Some more imminent shows, mostly of slightly skewed varieties of pop.
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Arctic Circle presents:
Daylight Music 226: Boy and a Balloon + Russell Swallow + Jack Hayter Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 4th June 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
Subtitled “Inside/Out”, this particular Daylight Music session is a showcase for some of the long-running concert series’ regulars. As they put it:
“Under the moniker Boy And A Balloon, Alex Hall is a Hampshire born singer-songwriter. A London busker, and once a session guitar player (touring extensively for Motown legends Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) he now creates skewed indie music – reviving songwriting styles from the glory days, and fusing it with contemporary and chamber acoustic instruments.
“Dismantling the idea of cleanness, Alex accompanies his delicate vocals on his mainstay guitar (a bashed up three-quarter-size nylon-string version played through a StreetCube amplifier) to create glitchy and humanly imperfect timbre. Merged with a simplistic songwriting style to underpin and iron the creases out of the music, Boy And A Balloon attempts to create a new brand of idiosyncratic pop songs. It is a true and purposeful statement and philosophy that songwriting will shine through roughness. Taking major influence from musical icons from all his troubadour heroes of the ’40’s right up to the ’70s, Boy And A Balloon is about the innocent and inevitable loss of something human, precious and innocent – so apparent in today’s fast paced and overwhelming technological world.
“Calling on the classic grooves of James Bay, the storytelling of Tracey Chapman, and the gorgeous ambience of Howling, Russell Swallow‘s sound is brooding, confessional, indie. His songs and stories are driven by sensual imagery & sticky melodies, powered by rich tenor vocals, synths and driven guitars.
“Previously of the mighty Hefner (as well as Spongefinger and Dollboy), multi-instrumentalist Jack Hayter‘s beautiful, heartbroken music is full of folk-tinged dissonant woe. He’s a self-styled ‘singer and writer of no-tune showtunes’ and a ‘rotten-gutted, scorched-throated pedal steel machine’: a unique songwriter given time and freedom to blur the lines between the trad. folk of his influences and the London anxieties of his past with dirty fuzz, biting wit and of course, ‘the universal language of a drunkard’.”
(Jack usually appears at Daylight Music on acoustic guitar and voice: elsewhere on this blog there’s a detailed review of one such occasion.)
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When they emerged in London about five years ago, Weird Dreams perpetuated the well-worn image and substance of a literary indie band in a classic four-man mould. They jangled their guitars; they drew on ‘60s-tinted Beach Boys and girl-group inspired pop; then, citing a fascination with the underbelly cinema of David Lynch, they subverted that pop with dark and bitter lyrics about loss, misunderstanding and cruelties. To seal the deal, it emerged that they’d first been formed after a chance conversation in a retro clothes shop. Their debut album, ‘Choreography’, seemed tailor-made to appeal to the Edwyn Collins, Smiths and Belle & Sebastian fans. After that, it all seems to have gone wrong, though possibly wrong in the right kind of way. Dark hints at a four years of “loss, derealisation and the constructing of a new identity” suggests that the band hit multiple meltdowns.
Whatever happened, it’s seen the Weird Dreams base shifted from north-east London to Paris, left singer and songwriter Doran Edwards as the only remaining member, and altered the band’s sound from concise, short-story guitar power pop into something looser and more textured; more in keeping with their name; more electronic, decidedly psychedelic and definitely hypnagogic. Though you can still hear the skeletal outline of their previous musical identity, Weird Dreams’ current way of working cites unsettling photojournalism and avant-garde electronic composing as influences – alongside the grand synthtronic filmscapes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and the DIY radiophonic pop mistings of Broadcast. It sometimes sounds as if Doran might have kept in touch with his inner Lynch, but also turned up a little heat under his inner Splet.
Doran’s new approach also allows him to unhook from pithy storytelling and dip into a questing, introverted fantasy. One of the new songs, Calm, explores autogenic therapy – or to put it another way, the consciously-willed emptying-out of stress, body part by body part, suggesting a simultaneous emptying out of soul and identity, even as the music itself travels through phases of mood-shift from disassociation to rapture and rhythm. Another song, Heaven’s Hounds, revisits memories of 1980s synth pop and wraps them in a swathe of trickling dream pop guitar arpeggios and sampler gusts (the results echoing both the narcosis swoon of My Bloody Valentine and the unearthed-technology-meets-folk-reinventions of Eyeless In Gaza).
Performing as a Doran-fronted five-piece, the reinvented band are playing the following venues this month:
The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LE, England, Wednesday 8th June 2016, 7.30pm – information
Rough Trade East, 91 Brick Lane, Spitalfields, London, E1 6QL, England, Friday 10th June 2016, 6.30pm (instore) – information
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Tricity Vogue (photo by James Millar)
If you’d prefer something a little more vivid and straightforward to fill your week, or just someone with dirtier jokes – in fact, if you happen to be in London and fancy a homburg-hatted cross between the dear-departed Victoria Wood and the still-very-much-in-yer-face Amanda Palmer, with a couple of twists of Lorraine Bowen and Marie Lloyd – then you could check out Tricity Vogue instead. The ukulele-toting queen of “thinking women’s burlesque cabaret” (and part-time tongue-in-cheek gender warrior) has an upcoming bar residency at London’s Wilton Music Hall which coincides or clashes with the Weird Dreams tour. You can expect her to deliver her own blues or jazz-inflected numbers about vampires or drunken penguins, list-songs about lady pirates and paeans to espresso coffee (which, naturally, accelerate into a distracted frenzy); and she’s a dab hand at nicking and recycling tunes (turning My Favourite Things into My Drag Queen Wet Dream’, or repurposing the ‘Doctor Who’ theme for a song about mundane parallel universes).
Tricity’s take on music hall proves that it’s an art form which, like Wilton’s itself, might need a careful patch-up, brush-up and infusion of new talent occasionally, but which doesn’t need that much refurbishment and alteration to remain fun. Plus, while she’s more than happy to deliver some snags along with the fluff. Alongside the kitschy daftness and double-entendres there are surprising delicate songs about lost origami, a sense of humour which ranges from cute to gallows (sometimes hitting both ends simultaneously, as in Pet Assassinator) and a set of ribald, pointed memoirs from an chequered love-life.
Wilton’s Music Hall presents:
Tricity Vogue
Cocktail Bar @ Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley, Whitechapel, London, E1 8JB, England
Tuesday 7th June to Friday 10th June, 9.00pm – more information
The annual BBC Music Day comes up this year and this week on Friday 3rd June. It’s a generally beneficial nation-building exercise in typical BBC style, informed by magazine-style news, middle-range tastes and light entertainment. Much of what’s on is comfortably communal – plenty of light music choirs, familiar regional touches of brass and pipes.
In all fairness, there’s plenty here to like. There’s a scheme organising gentle live shows in hospitals throughout Scotland and England. There’s a focussing on church bell ringings around the country which is free of gimmick and simply lets the art speak for itself (emphasising both its national status and its localism). There’s the ‘Take It To The Bridge‘ programme, during which the nation’s bridges will be briefly overrun by symbolic musical meetings, community choirs, time-travelling orchestras and local songwriters.
There’s also a strong sense of that other nation – the one which the BBC still encourages in the face of rumbling political dissatisfaction, manipulation and discomfort. It might be a non-partisan wash of generic English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish decency which doesn’t offer much to scare the horses, doesn’t break a sweat breaking new ground, and doesn’t ultimately provide much event-by-event challenge; but it should still be applauded for at least trying to encourage common ground and (at a time when art is being squeezed out of schools) a culture of engagement with music. For the full programme – and for British readers who want to find out exactly what’s going on in their region – check the links above.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been sifting through the programme with my jaundiced, picky eye and selecting out what I feel are some of the more unusual or rewarding events dotted around the comfy musical quilt (more or less in order of occurrence), starting in the middle of another festival in Hay-on-Wye…
BBC Radio 3 Live/Hay Festival presents:
Hay Festival Guitar Jam with Morgan Szymanski
Friends Café @ Hay Festival Site, Dairy Meadows, Brecon Road, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5PJ, Wales
Friday 3rd June 2016, 9.30am
“Prior to his Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert (a collaboration with the Cremona String Quartet at 1.00pm, and already sold out) classical guitar ace Morgan Szymanski will be inviting amateur guitarists to join him for a morning guitar jam. Help create and perform a brand new piece for a hundred guitarists to be featured in the concert. Morgan will lead you through the process, whatever your level, from beginner to advanced. The event includes a special master class from Nitin Sawhney on playing the guitar.”
Unlike the walk-up nature of most of the other events listed here, a Hay Festival ticket is required for this one.
In Cambridge…
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire presents:
English Pocket Opera vs. Imperial & K.I.N.E.T.I.K
Silver Street Bridge, Silver Street, Cambridge, CB24 5LF, England
Friday 3rd June 2016, 11.30am
“English Pocket Opera will be performing on a punt through the waterways of Cambridge. As they approach Silver Street bridge the opera will be joined by a local ‘BBC Introducing’ hip-hop duo Imperial & K.I.N.E.T.I.K, on top of the bridge. Hip-hop and opera will merge to create a brand new sound.”
Christ, this one could be a car-crash in multiple senses. I mean, it’s hard enough to handle a Cambridge punt at the best of time – it’s an unhappy marriage of Newton and Zen – let alone try to synchronise it with anything else. Still, given the sunny, positive and playful nature of both sets of musicians involved (don’t expect a collision of ‘Wozzeck’ and Kanye), let’s give them the benefit of the doubt… and just to put it into perspective, I‘m an appalling puntsman and these guys know their music.
In Nottingham…
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop presents:
Afro Therapy: featuring Jourdan Pierre Blair + Ella Knight + Early Bird + Garton + D Dot + others tbc Rough Trade Nottingham, 5 Broad Street, Nottingham, NG1 3AJ
Friday 3rd June 2016, 7.00pm
“Live music and DJs will be putting music of black origin in the spotlight. Unsigned and independent artists Ella Knight, beat maker Early Bird, and MCs Garton, D-Dot and Jourdan Pierre Blair (the last better known as Jah Digga) will represent a range of R’n’B and hip hop styles with a British stamp on global music. This free event is open to people over the age of 14.”
I’ve got to say that – for all of the community ethos being trumpeted elsewhere – this show is probably the most proactively street-level event on a day which needs to be about everyone in the country, not just people who like choirs and crumpets. (I’m not trying to bitch here; I just… noticed.) Here’s a run of video and soundclips for most of those involved.
Sheffield also deserves credit for working outside the comfy box…
Yellow Arch Studios present:
A Law Unto Ourselves: The Eccentronic Research Council (featuring Maxine Peake) + The Death Rays of Ardilla + Sieben + The Third Half Yellow Arch Studios, 30-36 Burton Road, Neepsend, Sheffield, S3 8BX, England
Friday 3rd June 2016, 7.30pm – free event – more information
This is probably the most experimental event of the lot: an opportunistic but rewarding live spotlight on Sheffield’s unique independent music scene. There should have been more events like this dotted up and down the country – not necessarily with an experimental pop thrill, but emphasizing local current indigenous music which could only have happened in particular towns and at this particular time. All respect is due to Sheffield musicians, to the Yellow Arch venue and to curator Sophie Toes for taking the trouble to spot this challenge and rise to it.
Probably the biggest draw for A Law Unto Ourselves are the headliners – The Eccentronic Research Council, barbed and crafty exponents of their own scenic and sample-heavy “library/soundtrack, experimental, folkloric/non-populist pop”. They’ll be accompanied by their own established muse and mouthpiece – Maxine Peake (actress, declaimer, proud overturner of complacent applecarts) – and are the most questioning act across Music Day, bringing a touch of dissent, argument and the British radical tradition into its general cosiness. In support are spaced-out and (literally) brotherly garage-rock duo The Death Rays of Ardilla, Sieben (a.k.a. beater, plucker, tickler and layerer of voice and violin Matt Howden) and The Third Half (a duo who combine and alternate harp, celeste, guitar and voice in “twenty-first century neo-pastoral rare groove”).
ERC
There will also be DJ sets from representatives of some of Sheffield’s other interesting underground or experimental bands – spooky lysergic-child-song folksters Antique Doll, progtronicians I Monster, psychedelic country-and-western band The Cuckoo Clocks – plus one from Sophie Toes herself. There’s limited capacity for this show, so early arrival is recommended to avoid disappointment.
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In Bristol…
Charles Hazlewood and the British Paraorchestra Colston Hall, Colston Street, Bristol, BS1 5AR, England
Friday 3rd June 2016, 8.00pm
“After the success of last year, the ground-breaking British Paraorchestra, the world’s first professional ensemble of disabled musicians, return to Colston Hall to perform for BBC Music Day. The group is headed up by Charles Hazlewood, a genuine pioneer and innovator in the world of classical music. In a unique show, the Paraorchestra will be joined on-stage by performers from Extraordinary Bodies, the professional integrated circus company and partnership between Cirque Bijou and Diverse City. The combined effect of The British Paraorchestra and Extraordinary Bodies playing ‘In C’ by composer Terry Riley, promises to be cathartic and uplifting. The aural equivalent to climbing inside a giant lava lamp.”
On spec, this may sound like a case of worthiness over content – but while it’s true that (despite the Riley) the Paraorchestra plays its fair share of light-ent pop transcriptions to sugar the pill, albeit in its own way – it’s also worth noting that the ensemble isn’t just about the state of bodies. The Paraorchestra also explodes a lot of ideas about how an orchestra might work, in terms of instrumentation and approach: likewise, Extraordinary Bodies has plenty of challenges and delight to offer. See below:
…and finally…
Aardman Animation/Colston Hall/Bristol Museums present:
Shaun the Sheep’s Vegetable Orchestra
Studio 2, The M Shed, Princes Wharf, Wapping Rd, Bristol BS1 4RN, England / Colston Hall, Colston Street, Bristol, BS1 5AR, England
Friday 3rd June 2016 Workshops and rehearsals at Studio 2: 10.15am, 11.15am & 12.15pm (tel: 0117 352 6600 for details)
Veg Orchestra Finale! featuring Shaun the Sheep and his Vegetable Orchestra at Colston Hall: 1.40pm
“In celebration of BBC Music Day and Aardman’s 40th anniversary, children are invited to join Shaun the Sheep and become part of his Vegetable Orchestra for a live performance at Colston Hall. (There will also be an Aardman birthday singalong and cake presentation.) There will also be pre-performance workshops at M Shed to decorate your veg instruments and learn how to play your part, all set to the ‘Shaun The Sheep’ theme tune. Workshops presented by Farmer characters & Shaun himself, it’s ‘flock ‘n’ roll’ for all ages and all set on Mossy Bottom Farm!”
Sorry. For a variety of reasons (parenthood, humour, a taste for experimentalism and a love of everything Aardman-esque) I just couldn’t bloody resist that last one… and it turns out that the foremost practitioners of the vegetable orchestral art are as cheerfully experimental and conceptual as anything else I tend to feature in here…
Two shows for the Saturday that’s coming up – both donation-based, both community-minded, both flexibly soft around the edges. And both well worth attending.
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Arctic Circle presents:
Daylight Music 225: Bouche + A. Dyjecinski + The Kindling + Gemma Champ Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 28th May 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
The summer return of London’s Daylight Music sessions continues with this triple-bill-plus-piano-guest afternoon.
“Bouche is the deeply emotive and beguilingly timeless music of double bass player and singer Rebekah Bouche, accompanied by trumpet /flugelhorn and electric guitar. The songs are a kind of ‘blue-jazz hymnal’; the honesty and rawness of the blues, with melodic salutes to early jazz and a sense of pathos and drama that nods in the direction of 18th/19th century hymns and British folk. The unusual instrumentation makes for a delicate, tantalisingly sparse sound that winds prettily around the lyrical themes which, though mostly melancholic, are often delivered with a wink and a smile. The debut Bouche album, ‘So Long Solemn’, was released this spring.
“A. Dyjecinski (if you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “EH-DEE-YEAH-CHIN-SKI”) is a Canuck from the Ontario woods who currently lives in London, making gritty, raw and vulnerable music (usually with his “scuzzy garage rock” band Dracula Legs). This year he released his debut solo album ‘The Valley Of Yessiree’ which saw him compared to Nick Cave, Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner (and dis-compared to Sinatra) by ‘Folk Radio‘, who also praised him for “epiglottal drunkenness” and for a “spectacularly assured debut album that, for all its minimal aesthetic, is brimming with ideas.”
“Cinematic songs, fireside percussion, ghostly harmonies, and T.V. static dreams: The Kindling make sad, strange and beautiful music, like the crack in the window that makes a rainbow, a dark, dusty corner or the last wave that takes her initials with yours from the sand. Presenting widescreen, blissed-out melancholy London alt.folk (and drawing influence from the guerrilla recording spirit of Sparklehorse, Mount Eerie, and Tom Waits), they were formed in 2011 to breathe life into the acoustic songs of Guy Weir. Their introductory EP ‘From Out Of The Wreckage’ was followed by a second EP, ‘Half Light’, in 2013. Their latest release is the 2015 full album ‘By Morning’.
“Weaving through the show on the piano and improvising a mix of funk, jazz and pop will be Daylight regular Gemma Champ.”
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On the evening of the same day, on the other side of the Atlantic…
Rokenri/Hannah Edmunds Gardens/Gowanus Canal Conservancy Group present:
Rokenri
Fort Briscoe Studios, 73 Sackett Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York, NY 11231, USA
Saturday 28th May 2016, 7.00pm – pay-what-you-like (suggested donation: $10.00) – more information
Rokenri – the free-floating, free-associating art-pop team-up of sound artist Ethan Woods (guitar, keyboards, noise, vocals), multi-faceted percussionist Matt Evans (drums, keyboards, vocals, noise) and protean Anawan singer-songwriter Trevor Wilson (bass, keyboards, penny whistle, percussion, vocals, noise) – are launching their ‘Donkey Donkey’ album at their DIY space in Red Hook, prior to Trevor’s imminent departure for North Carolina. Expect “a bit of a hang at first, but only one hour of performance… accompanied by dancers, video, and more.”
There’s a horticultural/preservational feel to the evening, with half of the door proceeds going to the Gowanus Canal Conservancy Group (working on and for the polluted and contested Brooklyn canal which neighbours the venue, with the aim of turning its shores into a public park).
‘Donkey Donkey’ (also featuring contributions from Rokenri’s Bennington College/Brooklyn pals Stephen Markow, J.J. Beck and Michael Chinworth) is available to download now, with the vinyl edition following in mid-June. Here’s the recent single – Sullied Tied – one of my own album favourites (Love Takes Time), and a clip of the band rehearsing another ‘Donkey Donkey’ track (Your Arms Are Real) at Briscoe.
Smart, talkative Canadian pop band The Burning Hell are playing a UK tour for most of the month, in support of their new album ‘Public Library’. The vehicle for songwriter Mathias Kom, they deliver engaging and melodious indie/folk/pop tunes about building enthusiasms, about making connections and conversations, and about the small absurdities of serious life, all with a delightful rapid-patter lyrical delivery. Recent examples are below, as are the tour dates:
The Hope & Ruin, 11-12 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA, England, Wednesday 25th May 2016
Moshi Moshi @ Tom Thumb Theatre, 2a Eastern Esplanade, Cliftonville, Margate, CT9 2LB, England, Thursday 26th May 2016
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Starting at around the same time, Knifeworld will be performing a quick four-date English tour, promoting their new album ‘Bottled Out Of Eden’. Regular readers will need little introduction to the band, whose ornate and crenellated puzzle-box psychedelia has been featuring in here for years; newcomers should definitely check out their wanton, decorative, brass-rich tunes which span a web of influences and comparisons from Syd Barrett, Mercury Rev, Steve Reich, Cardiacs and XTC while maintaining the distinctive and complex songwriting vision of leader Kavus Torabi. Support on all dates will be from string-and-horn-drenched art-rockers The Cesarians, whose tunes run the gamut from lush pop to flea-itching rap scrapes.
The Musician, 42 Crafton Street West, Leicester, LE1 2DE, England, Monday 9th May 2016
Brudenell Social Club, 17 Brudenell Road, Leeds, LS6 1HA, England, Tuesday 10th May 2016
The Green Door Store, Lower Goods Yard, Brighton Train Station, Brighton BN1 4FQ, England, Wednesday 11th May 2016
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Road, Shepherds Bush, London, W12 7LJ, England, Thursday 12th May 2016
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It’s also worth mentioning that Knifeworld bassoonist/saxophonist/occasional singer Chlöe Herington (also known for her work as part of Chrome Hoof) will be taking her experimental project V A L V E out again later in the month. The project – which has been known to make music from diagrammatic sources including transposed ECG readings and fragmentary notation found in skips, as well as Chloe’s own instrumentation (which extends beyond reeds to guitar and sampler) – makes an live soundtrack contribution to feminist-slanted arts-meet A Mysterical Day.
Serpentine Galleries present:
A Mysterical Day The Cockpit Theatre, Gateforth Street, Lisson Grove, London, NW8 8EH, England
Saturday 14th May 2016, 1.00pm– more information here and here
“Inspired by the life and work of Hilma af Klint, as well as the exhibition of DAS INSTITUT, this session brings together artists, writers and historians to explore mysticism, feminism and performance. Participants include Saelia Aparicio, Clodagh Emoe, Florence Peake, Zina Saro-Wiwa, Tai Shani, V A L V E (Chlöe Herington/Elen Evans) and more. Programmed in collaboration with artist Tai Shani.”
All I know re the V A L V E contribution is that Chlöe is being joined by harpist Elen Evans for the performance, that she’ll be working with various invented instruments of her own devising, and that pieces will include “FEM – a five-note ‘automated’ cycle – and Futures, in which the melodic structure is determined by a tarot card score.” Meanwhile, here are a couple of V A L V E soundclips, plus one of a tinkling, echoing new instrument which Chlöe built recently out of contact microphones and sundry rubble.
The folk running the Birds’ Nest in deepest Deptford are wildly, inordinately excited about whom they’ve got to fill their postage-stamp-sized stage at the start of this week, but they won’t tell us who it is…
Birds Nest TV presents:
(extra special guest band) + Nøught + First + The Kill Raimis The Birds Nest, 32 Church Street, Deptford, London, SE8 4RZ, England
Tuesday 19th April 2016, 8.00pm – free entry – more information
“A marvellous occasion is about to happen at the Birds Nest pub, Deptford. We cannot express the sheer excitement at being able to host a night of great local bands and international legends: music conceptualists that have inspired countless bands and still continue to inspire generations of new talent. This is the event we have been waiting for. Get down early to this one as once the venue is full we won’t be letting any more people in.”
We do know that Nøught are playing. After years of being mostly out of the picture while leader James Sedwards ran around playing with everyone bar his main band – including work with shapeshifting prog confounders Guapo, improv blaster Alex Ward, Country Teasers spin-off The Devil, and Thurston Moore (…hmmm?…) – Nøught plunged back into action earlier this year with a Café Oto headliner and a Lydia Lunch support slot, continuing to demonstrate their one-band-fits-all approach of wedding classically precise John McLaughlin/King Crimson-esque jazzprog riffage to blocks of Sonic Youth/Big Black/post-hardcore noise, and how it bridges a stylistic credibility gap which others founder at or don’t even dare to take on.
Filling out the bill are two Deptfordian power trios. First are a third-decade third crack at warm, crunchy Bolanesque grunge-pop by former Stony Sleep/Serafin singer-songwriter Ben Fox Smith (a.k.a. “Young Sawbones”), while The Kill Raimi’s last showed up in here as part of a Thumpermonkey support in December. First’s drummer Jim Devese also happens to play guitar for The Display Team, which ties nicely into events later in the week… read on…
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Knifeworld (acoustic set) Flashback Records, 131 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, London, E2 7DG, England
Friday 22nd April 2016, 7.00pm – more information
Knifeworld: ‘Bottled Out Of Eden’
I hardly need to introduce Knifeworld these days. They’ve never been strangers to this blog (ever since their first releases, and further back if you’re counting coverage of head Knifer Kavus Torabi’s 1990s work as half of the mainspring of The Monsoon Bassoon), but an ever-building profile is beginning to make them, if not a household name, at least not the kind of name which you end up repeating to a succession of nonplussed faces. The world seems to be waking up to the cartwheels and streamers of their music, their meticulous complexity and at least some of the elusive substance lurking behind Kavus’ daffy freak-flag charm.
To celebrate this week’s release of ‘Bottled Out Of Eden’ – their third album proper, and the first to be group-composed – Knifeworld are playing a special acoustic gig at the Shoreditch branch of Flashback Records: perhaps a nod, in part, to Flashback’s role in nurturing that effusive London psychedelic rock tradition in which Knifeworld swim (and which they themselves have a strong role in promoting and sustaining). For plenty of bands, an acoustic session is an excuse to steal a little bit of Proms respectability – some string quartet garnishing, a dig at some previously scorned rootsiness. For Knifeworld, it’s simply a matter of bringing forward what’s integral to the group already. Effectively an electrified chamber octet transfixed by a flaming psychedelic spear, they’re already half-acoustic with their three-line, reeds’n-air whip of saxophones, clarinet and bassoon, with Ben Woolacott’s spacious airy drumming and with their chatty, ever-expanding cloud of harmony vocals. It’ll be interesting to see how full acoustica works on recent tracks like High Aflame, but I can already imagine how it might add a new glint to older songs like The Prime Of Our Decline…
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For the fleet-footed, there might be a chance to catch both the Knifeworld show and part of this next one, which is just in the next neighbourhood over on the same night. Knifeworld finish at 8pm, so the chances are high (as are the chances that you’ll be racing the band – fans themselves – along Bethnal Green Road and Squirries Street to get to the second gig).
Chaos Theory presents:
The Display Team + Thumpermonkey + A Formal Horse The Sebright Arms, 33-35 Coate Street, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9AG, England, Friday 22nd April 2016, 7.30pm – more information
Over to the Chaos Theory publicity factory:
“A frenzied night of prog, punk, ska and rock madness, with bands hiding immense technical prowess under gloriously unhinged music,
Local heroes The Display Team are a band we’ve loved for years but found really hard to place on a lineup! Sounding like a cross between The Specials and Mr Bungle, this prog-punk orchestra create a heavy assault of surprisingly upbeat, melodic nonsense. They’ve impressed DIY audiences all over the UK and beyond with their riotous live shows and their last album ‘Drones’, so after seven years it’s high time for their latest sounds to be captured on another album – ‘Shifts’, which they’re launching this evening.
Thumpermonkey are a hugely-acclaimed band who’ve spent years arguing between themselves about whether to play prog, punk or art-rock, and never seem to have quite settled. This creative process somehow produces music that is heavy, delicate, classically and dramatically influenced, sardonic and divisive.
Nominated for a Progressive Music Award, A Formal Horse are a progressive quartet hailing from Southampton with a thoroughly uplifting rock sound, playing dense instrumental passages inspired by the sonic worlds created by Mahavishnu Orchestra and Queens Of The Stone Age, whilst still taking cues and colours from twentieth-century art music.”
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Next time, some latecoming news on various folk-related tours in England which kick off this week…
Tomorrow – two cities, two gigs. In Paris, people will be filing into the mediaeval cellars, all serious and attentive, fascinated by texture and the warp and weft of sound. In London, it looks as if they’ll be torn between wanting to be handsome psychotic brutes in sharp suits or shabby, demented hermits in bird masks.
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3ieme Festival Ambient de Paris Crypt du Martyrium de Saint-Denis, 11 rue Yvonne Le Tac, 75018 Paris, France
Saturday 16th April 2016, 4.00pm – more information here and here
From the organisers…
”Crypt du Martyrium is the most mystic and secret of Paris crypts (the head of the first bishop Denis was found here in 300 AD, and it was also the birthplace of the Jesuit Society). For one night only, artists from Paris and its suburbs will enchant this unique historical place with the kind of music you will hardly hear anywhere else in France.
The festival welcomes :
Ujjaya – an French ethno-ambient veteran, deeply influenced by Robert Rich, Steve Roach, Jon Hassell and Jorge Reyes. With his new found interest in suspended gamelan (which he’ll be enchanting the crypt with tonight), Loren Nerell has become another point of reference for his ongoing work. (For more information, try one or both of his two free-to-download albums: ‘De Retour’ and ‘The Master of Crossroads’.)
Onde Poussière – an experimental duo specializing in hypnotic minimalism and controlled chaos, and featuring Doedelzak (synth) and Kecap Tuyul (table-top prepared guitar). Think an ambient version of Jim O’Rourke , Taku Sugimoto or even Autechre.
Patrick Wiklacz – also known as Prats – is influenced by Terry Riley, Klaus Schulze and Bernard Parmeggiani. He will unleash his own electronic universe on synth and MIDI controller – a mix of repetitive minimalism, ambient and electro-acoustic music.
Archetype – an heir to Oöphoi, Alio Die and Mathias Grassow (and performing on guitar, synth, voice and table harp)Archetype makes deep listening music and also plays some ethno-ambient music not unlike Dead Can Dance.
Asmorod – the founder of the Snowblood label, synth/keyboard player Asmorod is both very discreet and very influential in the dark ambient scene (he’s an acknowleged influence on Kammarheit’s ‘Hysope’ album).
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Godzilla Black + Bobbie Peru + Punching Swans + Mashiro The Hope & Anchor, 207 Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 1RL, England
Saturday 16th April 2016, 7.00pm – more information
“Godzilla Black have been unsettling ears since 2006 with their own personal brand of depraved heaviness. This is the official launch party for their new album, ‘Press The Flesh’, which was released on 1st April through Quisling Records. ‘Press The Flesh’ is the most ‘normal’ Godzilla Black record to date, drawing on influences such as Cardiacs, Liars and The Jesus Lizard, underscored by feeling of sensuality in all the wrong places. ACCEPT NO IMITATIONS.”
I may have to revise that “James-Barry-in-a-sleetstorm” description with which I always saddle Godzilla Black. Listening through to ‘Press The Flesh’ reveals the band in all of their romping glory, sometimes sounding like gonzo-industrial hero Foetus hijacking a soul revue, sometimes like late Cardiacs channelling early Roxy. Glam-descends meet blaring beefhorns, with lyrics full of dark jokes and carnivorous, cannibalistic disassociation. They’re flowering into something sharky and vivid. Clips below for album opener ‘The Other Other White Meat’ and the first ‘Press The Flesh’ single, ‘First Class Flesh’ (note that there’s a theme developing here…)
In support are Bobbie Peru, whose music is heavily influenced by punk, post-punk, rockabilly and 60’s garage; and who offer “an abrasively grooving electric live show with a vibe somewhere between Sonic Youth, Nomeansno and Groop Dogdrill.” Currently recording their third full-length album in Manchester (and constantly playing live around the north-west of England), the band are something of a fixture in the world of indie and post-punk tours, having racked up road support slots with Black Francis, Buzzcocks, Spear Of Destiny, Killing Joke and The Fall since their own emergence in the mid-2000s.
Medway convulsers Punching Swans are self-described as “thrilling dischordance for fans of Future Of The Left and Fugazi”, although I can hear hints of The Residents lurking in their threshing pop-savvy upending of rituals, and when they’re not hammering alarmingly at a darker idea they’re out on the whoop chasing the spirit of ‘Song 2’. It’s the cryptic strangeness that makes them special, though – they’ve recently brought out a concept album about “a man cast out from society and taking on the habits and compulsions of a depraved bird, gone to seed,”, and are making the woodsbound videos to match. There’s a peek into this particular world below.
Oxford abstract mathcore metallists Masiro bring “heaviness, other-wordly atmosphere and headfuck grooves. Touching on Pelican, Isis and Battles. Don’t expect a singalong.” All right, then. Evidence of their jabbing attention-deficit methods is here:
Following the previous post’s coverage of the Daylight Music prelude for Piano Day, here’s all of the information that I could gather up about the main event, which is taking place all around the world on Monday 28th March.
This is the second Piano Day, following its very successful launch in 2015 by Berlin-based pianist and piano specialist Nils Frahm as a day for musical unity. As Nils puts it: “why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons, but mostly because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.” For anyone who plays, or loves, or has wrestled with the wood-strings-felt-and-levers monster, or its digital facsimiles, this is a day for you.
The event kicks off in Germany with a piano marathon…
Justė Survilaitė presents:
Piano Day | Berlin: ‘24 Hours Piano Non-Stop Session’ Michelberger Hotel, Warschauerstrasse 39/40, 10243 Berlin, Germany
Sunday 27th March 2016, midnight, to Monday 28th March 2016, midnight – more information
Twenty-four pianists play through a full twenty-four hour period, beginning at midnight on Sunday 27th March, and going all the way through into Monday, finishing at midnight on the 28th.
The contributors come from the wide range of creative musicians who make their home in, or are drawn to, the energised art scene of contemporary Berlin; and represent its cultural breadth. There are classical players (Víkingur Ólafsson, Marina Baranova); there are jazz and improv players (Declan Forde, Jo Junghanss, Rieko Okuda, Marco Maria and Amine Mesnaoui, the Moroccan jazz/New Music electric pianist who specialises in playing inside his Fender Rhodes). There are musicians from the dance scene – techno star/DJ/label boss Lucio Aquilina, electronica producer-composer Florestano (whose musical ideas all start on “an old black piano”) and Sonar Kollectiv mainstay Arnold Kasar (whose work is informed by dance music, Arthur Russell and prepared piano).
Extra genre spice is added by English singer-songwriter and crossover multidiscipline musician Tom Adams, Anglo-Czech prodigy Emika (whose work spans from dubstep to classical), , Claudio Donzelli of folk trio Mighty Oaks, Doron Burstein (the composer/player behind the ‘Don’t Shoot the Pianist’ speakeasy event at Berlin’s Fahimi Bar) and Eike Schulz (who as well as being a pianist is one of the three scriptwriters behind recent one-take heist film ‘Victoria’) Other contributors to the day are more difficult for me to track and pin down from five hundred miles away (Kolja Ulbrich, Ellas, Janek Prachta, Christian Badzura, Solaris 4.1, Susann Helm) and even more special guests are promised for the twenty-four hour stint.
In addition, there’s a second associated Berlin event:
“When is something old actually something new? Does music evolve in the imagination of the composer, in the hands of the musician or the listener’s head? And do these questions have a practical application in the concert hall?
On Piano Day, composer Frieder Nagel and Jochen Küpper (founder of Stattbad) will launch their new discussion series ‘Raw Classic Podium’, which offers the public the opportunity to enjoy art unpolished – together with selected artists from the neoclassical scene. Martin Kohlstedt opens the new series of events with an insight into his creative process. The idea of the finished work is abandoned – a workshop starts. Working on techniques of modular composition, the pianist draws the audience into his activity. One way or another, expect an intense experience.”
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There are three concerts in England (all of which are in London):
Alev Lenz presents:
Piano Day | London: Alev Lenz + Lucy Claire + Yuri Kondo + Marie Schreer One Good Deed Today, 73 Kingsland Road, London, E2 8AG, England
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – free event – more information
“Last year, Alev Lenz and Lucy Claire brought us two new Piano Day tunes fresh from Alev’s London studio. This year the two have decided to celebrate Piano Day with a special acoustic piano concert together with Yuri Kono and Marie Schreer. You will not only be able to hear the four women’s collaborative tracks premiered at the celebration (all of which you will be able to find on Lucy Claire’s new EP, ‘Collaborations No. 2’), but also short solo sets from all four artists: and you will have the opportunity to buy their respective works (including the brand-new EP) in a one-day-only special Piano Day pop-up shop.”
Float PR/Drowned in Sound/LateNightTales present:
Piano Day | London: Anna Rose Carter + Ed Harcourt + Lily Hunter Green + Michael Salu + Robert Kaniepien + Felix Faire
De Montfort Suite @ Town Hall Hotel, Patriot Square, Bethnal Green London E2 9NF, England
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – more information here and here
“Float PR, the Drowned In Sound webzine and the Late Night Tales label team up for an evening of piano, art, film and honey.
Anna Rose Carter (the modern classical/ambient/minimalist pianist who’s one half of Moon Ate The Dark, in which her piano is fed through guitar signal processors and amplifiers by Christopher Brett Bailey) will perform a solo piano set made up of new compositions, existing pieces and works in progress. Chamber pop singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ed Harcourt will premiere some piano version of new material from his forthcoming seventh album, set for release later this year. Artist and musician Lily Hunter Green (accompanied by violinist Tom Moore) will perform on the piano against a backdrop of bee recordings. She will also present to the audience how her project ‘Bee Composed’ (which saw her placing a beehive inside a piano) has helped increase awareness of the declining bee population.
Musician and creative coder Felix Faire (whose work explores embodied and synaesthetic experiences of music, space and image through the media of light, sound and code) will presents a real-time audio-visual performance using the ROLI Seaboard RISE, a radically new musical instrument that reimagines the piano keyboard as a soft, continuous surface and puts expression back at the player’s fingertips. (Felix’s previous work with ROLI technologies has included a Oskar Fischinger-inspired ROLI Seaboard GRAND ‘motion experiment’ designed to audio-visually illustrate the instrument’s delicate sensitivity and continuous expression: every nuanced sound created by contact with the Seaboard was translated into a swirling plume of ink, responding directly to the haptic expression of the performer).
In addition, Michael Salu (an award-winning creative director, writer and visual artist) will present the exclusive first play of ‘Nocturnes’ (a specially commissioned short film created for Piano Day) and artist Robert Kaniepien (a.k.a. R.K. Polak) will create a bespoke piece of art across the evening on a 160cm x 160cm canvas using oil pastels, acrylic, enamel and pencil (a continuation of his ‘Tendencies’ series).”
Erased Tapes Records presents:
Piano Day | London: Peter Broderick + Michael Price & Peter Gregson + Douglas Dare The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Hoxton, London, N1 6EU, England
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – more information
An intimate evening of piano performances from Erased Tapes artists and associates, with experimental folk musician and multiple collaborator Peter Broderick, film and television composer Michael Price (in duet with cellist Peter Gregson), and piano/glitch singer-songwriter Douglas Dare. All proceeds raised will go towards the donation of a piano for the World Heart Beat Music Academy, an organisation whose mission is to provide music training and mentorship to disadvantaged youth in London.
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Across the Channel, there are two concerts in France…
Église Saint-Merri will host a dance-and-piano performance by Alvise Sinivia and Sabine Rivière (“Le son n’a pas de jambes sur lesquelles se tenir’, or ‘The sound has no legs on which to stand’); a program of American minimalists performed by Melaine Dalibert (which may also include her own ‘Cortège à Véra Molnar’); piano improvisations by Frederic Blondy and Alvise Sinivia (one piano apparently “suspended in the air”, the other “on the ground”) and Marina Voznyuk of Murailles; plus ‘Capricorn’ a poetry-and-piano performance by J.G. Matthews.
T.Beach is the Lopez sisters (two voice, four hands) who play a piano music of water and love, inspired by the poetry of beaches and featuring recreational and melancholic French-language songs set to primitive rhythms.
A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Rasim Biyikli creates free-spirited music in multiple formats for film, art installations, software and so on. He is the founder of the research studio and multi-media resource center Studio d’en Ô, and – as a pianist – has worked and collaborated on many albums. He is best known for his project Man, which sits at the crossroads of pop, jazz, contemporary and electronic music (in the tradition of composers such as Brian Eno, Yann Tiersen, Angelo Badalamenti and Ennio Morricone).
In a special virtual concert (recorded live in Radio Canada/CBC Music’s Studio 211) Montreal-based pianist Jean-Michel Blais will perform compositions from his forthcoming debut album ’II’(out on Arts & Crafts Records on 8th April), a collection of piano pieces and textures influenced by Erik Satie, Lubomyr Melnyk and Philip Glass and incorporating subtle touches of electronics and field recordings.
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There’s also an event in Israel…
Piano Day & The Zone present:
Piano Day | Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Maya Dunietz + Deejay Shuzin + Tomer Bar + Dani Gottfried + Shlomo Gronich + Yonatan Daskal Haezor/The Zone, Harechev 13, 67771 Tel Aviv, Israel
Monday 28th March 2016, 6.00pm – more information (in Hebrew)
The Israel event for Piano Day features two jazz pianists separated by sixty years but linked by their musical enthusiasm (veteran and Red Sea Jazz Festival founder Dani Gottfried and the up-and-coming Tomer Bar), Yonatan Daskal (keyboard player for Castle In Time Orchestra, Quarter To Africa and many more) and a contribution by Deejay Shuzin.
In addition, there are performances by two of the broadest and most industrious of Israeli musical talents – Shlomo Gronich, a gifted pianist who, for four decades, has composed and delivered pop songs, soundtracks, television and dance music and orchestral/choral work (from a palette of jazz, classical, soul, prog rock and original Israeli songs, and working with a host of collaborators of all ages and backgrounds); and his latterday parallel Maya Dunietz (whose work covers and excels within a remarkably broad range of musical styles and approaches – free jazz, art rock, punk, polka, “circus-core” and classical; plus choral conducting, stints with the bands Eatliz, Habiluim, The Midnight Peacocks and the creation of sound installations).
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There are two very different concerts taking place in Australia…
Piano Day | Brisbane: Alistair Noble + Momo
Private house concert, Brisbane, Australia
Monday 28th March 2016, 6.00pm – more information – direct booking here
“Brisbane-based pianists and composers Alistair Noble and Momo Hamada will host an intimate living-room concert, playing their own pieces as well as some by Nils Frahm. Organic vegan finger food and selected teas will be provided.”
Bennetts Lane Jazz Club presents:
Piano Day | Melbourne: Luke Howard + Nat Bartsch + Timothy Coghill + Timothy Stevens Bennetts Lane Jazz Club, 25 Bennetts Lane, Melbourne, 30000 Australia
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.00pm – pay-what-you-like – more information
“A special evening of solo performances by Melbourne-born jazz pianist and composer Luke Howard and his friends: trio leaders and soloists Nat Bartsch and Tim Stevens, plus instrumental scenic-pop composer Timothy Coghill. They’ll be playing their own compositions, including several new works of Nat’s. You will also have an opportunity to hear a few of Luke’s favourite compositions by Nils Frahm, Max Richter and Nico Muhly. Entry is by donation with all proceeds to Entertainment Assist, supporting the mental health of Australian entertainment industry workers.”
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Lithuania and Slovenia are providing one concert each…
LOFTAS will host a performance by German pianist Volker Bertlemann, better known as Hauschka, an experimental/pop crossover musician who’s also one of the most recognizable twentiy-first century proponents of prepared piano.
Kino Šiška presents:
Piano Day | Ljubljana: Bowrain + Nace Slak Kino Šiška, Trg Prekomorskih Brigad 3, Ljubljana
Monday 28th March 2016, 8.00pm –more information
Kino Šiška is hosting an exclusive solo piano perfomance by Bowrain, a.k.a. Tine Grgurevič, whose music usually incorporates jazz piano, modern classical elements, electronic beats and textures, and cunning uses of cultural and philosophical sampling. The evening will be opened by Nace Slak, a 17-year-old student at the Conservatory for Music and Ballet Ljubljana, who will perform piano pieces by Nils Frahm.
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Finally, there’s a show in Japan…
Sonorium/ Kitchen Label presents:
Piano Day | Tokyo: Haruka Nakamura Duo/Trio Sonorium, 3-53-16, Suginami-ku, 168-0063 Tokyo, Japan
Monday 28th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information
The Piano Day celebration in Tokyo will host a show by pianist Haruka Nakamura playing in duo/trio setups with two other members of his regular ensemble (Akira Uchida on saxophone and Isao Saito on percussion).
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If all of this is making you feel a little left out – perhaps your country or city isn’t represented, or perhaps you’re feeling that you might have put something together yourself – then what’s stopping you? This the day when you don’t have to walk past that piano on the street, or in your workplace, or even gathering dust in your home. This is the day when you can strum a stray melody, pick out a single note, or indulge yourself with a full performance of anything at all, and know that you’ll be in touch with all kinds of players (from the remarkable to the casual) across the globe. And – if you missed the day altogether and are reading this too late, head back up and check out some of those links. Pianos everywhere. If I have a bit of time, I’ll flesh them out with a few more.
Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
The Lucid Dream + Vena Cava + Fragments of Space Hex
Electrowerkz @ Islington Metal Works, 5 Torrens Street, Islington, London, EC1V 1NQ, England
Saturday 26th March 2016, 8.00pm – more information
The first of two Baba Yaga gigs for the weekend stretches its fingers out across psychedelia, noise and spacetronica.
The Lucid Dream meld a variety of factors into their sound. A Seeds-style, garage-rock sense of the groove; mechanistic drums which flail like a dogged threshing machine with an ‘Unknown Pleasures’ fixation, pinning the sound to the ground; spacious, folded-over guitar contrails which travel from chilly vapour to scalding smoke in a couple of heartbeats. They sound as if they spring from a West Coast town that’s swapped its soul with the most blasted Motown-less end of Detroit or the frowning shadow-Philadelphia of ‘Eraserhead’. They’re actually from the relatively unravaged streets of Carlisle.
Bristol-based Vena Cava are “a noise rock band that enjoys frequent flirtations with shoegaze, space rock and no wave” Well, that covers most of the hang-out-and-rattle scenes. They also call themselves “sludgegaze”, which more or less nails it – guttering mantra-riffs which start out like Lush or Cranes taking on ‘Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun’ and end up pulping themselves against a grille in a welter of grinding distortion.
Fragments of Space Hex flitted across these pages late last year when they played More News From Nowhere up in Walthamstow. An electronic confabulation of dub-techno musician Ciaran Mackle (Ashplant) and drone-kosmischian Andrew Nixon (Deathcount In Silicone Valley), they’re part BBC radiophonic, part Germanic oscillators and part Bakelite space-age, layering in bits of antique broadcast and hands-on synth lines in their rippling, lapping, pulsescapes.
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Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
Hypochristmutreefuzz + Warren Schoenbright + Anji Cheung Birthdays, 33-35 Stoke Newington Road, Dalston, London, N16 8BJ, England
Sunday 27th March 2016, 7.00pm – free event – more information
To round off the week, Baba Yaga offers a free show featuring “three fantastic bands.”
Ghent art-punk fivesome Hypochristmutreefuzz headline, folding together sturdily uncomfortable but compelling riffs and musical figures (in the King Crimson/Les Savy Fav vein), punk drawls and a space-rocking burble of echoing synth. The music’s smart, bright, cheeky and oblique: like some mocking street-genius eating an ice-cream cone at you. I can also hear some of the clanging swagger of long-lost ‘90s art-hooligans Campag Velocet (although rather than dropping names, puns and flakes of Nadsat, this band tend to yank ideas from the floating debris at the top of the mind). I’m intrigued.
London-based noise/improv duo Warren Schoenbright are Daniel McClennan on drumkit, Matthew Pastkewicz on electronics and a shuffled deck of noises. When I listen to them, they remind me of the hackle-raising anticipatory stillness of Bark Psychosis on ‘Scum’, or of the eerie King Crimson sextet improvs from the mid-‘90s (murky, pulmonary, oft-detonating free-instrumental ghost-rides – once described by ‘Q’ as “ambient music for giants”, which is a phrase that’s far too good not to steal when you need it). Hissing, spitting drum improvisations and head-slithers from a jazz corner combine with boiling brewing ambient vapours from the electronic side to form spectacular instrumental illuminations.
Dynamically speaking, it can go from all-out drum hammering and scourscreech to tense gaps and lacunae in which the sound withdraws and poises. Often it sounds like slow-motion night trains caught in a series of stretched-out near misses, watched from the goods-yard shadows by a pair of twitchy, punchy hobos. Here’s fourteen minutes of live set from 2014, to show you what I mean.
Multi-instrumentalist and sound-sculptress Anji Cheung might make unsettling ritual drones out of frantically overdriven noise and subterranean bass frequencies, but she also murmurs sensual, semi-comprehensible fragmentary monologues on top; or brings in other women to add their own voices. It’s a compelling mix, and one which adds body – often a literal and living impression of thinking, human body – to the often deliberate alienating and dehumanising world of noise music. Some of Anji’s pieces sound like Raudive experiments (capturing a dead voice on bared electrical wires), or like an encounter with an occult ritual caught in the kink of a broadband cable. Some explore cruelty and subjugation, others the vulnerability of natural environments; some end in hypnotic folk songs. This noise may have been shaped by industry and electronics; but its exploring roots continue to grow deeper and downwards.
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Next up – more news on Piano Day around the world…
Three more London shows for the upcoming weekend. If regular readers are finding it all too predictable to find Baba Yaga and Daylight Music shows listed in these posts, I’d have to agree with you that those guys aren’t the only game in town – it’s just that both of them run a persistently strong game.
Daylight Music information first…
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Daylight Music presents:
Daylight Music 221: Haiku Salut + Poppy Ackroyd + Gavin Greenaway + Angus MacRae + Oliver Cherer Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 26th March 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
“For the last event in their current season, Daylight Music is delighted to join in the celebrations for this year’s Piano Day – with piano highlights and delights including lots of artists playing on a baby grand on the Union Chapel stage – in a concert kindly supported by UK publishers Manners McDade.”
Born in Belgrade, Serbia, but resident in Paris for many years, Ivan Ilić is best known for his solo performances of French classical piano music (in particular an acclaimed and controversial 2008 recording of Debussy’s 24 Préludes and a recording of Leopold Godowsky’s left-hand Studies on Chopin’s Études) He also performs music by contemporary composers including Morton Feldman (the subject of his next recording), John Metcalf, Keeril Makan and Dmitri Tymoczko.
Haiku Salut – the Derbyshire-based dream pop/post-folk/neo-everything trio (influenced equally by the evocative film soundtracks of Yann Tiersen and Benoît Charest, the genre-melting electronica of early Múm, and the impressionistic writing of Haruki Murakami) will be setting aside their multi-instrumental skills to play a short piano trio set.
Fresh from her support slot to Jo Quail last week, Poppy Ackroyd will be performing several of her own post-classical piano originals; perhaps making use of field recordings, but certainly incorporating the specific sonic qualities of the Union Chapel space into the performance.
Gavin Greenaway (whose work as composer and conductor covers an extensive variety of film scores, Paul McCartney’s oratorio ‘Ecce Cor Meum’, the 2012 Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant and assorted theme park and sporting events) previews his “immediately engaging, unashamedly melodic and deeply personal” solo piano album ‘Il Falco Bianco’ on Tenuto Records, which takes in alternating flavours of post-minimalism, concert-hall majesty, jazz and prepared piano (with eighty-eight table tennis balls).
Angus MacRae (who has composed for and in conjuction with filmmakers, choreographers, theatre pieces, animations and photography exhibitions) performs pieces from his piano repertoire which “blend melancholic melodies with minimalist structures and rich, atmospheric electronics”.
In between the acts, Oliver Cherer – a.k.a. ambient isolationist-turned-pagan folkscaper Dollboy – will explore the inside of the piano.
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Details on the Baba Yaga’s Huts shows in a moment…
Details on two London shows from a packed upcoming weekend: but first, an extended British tour from a major talent…
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Tomorrow, explosively gifted singer-songwriter Kiran Leonard charges off on another British tour with his all-star quartet of Manchester art rock luminaries (completed by Dan Bridgwood Hill, Dave Rowe, and Andrew Cheetham – see the note on his previous tour for their credentials). Support on most of the tour comes from dark-glam Manchester pop act Irma Vep, although some dates feature folk musicians Richard Dawson and Salvation Bill (in Newcastle and Oxford respectively) and Bristolian “jazz/rock/post-op pop” quartet The Evil Usses (who fill the bill in Bath), with other acts to be confirmed (though they might have been added to the individual gig pages by now…)
Georgian Theatre, Green Dragon Yard, Stockton-On-Tees, TS18 1AT, England, Saturday 26th March 2016 (as part of ‘Stockton Calling‘ festival (with Dutch Uncles, The Vyrll Society, Avalanche Party, Inheaven, Cellar Door, Bernaccia, Medics) – more information
The Cumberland Arms, James Place Street, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, NE6 1LD, England, Sunday 27th March 2016 (with Richard Dawson & Irma Vep) – more information
The Bullingdon, 162 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1UE, England, Friday 1st April 2016, 7.00pm (with Irma Vep & Salvation Bill) – more information
RMT Music @ The Nest, 7 Bladud Buildings, Bath, BA1 5LS, England, Saturday 2nd April 2016, 7.00pm (with Irma Vep + The Evil Usses + Bodysnatchers DJ set) – more information
Rockfeedback @ The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road London, (or Roundhouse) UK Monday 04 April 2016, 7.30pm – more information here and here
Dim Swn Festival, Cardiff, Wales, Saturday 9th April 2016 – more information here (although Kiran seems to be missing from the lineup at the moment…)
Meanwhile, here’s Kiran’s brand-new nine-and-a-half-minute single – a terrific and spontaneous-sounding interweaving of otherworldly folk baroque, chamber prog, post-hardcore racket and kitchen-warrior percussion. The parent album, ‘Grapefruit’, is out on Moshi Moshi on Friday.
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In London, at the weekend, there’s a third-outing triple bill for Whispers & Hurricanes (the quieter wing of Chaos Theory Promotions, for when they fancy putting on an act that doesn’t sound like a giant metallic jazz centipede in manga boots)…
“A five-piece London based band, fronted by charismatic singer-songwriter and composer Sukie Smith, Madam create nocturnal, intricate-yet-cinematic soundscapes showcasing songs that are at once confessional and a call to arms, and have been compared to both Mazzy Star and Cat Power. The band has amassed a loyal legion of fans at home and abroad, showcasing their smoky sound at intimate gigs and packed venues across Europe. Tonight they will launch their haunting single When I Met You, taken from their upcoming album ‘Back To The Sea’.” (Meanwhile, here’s an earlier track from their previous album, ‘Gone Before Morning’; plus their darned slinky cover of Oscar Brown’s tale of treachery, ‘The Snake’ – a welcome antidote to the song’s recent co-opting by Donald Trump.)
“After many years we are reunited with the extraordinary singer-songwriter Kat May, who is inspired by the melancholy of Scandinavia, the urban textures of her base in London and the literary song-writing of her native France. Her atmospheric indie folk-pop has been hailed by France’s biggest music magazine, ‘Les InRocks’, as “cathartic and elegant”, and by ‘Lomography’ as “visually dreamy, melancholic and emotionally arresting all at the same time.” We caught the launch of her debut album ‘Beyond The North Wind’ at St Pancras Old Church back in 2014, and it’s still a regular feature on our playlists. Tonight she will perform her music on piano and voice, with violin and cello accompaniments.
Robin Jax’s exploits as RobinPlaysChords have been built on a slow but steady sonic development. Hailing from his remote country abode near Leamington Spa, the solitary songwriter uses his guitar and loopstation to create percussion, shimmering ambience and distorted hooks for him to place his honest lyrics over. Garnering comparisons to David Bowie and Patrick Wolf, RobinPlaysChords has previously won over audiences when opening for The Irrepressibles, Larsen, Thomas Truax and others, as well as undertaking his first shows in continental Europe in 2015.”
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Finally for now, a doubled gig of textured, looped and echoed guitar, but with a pastoral edge…
Dean McPhee + Seabuckthorn The Slaughtered Lamb, 34-35 Great Sutton Street, Clerkenwell, London, EC1V 0DX, England
Saturday 26th March 2016, 8.30pm – more information
“West Yorkshire based solo electric guitarist Dean McPhee plays a Fender Telecaster through a valve amp and effects pedals, combining clean, chiming melodic lines with deep layers of decaying delay and cavernous echo. Over years of improvisation and experimentation he has developed a unique style of playing which draws together influences from British folk, dub, kosmische, post-rock, Mali blues and modal jazz. His releases on the Blast First Petite, Hood Faire and World in Winter labels have been critically acclaimed by ‘The Wire’, ‘Uncut’, ‘Record Collector’, ‘Music OMH’, ‘Dusted’, ‘Brainwashed’, ‘The Out Door’, ‘Drowned in Sound’ and ‘The Quietus’ amongst others. He has supported artists/bands including Thurston Moore (as UK tour support), Acid Mothers Temple, Wolf People, James Blackshaw, Emeralds, Josh T Pearson, The Magic Band, Sharon Van Etten, Michael Hurley, Josephine Foster, Meg Baird, Bohren and der Club of Gore and Charalambides. Dean is currently working on a new album which uses a kick drum pedal to introduce a pulsing, percussive undercurrent to his most recent compositions,
Seabuckthorn is the solo project of UK acoustic guitarist Andy Cartwright. Releasing 6 albums since 2008 he explores alternative terrains on six to twelve strings, often with minimal layered accompaniments to form musical landscapes. Cartwright uses the techniques of finger picking & bowing combined with various open tunings to create a well curated mixture of approaches. Falling into the cinematic and soundtrack genres, his music is evident of influences ranging from the traditional styles of Robbie Basho and Jack Rose, to more modern players like Ben Chasny, Zak Riles, and Gustavo Santaolalla with whom Cartwright shares an emphasis on atmospheric and multi-instrumental compositions. Sometimes quietly ambient, often powerfully expressive. As well as live performances around the UK, Cartwright has performed in numerous shows & festivals all over France & the southern deserts of Tunisia.
Dean McPhee and Seabuckthorn are recording a split 7″ single to be released later this year.”
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News on more London weekend shows are coming up next time…
Daylight Music presents:
Daylight Music 220: Benni Hemm Hemm + The Second Hand Marching Band + Jilk Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 19th March 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (recommended donation – £5.00) – more information
“This is the first of many epic celebrations for Arctic Circle’s 10th Anniversary; Benni Hemm Hemm are even coming all the way from Iceland to join the party!
Benni Hemm Hemm is the band of Benedikt H. Hermannsson, who writes the band´s songs and produces their recordings. The band is an organism that is hard to explain. Its members are in total around three hundred: at shows, the size of the band is usually somewhere from three to forty, deploying guitar, choral vocals, glockenspiel and a broad potential range of chamber instrumentation depending on who’s available. Their songs are variously described by ‘Pitchfork’ as “wispy, ruminative strums with brass, strings, and fiercely emotive rhythms… lullabies that age well – and go out with a predictable, usually affecting bang.”
“Sprawling anywhere between fifteen and twenty-two people, and led by accordionist/tenor horn player Pete Liddle, Glaswegian untraditional folk band The Second Hand Marching Band aim to create something that can’t be created by just four or five people – a mixture of cacophony and beauty, dancing and stillness. They play their music on a variety of brass, woodwind, accordion, guitar and drums; draw on dance, indie pop, post-rock, chanson, Balkan and Scottish music, and love home recording and ensemble madness. They don’t often play south of the border, so this is a good chance for Londoners to catch them in action.
“Expect an afternoon of collaboration and joy, as Benni Hemm Hemm and The Second Hand Marching Band join forces to perform pieces from their recent joint album ‘Faults’. The seeds of the record came from when Benni and Pete first met in 2007, at one of the first SHMB performances. Pete, Ross, Rich and Fraser from SHMB subsequently started playing in Benni Hemm Hemm, and at the same time Pete and Benni recorded some songs together as a collaboration between the two projects. Eventually, nine songs were produced in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, Cumbernauld and Reykjavik – a long project stretching over seven years, eight hundred miles, sixteen instruments and eight singers. The album is a totally self-funded, DIY, self-recorded, self-produced, self-assembled production. This is no mean feat for a normal band, but try it with seventeen people in two countries!
“In support, Bristolian folktronicists Jilk fuse a bewildering collage of home-found sounds with the ambient soundscapes of washy synths, insect-like clicks & cuts, and huge gorgeous waves of all encompassing experimental noise. Deploying violins, guitars, trombone, strings, flutes, multiple drums and vibraphone in addition to the samplers and electronics, they also describe themselves as “glitch-and-paste electronic ambience with balls” and “the sound of jelly babies in tin wellington boots at an Arctic rave”.”
“Composer and cellist Jo Quail writes and performs instrumental music. Her sound is courageous and demands the intense emotional investment of the listener, while remaining wholly accessible to fans of all backgrounds. The inspiration for Jo’s music is drawn from a wide spectrum of influences. Music itself is an obvious touchstone, the compositional aspects of Bach, Debussy, Arvo Pärt, Zoltán Kodály, John Tavener and Bartók sit beside her love of Whitesnake, Jane’s Addiction and Nine Inch Nails to name but a few. At this concert, she’ll be launching her new album ‘Five Incantations’, which she’ll perform in full along with a selection of her previous work.
Composer and performer Poppy Ackroyd , originally from London, is currently based in Brighton. Classically trained on violin and piano, she works by manipulating and multi-tracking sounds from just these two instruments so creating deeply affecting instrumental music. Her widely acclaimed debut album ‘Escapement’ was released in December 2012; a DVD called ‘Escapement Visualised’, featuring stunning bespoke visuals by Lumen for each track on the album, was released in September 2014. ‘Feathers’, her second album, was released in November 2014, and builds on the concept behind her debut – this time, the tracks also feature other keyboard and string instruments. Through the nature of the older instruments Poppy uses there is an intimacy to her work, while field recordings add to the cinematic and atmospheric quality of the music. Yet in a live context the sonic qualities of the performance space itself become another instrument to be manipulated and woven into the performance.”
The Pocket Gods (’30 Second Song Set’) + tbc Zigfrid von Underbelly, 11 Hoxton Square, Hoxton, London, N1 6NU, England
Thursday 17th March 2016, 7.00pm – free event – more information
Here’s the chirp – ”London lo-fi indie popsters The Pocket Gods play a free St Patrick’s Day gig in Hoxton, London to promote their groundbreaking album ‘100×30’ – which features one hundred songs, all of which are thirty seconds long and some of which will be featured. Free entry and some great support bands!“
Sweet, isn’t it?
Here’s the rest of the story.
‘100×30’ was released last December. It’s a sharp, timely yet self-mocking broadside aimed at the music industry as a whole, and also at the amorphous greed’n’gratification culture that’s gulping down what remains of it. Masterminding this collection of half-minute jabs are The Pocket Gods – shabby knowing masters of multiple styles, mix’n’matching shreds of chart pop, punk, synth-blurb, soggy psych and outright pisstakes (including Blur, and Dappy from N-Dubz). Sometimes they sound like a back-bedroom Zappa Band operating on cheapjack equipment from a small-town branch of Argos, and sometimes like a more eclectic Half Man Half Biscuit aiming more of their jokes at the towers of power.
Threaded through the whole album is a sense of indignation at the implosion of music as a workable career (“my royalty statement is a thing of wonder, and keeps me in a state of permanent hunger”) and the dismissal of artists who can no longer be counted as fresh and malleable meat. One lyric points out, with sardonic but righteous indignation, “I can write songs about anything, because I’ve lived a little longer”; and there’s quite a bit of moping about the prospect of a future which involves little more than making unwanted music on a laptop. Across the tracks, the subject matter paints a scathing, resolutely unimpressed picture of vulgarity and short-termisms. Songs attack the rent hikes which force music venue closures; lampoon the encroachment of multinational corporate interests into independent business (the entwinement of Orchard and Sony takes a pounding, which – since Orchard is releasing the album – is a particularly fanged move); and pour sarcasm onto side topics like the sorry parade of boss-pleasing reality-TV contestants, the cluelessness of A&R men and the ludicrous table prices at the Brits (apparent sideshows which point towards the bigger problem). The Gods even slag off laptop music and mount a harpsichord-driven assault on the memory of Steve Jobs. So much for the individual being independently empowered by technology.
With the proven flexibility of the Pocket Gods, it’s tempting to assume that the brace of performers elsewhere on the album are just pseudonyms. Not a bit of it. Some – including oddball pop mutterer Michael Panasuk and fuzz-guitar flourisher Brian Heywood – appear to be rogue film, television and library music composers. Two more are former chart stars (Owen Paul and Mungo Jerry’s Ray Dorset, each damn near unrecognisable).Some veer towards cabaret (the semi-genteel, character-vocalled acoustipop of The Low Countries) or sarky contrarian Scottish dolour (Bill Aitken). Others even sound like glossy successes in waiting, including power-popper Katy Thorn, gobby R&B-er Tricey R, immaculate faux-Californian rockers Dead Crow Road, countrified Elvis-alike Osborne Jones, twinkling white-boy hip hoppers Foxgrease and full-bore electropop drama queens Hands Of Industry. The burnished countrified chart-pop of Heywood Moore even sounds as if it could make a killing in the American Bible Belt (sweeping out of the same CCM radio playlists as the likes of Lexi Elisha – not bad for a band that’s actually from Dunstable). None of this seems to stop any of them from joining in. Some of them may be taking a long-delayed, heartfelt chomp at the hand that feeds so grudgingly, or refuses to feed at all; or which they see starving others, from audience to artist, both fiscally and spiritually.
Despite all of this justifiable resentment, it could all turn precious and self-righteous were it not for the jabs of anti-pomposity which the Gods and their friends turn in on themselves (the musician-skewering of ‘Small Town Musos’ and ‘Mac Book Ho’ made me laugh out loud, as did a song about the natural progression from ambitious Radio 1 listener to experienced Radio 2 couch-fogey). There are also the other moments – the flip side to the flipness – in which the half-minute song limit becomes a lesson in how much can be achieved in a short time. John Rowland’s plunderphonics and piano instrumentals; upROAR’s quick echo-laden harp passage, Orb collaborator Another Fine Day’s gorgeous burst of echo-soused kalimba; or when writer and narrator Michael Hingston (who’s already spent two tracks guesting with the Pocket Gods, bidding goodbye to the swelling ranks of closed-down London music venues in a hardbitten wise-barfly drawl) gently blows thirty seconds of tentative, unaccompanied saxophone.
Finally, there’s the persistent realist-absurdist wit of The Pocket Gods themselves – party hosts, project backbone and the only act formally confirmed as performing at the Hoxton gig on Thursday (yes, I was going to get back to that…) Come along to see who else makes it. Meanwhile, you can play through the whole album below; and even buy it (if you feel that that won’t somehow spoil either the joke or the protest).
Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
Arabrot + Shitwife + Godzilla Black Corsica Studios, 4-5 Elephant Road, Elephant & Castle, London, SE17 1LB, England
Thursday 17th March 2016, 8.00pm – more information
Norwegian noise-rockers Arabrot have spent a decade and a half feeding classical, Biblical, existential and surreal tropes through a grand and gothic avant-rock mangle. As you can imagine from this, both their gigs and records have had an immediate raw-lifed, raw-liver feel to them, despite what ‘The Quietus’ describes as the band’s “velveteen grace”. More recently, group leader Kjetil Nernes spent two years recovering from throat cancer, during which he’s fought off and defeated encroaching death not just via hospital treatment and homestay but by hurling himself back into Arabrot recording and touring. Having admitted that the experience was “as close to real physical and psychological hell as you can go”, Kjetil has spun his reactions into Arabrot’s latest album, ‘The Gospel’, which is suffused with spectres of death, illness and his own defiance.
Shitwife have possibly the most discouraging band name in history – an evil grunt of a handle, a surly trucker’s growl of a monicker. We last encountered them in the listings for a Christmas gig, in which they were described as an “astonishingly brutal drums/laptop/electronics juggernaut fusing rave, death metal, noise and post-hardcore.” As far as I know, they’ve had no reason to mess with that formula in the intervening three months. Here’s a clip of them in action at a different gig last September (just a short walk away from ‘Misfit City’ HQ, not that I knew it) plus a more recent video showing laptop/keyscruncher Wayne Adams engaged in a painting session (and looking far sweeter than he ought to, given that his other band’s called Ladyscraper).
As I’ve said before, Godzilla Black seem to have made themselves into London noise-rock favourites while not actually having much to do with noise-rock at all. Most of the latter’s in the brawling muscle which they apply to their John-Barry-writes-for-Ruins-or-King-Crimson tunes; and in the garnish of hiss and fry lying on top of that muscle, adding a pitch and pinch of disintegration to their drums-and-horns pimp-roll. Otherwise what I’m hearing is spy-movie glamour all the way, albeit gone slightly weird: extra panicky descends and clangings, sax stranglebursts and sampler squeals. Brand new single ‘First Class Flesh’ sounds as if its about some kind of disassociative disorder: singer John McKenzie boggling, all glazed and juicy, about body parts but not actually about bodies (ending up neither sexy nor creepy, but away in a skewed and disfocussed branch-off of both).
The first of the three gigs I’m posting about here features music that’s mostly new enough not to have any videos or soundclips available… If I’m wrong about this, I’ll post a few up later, but since I’m putting the original post up on the day of the gig, if you’re going you’ll just have to go on faith…
Academy Composers at The Forge: a concert of new works by composers from the Royal Academy of Music The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, England
Wednesday 9th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information here and here
“Join us for an exciting evening of new music and film! The concert will showcase a selection of new works by young composers, performed by the Royal Academy of Music‘s talented student ensembles and soloists. The evening will also feature a screening of new animation shorts, created during the annual collaborative project between the Royal Academy of Music and the Bristol School of Animation.”
Daylight Music’s offering for this coming Saturday shows their knack for promoting and harbouring music which walks a line between the intriguingly arty and the lunchtime cosy. This week, they’re putting on a young singer-songwriter who melds the sex-kitten rasp of Eartha Kitt with the sinous, sensuous spiritual dissolve of a latterday Kate Bush piano ballads; plus one of those energetic pop choirs which specializes in indie hits; and finally, a band which merges indie-rock and jazz (falling somewhere between Duke Ellington, South African township jazz, the easygoing Anglo-romanticism of Perfect Houseplants and string-shredding Mogwai-ish post rock).
Daylight Music presents:
Daylight Music 219 – King Capisce + Jam Tarts Choir + Grace Lightman Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 12th March 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-want event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
Over to the Daylight word-of-mouth machine…
King Capisce is a five-piece from Sheffield have been moving from strength to strength in recent years, gathering praise from ‘The Guardian’ and ‘Drowned in Sound’. Tom Robinson at BBC 6Music, claims they’re “an exciting cross-genre talent, fusing jazz with other influences to create a sound that is unmistakably their own”.
The current set for 60-piece Brighton indie choir Jam Tarts Choir includes barnstorming interpretations of songs by artists as diverse as The Cure, Goldfrapp, Arcade Fire and Lambchop.
There’s something timeless about Grace Lightman. Maybe it’s that honeyed voice that ever so gently tugs at your heartstrings. Perhaps it’s those careful and considered nods to the iconic moments, faces and places of musical history….”
The third gig rounds up jazz, prog, noise, grandeur and chaos and flings them all at the wall…
Nøught + Golden Oriole + Dead Days Beyond Help (with Alan Wilkinson) Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England
Sunday 13th March 2016, 7.00pm – more information
“A killer, high-voltage line-up…
“Nøught is a synthesis of the experimental, avant-punk, jazz-prog and noise-rock credos, distilled into the paradoxical confines of a musically volatile, instrumental power-quartet. Originally formed in Oxford in the late 90’s by eminent guitarist James Sedwards (also of Thurston Moore Group, Guapo ,The Devil), the current line-up has been based in London since 2002. Their music is profoundly exhilarating when encountered and often provokes an hypnotic sensation from an audience as their incendiary live performances can easily entice and captivate a listener, due to the highly artful, polished and demanding compositions. Pieces span the extremes of short, catchy, three minute eruptions to long, dense and evolving half-hour incantations. Nøught’s music provides an uncommonly refreshing, non-derivative sensibility and approach, and they continually astound as they develop, invoke and deliver their singularly potent blend of sonic diabolism.
“Featuring members of Norwegian noise-rock bands Staer and of Tralten Eller Utpult, skull-twisting face-melters Golden Oriole produce abstract and minimal music – musique pommes frites meets funky concrète.
“Dead Days Beyond Help (Alex Ward and Jem Doulton) take the physical assault of rock and the free-wheeling exploration of post-idiomatic improvisation to new levels of power and density, while Alan Wilkinson comes blazing out of a saxophone tradition that includes the likes of Albert Ayler, Roscoe Mitchell, Mike Osborne, Evan Parker and Casper Brötzmann with a highly vocalized and personal style. DDBH’s most recent album (2014’s “Severance Pay” on Believers Roast Records), was described by ‘The Wire’ as “a reminder that there are still thrills aplenty to be gained from the pursuit of complexity”; and Stewart Lee has called Alan Wilkinson’s trio with John Edwards and Steve Noble “as powerful as The Stooges and as fluid as John Coltrane”. Given their collective pedigree of collaborations with such luminaries of free music and avant-rock as Derek Bailey, Thurston Moore, Tatsuya Yoshida, Talibam!, Weasel Walter and Chris Corsano, it is no surprise that when the three musicians join forces the results are brutally intense, deliriously virtuosic, and utterly untrammelled by stylistic constraints.”
In London, there are two upcoming evenings of 1980s indie nostalgia this week, plus one evening of metallic futurism. Read on…
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Adrian Gibson Music Productions presents:
The Monochrome Set + Bob Collins & The Full Nelson + The Wimmins Institute 100 Club, 100 Oxford Street, Soho, London W1D 1LL, England
Friday 4th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information
Originally springing from late ‘70s London post-punk (within which they shared, in the early stages, connections and members with the similarly stagey but far cruder Adam & The Ants) The Monochrome Set blossomed in the early ’80s, presenting a very different take on New Wave. Surrounded by clipped and speedy back-to-basics bands, their singer and creative core Bid took an ostensibly fusty and intellectual approach but shook the dust out of it; deploying oblique wordplay and bricolage guitarwork as the tools for delivering his witty, wandering songs. A young Julian Cope once dismissed the band as being too English, too uptight and a little too prog. Bid might have countered by citing his Velvet Underground influences (including the mysterious, ambiguous film projections which were a Monochrome Set live trademark and established them as one of the most committed multi-media rock bands) and his preference for “avant-garde beat-group juddering” over either four-square rock’n’roll or prog frills.
Unsurprisingly The Monochrome Set’s legacy includes bands at the artful and overtly theatrical end of the spectrum. Direct descendants include Scarlet’s Well (Bid’s post-Set bid to marry antique weird fiction with Anglican post-punk and a girl’s-boarding-school vibe) and David Devant & His Spirit Wife (whose startling mixture of clever glam and music-hall stage magic was anchored by formet Set guitarist Foz). Less directly, the band provided the requisite blueprint of archness, wit and fine-art guitar stylings for the nascent Smiths, and for the oblique literate cleverness of Franz Ferdinand and the capering-yet-serious surrealism of Sleepy People. The brain aneurysm and stroke that Bid suffered in 2010 might have put an end to many musicians’ creative careers. In that typically out-of-step Monochrome Set fashion, it actually cemented the band’s then-recent return to action, with a recovered Bid still a strong creative force and (if anything) fascinated and inspired by his post-illness physiological rewiring and subconscious changes, especially when they manifest in the band’s music.
Bob Collins & The Full Nelson draw on the Medway lineage of pop, psychedelia, indie-rock and punk-blues. The band reunites a number of the key members of The Dentists – jangling, pre-Britpop Chatham absurdists who first walked their elongated wobbly line between pop and art pranks in 1983. Despite formally splitting in 1995, the band has never entirely gone away. Onetime lead guitarist Bob has already worked with assorted former partners in Fortress Madonna and The Great Lines; for The Full Nelson he teams up with Dentists drummer Rob Grigg and bass player Mark Aitken (a former bandmate from Bob’s time with Ascoyne d’Ascoyne).
Although the Full Nelson got it together in 2007, they’ve waited eight years to make an actual album: a long time, especially by the fertile DIY rock standards of the Medway scene. Their debut album ‘Telescopic Victory Kiss’ broke the drought last year, drawing on Bob’s years as a solo acoustic act and Medway Scene historian, its bucketing melodicism recalling The Who and Bob Mould’s Sugar as well as its Kent garage forebears.
They’ve been described by ex-Chumbawamban Boff Whalley as “wonderfully, tunefully, angrily unprofessional“, but with winning insouciance, pop-punkers The Wimmins Institute describe themselves as simply “a bunch of wimmins with instruments”, demystifying both their bandwork and their feminism at an offhand stroke. It sits well with what they actually are. There’s history and ties with a number of political music movements here, including Riot Grrl, Ladyfest and broad-left-wing campaigning. Of the four members, Jen Denitto and Deb van der Geugten (Americans abroad, initially caught up in 1990s London punk meshings) were both members of Linus (while Jen has also passed through both The Monochrome Set and Scarlet’s Well). Cassie Fox and Melissa Reardon are part of libertarian socialist rhythm-and-blues band Thee Faction.
In this case, though, history is a distant section to the immediate present; and the Institute’s main purpose seems to be to remind us that feminism can often be about women engaging with fun constructive skepticism and visibly enjoying themselves while doing it. Onstage and on record, singing and instrumental roles are swapped around at will and without regard to hierarchy, trumpets are tootled and any messages are put across in a sprawling scrap of noisy uncomplicated play. The single ‘Mansplaining’ encapsulates the band’s punky irreverence and their lippy but unmalicious spirit of resistance.
Playing on the same bill this week, returning veterans The June Brides and The Wolfhounds have a number of things in common. Both formed in or around London within a few years of each other in the mid-‘80s; both released their first material on the ill-fated Pink label. They even played together long ago, to the point where Wolfhounds frontman David Callahan can comment (with sardonic affection) that this week’s show “replicat(es) the Ambulance Station in 1985, except this time The Wedding Present are so late they’re not even on the bill.” Both also took a long fifteen to twenty-three year break before their twenty-first century comebacks – The Wolfhounds first tentatively reunited tentatively in 2005, The June Brides in 2009 and (after intermittent one-offs and occasionals) both bands returned to regular action in 2012.
What’s most likely to be cited is that both the Brides and the ‘Hounds are associated – for better or for worse – with NME’s legendary ‘C86’ compilation cassette. Thirty years old this year, C86 serves as both inspiration and albatross. Still a touchstone for indie jangle-pop as genre, history and (effectively) way of life, it’s long since generated its own shower of clichés about a shared guitar-pop ethos, mostly white and slightly fey (and some of it, by implication, fighting a rearguard action in the face of oncoming hip hop), More recently another, more attractive ‘C86’ trope has been gaining traction, remembering the project as a celebration of recording and songwriting initiative; cottage labels and scenes ignored by and detached from the glut of London yet coming together in a common purpose.
I’ve got to admit that I can’t add a new twist to that summary: nor to the one which suggests that ‘C86’ was also a marriage of convenience between assorted bands which actually differed widely. Beyond their shared intelligence, a little practical and cultural geography and the sympathies that come with both bands having fed their inspiration (and taken their lumps) at the same point in time and culture) there’s not so much to link The June Brides and The Wolfhounds. The Brides released comparatively little – just four singles and the mini-album “There Are Eight Million Stories’, although the latter topped the British indie charts for a month. In contrast, the more prolific Wolfhounds managed four albums and a clutch of additionals across four years (while evolving from a skewed pop/rock act into a noisy brutally textured art-rock band) but never quite hit the same commercial heights. The Brides gently post-punkified a version of early ‘60s Anglo-pop, simultaneously undercutting and underpinning their upbeat verdigrised trumpet lines with deft, flint-chipping rhythm guitar (as if Anthony Newley had temporarily poached Will Sergeant from Echo & The Bunnymen). While you could discern traces of ‘60s beat-pop in The Wolfhounds, the band were a rawer and leaner beast: straightahead guitars shading, over time, into art-noise.
Thoughtful and articulate though The Wolfhounds were, Callahan’s tense wiry voice (always on the brink of a ripping sneer) perpetually hinted at something nastier, or at least at being on the brink of a withering analysis of the world around him. With the June Brides, Phil Wilson sang pillow-soft and easy, letting his astute, observational lyrics work around the friendly puff and wheeze of the tunes. Callahan’s were more likely to hit you on the bridge of the nose and wake you up. The June Brides would write the blueprint for Belle & Sebastian. It’s a little less easy to trace those who explicitly followed the path the Wolfhounds hacked out; although the excellence of Callahan’s prickly, visionary subsequent work with the sampler-crazed Moonshake makes at least as good a legacy.
Now reunited as individual bands and as tourmates, the two bands aren’t hitting the nostalgia circuit as hard as some of their peers; but they’re playing as if it mattered, under their own terms, to people who also think it mattered. It’s dignified, it’s consistent; and if you think that such words are coffins then perhaps you never picked up on the integrity of each band’s work. They might not have been pompous about it, but these guys were always about craft and smarts. Thirty years on, they still are.
In support are soft-voiced young Brightonians Clipper, who are still too new to have much up online; or, indeed, to have much written about them yet. Ask me again in 2046…
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The sludge-rock and math-rock evening is provided by the ever-reliable Facemelter. From here on in, the words are theirs…
Chaos Theory presents The Facemelter:
A Horse Called War + Wren + The Broken Oak Duet The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden Town, London, NW1 0AP, England
Thursday 4th March 2016, 7.30pm – more information
A Horse Called War are crusty sludge heroes from a backward town in Norfolk, who formed ten years ago, released an EP, played shows with bands like Raging Speedhorn and Weedeater, got some rave reviews in Terrorizer, Sludgelord and the like, then broke up in 2010. After a few of them had stints in other bands, including William English, they reformed last year and the UK metal community rejoiced! They’re back for their first London show in 2016 after playing to a rammed Devonshire Arms last year. Will be brutal.
After a stonking show supporting Bad Guys at Baba Yaga’s Hut’s Christmas show last year, a tour with Empress, and a slot with EARTHMASS and OHHMS at The Facemelter the year before, hardcore/sludge hybrid Wren are back to play new music from their upcoming sledgehammer of an EP ‘Host’, the follow up to 2015’s split with noise rock three-piece Irk. Featuring members of Facemelter favourites obe, Wren have moved beyond the post-metal leanings of their previous work and have taken a step into a darker, rawer, and more experimental realm of tonal vastness, demonstrating previously unheard elements within their repertoire. Utilising a core framework of Neurosis-inspired industrial sludge-metal and the biting noise-rock morass of The Jesus Lizard, Wren spawn a sonic alchemy that is both ambitiously referential, and jarringly unique.
The Broken Oak Duet are a progressive heavy-math-rock duo, featuring baritone guitarist Thomas Morgan and drummer Howard James Kenny. Having blown people’s minds last year when supporting bands like Raketkanon and playing at ArcTanGent, Handmade and Tramlines festivals, they’ve conducted a Kickstarter campaign in order to produce their debut album ‘Terrain’ and will be launching it at this gig.”
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More March gigs shortly… plenty of jazz, plus some nation-building events…
“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.
The third and last of a stream of Baba Yaga gigs this week dips us into dub, dub poetry and eerie electronica stews…
Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
Roger Robinson & disrupt + School House Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England
Saturday 27th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information
In recent years, Hackney-born/Trinidad-raised poet and vocalist Roger Robinson has probably been best known for his work as one-third of King Midas Sound (in which he works with eclectic dub/jazzcore/dancehall/grime producer Kevin Martin and Japanese artist/singer Kiki Hitomi). However, he’s led a peripatetic solo career since the early ‘90s: starting out as a spoken-word performer, he’s written and performed a number of acclaimed one-man shows, toured the world on behalf of the British Council and released books of poetry. Since 2004 there have been solo musical releases and mixtapes including the spoken-folk album ‘Illclectica’ and collaborations with or reworkings of music by Oneohtrix Point Never, Ryuichi Sakamoto, William Basinski and Alva Noto.
Roger’s most recent work (set in 2011 at the time of the London riots, and partially achieved by lone walks around his sometime base of Brixton, improvising dub poetry into a dictaphone) is last year’s ‘Dis Side ah Town’ album – a detailed work of study and reportage on the impact, distortions and erasures of change and gentrification, with Brixton observed both in its own right and as a signifier for similar distortions in London and the rest of the world (read Neil Kulkarni’s recent ‘Quietus’ interview with Roger for more background on this).
Production work on the album was handled by disrupt – a.k.a. Jan Gleichmar, an East German computer-music whizz who grew up on the Soviet side of the Berlin Wall and progressed through assorted home-made dance stylings (variously Detroit techno, digital hardcore, gabba and electronica) before settling on digital dub as his expression of choice. Co-boss of the Leipzig-based dub/reggae netlabel Jahtari for over a decade, Jan started off on a cheap laptop but currently achieves his sound with homemade electronic gear, being interested in the textural and process effects of antique microchips and manual voltage control.
Tonight, Jan and Roger will be performing together in London for the first time, delivering live material from or informed by ‘Dis Side ah Town’ and bringing Roger’s observations and warnings back home.
The support act is School House, a solo project by Manchester composer Peter James Taylor (once the baritone guitar player for Bletchley noise-rock project Action Beat, now known for his distortion-rich, Branca-esque massed-guitar works exploring custom tunings, extended techniques and graphic notation).
School House provides Peter with opportunities to explore other areas. Although the project’s first release, ‘Soft Focus’, explored a spooky, textured minimalism using customised Yuri Landman guitars, last year’s ‘Herd’ album moved into electronic instrumentation, concentrating on glitch-rhythms and software drones while keeping some of the layers of guitar texture for what Peter describes as “roiling, gaseous and slow-moving nocturnal dread.” It’s this latter side of School House which will be on display tonight, accompanied by suitable visuals.
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Here’s news from east London on “an eclectic night of math rock, experimental rock and progressive rock”…
Most of the text below is by the promoter or other people, so links are provided where they’re due:
Theo is Sam Knight, a one-man-band from London who puts on an astonishing performance. His Soundcloud bio says “taut, chugging guitar loops layer up with frenetic tapping patterns that interweave in spiralling complexity before near sub-atomically precise, powerhouse drumming clatters and builds each song into juggernaut of riffs and rhythms. To achieve something like this recorded is one thing, but to see Theo perform live is quite another as each song blurs into the next and the dazzling guitar and drum acrobatics leave jaws sagging on the faces of all who bear witness to the talent on offer.”
Battleship Grey are an experimental rock four-piece from London who combine highly melodic, powerful vocal melodies with innovative, forward-thinking rhythms and sounds. Drama-rock threesome Ex Libras(who’ve shared a bill with them) have commented “they toy with experimental ideas in a way that is the opposite of pretentious because they always seem to be about the groove or the way the music pulsates. It is music after all right? It isn’t an equation, it isn’t a painting, yet they are math and art-rock and dance-y all at the same time. Head. Explode.”
Olympians describe themselves as “a band that lives half in Norwich and half in London. We have two guitars, a bass, some drums, a glockenspiel, two keyboards and a trumpet. The next instrument we plan to buy is a vibraphone. We hope you like our songs.” A few years ago, multimedia obscure-music platform ‘Rightchordmusic‘ said “their sound is hard to pin down, with math rock roots, fused with barber-shop ‘Spring Offensive’ esque harmonies and plenty of instrumentation and experimentation. It’s a soaring piece of harmonious yet downbeat melancholic pop that gets better with ever listen. We’re smitten.”
Sounds and visions provided above. Draw your own conclusions.
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More shortly – Eddie Parker, Project Instrumental, and an even-more-typically-loose-than-usual Daylight Music show…
From where I’m standing, it’s looking like a mostly noisy and left-field week. Here’s the first bit of it…
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More News from Nowhere presents:
More News from Nowhere #4 – Simon Bookish + Sharon Gal + Deathcount in Silicon Valley The Victoria, 186 Hoe Street, Walthamstow, London, E17 4QH, England
Wednesday 24th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information
From the organizers:
“More News From Nowhere – Walthamstow’s regular night of new and interesting music – returns with a double headline performance.
“Experimental vocalist Sharon Gal is a widely respected figure on London’s improvised and avant-garde music scene – she’s worked with Steve Noble, David Toop. Steve Beresford and Thurston Moore amongst others, and is a founder of Resonance FM.
“Simon Bookish, the alter-ego of performer/composer Leo Chadburn, fuses his classical training and experimental leanings with electronic instrumentation and a pronounced pop sensibility. He’ll be performing his latest release – ‘Red And Blue’, released this January (“a collision between digitally-processed brass and distorted synthesizer drones; atonal electronic pop and drifting field recordings; spoken word and unearthly vocalisations” inspired by the ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK governments during the Cold War) as well as a new version of his ‘Trainwreck’ project from 2007.
“Support comes from Walthamstow’s own Deathcount in Silicon Valleyaka MNFN friend and co-conspirator Andi Nixon, who makes “ominous frazzled sci-fi scores” and will be performing his tribute to the film ‘Scanners’.”
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For the following three nights, there are three Baba Yaga’s Hut events in a row. Here’s notes on the first two, with the first one being something for lovers of scuzzed-up song…
Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
Joe Gideon + John J. Presley
Corsica Studios, 5 Elephant Lane, London, SE17 1LB, England,
Thursday 25 February 2016, 8.00pm – more information
This week sees the return to live action of Joe Gideon, who first came to attention in 2002 as leader of Americana-tinged post-rockers Bikini Atoll (which also featured his sister Viva on keyboards). Joe and Viva went on to form the critically acclaimed brother/sister avant-blues duo Joe Gideon & The Shark, in which Joe clanked trash guitar and drawled absurd, witty tales in Beatnik slang while Viva drummed, mixed in keyboards and beats, and layered a spooky background of looped vocals.
Two acclaimed albums later – 2009’s ‘Harum Scarum’ and 2013’s ‘Freakish’ – Joe and Viva have parted ways. While Viva busies herself with different musical work (including an appearance with Loose Meat for ‘Inside The Sun‘) and acting in video games (having won an award for her work in reconstructive crime tale ‘Her Story‘ last year), Joe’s continued his own work with a solo album – ‘Vice Versa’, recorded and released in 2015 with an all-star squad of Jim Sclavunos (Bad Seeds) on drums, Ed Harcourt on keyboards and Duke Garwood on horns. Jim’s stayed in the live band: following a London debut back in November and a guest spot at a Lee Hazelwood tribute, they’re back for a second full live show at Corsica Studios.
Support comes from John J. Presley, the Walsall-born songwriter and guitar who feeds his own take on freeform storytelling blues through a mess of noisy downtuned guitar, alternate tunings and drones (backed up with drums, Rhodes piano and harmonium.)
The second show features more outright noisiness; it’s a more typically Baba Yaga-esque soup of psychedelic noise, sludge and hints of prog…
With a new record poised for launch at the start of March, long-established Liverpudlian psykraut space-rockers Mugstar are headlining the show. Their dour-dark mantra instrumentals wed lugubrious organ drones and Morricone/Labradford-ian guitar parts with guttering smears of noise, while occasional distant snatches of speech or song flicker into hearing like tiny, frayed, long-ago rags impaled on endless wire fences.
Originally, Steve Gullick’s flinty moodists Tenebrous Liar were scheduled as the first support band. Their decision to split up last November has cleared the way for some gig-sullying from Henge. These London psych-sludgers belch out hanging, polluted, noise clouds through which singer Loz Chalk delivers his scratched, timorous, and fearful yells, his ankles enmired in dragging pace and guitar fry.
For my money, the most interesting band of the night is the one that’s opening the show. Elusive Liverpudlians Cavalier Song are Henge friends and tourmates (having played with them in Nottingham and London earlier in this month), have occasionally rolled out tracks on Soundcloud over the past five years, and released their debut album ‘Blezards’ only last month, delivering “soundtracks to earth, man and machine, the outdoors, the indoors and constant shift.” Sitting on a cusp between Swans and King Crimson (both of whom they claim are influences), they sound like a prog band in which the brain hemispheres are falling away from each other. Some pieces clench and raise the tension in their dissonances, their rapid rhythmic and dynamic transformations, while others engage in tearing, shifting Frippish drones. Panic, chaos and a liberated excitement loom as possibilities among the brutal rips of guitar, the resonating overtones and the low-hanging atmospherics; yet the band lean on – and sustain – that moment when form and skills of structure and rapid response still remain.
Other noise bands simply plod and accumulate: Cavalier Song sway and shift; light-footed knife-fighters, their eyes and attention flicking this way and that while keeping a deadly focus. Sod it. Make sure you turn up early. This is how it’s meant to be done.
More on the third Baba Yaga night, and a little more, shortly…
O.R.k. are an intercontinental quartet of prog, post-prog and art-rock stars: two Italians, one Anglo-Australian, one American. Colin Edwin provides bass bedrock, Carmelo Pipitone adds an impressive assortment of guitar tones, Pat Mastelotto sets up his usual whirl of drums and electronic triggers, and Lorenzo Esposito “Lef” Fornasari sings and handles the odd drapes and strikes of keyboard and synthesizer. Their debut album, ‘Inflamed Rides’, has been attracting quite a bit of attention since its release last year.
They’ve certainly got the credentials, but to my ears O.R.k. remains a band searching for an identity of their own, still trying on various mix-and-match suits beneath which to flex their impressive collective muscle. There’s certainly a strong flavour of other projects which the various members have been involved with (including the clunk-and-cigarette art-rock croon of David Sylvian and Robert Fripp’s ‘The First Day’, which Pat toured around the world, prior to getting the drum slot in King Crimson, and the interim soundscapes of Colin’s work with Porcupine Tree and latterday Ex-Wise Heads). Lef sings and emotes in a variety of familiar tones recalling Sylvian, Maynard James Keenan and Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt, as well as Mike Patton (with whom he shares extreme flexibility and a sense of skewed drama).
Having said that, O.R.k. are accomplished setters of mood and tone, transforming gracefully from folk-prog delicacy to death-metal rasp and ambient billows. Carmelo in particular is emerging as a superb and chameleonic rock polystylist (incorporating but transcending the punk-edged folk guitar webwork he shows with his main band Marta sui Tubi via electric drones, sheet-lightning riffage, and stress-damage lead lines).
All in all, the band are possibly closest to Lef’s work with Fourth World polyfusion project Berserk! a few years ago, but restrained by a thicker wall of progressive metal and possessing less of the jazz, lightness of touch or overall flexibility, as if it were being grappled around the knees by the arty sludge-rock of Lef’s other main recent project, Obake. There’s plenty of latent promise, especially since Lef’s a genuine musical polymath whose other collaborations span work with Bill Laswell, Nils Petter Molvaer, Italian post-hardcore heroes Ephel Duath and even singing in Nino Rota operas.
If there’s a problem, it’s just that O.R.k. are still groping in the dark for the elusive, necessary spark to shock them into fully being themselves. Come along and perhaps you’ll get to see the moment when they catch it. Meanwhile, here’s a chop-and-change video of live snippets from Milan earlier in the month, plus a few more album tracks:
Assuming that my mixed reactions to O.R.k. haven’t put you off, I should add that the support bands are at least as much of a draw.
Pat Mastelotto makes another appearance in the opening act, Komara – a heady and ferocious live-fusion trio which draw equally on the steely tendons of Crimson/Tool art rock, scintillating sheens of club electronica, and the balance of supple inventiveness fiery plasticity in Scandinavian nu-jazz acts such as Jaga Jazzist. Always one of the most inventive yet undervalued drummers of latterday prog, Pat is on particularly stirring form in this collaboration, which hooks him up with Italian electrophonic trumpeter Paolo Raineri (a collaborator with Stefano Battaglia, Junkfood and Blessed Beat, and with LEF in Berserk!) and Slovakian everything-guitarist David Kollar (an audacious polydisciplinary musician, playing his homemade instrument through an unusual array of pedals, effects and electronics).
Described disarmingly by David as “punky, ambient, electronic and avant-garde stuff”, Komara is actually much less of a spass-jazz kickaround than that would suggest. Informed by David’s work in film and dance projects . Paolo’s love for rock and free improv, and Pat’s knack for surging heavy polyrhythms, it has a sense of dark flamboyant drama: filled with kaleidoscopic brass and guitar textures and burning electrical energy, it flows and seethes more along the lines of David Torn’s still-arresting ‘Cloud About Mercury’ or of Andy Diagram’s work with Spaceheads.
The three London bands that make up the rest of the bill are all headliner-worthy, too. I’ve written plenty already about the mordant, tricksy brilliance of Thumpermonkey, whose melodious heavy-progressive songs are packed with mood and texture changes, rich vocals, gruff punk-and-metal-sourced energy and sly, literate lyric puzzles. They’re a band whose work you can stomp and head-bang to, yet spend a happy age unpicking.
The Earls of Mars plough a similarly playful furrow, though in a skinnier and more oblique vein. A morbidly humorous alliance between Harry Armstrong (once of early Noughties prog-metal stoners End Of Level Boss, and ‘90s doom metallers Decomposed and Hangnail) and Dan Hardingham (from horrorscape project Onethirtyeight), plus stand-up bassist Si McCarthy and drummer Dave Newman, they offer curdled cabaret dramatics and Tom Waits-ian/Mike Patton-esque takes on heavy metal, weird fiction and burlesque. The jokes swim under the surface of the music, like lurking alligators.
Landskap are a more sober and slow-welling affair altogether. If you’ve ever felt that Elbow are what happens when a band steeped in pastoral prog hits the mainstream, you might feel that Landskap is what might happen if it were coaxed back again. Although they cite late ‘60s and early ‘70s psychedelic rock as key influences, I’m more inclined to hear Isaac Hayes, Portishead or No-Man in their sound.
With that funk swing to the drumming, the bluesy smears, the clusters of electric piano and the solidity in the whole package, they sound more like a prog band who dream of being a soul or rhythm-and-blues band (as many of them did, back then, at the start). There’s also an authoritative, earthy ache in Jake Harding’s stern singing tones – a little of Jim Morrison, a little of Ian McCulloch – making him an earthbound anchor to the band’s flights. In an evening which has more than its fair share of cosmic jazz blurs, Gothic artifice and mischievous humour, Landskap are likely to add a little human depth and straightforwardness.
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Something good ending too soon? Only a few posts ago I was urging you all towards my neighbourhood venue Forks & Corks, the deli venue at the foot of Archway Tower, and its developing series of jazz gigs: I even took my own advice and made it to to the Jonny Gee quartet show the other Friday, bringing along a group of friends to have their feelings soothed in the wake of a funeral. In a swirl of Parker, Ellington and Porter interpretations, plus the quartet’s own originals, the job was done, buoyed up by the warmth of a Forks & Corks full house drawn from around the community and friends, plus the feeling that something was being built up in this unprepossessing but lovingly inhabited, carefully decorated space.
Now I hear that the latest gig there is likely to be the last Forks & Corks jazz show for a while. Quiet and ominous rumours suggest that it will be the last jazz show there ever, and that the venue itself (which was always sitting on a questionable future in the heart of an Archway redevelopment that’s increasingly out of control) is going to quietly close. I’ve no idea what will crop up in its place: presumably it will be yet another coffee shop to go with the newly-announced Coffee Republic a few doors down and the eight or ten other coffee joints scattered around the junction. Part of the scenario for a regenerated Archway appears to be encouraging us Archway residents to circulate, grinning, from well-furnished caffeine pump to well-furnished caffeine pump, pretending we’re in a ceaseless round of ‘Friends’ re-runs.
Anyway, here’s the information for that last gig.
Jazz in Archway presents:
The Pike/Daniels Quartet Forks & Corks, 2 Archway Mall, Junction Road, Archway, London, N19 5PH, England
Saturday 20th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information
A quick scuffle around the search engines turned up a bit of information on the band. It’s co-led by London jazz-noir singer Kate Daniels. and composer/multi-instrumentalist Graham Pike (who can play chromatic harmonica, trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone and keyboards); guitarist Phil Danter leads the jazz-pop octet Straight On Red and generally seems to live the dream, while bass player Kevin Dunford’s been a London fusion mainstay for years and plays with The Incredibly Strange Film Band. There’s not much news on the quartet as a whole, but that shouldn’t count against them. London jazz is full of obscurities, word-of-mouth and ad-hoc teamups: this may well be the start of another one.
As for Forks & Corks, if anything replaces its original spirit and its jazz initiative, I’ll post up that news whenever I get to hear about it. Whatever the future for the venue itself, its manager’s passion for jazz is heartfelt, so I wouldn’t write him off yet… Meanwhile, if you’re passing the deli, drop in for a snack while you still can.
If you’re in or around Brighton this weekend with kids on your hands, and if you quite like the idea of them growing up to be lateral-thinking and freaky (I’d quite like that myself), here’s an all-ages event for you at a local community centre. No booze on offer, but you can bring your own.
Blurt date back to 1979, when restless self-styled “colonial brat” Ted Milton (by then in his mid-thirties) became disillusioned with his longstanding work as a professional puppeteer, which his restless and non-conformist spirit had been increasingly warping into audience-alienating Jarry-esque provocateur moves. Forming a Situationist rock trio presented a better opportunity for him to realize his aims for spontaneous expression, incorporating his neophyte Ornette Coleman-inspired sax playing, his improvised dancing and his spoken-word poetry (inspired by the Beats, the 1960s Liverpool scene and the Soviet school).
A strange mixture of sharp existentialist grit and whimsical Dada self-indulgence, Blurt have been out on a limb of their own ever since. Post-punk veterans who possess deeper roots in 1960s consciousness expansion and anti-authoritarianism, they joined the post-punk scene through chance, time and circumstance rather than affinity. Their music is a mixture of simple, jabbing musical figures and nail-tight drumming, with space for Ted to declaim or improvise freely on top. Now in his seventies, he’s still declaiming, dancing and blowing at the front of a lineup which currently features guitarist Steve Eagles and drummer Dave Aylward.
In support are a collection of kindred-spirit Brightonians offering a variety of music from the straight to the out. At the straighter end, The Sticks provide cheery, spindly country-garage, but beyond that things become a little more eccentric.
Coming across like the Sylvanian Families as abducted by Captain Beefheart, The Glugg perform in animal masks and sound like a threshing querulous lo-fi blues disaster that can’t be bothered to get out of bed. Variously described as “a local industrial complex” and “a noise-punk charter team” their racketing guitar, china-pig organ and wino vocals stumble over saxophone, harmonica, biscuit-tin drums and broken-telegraph slide in a welter of fake spaghetti themes and disintegrating rhythms.
Completing the bill, husband-and-wife tape-and-voice duo Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance make an appearance in their intermittent Dada-sound-experimentalist Blood Stereo guise. They’re like a Krautrock take on Ligeti: eerie sonic backdrops merge with pastoral electronic squiggles (a touch of the Cluster-ine), panting/yammering vocal sounds and carefully-recorded disruptions of function (violins with cello strings, incomplete mechanisms).
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Back in London, there’s still a few tickets left for this one…
Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
Terminal Cheesecake + Taman Shud + Khünnt The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road, Islington, London, N1 9JB, England
Saturday 20th February, 8.00pm – more information
Terminal Cheesecake were amongst the protagonists in the “arsequake” movement of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s in which chaotic bass-heavy British and European bands, inspired by the acid-juddered noisework and unhinged stage shows of American hardcore acts like Butthole Surfers or Jesus Lizard, grabbed that noisy baton and vigorously rammed it upwards through sampling, dub, hip hop and homegrown psychedelia. Standing out even amongst the hedonism and loud-living of their contemporaries for an exceptionally druggy, “fools at the gates of excess and wisdom” image (and sometimes falling foul of venue chains who didn’t appreciate their orgiastic performances and following), the band originally ground to a halt in 1995 – a mixture of too many chemical indulgences, not enough appreciation.
Since 2013, they’ve been back in action, with original-run members Russell Smith, Gordon Watson and John Jobbagy joined by Head Of David’s bass player Dave Cochrane (and with original fried howler Gary Boniface replaced by a contemporary psychedelic voyager, Gnod’s Neil Francis). Having played their own part in influencing a host of younger bands and musicians on the current psychedelic noise movement, the band are reaping the fruit of their original work- new concert opportunities, collaboration options, the pride of an actual living legacy.
Terminal Cheesecake have taken a lot of stick for their silly name, both then and now, but to me it encapsulated many of the qualities of arsequake: often ludicrous and tongue-in-cheek, yet stubbornly committed to art even to the point of ruination. The fact that they nicked that name from a list of fictional bands, cooked up in a spoofing mood by neo-psychedelic outlier Nick Saloman, somehow fits in with their plunderphonic psych ethos.
Monickers aside, it’s the music that speaks. With one foot enmired in rockabilly and ’60s psych and the other in the east London 80s scene that also birthed Bark Psychosis, M.A.A.R.S and A.R. Kane (and with the whole band effectively face-down, staring into a chaos pool) Terminal Cheesecake were exemplars of arsequake’s instincts and wildness, and the sloppy, overwhelming guitar noise of their early years was ameliorated on later recordings (most notably 1990s ‘Angels In Pigtails’ with its multi-levelled production approach of layers, samples, psychedelic loops and unusual instrumentation). The current band favours a return to the guitar stewings, but whether they’ve been thundering down a primitive or a sophisticated route there’s little doubt as to TC’s integrity regarding making a constructive racket, blowing open envelopes, or creating an atmosphere of free and uninhibited options at the rougher end of psychedelia.
Support comes from necro-psych band Taman Shud, who trail their influences and comparisons like heavy cerements (Killing Joke, “Hawkwind meets the Birthday Party”). With that doomy screech of hoarse vocal delivering lyrics of ziggurats and arcane diabolism and their taste for distorted grandeur and crashing rock guitars, they sound like an appointment with murder down at the end of a winding street, under crumbling Turkish battlements and harsh Mediterranean stars.
Dragging open the gates for the evening are Newcastle supergroup (or infragroup) Khünnt, whose members also play in various interrelated Toon heavy bands, predominantly power trio Blown Out and concrete-psych quintet Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. If Taman Shud lean towards the grand, Khünnt deliberately aim low. Theirs is an agonised, droning, thickened-trickle of a noise, a browned-out early Swans slithering into an oppressive doom-metal crush, Steven Palmer’s chord-shredding ghoul howls entangled with guitar riffs like dying hands clutching at a sewage outfall. The umlaut is important, too. Don’t ignore the umlaut.
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).
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.
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:
“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.”
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…
“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.
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’.
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.”
More assorted crossovers and team-ups via Daylight Music…
Daylight Music 214: Arcadio + Michael Price & Peter Gregson + Dakota Suite & Quentin Sirjacq Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 6th February 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event – more information
“Arcadio brings together London’s finest improvisers and percussionists to create a nomadic exploration of rhythm and movement. Led by composer Andrew Hall (also known as trumpeter for the vLookup Trio and Mak Murtic’s Balkan folk-futurist ensemble Mimika), Arcadio also features double bass player J.J. Stillwell, soundmangler Phil Maguire, woodwinder Rob Milne, multi-instrumentalist Ben Zucker, vLookup drummer Tom Atherton and several Mimika members (saxophonists Mak Murtic, Seb Silas and John Macnaughton; percussionist Paul Love). The band defines itself as the point where “electro-salsa meets free improvisation.” This will be their debut gig.
Michael Price is one of the UK’s most sought after composers and arrangers. His work for film and television includes ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ (both of which he co-scores with David Arnold), ‘Unforgotten’, ‘Hot Fuzz’, ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’, ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Quantum of Solace’. Michael’s first film experience was as musical assistant, co-producer and arranger to the late Michael Kamen, with whom he collaborated for five years, working on a number of exciting projects including ‘X-Men’, ‘Band of Brothers’, ”The Iron Giant’, and ‘Metallica – S&M’. Having begun his career as a pianist and composer for contemporary dance, he has now established the Michael Price Trio and Ensemble to perform his own work in diverse venues across the world. His critically acclaimed debut album ‘Entanglement’ (on Erased Tapes Records, released in April 2015) was described as “gorgeous” by Rolling Stone.
On this occasion, Michael will be performing with New Music cellist and composer Peter Gregson, who has recently premiered works by composers including Daníel Bjarnason, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Steve Reich.
Now approaching its twentieth anniversary, Dakota Suite is not so much a band, more the brainchild of Chris Hooson. While holding down a full-time job as a social worker in Leeds, Chris produces affecting sadcore music under the Dakota Suite monicker, usually working in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist David Buxton, but sometimes with Italian ambient composer Emanuele Errante and American composer-cellist David Darling.
Since 2009, another regular Dakota Suite collaborator has been Parisian composer and pianist Quentin Sirjacq – improviser, New Music performer and composer of music for film, theater and radio. A musician who has performed as part of rock groups, big bands, symphony orchestras and avant-garde ensembles, Quentin has also worked Fred Frith, whose music he has performed (alongside that of James Tenney and Frederic Rzewski and José Maceda) as part of his continuing explorations of the avant-garde and its relationship with older traditions. Quentin’s other recent collaborations have included work with Akira Kosemura and Shin Kikuchi, leading to releases on the Japanese label Schole Records.
Current collective Dakota Suite/Sirjacq plans include an upcoming studio record featuring the Hooson/Buxton/Sirjacq trio and the release of a live album featuring the Hooson/Sirjacq duo, some of which may be touched on at this gig.”
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There are two more upcoming jazz’n’improv gigs from the LUME organisation:
LUME presents:
Njanas + Far Reaching Dreams Trio The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, England
Sunday 7th February 2016, 7.30pm< – more information here and here
Njanas is a brand new project consisting of four female musician/composers – Laura Cole (piano), Filomena Campus (vocals), Tori Handsley (harp) and Ruth Goller (bass) – who are all band leaders in their own right. The ensemble, which celebrates women’s art and music, started more than a year ago.
Njanas state “we often feel under-represented as women in the worlds of jazz and art, and in this project all compositions are inspired by a female artist (such as Frida Kahlo, Niki de Saint Phalle, Gertrude Stein, Franca Rame and many more) or written by a female composer. The name Njanas is an encounter between the gigantic sculptures called ‘Nanas’, created by painter and sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle, and ‘Janas’, ancient legendary female figures and fairies/witches that relate to the myth of the Sardinian Goddess-Mother.”
Following the critically-acclaimed success of his ambitious nine-part jazz suite ‘Far Reaching Dreams Of Mortal Souls’, multi-instrumentalist and composer Percy Pursglove now debuts the music as re-interpreted by his fascinating new Far Reaching Dreams Trio, featuring himself on trumpet, Paul Clarvis on drums and Ivo Neame on piano and accordion.
Percy composed the original suite during 2013 and 2014, working with the support of a Jazzlines Fellowship. The multi-lingual piece (including sung texts referring to Anne Frank, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Malala Yousafzai, Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Benjamin Franklin and Joan of Arc) was originally arranged for a nine-piece ensemble, conductor and eight-piece choir for its October 2014 premiere. Percy describes ‘Far Reaching Dreams Of Mortal Souls’ as “a project that has been in the back of my mind for a few years now. I had some wonderful experiences singing in choirs at an early age and the sound of and purity of massed voices has always drawn my ear. I wanted to find a way to access that broad spectrum of possible textures that Gabriel Faure had introduced me to all those years ago, but within a chamber ensemble setting that has the scope to offer another layer of unforeseen spontaneity.”
En Bas Quartet are string-section improvisers. In order of rising pitch, they are Seth Bennett (double bass and group leader), Alice Eldridge (cello), Benedict Taylor (viola) and Aby Vulliamy (viola).
Seth comments “I’d long been interested in contemporary chamber music, and wanted to investigate that aesthetic in an improvised context. A ‘low’ quartet also allows me to join in – the bass part in a quartet is usually taken by the cello – and write music for a chamber ensemble, with all the interaction and rhythmic subtlety they use. I find the parallel between a small jazz ensemble and a string quartet very interesting; both groups will stretch time, allow the music to breathe and pause, and find a way to play as a single unit. I chose three of the best string improvisers in the country to form the rest of the ensemble, and was lucky enough that they all agreed to take part in the project.”
Here’s what they do:
According to LUME, at this gig the Quartet “will be playing Seth’s quartet for improvising low strings, based on the Northumberland folk song tune Sair Fyeld Hinny, and exploring various settings and provocations for group and solo improvisation. Inspired by the quartets of Shostakovich, Beethoven and Bartok, as well as more contemporary jazz ensembles like Arcado String Trio, the Masada string trio and contemporary British free improvisation, En Bas Quartet weave their disparate influences into a compelling whole.”
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.
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.
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.
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
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.”
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…
Swoon. /swo͞on/ A verb. To be emotionally affected by someone or something that one admires; become ecstatic. Here are some people and things that make me swoon. #swoon #swoonage
Subtitled “Inside/Out”, this particular Daylight Music session is a showcase for some of the long-running concert series’ regulars. As they put it:
Misfit City 