Paper Dress are putting on a show of relative unknowns.
A few years old and already hailed as “highly engaging and loud”, Meat Candy provide star-studded retrofitted space rock high on lysergic sherbet and amp buzz: chasing the jets of Interstellar Overdrive while sliding towards harder rock and heavy metal. While early Pink Floyd is definitely the template for their chugging, droning sense of wonder, there are aspects of Voivod and King’s X in there too, both in their clanging solidity and the sturdily-banked harmony vocals.
The guttural yelps of Mur-Man are the product of an even younger band, one who haven’t got past their first demo yet. It’s a smart little nugget, though: the joining of ‘60s garage rock and ‘80s Liverpool post-punk is a well worn root by now, but ever-capable of putting out new shoots. For this one, there’s an extra dusting of raga rock – well, close but no sitar. As for the subject matter… well, they might be north Londoners, but Mur-Man sound as if they’re rather be stateside unbuckling the Bible Belt, with their randy tragicomic tale of a twisted love triangle (a horny boy breaking a commandment while wishing he was actually breaking another one).
Similarly recent are Husband, who’ve only been in existence for a slim season. That said, singer Dharshika Ariyadasa’s a veteran who’s already served time in heavy-acoustic band Heaven’s Heathens, acclaimed London folk rockers Ghosts Of December and wall-of-noise rock balladeers Autumn Leaf Boy. In all of these, his heroic stature and presence and his remarkable baritone-to-falsetto voice proved a magnet for attention. Husband are new enough (this is only their second live show) that there’s nothing to share yet as regards exactly what Dharshika is doing now; so here’s something of what he did back then…
Opening proceedings are wistful folk-rockers Hotel: similarly new and elusive, although a clutch of Facebook videos suggest something somewhere between Boo Hewerdine and Neil Young. Judge for yourselves…
Paper Dress presents:
Meat Candy + Mur-Man + Husband + Hotel Paper Dress Vintage Bar & Boutique,, 352a Mare Street, Hackney, London, E8 1HR, England
Friday 3rd August 2018, 7.45pm – information here and here
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Moving into louder and heavier territories, this month’s edition of Chaos Theory’s Facemelter night features a couple of their old favourites, one of whom are celebrating an anniversary.
Post-metal stalwarts and Facemelter regulars Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster are celebrating ten years of playing and releasing music, taking in goth and prog and experimental rock atmospherics to build instrumental stews creating impressions of ravaged deserts, old sorting yards, tensions flaring. At this retrospective show at the Black Heart, they’ll perform a selection from across their career along with some previously unheard new music (for which all attendees will receive a free download code).
Flies Are Spies From Hell (who’ve played their own share of Facemelter shows) may be much jauntier than Tacoma Bridge Disaster, but both bands are storytellers without words. In the case of the Flies, they seem to have been on a fourteen-year mission to scour the glums out of post-rock clichés: their expansive instrumentals might maintain a little of that dour, hovering impression of bleakly glorious post-industrial landscapes (the kind I’ve just accused Tacoma of propagating) but if Tacoma illustrate spectacular polluted sunsets then the Flies represent a more hopeful sunrise. In addition to the basic post-rock moves, their own instrumentals seemingly quote everything from folk rock to house piano riffs, and somehow do so without making it all sound like a wacky polystylistic exercise. Instead, think of breakfast in a borderland, people from various walks of life or culture moving through and conversing.
Maziac are making their Facemelter debut at this gig. Pulling in former members of Manchester prog-metallers Phineas Gage, Canadian indie rockers Forgotten Fix and London screamos Knievel Genius, they’re the out-and-out dirtiest and heaviest band on the bill when they want to be (and the only one with vocals) but, paradoxically, they’re also the lightest. Behind the gnarly riffage and the blast beats, there’s a lot of power-pop honeycomb – they use something akin to The Wildhearts’ alleged wheeze of fusing sticky Cheap Trick melodies with gnarly Metallica amp savagery, decorating it liberally with tech-metal tricks and brief, perfectly placed instrumental fireworks.
A debut EP, ‘Parallels’ shows off well-developed songwriting skills to impressive effect. They don’t really seem to buy that much into the ornate and slightly solipsistic world of their billmates, but follow their own particular path: if Tacoma and Flies are urging you to stop and soak in a spectacular world, Maziac are busy powering out of the valley in order to get something done.
Chaos Theory Promotions presents:
The Facemelter: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster + Flies Are Spies From Hell + Maziac The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden Town, London, NW1 0AP, England
Friday 3rd August 2018, 7.30pm – information here, here and here
John Doran of ‘The Quietus’ wrote a pithy, on-the-nose article a while back about the ongoing corruption of big music festivals, lambasting them as “unsatisfying money hoovers designed to deplete your bank account for minimal return… a heavily branded and patronisingly over-mediated experience – with little in the way of the rough round the edges, unexpected, challenging or genuinely exciting experience that makes being a music fan worthwhile; just a massive spoonfed dose of the ubiquitous, the hyped and the monolithically popular.”
As a follow-up punch, John slashed a hole in the backdrop in order to expose the ethics behind the festival business: how, even as you’re frolicking in a ludicrously overpriced facsimile of countercultural free-spiritedness, your ticket money wriggles its way into the war chests and “shockingly regressive campaigns” of suspect billionaires intent on crushing any genuine counterculture that’s little more than a cheery mask on a product, funding a host of life-killing causes including anti-LGBTQ, anti-union and anti-immigration initiatives. Unsurprisingly, he concluded “personally I’d sooner go to a smaller, more grass-roots independent festival and have a clutch of genuinely odd, uplifting, joyous and memorable experiences on a smaller, freer scale.” He lists plenty of smaller, more conscientious festivals which might better suit your ethics or your conscience – Supersonic, End of the Road, many more. Modestly, he didn’t mention ‘The Quietus’s own efforts .
I might lack John’s edge, but I’ll still say amen to all that. There’s also always the option of going further off the map, seeking out festivals beyond the tents’n’burgers belch. I’ve covered some such here… Marchlands’ annual musical/theatrical celebration of reaching across borders and understanding history; the composer-driven London New Wind Festival; New York’s wonderfully brainy and diverse Ecstatic Music Festival. On a more domestic level, there’s next month’s Whole World Window 2 in Preston, raising urgent money for psychedelic hero Tim Smith’s health care while also functioning as a focussing lens for assorted rock and pop acts existing in a rowdy, complex continuum outside ot the mainstream. The staunchest supportive and communal ethics, unsurprisingly, still hover around punk events, those pass-around-a-donation-bucket battles for big values in small places (I might often be bored by the music, but I profoundly admire the commitment and the generosity of spirit).
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As regards the coming week, Gloucestershire’s EppyFest – just a week away now – is the epitome of a pocket festival. Now heading in its seventh year, it also pretty much defines “boutique”. Its amiably knitted-together selections of psychedelic rock and pop, folk, electric and acoustic chamber music and accomplished instrumentalist is undeniably cosy, but in the right way – unashamed and unaggressive, slightly specialised while toting an inclusive audience ethic. There’s a rosy English glow to it, alright, but not the kind which shoulders out differences while indulging a truculent and moneyed bucolic fantasy. The Eppyfest England is one which is comfortable in itself, but not too smug to look outwards: mostly white, but not bleached and angry. In the best sense and intimation, it’s a liberal parish.
The Friday lineup, starting in the evening – is the briefer concert, with just two sets of performers. The headliners are the current and ongoing version of cosmic-rock libertine troupe Gong, still romping along after the death of founding holy prankster Daevid Allen. This isn’t the first time there’s been a post-Allen Gong: percussionist Pierre Moerlen floated a de-hippified mid’-70s jazz-rock version around Europe which had little to do with Allen’s mischievous space rock parables, while the band’s original feminine-mystiquer Gilli Smyth led a sporadic Mother Gong version at points in the ’80s. This, however, is the first Gong that’s been a direct continuation of Allen’s work: thumbing its collective nose at his departure from music and from life, and mourning him by celebrating his ethos.
This Gong iteration is helmed by delightfully wayward, larger-than-life Anglo-Persian prodigy (and ‘Misfit City’ favourite) Kavus Torabi, who established himself as one of the premier, most open-eared British psychedelic talents while with The Monsoon Bassoon and Cardiacs, has continued it with Knifeworld and Guapo, and who has in effect been rehearsing for Gong leadership for the whole of his musical life. Expect the same applecart-overturning riffs, the mingled brass and electric strings, the space-dust party atmospheres. The old firm’s still a family.
In support, Liverpudlian guitarist Neil Campbell is arguably one of the most gifted musicians still unknown to the general public. An omnivorous stylistic polymath, he’s mastered contemporary classical, progressive rock, jazz and assorted other styles to the point in which he can pass seamlessly between and through them; and he comes trailing awestruck references from guitar scholars and crossover music master musicians alike. Working off nylon- and steel-strung acoustic guitars (with a chain of echoes, loop pedals and other processors) he creates detailed, fiery electro-acoustic tapestries when playing solo: given the opportunity, he’ll also roll out orchestral concerti, small ensemble pieces, vital building-block contributions to the larger works of other, and site-specific concerts in venues of all kinds.
North Sea Radio Orchestra headline Saturday’s seven hours of music – as ever, they draw together Anglo-pastoral classical, a stolen kiss or two of folk melody, crossover chamber music and English art-rock. (They’ve covered Robert Wyatt, as well as old Christmas carols and Vernon Elliot). Sixteen years in, they’re a little smaller and tighter than they used to be – the choir is long gone and the ensemble streamlined, with most of the Victorian poetry settings consigned back to the bookshelf in favour of more personal lyrics of chalkhills and children, lost loved ones and the make-do-and-mend of life.
They’re still a quietly enchanting proposition, gently webbed together by a deceptive fragility, a village-singer tone and Craig Fortnam’s elegant compositions, and they grow ever more comfortable in themselves as the years pass. From German kosmische, they bring in that cosmic powerplant throb: from Frank Zappa and Canterbury, the somersaults of harmony and tinkle of xylophone (with the lyrical coarseness and silly whimsy gently steered out of the picture); from English chamber music, the gentle green ache. All soft borders, all subtle mind.
Second down the bill is Doris Brendel. The Vienna-born multi-instrumentalist daughter of concert-piano legend Alfred Brendel, she originally made her mark in ‘90s neoprog and underground AOR providing vocals, guitar, sax and flageolet to The Violet Hour: when that didn’t last, she applied herself to whatever was going while cultivating her own records in her own time. She’s refined her earlier approach, but what you get now is still pretty much what you got then – a singer who can go from a dream-folk murmur to a gutsy rhythm-and-blues blast, who puts on an assured show of muscular rock and costumed pizazz. An old-school rock chick, but one who’s taken control and honed it to excellence. There might be differences in tone, but latter-day ladyrockers like She Makes War and Ciara Clifford might look to her and immediately see a spiritual older sister.
Via a shifting gambler’s hand of interrelated projects – and a proven ability to survive practical and artistic disruption – the persistently thoughtful Oxford prog-rock collective Sanguine Hum have explored music for nearly twenty years now. In many respects, they’re a back-to-first-principles prog-initiative. Rather than constructing vast vanity pieces (as if to impress their aspirational Mellotronic forebears), the Hum are based very much in a lush’n’lambent ’70s pop mode – as least as much Neil Young, Steely Dan or David Bowie as Genesis, Zappa or Canterbury – which they can then wilfully and logically expand to bigger and broader things (engulfing and building upon later influences such as Boards Of Canada along the way).
For this acoustic-slanted EppyFest slot, lead singer/guitarist Joff Winks and keyboard player Matt Baber (the latter fresh from last month’s release of his “ambient prog minimalism” solo album ‘Suite For Piano and Electronics‘) will play as a duo; exploring at least one track from each of the project’s scattered albums and personae, with new material as a bonus.
Electric chamber group Firefly Burning were to have held the middle of the bill but had to pull out. To replace them, in comes a harder noise in the shape of the explosive wit, ominous chording and multi-layered songwriting of London’s Thumpermonkey. I described them a while back as “the missing link between Peter Hammill and Neal Stephenson”: a tag which they really seemed to like, so let’s run with it. A motley crew of brainiacs, meticulators and fast friends with their heads in lofty places and their toes sunk in dirty post-metal, they have the kind of esoteric preoccupations (and the wherewithal to communicate them) which encourage interest rather than eye-rolling and detachment. Unshamedly weird-fictional, the songs have covered Nigerian email fraud, Aztec hauntings, bizarre medical conditions and Victorian explorers amongst many other topics, all via a rich filter of literary and cinematic techniques and dark, sophisticated humour.
As for the music, Thumpermonkey play within that increasingly rare strata of hard rock in which there’s room to breathe, think, listen and explore beauty as well as nail down a predatory riff. Michael Woodman sings like an athletic college don moonlighting as an operatic priest, while his cohorts Ben, Sam and Rael construct a moving fortress, observatory and interdimensional vessel for him to stand on. They’re the kind of band that either make you proud to be curious, or will magnetize your brain into a state of curiosity. In effect, they’re the ‘Infinite Monkey Cage’ of British post-prog and we’re bloody lucky to have them.
Bristolian progressive-grunge rockers Lord Of Worms cite Meshuggah, Soundgarden, Tool and Ufomammut as influences, and there’s certainly some roiling springy punktone bass and restless post-hardcore rhythmic shifts in the mix. Their folk lilts and Zoie Green’s burnished-silver vocals simultaneously tie them into a tradition of female-fronted folk-rock acts like Renaissance and The Morrigan. Judge for yourselves…
Like Sanguine Hum, Dutch/American crossover prog poppers Fractal Mirror will be playing under reduced circumstances as regards personnel, but probably not in terms of the music. While the band can rely on the assistance of Echolyn polymath Brett Kull, among others, in the studio, this live date will just feature their core duo of singer/guitarist/keyboard and recorder player Leo Koperdraat and lyric-writing drummer Frank Urbaniak. Expect intimate expansions on their recipe of dove-soft Mellotronics and pastoral post-Porcupine Tree moods, with their hidden freight of darker, reflective lyrics.
Sonic Bond Promotions & The Epileptic Gibbon Podcast present:
EppyFest 7: North Sea Radio Orchestra + Gong + Neil Campbell + Sanguine Hum + Doris Brendel + Thumpermonkey + Lord Of Worms + Fractal Mirror St Margaret’s Hall & Annex, Coniston Road, Hatherley, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL51 3NU, England
Friday 27th July 2018, 7.00pm – information here and here Saturday 28th July 2018, 1.00pm – information here and here
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It would be stupid of me to represent EppyFest as some kind of absolute template for festivals. It’s its own little Gloucestershire gem, it has its context and its taste-palette, and while it’s a fine refresher there’s far more to contemporary music – to a nourishing cultural diet – than even a thoughtful slipped-weekend like this one can provide.
What I am advocating is a spreading of its care-filled cottage ethos; its preference for building a relatively equal, mutually supportive community of performers and audients in a warm and humble space, rather than driving a rush of drainable, soakable human cattle through the money-mill. Events like this are worth the seeking-out, worth the effort that goes into their creation. Go find some. Go make some. Come tell me about them.
A quick boost for the heavy stuff at the Facemelter this week, and for an avant-rock return at Café Oto mid-month….
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“Hailing from Motherwell, Scotland, A Sudden Burst Of Colour captures fans of electronic, ambient, dance and rock music with their soundscapes and encapsulating songwriting. Their sound is bright, shimmering and generally uplifting. The instrumental quartet have four globally acclaimed EP releases under their belt, which is evidenced by features from ‘BBC Introducing’, ‘The Scotsman’, ‘Earmilk’ (USA), ‘Arctic Drones’ (Turkey), ‘Stereofox’ (Germany) and many more, so this is a good time to catch them before they break into the wider world. Their recent single ‘I Am The Storm’ was premiered on Daniel P. Carter’s BBC Radio 1 Rock Show and they’re currently in pre-production for their forthcoming album, which is due for release at the end of the year.”
Replacing Bristolian mathrockers Hoggs Bison (who, like Barringtone recently, have come down with a bad case of broken wrist) are “noisy math/grunge band a-tota-so (formed by members of Alright the Captain and Cheap Jazz), who we’ve been dying to put on for ages! In their short one-and-a-half-year existence, they’ve already toured the UK and Europe, shared the stage with Tera Melos, Tangled Hair, Alpha Male Tea Party, Chiyoda Ku, Memory of Elephants, VASA and many more, and played at ArcTanGent and StrangeForms Festival. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, the band recently recorded their debut album at Nice Weather For Airstrikes and Snug Recording Co. and are set to release it in September 2018.
“To open, there’s a rare appearance from soloist Theo (described as “an extraordinary maelstrom of soundscapes, loops, beats and power” by ‘Louder Than War), who creates layers of tight guitar melodies and riffs by looping them over and over again, before sitting down at his drum kit and smashing out some fantastic rhythms to them. The range of dynamics and changes he achieves, as well as his ability to make the entire piece a coherent tune from start to finish, is astonishing. We’ve seen him perform around the country, including at ArcTanGent and at our late night Facemelter with Poly-Math and EVILLOOKINGBIRD, so we’re glad to see him make a return.”
Chaos Theory Music Promotions presents:
The Facemelter: A Sudden Burst of Colour + a-tota-so + Theo The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden Town, London, NW1 0AP, England
Friday 6th July 2018, 7.30pm – information here and here
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The upcoming Heldon and Hirvikolari gig at Café Oto appears to be happily selling itself without my input, partially thanks to Heldon mainstay Richard Pinhas‘ reputation as “the French Robert Fripp”. If that’s a fair comparison (and Richard has readily acknowledged that “Fripp has always been my Hendrix”), he might not have King Crimson’s ability to fill larger theatres but he does seem to have a far less compromised reputation in avant-garde hubs like Oto – for one thing, you wouldn’t generally find Robert Fripp going head-to-head with members of The Boredoms. A former junior philosophy professor, he jumped the academic ship in 1974, inspired by his own comparisons between philosophers and rock stars (and by his own taste for science fiction) to form an electronic rock band with a trans-sonic bent. This was Heldon, one of the very first French bands to use synthesizers, and one which would subsequently fall under the spell of King Crimson, Fripp and Brian Eno and develop their own droning improvisatory rock forms.
While the band originally only lasted for the course of the 1970s, Heldon’s albums are currently being reissued by Bureau B: this year, an archive live album, ‘Live in Metz 77’, was released by Bam Balaam. All of which has prompted a return to live action by Richard under the Heldon name. This is their first London concert for literally decades: expect to see an excited anticipatory audience of prog/avant-rock fans of all ages.
Hirvikolari – modular synthesist Mike Bourne and processed-trumpet guy Sam Barton – are more often found being two-fifths of Teeth Of The SeaLast time round, I described them as follows: “while Teeth Of The Sea tend to play great stomping horror-slabs of musical architecture (a flying saucer spitting out rows and rows of heavily-armed tower blocks) Hirvikolari prefer to take the slow path and evolve themselves a great bolus of stewed electronic burble and resonating brass tracks. Ennio Morricone’s been cited as a comparison, as has the long tradition of counter-culture festival techno: both comparisons have some grounding.”
There’s about three handfuls-worth of tickets left: if you want to pluck them from the eager grip of Baba Yaga’s Hut, I’m sure they’d be all too willing to let you have your chance.
Baba Yaga’s Hut presents:
Heldon + Hirvikolari Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, England
Saturday 14th July 2018, 8.00pm – information here, here and here
Quick repostings for a couple of early June concerts on the heavy/complicated side… another Facemelter metal night in London mixing up a big pile of prefixes (post-, sludge-, grunge- hardcore etc.); and a Smokehouse show in the warm, dark heart of Suffolk uniting The Display Team’s blazing jazz-rock convolutions, Babar Love’s acoustic hip-hop and reggae-folk, and Perhaps Contraption’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink brassery.
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Chaos Theory Music Promotions presents:
The Facemelter: Archelon + La Bestia de Gevaudan + DeadBlondeStars The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden Town, London, NW1 0AP, England
Friday 1st June 2018, 7.30pm – information here, here and here
“A super special edition of our long-running night, as we see a southern album release, a UK debut tour pass through from Chile and the latest signing on Rockosmos.
“Archelon are a stunning post-metal and sludge band from Sheffield, who we saw just beginning to explode into their true selves last year. Now a five-piece band and with a powerful debut album under their belts, Archelon have reached a point where they have crafted a nuanced and textured sound, taking cues from Neurosis, Cult of Luna and Isis, yet standing out on their own. Their album ‘Tribe Of Suns’ is out now via Sludgelord Records – this is the London release show.
“La Bestia de Gevaudan are passing through the UK for the first time on their way from Dunk!festival in Belgium. Blending genres that many of us may be familiar with (such as post-rock, sludge, electronica, post-metal and hardcore), this Chilean band have somehow created a sound not totally like anything we’ve heard from European and North American bands in the same scenes. Their forthcoming album ‘Kintsukuroi’ will be finished in the second half of 2018 and features Mike Armine (Rosetta) and Eric Quach (thisquietarmy). Having already opened for Neurosis, Ruins Alone, Deafheaven and thisquietarmy, it’s time for the UK to catch up and discover something unconventional within a scene that we know well.
“The latest band to join the roster for esteemed prog rock label Rockosmos (which already has many releases out for Amplifier, Awooga and Thumpermonkey), DeadBlondeStars are a sumptuous throwback to some of the best grunge bands, so fans of Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and Alice In Chains are going to be overjoyed to hear them. Proof that some of our foundations can be pulled forward and made relevant again.”
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Uncomfortable Beach Party Promotions present:
The Display Team + Babar Luck + Perhaps Contraption The Smokehouse, South Street Studios, 6 South Street, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP1 3NU, England
Saturday 9th June 2018, 8.30pm – information here
“This gig is a little out of the ordinary for the Uncomfortable Beach Party, but all the same we are excited to announce…
“The Display Team (the band that grew from the ashes of Mumra – in other words, it’s been a long time since they were last in Ipswich) are an infuriating blend of catchy and off-the-wall mental. Any fans of Cardiacs will not want to miss this gig. Horns a-plenty, falsetto vocals and a frenzied mess of time changes make up much of their sound. Check out their new album ‘Shifts’.
“Support comes from the gentleman known as Babar Luck. A true wild spirit and a troubadour. I’m sure you’ll all know him both as the bass player in King Prawn and for his own inimitable solo stuff. He’s a man powered by love, and he’ll be dead happy if you get him stoned.
“And opening the night will be The Display Team’s trombonist’s other band Perhaps Contraption, who describe themselves as “marching band/jazz/punk/avant-rock/post-classical/something”, and sound no less mental or horn-led than the Display Team. A brass band with a real difference the likes of which you’ve not seen at Uncomfortable Beach Party Promotions gigs before.
“Don’t miss this gig – all the sets will be mindblowing, I promise ya.”
With eight years of noisy, complicated, wallpushing music under the bonnet, London happening-makers Chaos Theory are celebrating with a two-pm-to-two-am alldayer at the start of February, featuring the pick of their past few years of concerts.
Chaos Theory Promotions presents:
‘8 Years of Chaos: Celebrating Eight Years of Music for Open Minds’ The Brewhouse @ London Fields Brewery, 369-370 Helmsley Place, South Hackney, London, E8 3SB, England
Saturday 3rd February 2018, 2.00pm – information here, here and here
As a foundation, expect plenty of of time-signature-skipping, dynamic shifts and steely guitar work from a mass of loud experimental-progressive rock bands, mostly sandwiched between eight-wheeled prog/garage roarers The Fierce & The Dead and cunning tales-of-the-unexpected heavy post-proggers Thumpermonkey. Predominantly (if not entirely) instrumental, these include revitalised Brighton math-metallers Poly-Math, jumpy slammers Flies Are Spies From Hell and the epic goth-toned Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster, plus grand grunge/prog/metal heavies Sümer.
The earlier part of the day will see classical fusion and more experimental, free-floating performers. Mystical avant-cello darling Jo Quail will be playing a set, as will electro-acoustic post-classicalist Lucy Claire. Oliver Barrett’s devotional-drone project Petrels will make an appearance in full band format, while the festival’s opening slot goes to Prometheus & The Satyrs: a new permutation of the work of Spyros Giasafakis and Evi Stergiou (who, as Daemonia Nymphe, have been reworking ancient Greek instruments and music into new part-improvised dark-blurred pieces like an Athenian Dead Can Dance).
As the day wears on, though, things will get hairier and the music gradually heavier and more ritualistic via slots from baleful screaming sludge-metallers Wren, Kentish metalcore men Harrowed, head-against-the-wah-pedal psychedelic noise-metallers Casual Nun and hot-rodding motorik chanters Taman Shud. Towards the end, the infamous Sly & The Family Drone squad will be simultaneously on and offstage. A free-play shufflezone of border-crashing electronics, feedback and occasional horns, they hand out their drums to the audience as part of a mutual meld of inspiration and noisemaking. Drones, blares, convulsions and fragments usually ensue.
The electronics-and-drums duo who are playing as the closing act used to rejoice in the pretty hideous provocateur name of Shitwife. Since then (and post-Pussygate) they’ve grown up a bit, have opted to represent heart and community over nose-tweaking and nihilistic offence, and have been blazing on since June last year as Big Lad. From the early days as an “astonishingly brutal drums/laptop/electronics juggernaut fusing rave, death metal, noise and post-hardcore”, they’re now sleekening into a sunnier, more ecstatic outfit: still slopping out welters of in-your-face noise, but now letting their rave ethics flush through in a setful of “high octane party bangers” and in their desire to become “the band that brings the biggest, rudest party to as many people as possible… we want you to be able to meet awesome new people at the shows and hopefully start sharing important ideas about how we can combat the fuckers that are causing real damage!” It should be an ideal Chaos Theory signoff: blitzing noise meets communal joy.
While there’s a powerful taste of CT’s Facemelter and Whispers & Hurricanes nights here (the metal and the woods) there’s not quite so much from their Jazz Market side to hand. Never mind: there’s only so many hours available – and there’ll be more of everything in the coming year. There’s also a plentiful supply of live-at-Chaos-Theory event clips below, (plus a few borrowings from elsewhere) to get you in the mood…
The Audacious Art Experiment presents:
Blood Sport + LOGS + Eşya + Isis Moray + Two Left Foot DJs + more t.b.c. The Leadmill, 6 Leadmill Road, Sheffield, Yorkshire, S1 4SE, England
Saturday 9th December 2017, 7.30pm – information here and here
Next week, Sheffield says goodbye to homegrown “aggrobeat” band Blood Sport, who’ve been pumping out their open-ended blend of Fela Kuti afrobeat, dance rock and noise pop for seven years and have decided it’s time to stop. They’ll be missed for their music, which revived and rearranged various dots of New York loft music, classic post-punk exploration and latterday cellar noise. They’ll probably be missed even more for their communality, which saw them collaborating both onstage and in-set with a variety of international musical partners and guests both at small gigs and at the Hybrid Vigour shows (in which they crossed swords, palms or barriers in cahoots with the likes of Egyptian electro-chaabi champion Islam Chipsy, poly-composer/performer Mica Levi, Tokyo experimental rock trio Nisennenmondai and ex-Hype Williams vocalist Inga Copeland).
In keeping with their persistent ethos of collaboration, celebration and sharing, Blood Sport’s final show features a clutch of interesting friends and artists whom they’re shining a generous light onto. A couple of Sheffield acts will be playing sets and unveiling music – psytronic voice-trumental looper and bass’n’drumbox witch Isis Moray, and Sheffield electronic noise “supercluster” LOGS (born out of “a mutual love for fuzzy jams and spacey synth tones” and featuring Ben Hunter – a.k.a. Audacious Art Experiment bleep-and-squeak house technoist Saif Mode – plus assorted members and ex-members of Drenge, Wet Nuns and Seize The Chair).
The show will also feature a performance from Savages bass player-turned-experimental synthpopper Ayşe Hassan. She’ll be debuting a new performance identity called Eşya, with which/whom she claims is going to play out “the duality of conflicting traits, ideas and views that can exist within one being and how one deals with such conflict – the absurdity of being.” Hmm. A part-pixellated half-minute preview is on show below. On spec, Eşya seems to owe something to the brain-wandering club-pop/femme-pop of Ayşe’s existing Kite Base project, but moving deeper into onomatopoeia, sensuality and (given the pixellation) perhaps a little transgression too… We’ll see.
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Another musician whom we hopefully won’t be losing anytime soon is Dan Wild-Beesley, until recently of Manchester “turbo-prog” duo Cleft (known for “condensing fourteen-minute prog songs into three minutes and having a lot of fun doing it”) and more recently of perky post-hardcore/noisepop trio Gug. A couple of years ago, he had the horrible luck of being diagnosed with not just one, but two brain tumours, meaning that he needed to raise fifty thousand pounds for overseas treatment unavailable on the NHS.
While his JustGiving campaign was successful (gratifyingly, it seems that you can still build up a lot of love and fellow feeling from six years of ping-ponging around tiny British venues banging out stripped-down rock weirdness), there’s still more money to be raised for the essentials of drastically shifting to a cancer-crushing lifestyle. There’s still plenty people can do to help – picking up Cleft or Gug music, keeping that JustGiving campaign ticking along, or coming to the series of fundraising shows. I missed the opportunity to post about the one back in October, but here’s a little info about the one in December.
Mentholman Promotions/MADE present:
Dan Wild-Beesley (Cleft) Fundraiser: Porshyne + AWOOGA + Gilmore Trail + Pfaff West Street Live, 128-130 West Street, Sheffield, S1 4ES, Yorkshire, England
Thursday 14th December 2017, 7.30pm – information
“What better way to raise funds than to put on an event with four incredible acts?” What indeed? Expect a friendly, contradictory, noisy/soft post-everything rockquake (complete with raffle and donation buckets). The two Sheffield bands – thoughtful prog-grungers AWOOGA (fresh from their London gig the previous week at the Black Heart) and delicately limpid post-rock instrumental quartet Gilmore Trail (the latter noted for their twinkling cover of the ‘Twin Peaks’ theme) – will be joined by a couple of out-of-towners: three-piece Mancunian math-rockers Pfaff and “heavy atmospheric” rock quintet Porshyne from Brighton. All necessary evidence below…
Nøught + Blurt + Cavalli + Y-Bot New Cross Inn, 323 New Cross Road, SE14 6AS London, United Kingdom
Thursday 7th December 2017, 7.00pm – information here and here
Prognoisers Nøught carry out one of their infrequent surfacings early in December. With guitarist/leader James Sedwards and longstanding bass foil Santiago Horro currently accompanied by keyboard player Luke Barlow and drummer Bo Mapper, you can look forward to another set of lengthy craggy Sedwards instrumentals – still trying to square Mahavishnu Orchestra and Big Black, King Crimson and Fugazi, Nirvana and Lalo Schifrin.
Seventeen years on from their lone-standing/as-yet unfollowed-up debut album (and nearly twenty from when James first wowed the judges at the National Guitarist of the Year competition with the racy swagger of his ‘Cough Cap Kitty Cat’) they’re still playing the same anti-career game of flash, duck and run; holing up for extended periods of time and pouncing out like trapdoor spiders for gigs as and when they feel like it; then evaporating while James runs off and plays bass for Thurston Moore. For more ‘Misfit City’ blathers on them, check back here. When they deign to materialise, they always impress. They don’t do it nearly often enough, though.
Tonight, they’re sharing a venue with venerable Dadapunk trio Blurt, led (as ever) by seventysomething poet/puppeteer Ted Milton in a blaze of words, tunejab and roiling harmolodic saxophone and making a wild individual bouillon of Situationism, the Soviet school and nearly sixty years of countercultural gab from the 1960s onwards. (Click here for what I wrote about them last time.)
Also on the bill are Cavalli, who play crisp stoner punk (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) while secreting crystallized acid on the edges of their bladed riffs, and whose songbook spans the belligerent anti-fascist tone of You Fuckin’ Racist to the growling grumblemetal of Bloody God and the wistfully Oceansize-d rumble of Latin Stallions. Finally, there Y-BOT (or “Young Blood Old Tricks”) – uncontainable, swaying beat-mudlarks offering “a new vision of alternative hip hop, proto-prog-punk-minimalist rap… a mutated mix of prog-punk, menacing bass and drums and experimental fragmented lyricism.” See below for evidence: something in the rough free-associative/Situationist line which accidentally encompasses The Fall, Happy Mondays and Lo-Fidelity Allstars (and, indeed, Blurt).
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In the wake of Chaos Theory’s post-metal blowout last week at London’s Black Heart, Rockosmos (the label formed by Amplifier’s Sal Balamir) is throwing a similar occasion next week. In truth, you couldn’t slip an arcane black scroll or occult black flashdrive between them – from the fact that both bands involved have been Chaos Theory guests, to the presence of a certain indefatigable promoter on the DJ decks during the lulls…
AWOOGA + Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster, 8th December 2017
Rockosmos presents:
AWOOGA + Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster + Chaos Theory DJ set The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden Town, London, NW1 0AP, England
Friday 8th December 2017, 8.00pm – information here, here and here
“Rockosmos presents a pleasant yuletide evening of post-metal doomgazing sludge frolics and festivities courtesy of AWOOGA, showcasing their imminent debut album ‘Conduit’, with support from London’s one and only Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster and DJ sets from Chaos Theory’s Kunal Singhal.”
