcore/fadcore/dadcore” solo act Porridge Radio & The Cosmic Sadness; Xelis de Toro of electronic words/music/movement improvisers laboratoro); and The Trail Of Thomas Love (Shropshire-born songwriter and photographer Nathan Tromans, formerly of Mustard and John The Revelator, playing “slowgospelfolkrockcountrycore… reflective and intimate songs… small fragments of stories and ordinary myths of loneliness, misadventure, hope and redemption, of the journey and the coming home”). There are also various other acts whom I can’t find web pages for right now – singer-songwriter Daniel Searle, Hope In The Valley, TAiL, Dave Suit, Sophie Brown, Lisa Jayne, Ben Graham and Palmer’s Made of Sound.

Regarding those that I could track down, the usual tasters are below:

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More gig news next time, including those delayed previews for Of Arrowe Hill and Earl Zinger with the Emanative & Collocutor Duo; plus the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Daylight Music…

Tags: Arctic Circle (promoter), Ben Graham, Bleeding Hearts Recordings (record label), Brighton (England), Chris Anderson, Crayola Lectern, Daniel Searle, Dave Suit, Daylight Music (event), Ed Dowie, John The Revelator, laboratoro, Laurence R. Harvey, Lisa Jayne, London (England), Mustard, Nathan Tromans, Palmer's Made of Sound, Partikel, Porridge Radio & The Cosmic Sadness, Seadog, Sophie Brown, Strange Boy, The Creaking Chair, The Duke St Workshop, The Trail Of Thomas Love, Xelis de Toro

December 2015 – the last of the Christmas gigs, part 3 – a Yuletide math rock growler with Axes, Shitwife, Vasa and Wot Gorilla); Kavus Torabi rides with mummers in Deptford; and Café Oto sees in the New Year with Hieroglyphic Being

17 Dec

Back to the centre of London for some no-nonsense math rock, post-hardcore and brainwork with knuckles… and what could be more festive and seasonal than a band called Shitwife?

TINJR Xmas Party with Axes, Shitwife, Vasa & Wot Gorilla (This is Not Revolution Rock/Jebs Presents @ The Borderline, Orange Yard, off Manette Street, London, W1D 4JB, England, Saturday 19th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £8.50-£9.60 – information – tickets

“Absolutely buzzing for this show. Not only will this be the Xmas party for This Is Not Revolution Rock / Jebs Presents, it marks Del’s 30th birthday and 200th show as a promoter. So we’re really pushing the boat out and there might be some free mince pies. Please spread the word and let’s pack the venue out from start to finish for this, the last show we’re putting on in 2015!”

(They’re so carried away by the occasion that they didn’t really introduce the bands… or assumed that everyone reading would know them. I’m in a hurry, so here’s the one-line version.

Axes – brash and playful mathrockers with a Foo Fighter pop vigour.
Shitwife – astonishingly brutal drums/laptop/electronics juggernaut fusing rave, death metal, noise and post-hardcore. Side project of musicians in bands with equally tasteful names.
Vasa – noisy synesthesic post-rock package.
Wot Gorilla? – how to noodle away at prog-inspired math rock and not alienate people.

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Here’s Knifeworld’s frontman (and eccentric broadcaster, in every sense) heading over to Deptford to dig up something old for the end of the year…

Dear Boss: Kavus Torabi and others (The Bird’s Nest, 32 Church Street, Deptford, London, SE8 4RZ, England, Sunday 20th December 2015, 4.00pm) – free entry – information

It’s Chri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-istma-a-a-a-as! Join us as we are joined by avant-psych-rock multi-instrumentalist and all round Interesting Alternative guy Kavus Torabi (Knifeworld/Guapo)…(Mr. Steve Davis sadly can’t join us, as he’s gone skiing). And… come early to witness one of England’s strangest and most resilient midwinter traditions – ‘The Christmas Champions’ (a.k.a ‘The Mummers Play’). Our team of Jolly Boys and Guisers will offer up some seasonal shambols – preparing to entertain you with a short performance featuring William the Great, St George, Bull Slasher, The Doctor and old Beelzebub himself – with original music from James Larcombe (Stars in Battledress/North Sea Radio Orchestra). We’ll be doing it around 7-ish, I expect.

Boss. Wassail!

Beyond all of the throaty bombast I think that most of what’s beyond the mummery is DJ sets, although anyone who’s tuned in to Kavus on the Interesting Alternative Show will know that he can slap together some of the most extraordinarily eclectic sets you could ever hope to hear, featuring plenty of names you’d never heard, while telling cheerful lies about other cult artists who don’t actually exist. Fun to catch, in other words.

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On the subject of DJ sets, here’s one last one…

Café Oto NYE Party with Hieroglyphic Being 6-hour DJ set) (Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, UK, 31st December 2015, 10.00pm) – £20.00-£30.00 – information – tickets

We’re ecstatic to be welcoming in the New Year with Jamal Moss (a.k.a. Hieroglyphic Being), who will be flying in especially to Café Oto for a bumper 6 hour DJ set.

Jamal is one of the most unhinged and adventurous artists working in electronic music today; born in Chicago and raised in the heyday of the city’s house music scene, he has gone on to blur the lines between various forms of dance music, free jazz and industrial music, releasing countless singles and LPs, and even recently collaborating with the likes of Marshall Allen and Daniel Carter. His infamously unpredictable DJ sets have gardened considerable praise over the years, so we’re delighted to have him here for this very special occasion.

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And that’s it – although there’ll be a ramble through 2015 sometime between now and the end of January, and I may sneakily shuffle a few previously-incompleted posts back into the dates when I intended to publish them.

See you later.

Tags: Axes, Big Lad (Shitwife), Hieroglyphic Being, intriguingly mixed bags, James Larcombe, Kavus Torabi, London (England), Vasa, Wot Gorilla?

December 2015 – the last of the Christmas gigs, part 2 – in London, a Momentum Arts Xmas Fundraiser (with The Marzec Group, Mariela of Venus on the Radio, Maz O’Connor and Keith Burstein); a spill of art-punk-psych-rock bands and a shamisen at the Firstivus; and a Christmas Cabareilidh in Stoke Newington

17 Dec

Back in London, Momentum Arts are setting themselves going with a Christmas gig tomorrow. They’ve got roots in, and are closely associated with, the Jeremy Corbyn movement, so the politically averse/committed should expect speeches and some familiar political faces to be included in the package along with the music. You can find out exactly who’s speaking, and in some cases what about) by following the information link). Personally, I share quite a few of their sympathies; but here’s what they have to say:

Momentum Arts Xmas Fundraiser with The Marzec Group + Mariela of Venus on the Radio + Maz O’Connor + Keith Burstein + others (Momentum Arts @ POW/The Prince of Wales, 467-469 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8HH, England, Friday 18th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £6.00-£7.00 – information – tickets

Momentum Arts is an open network where creative people from all walks of life and lovers of the arts can unite through a shared passion for contemporary progressive, socially democratic politics. We are very proud of this and always aim (as far as possible) to create organising spaces which are safe for all. For this reason we’ll be operating on a zero tolerance policy for homophobia, racism, classism, transphobia and misogyny. We’re excited to present the first Momentum Arts event upstairs at the Prince Of Wales in Brixton! Get down to hear our excellent speakers, some inspiring music or just have a bit of a dance.

Performing:

The Marzec Group‘s appreciation for the club culture and electronic music genres brings back a reality to jazz; a grit long forgotten. Channelling these influences through a fresh and sophisticated combination of jazz, soul, blues and electronic music, their intense and improvisatory grooves are tailor made for the dancefloor.

Mariela is a girl of many hats; a musician and published author influenced by the likes of Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, Jack White, Sergio Moroder and many others. With longtime collaborator Anthony she formed Venus on the Radio, a band which after recording in Abbey Road studios, was featured in BBC Introducing.

Maz O’Connor is a gifted singer of traditional and self-penned songs. Influenced by the folk songwriters of the 1960s; Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Neil Young along with her literary leanings make for a varied and intriguing body of work.

Keith Burstein is a composer whose work includes controversial operas which have provoked much comment and indignation from the right-wing press for daring to question the political establishment. Most notable among these is ‘Manifest Destiny’ (co-written with Dic Edwards) which portrays would-be suicide bombers who renounce violence and trigger a peace movement across the world. Keith will be performing two songs on piano, with a guest singer.

DJs Dr Punkenstein and Calvin De Kline will also be playing sets.

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In Deptford, something a little more straightforwardly musical:

Firstivus (The Bird’s Nest, 32 Church Street, Deptford, London, SE8 4RZ, England, Friday 18th December to Sunday 20th December 2015, 5.00pm onwards) – free – information & tickets

Two Deptford gig-scene lynchpins, Sinema City and Tom Moody –join forces for this year’s Firstivus – “a fun-filled weekend that will likely proved to be just a little too rhythmically-challenging for the whole family.”

Friday 18th opens, appropriately, with First (about whom no-one seems to know anything), followed by a pair of noisy drum-and-guitar duos (Charles Hayward‘s Bass Drum project with his son Riley Hayward, then the more secretive No One You Know). The music continues with garage-grungers Black Plastic Cardiacs/Bungle/Zappa-inspired progressive punk tanglers The Display Team, Gong-esque jazz-rock collisionists Psychoyogi, and finally by Ted Milton’s veteran schizo-disco art-punks Blurt (who are informed by poetry and puppeteering as much as by rock and roll).

Saturday 19th sports another diverse roster – stoner rockers The Cortège, the ”post-punk/alt-pop/awkward friendliness” of Dead Arm, The All New Greatest Hits Band (in which event organiser Tom Moody fronts the rhythm section of The Display Team), an acoustic Japanese interlude with shamisen player Hibiki Ichikawa and Champagne Dub, a new teaming of established friends: polydiscipline drummer Max Hallett (of A Scandal In Bohemia/Super Best Friends’ Club) and bassist Ruth Goller (Acoustic Ladyland, Oriole, Bug Prentice, many others), who’ve previously worked together in the encym trio. The evening rounds off with Afrobeat-ing Leeds post-punk trio Azores and headliners Boss Terror (who bring “drone, punk, spaced-and-motorway funk” as well as “Cockney tropical surf”).

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To be honest, I’ve got little idea of what’s going to happen with this next one, especially since it’s at The Others – but all of the clues point to a fusion of music, theatre and audience, and what time of year is better for that?

The Christmas Cabareilidh (Troupe @ The Others, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London, N16 5SA, UK, Saturday 19th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.00 – information & tickets

A brand new night out that fuses the fabulous fun of cabaret with the gaiety of a good old fashioned ceilidh. Fresh from the success of our last sell-out event, Troupe presents another Christmas Cabareilidh that promises to be even more delightful than the evening’s portmanteau. You’re invited to sit under the glowing haze of fairy lights, as our hilarious cabaret performers fill you with festive cheer. Dance with giddy abandon to the live folk music of our Cabareildih band and fill your stomachs and hearts with mulled wine, minced pies and cheery Christmas carols. Join us at The Others for an evening of irreverent yuletide song and dance- because nothing says Christmas quite like a Cabareilidh!

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More shortly…

Tags: Abel Ganz, Azores, Bass Drum, Black Plastic, Blurt, Boss Terror, Champagne Dub, Dead Arm, First, Firstivus (event), Hibiki Ichikawa, intriguingly mixed bags, Keith Burstein, London (England), Maz O’Connor, No One You Know, Psychoyogi, The All New Greatest Hits Band, The Cortège, The Display Team, The Marzec Group, Venus On The Radio

December 2015 – the last of the Christmas gigs – a happy Glasgow progmas with Abel Ganz, Tiger Moth Tales and We Are Kin; Harry Merry, John Callaghan, Sealionwoman and Tropic of Xhao in Colchester

17 Dec

Rush, rush. Last gigs before I give it a rest for the year. Here’s the expected random peppering, that lack of a consistent aesthetic, and all the other things you either love me for or despair over. They’re still mostly London shows, but for this first post of three, Glasgow and Colchester are getting a look in.

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The Prog before Xmas: Abel Ganz + Tiger Moth Tales + We Are Kin (Saramago @ Centre for Contemporary Arts, 350 Sauchiehall Street, G2 3JD Glasgow, Scotland, Friday 18th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £13.00 – information here and here – tickets

I probably can’t get away with calling Abel Ganz “veteran neo-proggers”. Although they’ve had no shortage of line-up changes and lengthy hiatuses since forming in Glasgow back in 1980, in recent years they’ve become an almost entirely new band, with the last founder members finally stepping down a year or two ago in favour of new musicians. Not so unusual, perhaps; but oddly, Abel Ganz has thrived in these new circumstances: in 2015, they’ve enjoyed their most successful band year in three-and-a-half decades, and are in the mood to celebrate.

“We really wanted to end what has been a fantastic year for us with a special show in our own home town – and to help us celebrate we have invited along not one, but two of our very favourite bands to join us. Amazingly, they have both agreed! First of all, we are absolutely overjoyed to welcome along the man who is behind the brilliant Tiger Moth Tales: Peter Jones! Anyone who has not heard Pete’s albums ‘Cocoon’ and ‘Story Tellers’ is really missing out! The reaction to these astonishing works has been nothing less than ecstatic with many reviewers – quite rightly – hailing the man’s arrival on the prog scene as a major talent!

Secondly, we have been watching with great interest the growing roster of fantastic artists that have been gradually collected by perhaps the most important and influential independent prog record label around at the moment: Bad Elephant Music. Amongst their many stand-out releases in 2015, there is one in particular that we keep coming back to: ‘Pandora’, by young Manchester band We Are Kin. Rave reviews describe this fresh band’s atmospheric approach as music that “transcends genre and sound to become something timeless, original and new”. So – there you have it. We are really, really excited about this! Three bands on one Xmas party night. We are so pleased that Tiger Moth Tales and We Are Kin will join us on this special occasion, and we are very proud to be bringing them both to Scotland for their first shows north of the border.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkrQfuGvSi4

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Over in Colchester, one of the town’s leading alternative venues (and one of its more eccentric promoters) has something for you.

A Harry Merry Christmas with John Callaghan + Sealionwoman + Tropic of Xhao (Mother Popcorn @ The Waiting Room, The Old Bus Station, off Queen Street, Colchester, Essex CO1 2PQ, Saturday 19th December 2015, 7.00pm) – pay-what-you-like – information

Harry Merry returns to Colchester for the final Mother Popcorn gig of 2015. Last time he was here was a few years back (when what is now Tribal was still Molly Malones). If you were there then you know what went down. If you weren’t, don’t miss this opportunity to see a Rotterdam legend do his thing in Colchester! Harry has toured extensively with his good friend Ariel Pink (who covered his song ‘Stevie Storm’) and has shared the stage with R. Stevie Moore, Quintron & Miss Pussycat and Colchester Arts Centre regular (via the Faroe Islands) Goodiepal. Here’s what ‘The Weirdest Band In The World’ blog has to say about Harry:

“Harry Merry is a living underground legend from the Dutch harbor city of Rotterdam. Dressed up in a sailor’s tunic and styled with an iconic haircut, he is out there to flabbergast with his unique brand of entertainment. His favourite keyboard is subjected to his own wild arrangements, full of odd chord changes and a tone scale of its own. Add Harry Merry’s unique, heavily accented voice and your ears will witness a match made in weirdo heaven.”

In support is John Callaghan (“an unusual songwriter / performer of thoughtful and spiky electronica from Birmingham… king and fool of the Eccentronica Microscene”), who played for Ma Popcorn back in May and made such an impression on Colchester that he was invited back for the Free Festival in August.

Tropic of Xhao, that weird psychedelic drum ‘n’ bass lot from Essex’s only tropical island St. Xhao (and featuring Captain Mother Popcorn) will be playing as well. We invite you to come and do weird dances with us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b2hWZP8w6s

Really happy to say Sealionwoman have just been confirmed to complete the line-up and open the show! This will be their first Mother Popcorn but the third time I’ve seen them, and I already want to book them for more next year. Double bass and vocal, both at the top of their game in terms of musicianship, just an incredible force to watch and hear. They list their band influences as “gin, jazz and noise” which sums them up better than anything I could write.

As usual pay what you can afford. All the money goes to the bands so please give generously if you can.

(Just to add a little to the blurb on Sealionwoman: if you want to read my own live review of them from a few years ago – also featuring Liam Singer, Foxout! and a moonlighting Laura Moody – it’s here. And to add to the blurb on John Callaghan: while I’ve yet to make it to one of his shows, I know his music, we’ve conversed, and he’s one of the wisest men I’ve met but cunningly disguised as one of the silliest.)

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Back to London next time…

Tags: Abel Ganz, Colchester (England), Glasgow (Scotland), Harry Merry, intriguingly mixed bags, John Callaghan, Mother Popcorn (event), Sealionwoman, Tiger Moth Tales, Tropic Of Xhao, We Are Kin

December 2015 – some more musical Christmas parties, London – Memphis Industries’ Lost Christmas (with Dutch Uncles, The Go! Team, Menace Beach, Outfit, NZCA/Lines & slug); Gare Du Nord’s Arrivée/Départ II (a Viennese whirl with Martin Klein, Bon Bon Beast, Hefner escapees and many others)

10 Dec

Carrying on with the London Christmas gig previews – next week, there’s a pair of simultaneous double-evening multi-band events happening within a mile of each other. The first of these is the Memphis Industries shindig – “two nights of festive fun” from one of the smartest small British pop labels at work today, with six bands and a host of present giveaways including limited edition art prints.

Lost Christmas – A Memphis Industries Christmas Special with Dutch Uncles, Outfit and NZCA LINES, The Go! Team, Menace Beach and Slug (Oslo, 1A Amhurst Road, Hackney, London, E8 1LL, England, Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £16.50 for each night / £30 for both nights – information & tickets – more information

Monday night kicks things off with three of the label’s bands “art-rocking till they drop”. The striking prog-pop babble of Dutch Uncles headlines; doom-toned Liverpudlian tech-pop band Outfit play the middle set; and (following a brace of high-concept singles over the course of the year) one-man white-pop/R&B hybrid NZCA/Lines opens the show.

Tuesday promises “unparalleled noisy fun, and possibly sailor outfits”. Flipzoid Brighton pop crew The Go! Team headline, their lineup a little different from that of recent years but their magpie polymusical energies still intact. Leeds indie supergroup Menace Beach are in the middle; while reformed noiseniks and north-eastern eclecti-pop upsetters Slug open things up with a live band including Peter and David Brewis of Field Music.

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The second of the double-night events is the one run by Gare du Nord Records, a pair of concerts which have an almost familial feel, revolving around certain hub projects (Hefner, Death In Vegas), certain locations (Walthamstow, Canterbury, Vienna), certain other sympathetic labels (Fortuna Pop, Audio Antihero) and a smart, sometimes wordy aesthetic.

Arrivée/Départ II – Gare Du Nord Records 2-Night Revue (Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN, England, Monday 14th December & Tuesday 15th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 each night – information – tickets on the door

Both nights are revues – a long main set from each of the two special Austrian guests, bolstered by short mini-sets from the other bands. There’s a lot of personnel crossover. Expect the same faces to keep popping up, reshuffled.

The Monday gig’s main set comes from Martin Klein, the Viennese singer-songwriter whose piano songs albums of and witty, deadpan performances are making him a rising star in Austria and Germany, and whose questioning, sometimes undercut romanticism should translate across further borders. Among the short sets are appearances by two former Hefner members: their frontman and prime creative force Darren Hayman and their multi-instrumentalist Jack Hayter, both now established as significant and highly individual solo songwriters (and while Darren might be the better known of the two, don’t underestimate Jack – I was enchanted by a battered set he played at Union Chapel last year).

Other players on the Monday bill are Cockney surf-punks Pit Ponies, Allo Darlin’ guitarist Paul Rains (taking a solo step-out from his main band’s classic indie-pop styles) and the “prim and improper” antifolk punksters Lucy’s Diary. There are also two acts who specialise in the soft-and-sharp – Cambridge’s Alex Highton (whose folk-, pop- and jazz-smattered songs conceal quick jabs of wit beneath their light and luscious surfaces) and Vienna-via-Canterbury trio Rotifer (creators of pitch-perfect country-tinged indie pop songs, sallies and snarks, and who also serve as a kind of scattered house band since various members play in six of the acts on offer during the night).

The Tuesday gig’s Viennese treat headliner is Bon Bon Beast – two multi-instrumental singer/producers, one of them Austrian (Ernst Tiefenthaler) and the other Swiss (Eloui), filtering their diverse past experiences into a straightforward acoustic jolly. Among the support acts, former Weather Prophets/Ellis Island Sound man Pete Astor continues his low-key live renaissance, and former Death In Vegas guitarist Ian Button brings along one of the various lineups of his psych-dusted pop project Papernut Cambridge. Since many of the people who play in the band are appearing in (or as) other acts during the evening, it’ll have been an easy roundup: Papernut Cambridge backing singer Helene Bradley, for instance, is performing a solo set as Citizen Helene (showcasing the soulful delivery and wistful irony which places her somewhere between Mama Cass and Kirsty MacColl).

Also playing are baroque orchestral pop songwriter Ralegh Long (presumably detached from the small orchestra which tends to follow him around) and Emma Winston’s one-woman Deerful project (miniature synths and brittle stories). Two Kentish acts round out the evening: lo-fi Canterbury pop band Picturebox and Whitstable’s Alex Williams (whose swerving career so far has encompassed indie rock with Fleeting Things, folk music with New Old World and lo-fi outsider clatter-pop with The Psychotic Reaction, as well as the odd ABC cover).

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More Christmas gigs shortly, including some events elsewhere in Britain…

Tags: Alex Highton, Alex Williams, Camden Voices, Citizen Helene, Darren Hayman, David Brewis, Deerful, Dutch Uncles, Field Music, Gare du Nord Records (record label), Hefner, intriguingly mixed bags, Jack Hayter, Laish, London (England), Lucy's Diary, Martin Klein, Melting Hand, Memphis Industries (record label), Menace Beach, NZCA/Lines, Outfit, Papernut Cambridge, Paul Rains, Pete Astor, Peter Brewis, Picturebox, Pit Ponies, Ralegh Long, Rotifer, SLUG, The Bon Bon Beast, The Go! Team

December 2015 – some musical Christmas parties in London – Fire Records (with the Jazz Butcher Quartet); The Glass Child’s online Christmas show; Arctic Circle’s Santas in Space (with Camden Voices, Left with Pictures, Laish and Boy and a Balloon); Baba Yaga’s Hut (with Bad Guys, Melting Hand, Wren)

9 Dec

I’ve been posting mostly shout-outs for gigs this year, so I might just as well submit to becoming Santa’s little shill as regards this month’s sprouting of Christmas/Hannukah/seasonal parties. From the flood on my Facebook account to the rumours and snippets I hear, this is a selection of what’s on for the next week or so (just London this time, though I’ve got some gigs elsewhere ready for the follow-up…)

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Fire Records Xmas Party with The Jazz Butcher Quartet + very special guest + Fire Records DJs (Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN, England, Friday 11^th December 2015, 8.00pm) – free – information here and here

The first of several gigs in this post taking place at the Servant Jazz Quarters amongst the bottles, foxes and curios. Fire Records DJs will be playing from their typically wide-ranging hoard of music, and there’ll be two sets of live music. One guest is as-yet unnamed (it’s a surprise) and the other is the latest iteration of the three working decades of absurdist Northampton-based singer-songwriter Pat Fish as The Jazz Butcher.

The Jazz Butcher Quartet sees Pat take a sideways step away from the cunningly meandering rock’n’strum that he’s generally known for, and tease the ever-present jazziness out of his songs and into full focus via a collaboration with three dedicated jazz musicians The Jazz Butcher – drummer Steve Garofalo, trumpeter Simon Taylor and double bass player Steve New. The Steves and Pat were already old buddies from their time in the Northampton music scene, in particular due to their mutual work with the magnificently strange and wise alternative folk singer Tom Hall. The result’s a refreshed acoustic take on Jazz Butcher staples, wrapping itself round the old and new tunes and the playful wandering lyrics with utter flexibility.

The evening is absolutely free, apart from the drinks, but the Servant Jazz Quarters is a small place – so show up early if you want to be able to get in. Some footage of the JBQ is below.

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Swedish singer-songwriter Charlotte Eriksson, a.k.a. The Glass Child is hosting her own Christmas gig online. It sort of fits with her itinerant nature – having left her Gothenburg home at the age of eighteen, she built up both a label and a career while sofa-surfing through London, England and Berlin. You can’t fault the girl for thrift, for ambition and for investigating the art of the possible while living out of a suitcase. Playing a big interactive gig, but from nowhere in particular, certainly suits her style so far.

The Glass Child Christmas StageIt Show (online, Sunday 13th December 2015, 7.00pm CET) – pay-what-you-can – information & tickets

Charlotte’s own message:

Christmas, my children, is not a date. It’s a state of mind. December 13th is the day that Swedes celebrate “Lucia”, which basically means Swedish Christmas songs, gingerbread, tons and tons of candles, mulled wine (Swedish Glögg) and cosiness all around. Basically all of my favourite things!

Lucia is an ancient mythical figure with an abiding role as a bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters. The many Lucia songs all have the same theme: “The night treads heavily around yards and dwellings / In places unreached by sun, the shadows brood. / Into our dark house she comes, bearing lighted candles, / Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.” All Swedes know the standard Lucia song by heart, and everyone can sing it, in or out of tune. On the morning of Lucia Day, the radio plays some rather more expert renderings, by school choirs or the like. The Lucia celebrations also include ginger snaps and sweet, saffron-flavoured buns (lussekatter) shaped like curled-up cats and with raisin eyes. You eat them with glögg or coffee. (Do you guys understand why this is my favourite Swedish tradition?)

So I thought, what better way to celebrate this little Swedish Lucia day than with you! A cosy acoustic Christmas show with music, candles and maybe my first ever performance of a Swedish song. Like always: some new songs, some old songs, questions, chat and some insights behind my new album that I’m currently working on. Please join me for this evening show and we’ll create a memory worth remembering.

Some examples of Glass Child work so far are below.

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I’ve been covering Daylight Music gigs for several years now, but anyone who spends much time around those will know that parent organisation Arctic Circle spreads its activities a lot wider than those Saturday afternoons at Union Chapel – and in this case, a lot higher. Over to them:

‘Santas in Space’ featuring Camden Voices + Left With Pictures + Laish + boy and a balloon (Arctic Circle @ ArcelorMittal Orbit, 3 Thornton Street, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London, E20 2AD, UK, Wednesday 16th December 2015, 6.30pm) – £15.00 – information – tickets

We return to the most spectacular venue in London to bringing our unique brand of Fuzzy Feeling to the 376 feet high platform of the Arcelormittal Orbit. With the sparkling lights of London as a spectacular backdrop, watch as the sculpture becomes an astronomic live music space celebrating the Christmas season! Camden Voices will start the night off with their thirty-strong choir proclaiming yuletide glee followed by a series of the finest fuzziest musicians from our Daylight Music series – from the chamber indie of Left with Pictures to the luscious folk of Laish and the lo-fi pop of Alex Hall’s boy and a balloon. Finish the evening by wrapping your ear around a winter-warming set from DJ Ben Eshmade (Arctic Circle Radio/Chill) with a festive drink or cocktail in hand. Please note this event is for over-18s only.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os-LkECwlAA

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If that last one seems to be bordering on the twee for you, another ‘Misfit City’ regular event is offering something typically noisier and rucked-up around the edges:

Baba Yaga’s Hut Xmas Bash with Bad Guys, Melting Hand, Wren (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ Corsica Studios, 5 Elephant Lane, Newington, London, SE17 1LB, England, Wednesday 16^th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 – information – tickets

Again, over to them:

Come down to the Baba Yaga’s Hut Xmas party. Three very heavy acts for you, mulled wine. Xmas hats. Getting drunk, the usual. London’s best classic metal band Bad Guys headline; plus the first ever London show for new heavy-psych/improvising jam supergroup Melting Hand (featuring Gordon & Russell of Terminal Cheesecake, Mike Vest of Bong/Drunk in Hell etc etc and Tom Fug of Gum Takes Tooth); and a Baba Yaga’s debut for London post-metal/sludge four piece Wren.

To be continued…

Tags: Alex Highton, Arctic Circle (promoter), Baba Yaga’s Hut (event/promoter), Bad Guys, boy and a balloon, Camden Voices, Fire Records (record label), intriguingly mixed bags, Laish, Left With Pictures, London (England), Melting Hand, Paul Rains, StageIt (online venue), The Glass Child, The Jazz Butcher, Wren

December 2015 – upcoming gigs, London & elsewhere – a Lost Map afternoon at Daylight Music with The Pictish Trail, Seamus Fogarty, Tuff Love and Kid Canaveral; Thumpermonkey, The Mayors of Miyazaki and Lolita Laytex hit The Albany in Deptford; and Rocket from the Tombs in London and Leeds

7 Dec

On Saturday this week, there’s what looks like a particularly engaging Daylight Music afternoon, with the return of a familiar face…

Daylight Music 210 – The Pictish Trail + artists from the Lost Map label: Seamus Fogarty + Tuff Love + Kid Canaveral (Union Chapel, Saturday 12th November 2015, 12.00pm) – free (suggested donation £5.00) – information

Wrapping up this season of Daylight Music are Lost Map; a loose-knit DIY label/collective from the Hebrides founded by alt-folk troubadour, Johnny Lynch, a.k.a. The Pictish Trail. For this special Christmas show, Johnny will be ice-skating back to the mainland, bringing a selection box of pals from his Lost Map roster, for a cosy festive afternoon of stripped back acoustic merriment, frost-bitten Casio hymns, and mulled-tea fuelled carols.

While The Pictish Trail often comes across on record as an eerie digifolk creation (like a Scottish oil-town-and-fishing-port David Lynch, with that surreal supernatural undertow suffused by Gaelic angst rather than Americana), anyone who’s caught one of the live acoustic shows will know that Johnny has an altogether more joyous side as unplugged strummer. Many of his tales may be based on shyness, grief and confusion, but I’ve seen few people who take such unalloyed pleasure in warming up and including an audience the way he does. For a reminder of this, have a read of my review of his last Daylight Music appearance back in January… and see below.

Mayo-born but London-based, Seamus Fogarty plays and sings his own soulful version of contemporary Irish folk, dabbled with electronic found sound. His output’s been described as “songs about mountains that steal T-shirts, women who look like dinosaurs and various other unfortunate incidents” and as “summoning all manner of odd noises and audio ghosts”. Taken from his current album ‘God Damn You Mountain’, here’s Rita Jack’s Lament, which showcases all of his various tendencies to the maximum.

Glaswegian fuzzy-pop duo Tuff Love represent Lost Map’s more-out-and-out indie rock side, although their cottage-industry approach (recording and producing everything at home themselves rather than chasing studios and jaded professional engineers) reflects the label’s d-i-y philosophy. Julie Eisenstein and Suse Bear (augmented for concerts by Phantom Band drummer Iain Stewart deliver “dazzling, sun-streaked guitar pop songs with mesmerising lyrics, heart-wrenching vocals and dreamy melodies like the sound of pure summer.” Over a scant few years of existence, they’ve already supported Paulo Nutini and Ride and played several overflowing handfuls of rock festivals.

‘Resort’ – a not-quite-debut album pulling together the three EPs that Tuff Love have put out so far – is out in January, but meanwhile here’s what will either be a reminder of their existing delights or an introduction to their world: somewhat shoegaze-y but with mischievous glimpses up through the eyelashes.

Edinburgh four-piece Kid Canaveral (whom Lost Map described as “ADHD pop splendour”) met at university in St Andrews and have been playing together ever since. Imaginative alternative pop, they manage to recall the early-‘80s cleverness of Postcard Records pop or the ramshackle poignancy of Belle & Sebastian without actually sounding much like either. It’s more a matter of spirit, a discreet but inclusive sophistication which reaches out, brushes your arm and invites you along. Two albums in, with a third in preparation, they’re a delightful discovery whenever you happen to encounter them. Their clever videos are a treat, too – here are a couple of tastes below, the first of which had my four-year-old son continually tapping the replay button.

(For anyone who wants a more substantial dose of Kid Canaveral, note that they’re playing a full set at the Shacklewell Arms on the evening of the same day.)

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On the Saturday evening, you’ve got your pick of twisty London art-rock and revived mid-Western proto-punk…

Thumpermonkey + Mayors Of Miyazaki + Lolita Laytex (Something’s Gonna Happen @ The Albany, Douglas Way, Deptford, London, SE8 4AG, England, Saturday 12^th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £3.00-£5.00 – information – tickets on the door

Welcome back everybody: and once again we have two superb outfits centre stage, Thumpermonkey (heavy progressive music) and Mayors of Miyazaki (DIY three-piece based in south London, guaranteed to spit and sweat on us at close quarters). The lovely Lolita Laytex will be joining us to add the flavour of burlesque. Yes, people of the universe, with all those ingredients in store, you know the score: £3.00 concessions and a fiver on the door. Bring ya skin!

I’ve said quite a bit about Thumpermonkey over the course of the year. Grand, clever and atmospheric, they also have enough sly, self-aware wit and humour to undercut all of the previous. They’re also tricky to pigeonhole – a band who create intricate catastrophe epics (part Radiohead, part Van der Graff Generator) but also trill the occasional Mastodon cover in the style of early Kate Bush; a prog band with a singer who sounds like an old-time theatrical knight, but also a noise band who happen to wrap their wildness into tightly-composed structures; geeky popcorn information omnivores drawing from Alejandro Jodorowsky to H. P. Lovecraft to William Gibson, but salting it with Noam Chomsky and science magazines before whipping it up into artful tornados of song. This little sample here is both characteristic and unique within what Thumpermonkey do, which in itself probably tells you all you need to know.

I don’t think Mayors of Miyazaki have been in here before, but they should have been. In their way, their music’s as grand and complex as that of Thumpermonkey and even more enthused by its options. It’s punk with all the chains blown off, joyriding math-rock, de-Ritalined bratprog. A typical song sounds like both chase sequence and protracted explosion: spiky, switch-and-swap assemblages of guitar parts doubling back through alleys and charging halfway up walls, over which sibling team Gareth and Claire Thomas declaim a punky boy-girl barkathon, a speaky-drawl of sparking thoughts. Fugazi and The Fall both might be in there, though you could also pull Bis and long-lost ‘90s psych tanglers The Monsoon Bassoon out of the root cluster.

I don’t know much about Lolita Laytex except that she’s a fetish model as well as an alternative burlesque performer and fetish model. Not much information about a third-stream digression into music: so perhaps you should expect something sensual and mobile, which squeaks a little when it flexes. (UPDATE, 10th December – Well, that’s that laboured gag wasted. Lolita’s off the bill, replaced by Deptford punk-poppers The Kill Raimi’s. Some video evidence below…

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Rocket from the Tombs + Luminous Bodies (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ The Brewhouse, @ London Fields Brewery, 369-370 Helmsley Place, South Hackney, London, E8 3SB, England, Saturday 12^th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £19.25 – information – tickets

Rocket from the Tombs (Brudenell Social Club, 17 Brudenell Road, Leeds, LS6 1HA, England, Sunday 13^th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £17.60 – information – tickets

In their initial lifetime Rocket from the Tombs never got past a series of scorching mid-‘70s gigs in their Cleveland hometown, plus a handful of demos and radio sessions; yet they have long been counted as proto-punk ancestors, kicking up a frumious Velvets-and-Stooges racket long before every other garage band was doing it.

These days, onstage rock rage is quotidian; when Rocket from the Tombs brought it to the gig, it was a revelation. Following a headstrong and punchy split, they even spawned several other key bands. Main ranter David Thomas, doomed-and-driven guitarist Peter Laughner and soundman-turned-bass-player Tim Wright would create the first lineup of Pere Ubu. Second guitarist Cheetah Chrome and drummer Johnny Blitz hooked up with Stiv Bators and others to form the hardcore punk pioneers Dead Boys. The rest was bootlegs and rumbling mythology. Rocket from the Tombs became one of the ur-bands; a surviving impression holding its ghostly mark but pushing onwards, providing inspiration above and beyond its initial ideals.

By the accounts of the ex-members, being in the band was a short, brutal and vivid experience; but it seems that there may also have been an unspoken, slow-burning sense of unfinished business. Twenty-eight years later, in their grizzled early fifties, and with plenty of other experience clocked up, most of the surviving band members (minus the retired Blitz and the long-dead Laughner) reunited for piss-and-vinegar-fuelled gigs, a long-delayed debut album and an actual afterlife. Although Laughner’s initial replacement (ex-Television guitar star Richard Lloyd), left in 2011 and a tour-burned Cheetah Chrome is now opting to sit out the live gigs, Rocket from the Tombs are still going – very much the garage end of Cleveland’s infamous avant-garage, making the most of this ornery self-driven second shot while bleeding in lessons learned from Pere Ubu and elsewhere.

The band have never played in Britain before, something which is being remedied with these two gigs in Leeds and London. In an interview with ‘The Guardian’ earlier this year, a currently chair-bound David Thomas growled “I’m approaching the end of my life, I’ve got my foot to the floor and I’m going to be going full speed ahead when I hit the wall.” It’s probably worth your while coming to one of these shows to check out his main accelerant.

There’ll be no support band at the Leeds gig, but in London things will be warmed up by Luminous Bodies, a “knuckle-dragging rock & roll” supergroup stealing members from Part Chimp, Terminal Cheesecake, Ikara Colt and others. See below.

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More coming shortly with the remaining December gigs and the seasonal parties… keep warm…

Tags: Arctic Circle (promoter), David Thomas, Daylight Music (event), Kid Canaveral, Leeds (England), London (England), Luminous Bodies, multi-instrumentalists, Pere Ubu, Rocket From The Tombs, Seamus Fogarty, Something's Gonna Happen (event), The Kill Raimi's, The Mayors Of Miyazaki, The Pictish Trail, Thumpermonkey, Tuff Love

December 2015 – upcoming gigs, London & elsewhere – the return of Mark Mulholland and Craig Ward in a Scottish village hall; Serafina Steer & Bas Jan at Kings Place; Olga Stezhko in a Staffordshire chapel; and assorted Others cabaret from punk to accordiana with The Bohemianauts and Bad Fractals

6 Dec

The end of the month, and the year, is nigh – so what are we looking forward to this week?

Mark Mulholland, Craig Ward, Yacouba Sissoko & Hannes D’Hoine (Ford Village Hall, Ford, Argyll, Scotland, Tuesday 8^th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 minimum – information – tickets on the door

Back in 2012, two wandering Scottish singer-songwriter-guitarists – Mark Mulholland (ex-Two Dollar Bash) and onetime dEUS member Craig Ward – quietly released one of the finest records of the year. A compelling murmur of acoustic guitar folk, ‘Waiting for the Storm’ was soaked in the Scottish and British folk-baroque of Davey Graham, Pentangle and John Martyn but, in its settings of moist heat, tin roofs, typhoons and dark forces, it was also informed by the Haitian setting of Port-au-Prince, Mark’s home for the previous two years. Some of you may remember that I liked it.

With Mark now relocated to Mali and Craig settled in the little Argyll village of Ford, the duo are collaborating on a follow-up (provisionally called ‘The Darkness Between the Leaves’) on which they’ll be joined by Flemish double bass player Hannes D’Hoine – who played the Danny Thompson anchor-cable role on ‘Waiting for the Storm’ – and by Mark’s newest collaborator, the Malian djely and multi-instrumentalist Yacouba Sissoko, a master kora and ngoni player. The quartet have been preparing and recording in a number of different countries, and the end of the Scottish sessions will be marked by a Ford performance both taking place in and raising funds for Ford Village Hall, with prices set on a pay-what-you-like basis starting from five pounds.

In its quiet way this should be one of the gigs of the year, so if you’re in western Scotland and have a free Tuesday evening, consider heading over to Ford (at the south-western end of Loch Awe, north-west of Glasgow, with the nearest substantial town being Kilmartin.) If you miss this one, they’re playing again in Glasgow at 7.00pm on Wednesday 9th; a low-key gig at the Hidden Lane Gallery in Finnieston.

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After that – for me – the week doesn’t pick up until a very busy Friday and weekend. Too subjective, probably. Here we go, anyway.

Serafina Steer & Bas Jan (Hall Two @ (Kings Place, 90 York Way, Kings Cross, London, N1 9AG, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £9.50-£12.50 – information & tickets

The hitherto independent worlds of contemporary harp music and experimental kraut-pop will collide – or at least bump each other – in this concert of two halves by harpist/songwriter Serafina Steer and her new band Bas Jan.

After a few years of mainly only using the harp for her own writings, Serafina went on a roadtrip around Eastern Europe busking, discovering and rediscovering pieces along the way. The result of this experience will form the first half of the programme, which will feature compositions by Richard Barratt (‘tendril’), Benjamin Britten (‘Suite for Harp’), Stephen Dodgson (‘Fantasy’), Rhodri Davies (‘Aqcua Alta’) and Serafina’s own father Michael Maxwell Steer (‘Grovelly Wood’)

The second half of the show will be a performance by Bas Jan, Serafina’s latest collaborative project in which she plays bass guitar and keyboards and writes minimally arranged songs about the Essex coast, the Anglo-Saxons, sex, part-time work and love; with sound artist Sarah Anderson playing violin and OP1 mini-synthesizer and performance visual artist Jenny Moore playing drums (all three women also sing). Bas Jan’s first gig was to six thousand people at Brixton Academy and since then they have gone on – via support slots for Xylouris White and The Decemberists – to entertain smaller and smaller audiences.

On the same night, one of ‘Misfit City’s favourite classical musicians is spreading her own particular musical gospel up in Staffordshire:

Olga Stezhko (Abbotsholme Arts Society @ Abbotsholme School Chapel, Rocester, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, ST14 5BS, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – information – limited number of tickets available, phone 01543 263 304 for details

Following up her recent debut performances at both the Wigmore and Bridgewater Halls (at which she performed full or partial versions of her ‘Lucid Dreams‘ assemblage, a programme of music exploring people’s changing perception of reality from childhood through to adulthood), classical pianist and multi-disciplinary thinker Olga Stezhko is bringing her sophisticated, metaphysical perspective and repertoire to the audience at Abbotsholme.

On this occasion, her choice of music is a little more conventional (leaning on well-established favourites by Mozart, Bach and Prokofiev rather then stretching to the Sophia Gubaidulina pieces she was playing last month). However, there’s still room in the programme for work by one of her compositional touchstones, Alexandr Scriabin; and you can be assured that whichever pieces Olga plays will have been carefully thought out and put into context as part of a programme intended to inspire thought and broader conceptual connections as well as straightforward musical enjoyment.

Programme:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Sonata in B flat major, K.570
Johannes Brahms – Six Pieces, Op.118
Alexandr Scriabin – Two Dances Op.73; Five Preludes Op.74; Vers la flamme Op.72,
John Adams – China Gates
Sergei Prokofiev – Sonata no.4 in C minor, Op.29

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Back in London, meanwhile, there’s cabaret afoot, plus breathless press releases.

The Bohemianauts + Bad Fractals (Bohemiocracy @ The Others, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London, N16 5SA, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.00-£10.00 – information & tickets here and here

An epic face-off between two amazing, unique and bizarre bands.

Bad Fractals are shaman gangsters shooting bullets of love, tearing their way through acid punk, malevolent music hall and trailer-trash blues in a world gone mad. Join us at the crossroads, in a theatre of the absurd: hear story and song shift with the wild wonder of fractals! Watch psychedelic punks get drunk with clown kings! Glare at artificial angels dancing with deadbeat demons! Gasp as astral travellers gather in galactic taverns!

The Bohemianauts are decadent divas of demi-monde carnivalism, playing weird waltzes, pithy polkas and rollicking rhumbas: they will take you on a theatrical musical journey through strange landscapes with absurd humour, exquisite noise and songs of unrequited dread. Tonight they will unleash their female alter-egos, as they parade in their geezer-bird finery, performing for your pleasure as the rarely-seen Bohemianauts – Drag-ed on Stage. (Trigger warning: Bearded Drag.)

PLUS – Visuals and projections from Jaime Rory Lucy‘s Rucksack Cinema and half-time performance interventions from Oleg the Mystic.

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More shortly…

Tags: Alexandr Scriabin, Bad Fractals, Bas Jan, Benjamin Britten, Craig Ward, dEUS, Finnieston (Argyll - Scotland), Ford (Argyll - Scotland), Jenny Moore, Johannes Brahms, John Adams, listening to women, Mark Mulholland, Michael Maxwell Steer, multi-instrumentalists, Oleg the Mystic, Olga Stezhko, piano music, Rhodri Davies, Richard Barratt, Rucksack Cinema, Sarah Anderson, Serafina Steer, Sergei Prokofiev, Stephen Dodgson, The Bohemianauts, Uttoxer (England), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Yacouba Sissoko

December 2015 – upcoming gigs, London and elsewhere – some Sunday jazz (Chris Laurence Quartet with Henry Lowther in Crouch End and LUME’s Deemer/Survival Skills show at the Vortex); Ray Dickaty’s Noise Of Wings in Warsaw; and a final Yorkshire shout from Was Is Das? (Skullflower + Tor Invocation Band at Inkfolk in Hebden Bridge)

1 Dec

Increasingly, Sunday night in these listings seems to be the night for jazz – or near-jazz. Something accessible’s going on in Crouch End, just down the road from ‘Misfit City’; something spikier’s in preparation at the Vortex over in Dalston; and a thousand miles away in Warsaw, an old favourite’s taking a new step.

In order of proximity, then..

The Chris Laurence Quartet with guest Henry Lowther (Sunday Night Jazz @ The Supper Room, Hornsey Town Hall Arts Centre, The Broadway, Crouch End, London, N8 9JJ, UK, Sunday 6^th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £11.00 – information – tickets

For several decades, Chris Laurence has skilfully straddled the worlds of British jazz, British classical and British popular music without compromising his artistry in any of them. He’s played double bass on tracks by Elton John, Sting or David Gilmour and spent many years as principal double bassist with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the London Bach Orchestra; but the prime outlet for his melodic, propulsive playing has always been jazz, whether he’s been working in controlled explosions with free-jazz drummer Tony Oxley or in more measured compositional jazz space with Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor or John Surman.

His own Chris Laurence Quartet has been active since the mid-2000s, with the other three members being vibraphonist Frank Ricotti (a longtime Laurence collaborator and bandleader in his own right, as well as being a British percussion-session legend) and past/present Loose Tubes players John Parricelli (guitar) and Martin France (drums). Their lone album to date – 2007’s ‘New View’ – includes Laurencian takes on compositions by Wheeler, Surman, Taylor, Stan Sulzmann, Joni Mitchell and Andy Laverne. As well as featuring guest appearances from Norma Winstone, it also showcases the interplay of Chris’ vigorous bass playing and the subtle implicatory musicianship of his cohorts.

For this particular concert, Henry Lowther (whose five-decades-plus career of playing has seen him grace work by Mike Westerbrook, Gil Evans, Talk Talk, John Dankworth and many others including various jazz orchestras) will be guesting on trumpet. The Quartet is playing as part of a brief Three Sundays of Inspirational Music season at Hornsey Town Hall, which concludes on the 6th and features various jazz, baroque and classical performances.

Deemer + Survival Skills (LUME @ The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, UK, Sunday 6^th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £11.00 – information – tickets

The next concert’s billed as “a special evening of improvised music with electronics” and hangs onto whatever jazziness it has by its fingertips alone: but if you’re interested in creative spontaneous music, don’t let that put you off in the slightest.

Deemer is the brain-child of Merijn Royaards and Dee Byrne. Deemer started life in 2006 as a weekly improvisation/electronics session in a warehouse in Hackney Wick. The project has since evolved into an installation/performance based electro-acoustic two-piece orchestra, whose aural narratives are created within fluid frameworks that map a trajectory in time, but leave the sonic textures and compositions entirely free and undetermined. Deemer employ, among other things, alto saxophone, analogue electronics, tape, transducer microphones/speakers to instantly compose, activate space, and blur the boundaries between free jazz and sound installation. They are releasing their debut album ‘Interference Patterns’ on Monday 7th December on the new LUME record label, Luminous.

Survival Skills is the solo project of Chris Sharkey (trioVD, Acoustic Ladyland, Shiver). It has no fixed instrumentation but the music is often comprised of various processed layers created in real time by hardware including synths, sequencers, cassette recordings, vocals and guitar – the results have been described as “a lo-fi vision of mangled techno, where beats cluster and stumble in their fight for dominance; a highly intriguing piece of noise art…” (‘Data Transmission‘).

Noise of Wings (Staromiejski Dom Kultury, Rynek Starego Miasta 2, 00-272 Warsaw, Poland, Sunday 6th December 2015, 7.00pm) – 20 zł – information – tickets on the door, one hour before concert

Saxophonist Ray Dickaty has travelled a long way in twenty-odd years – both geographically (Liverpool and London, via assorted world tours, to Warsaw) and musically (British avant/alt-rock with Spiritualized, Moonshake and Gallon Drunk, then the brutal jazzpunk of Solar Fire Trio, and his current work as an improviser). Now embedded deep in experimental jazz (plus a host of projects around the Warszawa Improvisers Orchestra) he’s stepping out as a frontline composer. For Noise Of Wings, Ray twins his tenor sax with that of Maciej Rodakowski, adding avant-garde double bass player Wojtek Traczyk and polygenre drummer Hubert Zemler to form a quartet playing “inside and outside” Ray’s own written pieces.

Though the project’s influences and ingredients come from Terry Riley, Ornette Coleman, “mediaeval darkness”, drone culture and Albert Ayler free-forming, Ray claims that the final results“are not free jazz blowout music; this is a carefully considered sonic palette… It may be considered dark ambient jazz, with a hint of contemporary classical: melodic and yet full of interesting twists and turns… The saxes are pushed to their limits sonically and all the time the volume is kept down.” The project is still too young for me to be able to provide any sonic evidence, but this December gig at Warsaw’s Staromiejski Dom Kultury is being pitched as “a very special concert in a very special sounding room” and will be recorded live for rapid release.

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Bringing up that last Warsaw gig reminds me that I’ve been trying to look further afield than London for news on interesting concerts, in attempts to escape the complacent gravity of the capital and my own complacence as a born-and-bred Londoner. The results can be rewarding, and although I don’t want to spend all my time as a gig-advertising service, there’s definitely some satisfaction involved in supporting people’s efforts to foster and promote interesting music away from the biggest cities and media hubs. The flipside, though, is an occasional feeling that I’ve started doing this too late.

Take this Was Ist Das? concert, for instance – the latest effort by an enthusiastic promoter and instigator of rare noise in West Yorkshire, but also the final effort. The story might not have quite such a sad ending – this thing’s coming to an end not due to disillusionment but because of the promoter emigrating – but it’s still a shame to see a gig series wink out of existence in a place where it will be missed. All the more reason to catch this particular concert before the end…

Skullflower + Tor Invocation Band (Was Ist Das? @ Inkfolk @ Machpelah Mill, Station Road, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8AU, UK, Sunday 6th December 2015, 8.00pm) – price t.b.c – information – tickets on the door

The final Was Ist Das? gig before I emigrate to America and there’s only one way to go out….with a bang.

Formed in 1987, Skullflower emerged from the Broken Flag noise scene but with a sound far more guitar-driven than most of their peers. Their intense sonic assaults have been influential on such bands as Bardo Pond and Godflesh. Band leader Matthew Bower has worked with many of the leading lights of the UK underground such as Vibracathedral Orchestra, Richard Youngs, Ramleh and Colin Potter.

Tor Invocation Band is a nebulous, international unit of seasoned improvisers. As given to the light as to the dark, their exploration of space, sound, noise and sacred spaces. The exact line-up is yet to be completely confirmed but if it is what I hear it is… Well, don’t turn up late. It seems like the perfect way to end it all, with our ears ringing!

Further information – this gig’s part of the Inkfolk December gathering, sprawling from 3rd 6th December. I think that the Tor Invocation Band may have something to do with the group of improvising musicians associated with Tor Press (who run various psychedelic.drone.folk.metal.noise Tor Bookings events in Todmorden Unitarian Church a few miles from Hebden Bridge, but I can’t be sure. Meanwhile, Skullflower have the following comment on the whole affair – “On the Sixth of December we will descend on Hebden Bridge to evoke the Dakshini Force and build altars of Set/Guedhe in the Werewolf Universe with that shadow stuff that their bible calls ‘the Darkness of Aegypt’. Driving over the moors to the Calder Valley, I have seen, the world cloaked in mist below me, and only a few plateaus, like islands, left, as if the world were drowned, cleansed.” With the minimum of tweaking, that’s the band’s Christmas card written too.

Glib jokes apart, publicizing this last gig has made me feel both sad and inspired. I’m increasingly feeling that this kind of concert (not in terms of genre, but in terms of hope and pluck – small and hopeful endeavours) is what I should be plugging more. So – best of luck to the mysterious Was Is Das person as he sets up again in America, and an open and obvious invitation to everyone else: if any of you are reading this and trying to run small, committed gigs of interesting music somewhere, please get in touch.

Tags: Acoustic Ladyland, Alpenglow, Causings, Chris Laurence, Chris Sharkey, Dee Byrne, Deemer, Elori Kramer, Ethan Woods, Frank Ricotti, Gallon Drunk, Harry Strange, Heart Of Saturday Night (event), Hebden Bridge (England), Henry Lowther, Hubert Zemler, Ian East, Inkfolk (event), Inspiral Trio, Jesse R. Berlin, Jesse Rifkin, John Parricelli, Jonny Moped, Liam Byrne, London (England), Loose Tubes, Maciej Rodakowski, Matthew Bower, Merijn Royaards, Moonshake, Noise With Wings, Ray Dickaty, Rokenri, Sandy Gordon, Shiver, Silent Isle, Skullflower, Solar Fire Trio, Spiritualized, Sumerian Kyngs, Survival Skills, The Chris Laurence Quartet, The Real Music Club (event/promoter), Toebow, Tom Montagliano, Tor Invocation Band, Uni Ika Ai, viol music, Warszawa Improvisers Orchestra, Was Is Das? (event/promoter), Wojtek Traczyk

December 2015 – upcoming gigs, London and elsewhere – classical/folk/songwriter fusion with James McVinnie, Mara Carlyle, Liam Byrne and HART at Daylight Music; an experimental boilup at St Johns Hackney with Faust/Nurse with Wound/Cut Hands; plus Tom Slatter’s steampunk prog acoustica in Winchester, and a Gong spinoff in Brighton (with Dave Sturt, Kavus Torabi & Ian East)

1 Dec

There were too many gigs this week to fit into the last post – go back there for details on assorted chamber music, folk, sample pop and the Anawan gigs in New York (one of which spills over into the weekend). For my usual erratic pick of what’s on over this coming weekend, keep reading.

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Daylight Music 209 – James McVinnie, Mara Carlyle, Liam Byrne + HART (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, UK,12.00pm) – free (suggested donation £5.00) – information

World famous organist James McVinnie makes the perfect partner for the Union Chapel’s 200-year-old Henry Willis organ. In the spirit of Christmas, James has invited his closest musical chums to share the stage with him: Mara Carlyle, Liam Byrne and HART. Together, they’ll be presenting some of their own music and doing arrangements of hidden gems and forgotten carols.

Organist James McVinnie was Assistant Organist at Westminster Abbey between 2008 and 2011 (playing for both regular and special services as well as directing the Abbey’s world-famous choir) and has held similar positions at St Paul’s and St Albans Cathedral. He appears on numerous recordings of vocal and choral music and, as a continuo player, he has appeared at most European early music festivals. In parallel to this, he is internationally renowned both as a soloist and a collaborator in new music whose boundless approach to music has lead him to collaborations with some of the world’s leading composers and performers. David Lang (winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in music), Martin Creed (winner of the 2001 Turner Prize), Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Pee Wee Ellis, Max de Wardener, Mara Carlyle and Bryce Dessner (The National) have all written works for him. He is a member of Bedroom Community, the Icelandic record label and close-knit collective comprising like-minded, yet diverse musicians from different corners of the globe. ‘Cycles’, his debut release of music written for him by Nico Muhly was released on this label in 2013 to widespread critical acclaim. 2016 will see releases of music for organ by J S Bach and Philip Glass.

Originally from Shropshire and now living in London, Mara Carlyle is a singer-songwriter, an arranger and electronic orchestrator, and a player of both ukelele and musical saw. The child of musical parents (with whom she played in assorted folk projects from childhood) and the product of classical training, she’s also the possessor of an eclectic taste as much enthused by A-Ha and Amerie as by Henry Purcell.Initially known as a guest singer on a succession of Plaid albums between 1997 and 2001, she released her first solo album in 2004. Mara’s own work blends her operatic voice with classical structures, torch jazz and electronic flourishes. In addition to her own original material, she specialises in interpretations and adaptations from the classical, baroque, Romantic and modern-classical canon including works by Handel, Purcell (Dido’s Lament), Robert Schumann (whose Ich Grolle Nicht was the basis of her single I Blame You Not), Walford Davies and Jacques Offenbach. Since 2014 she’s been part of the presenting team on Late Junction. Mara is currently in the process of recording her third album.

Liam Byrne divides his time between playing very old and very new music on the viol. With the firm belief that baroque music can be vibrant and expressive on its own terms, Liam’s solo work regularly explores lesser known corners of the 16th and 17th century repertoire. For several years he was a member of Fretwork, and has also toured and recorded with the Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen, Le Concert d’Astrée, i Fagiolini, Concerto Caledonia, and the viol consorts Phantasm and Concordia, among many others. Liam’s interpretative curiosity has also led him to work increasingly with living composers, and he has had new solo works written for him by Edmund Finnis, Nico Muhly, Valgeir Sigurðsson and others. Beyond the realm of classical music, he has worked with a wide variety of artists including Nils Frahm, Matthew Herbert, Martin Parker and The Hidden Cameras. He has played a significant musical role in the creation of several large-scale operatic works: Damon Albarn’s ‘Dr Dee’, Shara Worden’s ‘You Us We All’ , and Valgeir Sigurðsson’s ‘Wide Slumber’ . In 2015 he will undertake a new project with Belgian ensemble Baroque Orchestration X and Icelandic musician Mugison. Liam plays a 7-string bass viol by John Pringle, a 6-string bass by Marc Soubeyran, and a treble viol by Dietrich Kessler, which is graciously on loan from Marc Soubeyran.

Described as possessing “one of the most noteworthy male voices of the last twenty years,” (‘For Folk’s Sake‘), singer/songwriter Daniel Pattison trades under the project name of HART. Featuring elements of dream-pop, folk, avant-garde psychedelic rock, electronica and contemporary classical songcraft, his debut EP ‘Songs Of The Summer’ (featuring string arrangements from Nico Muhly) was released in October this year).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XTHrNpLsPk

Playing in-between on this weeks festive edition will be singer songwriter Harry Strange, a singer-songwriter from London currently working on his first EP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh4QI2necOg

* * * * * * * *

If all of that sounds too genteel, the same evening brings this triple-legend concert of experimental and industrial music heroes (also in a church). Putting this one on is a real point of pride for the organisers, who describe it as “a dream line up for us as we are all very heavily influenced by each of these artists. It will be an amazing show and the last one of 2015 from us.” I’ve just seen that tickets for the concert are selling out even as I post this – so move fast.

Faust/Nurse With Wound/Cut Hands (St John Sessions & Thirtythree Thirtythree @ St John at Hackney Church, Lower Clapton Road, Clapton, London, E5 0PD, UK, Saturday 5th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £18.15 – information – tickets

Roadmaking equipment onstage, self-invented instruments, performers who refuse to conform even to standard roles of getting onstage and playing…if any or all of this sounds familiar (or even the kind of thing that’s mentioned in ‘Misfit City’ every other week) it’s because Faust set the blueprints at the start of the 1970s, or at least brought them into the world of popular music. An inspiration for innumerable questioning music-makers for over forty years, the band (or, more accurately, the collective event which calls itself Faust) have maintained the same sense of spontaneity, constructive pranking, rude assertion and open-ended possibilities throughout an erratic and frequently interrupted existence.

Initially assembled and pitched (by record producer/journalist-philosopher Uwe Nettelbeck) as a counter-cultural boy band for the lucrative but conservative German record market in 1970 – as if they were a Hamburg take on The Monkees – Faust showed their true avant-garde colours immediately and deliberately. Only a rock band in the very loosest sense of the word (perhaps only their electric instrumentation, amplification, time of emergence and love of rough immediacy really plugs them into the genre), their music has combined free improvisation, garage-band jamming, a pre-punk inspiration-over-technique aesthetic and a distinctly Dada perspective. Stories about perverse, inspired experimentation and behaviour in the face of an increasingly bewildered and irritated music industry have passed into legend: rebellions which seem, for once, to have been essential and genuinely inseparable from the band’s music creation (even from their very existence). Today’s Faust may be mining a tradition rather than breaking new ground, but even as the original members pass through their sixties and into their seventies they retain their commitment to the methodology they unearthed.

To be honest with you, I’ve got only the faintest idea about which of the parallel current incarnations of Faust (each featuring various different original members) is playing in London this coming week, although the evidence is pointing towards a grouping of Zappi W. Diermaier/Jean Herve Péron/Maxime Manac’h/Uwe Bastiansen). The members themselves seem particularly unconcerned: Péron has never much concerned himself with rules and (in an eminently readable interview with ‘The Quietus’) founding organist/noise-marshaller Hans Joachim Irmler from the other main faction has confessed “our idea was that all six original members could be Faust but there should never be two Fausts at the same time. It was an agreement but the version of Faust based around Diermaier, Péron and [Amaury] Cambuzat broke the rules, in a way. It took a little while for me to get used to it but now I think… ‘Why not?!'” If they don’t mind, maybe we shouldn’t either. Increasingly, Faust is of more an idea than a band, per se – or perhaps it’s best to call them a travelling opportunity, an open mind; a self-contained performance space.

For three decades and over fifty releases, sonic collage project and “purveyor of sinister whim to the wretched” Nurse With Wound (predominantly the work of Steven Stapleton) has been drawing directly on nearly every musical genre imaginable, mixing them up via tape loops, samples and whichever methods work to illustrate Stapleton’s curiosity and sense of humour, itself influenced by surrealism, Dada and absurdism (which explains why John Cage, filched easy-listening and snatches of kosmiche could be rubbing shoulders on any given NWW track). The project’s music is also informed by Stapleton’s keen visual and fine-art sensibilities, reflecting his other work as painter and sculptor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqPPMtG6grw

Originally the key figure in transgressive 1980s power electronics band Whitehouse, William Bennett has been exploring “Afro-noise” under the Cut Hands moniker since 2008. The project is heavily inspired by William’s fascination with Haitian vaudou, deploying Central African percussion in radical new ways and generating an intense sound unrivalled in its physical and emotional intensity. In a recent interview with ‘Self Titled‘, William has commented “with Cut Hands, one of the original intents was to try and achieve the same kinds of emotional transformation through polyrhythmic percussion where once words were used… I confess there is a bit of a crazy, beardy New Age composer trying desperately to break free.”

* * * * * * * *

If you’re in Winchester that night, rather than in London, and you fancy a bit of budget-imaginarium fun, I can point you towards this…

Tom Slatter (Heart Of Saturday Night @ The Art Café, 2 De Lunn Buildings, Jewry Street, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 8SA, UK, Saturday 5th December 2015, 7.30pm) – free (donations encouraged) – information

This is Tom’s last gig of the year (although he’s got a few lined up for both London and Brighton in early 2016) and it’s free entry, though a hat might be passed around at some point for donations – possibly the topper which Tom is famous for wearing while he delivers his Victoriana prog songs.

I might as well requote my quick description of Tom from a few months ago, since he’s cheerfully seized on at least part of it for himself – “Tom describes his work as “the sort of music you’d get if Genesis started writing songs with Nick Cave after watching too much ‘Doctor Who'”, while one of his occasional collaborators, Jordan Brown of airy London prog-poppers The Rube Goldberg Machine, calls him “a sci-fi storyteller with a penchant for odd time signatures and soundscapes.” Both descriptions ring true but fail to pinpoint the cheerfully pulpy weird-fiction exuberance of Tom’s work as a one-man band. He’s a man not just happily out of his time, but making a virtue of it – a latter-day Victorian street-theatre barker with a guitar promising tales of mystery, imagination, ‘orrible murders and bloody great waving tentacles.”

For a second opinion, try this from ‘The Progressive Aspect‘ – “Tom is an engaging singer with a resonant voice and an unorthodox songwriter whose songs push the boundaries of what can be expected from the solo acoustic guitar troubadour, straying into the darkest of corners. There is a strange mind at work here but one that makes for a compelling and fascinating listen.”

Recorded and live tasters below…

* * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, over in Brighton, there’s something for the psychedelic crew:

Inspiral Trio + The Fibroid Nebulae (The Real Music Club @ The Prince Albert, 48 Trafalgar Street, BN1 4ED Brighton, England, Saturday 5^th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.80-£11.00 – information – tickets

The Real Music Club is delighted to present an intimate night of highly eclectic music.

Within Inspiral Trio, three current members of Gong explore their harmonious musical synergy. Dave Sturt (bass guitarist and composer) has worked with Gong, Bill Nelson, Steve Hillage, Jade Warrior and Cipher. His solo album ‘Dreams & Absurdities’ will be released on Esoteric Antenna on October 30th. Ian East (sax/woodwinds player and composer) has worked in multiple genres, from Gong to Balkanatics. Ian is currently producing a solo album to be released in 2016. Kavus Torabi (guitarist, singer and composer) has worked with Cardiacs, Gong, Knifeworld, Guapo and Mediavel Baebes – much of his work can be found on his own label, Believers Roast. Solo sets from each man (with Kavus promising some acoustic renditions of tunes from the forthcoming Knifeworld album in his one) will be followed by an improvised set from all three players together. Come and enjoy a tasteful melange of solo and triadic creations from these unique musicians.

The Fibroid Nebulae was formed by Damned/Sumerian Kyngs keyboardist Monty Oxymoron after opening the Real Music Club’s ‘Drones4Daevid’ gig in February 2015. The band consists of Monty (keyboards and vocals), Francesca Burrow (vocals, sax, clarinet and keyboards), Dave Berk (of Jonny Moped) on drums and vocals, Andy Power (Sumerian Kyngs) on bass and the Real Music Club’s own Gregg McKella (Paradise 9/Glissando Guitar Orchestra/Peyote Guru/Gregg & Kev) on synthy bits, vocals, guitar and glissando guitar. The Fibroid Nebulae play offbeat tracks and fuse their own styles and quirks with some lo-fi groove psychedelia, ambient sounds and Krautrock – taking in Soft Machine, Gong, Neu! and Pink Floyd along the way!

* * * * * * * *

And there’s more shortly…

Tags: Acoustic Ladyland, Alice Tolan-Mee, Alpenglow, Andrew Wells Ryder, Arctic Circle (promoter), Brighton (England), Causings, chamber ensemble, Cut Hands, Dave Sturt, Daylight Music (event), Dee Byrne, Elori Kramer, Ethan Woods, Faust, Gong, Harry Strange, Hart (Daniel Pattison), Heart Of Saturday Night (event), Hubert Zemler, Ian East, Inspiral Trio, James McVinnie, Jesse R. Berlin, Jesse Rifkin, Jonny Moped, Judith Shimer, Kavus Torabi, Liam Byrne, London (England), Maia Friedman, Mara Carlyle, Martin France, Maudlin Maladies, Monty Oxymoron, Moonshake, multi-instrumentalists, Nurse With Wound, Ray Dickaty, Rokenri, Sandy Gordon, Sarah Tolan-Mee, Shiver, Silent Isle, St John Sessions (event), Sumerian Kyngs, Survival Skills, The Damned, The Fibroid Nebulae, The Real Music Club (event/promoter), The Sneaky Mister, Toebow, Tom Montagliano, Tom Slatter, Trevor Wilson, TrioVD, True Lucy), Uni Ika Ai, viol music, Was Is Das? (event/promoter), Whitehouse, William Bennett, Winchester

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Misfit City

October 2016 – upcoming London gigs – Vlad Miller’s Notes From Underground at MAP Café (6th); Honeyfeet and Dila V & The Odd Beats at Magic Garden (8th)

September/October 2016 – upcoming gigs – Jane Siberry on tour in Britain and Ireland (9th Sep – 7th Oct) with The Blackheart Orchestra, Balsamo Deighton, Ruth, Delilah Montagu, LeeSun and Carol Laula

August 2016 – upcoming British tours – Kiran Leonard & Secret Admirer (22nd-27th), joined variously by Early Ghost, Sweet Williams, Felka and DUDS.

July 2016 – video premiere – North Sea Radio Orchestra’s cover of Robert Wyatt’s ‘The British Road ‘

June 2016 – upcoming gigs – Merz’s English tour with Julian Sartorius (12th-19th) plus The Sound Book Project, Hayley Ross, Megan Carlile and Christopher Anderson

June 2016 – upcoming London experimental gigs – spiritual improv with Firefly at IKLECTIK (8th); electronic research-pop with ALMA, worriedaboutsatan, and Chagall at Whispers & Hurricanes (9th)

February 2016 – upcoming gigs – London end-of-month assortment – Project Instrumental play string quartets for free; Eddie Parker’s Mister Vertigo ascends again; an even more diverse Daylight Music than usual (with Stick In The Wheel, No Cars and Alabaster dePlume)

February 2016 – upcoming gigs – interlocking British tours by Yorkston Thorne Khan, Toby Hay/Jim Ghedi and Laura Moody offer Anglo-Indian crossover folk, fingerstyle guitar, folk baroque and cello bewitchment.

February 2016 – upcoming gigs – Paperface, Jim Ghedi & Toby Hay, Dearbhla Minogue (The Drink, The Wharves) all play Daylight Music; a glimpse of the From Now On 2016 festival in Cardiff; Laura Cannell, Rhodri Davies, Milo Newman & Matt Davies bring ‘The Lost City of Dunwich’ to Bristol;

February 2016 – upcoming London gigs – the Jonny Gee Quartet play Archway jazz; an evening of Bad Elephant music with The Gift, Twice Bitten, Tom Slatter and jh; Teeth of the Sea + Ramleh at Electrowerks; The Centrals + Picturebox in Whitechapel

January 2016 – upcoming gigs – new Daylight Music season begins with Strange Boy, Partikel and The Duke St Workshop; Brighton staves off the chill with The Bleeding Hearts Club Winter Escape

December 2015 – the last of the Christmas gigs, part 3 – a Yuletide math rock growler with Axes, Shitwife, Vasa and Wot Gorilla); Kavus Torabi rides with mummers in Deptford; and Café Oto sees in the New Year with Hieroglyphic Being

December 2015 – the last of the Christmas gigs – a happy Glasgow progmas with Abel Ganz, Tiger Moth Tales and We Are Kin; Harry Merry, John Callaghan, Sealionwoman and Tropic of Xhao in Colchester

December 2015 – some more musical Christmas parties, London – Memphis Industries’ Lost Christmas (with Dutch Uncles, The Go! Team, Menace Beach, Outfit, NZCA/Lines & slug); Gare Du Nord’s Arrivée/Départ II (a Viennese whirl with Martin Klein, Bon Bon Beast, Hefner escapees and many others)

December 2015 – upcoming gigs, London & elsewhere – a Lost Map afternoon at Daylight Music with The Pictish Trail, Seamus Fogarty, Tuff Love and Kid Canaveral; Thumpermonkey, The Mayors of Miyazaki and Lolita Laytex hit The Albany in Deptford; and Rocket from the Tombs in London and Leeds

December 2015 – upcoming gigs, London & elsewhere – the return of Mark Mulholland and Craig Ward in a Scottish village hall; Serafina Steer & Bas Jan at Kings Place; Olga Stezhko in a Staffordshire chapel; and assorted Others cabaret from punk to accordiana with The Bohemianauts and Bad Fractals

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