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…
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.”
Happy New Year everyone. While I sort myself out, put the review of 2015 together and decide which approaches to take with ‘Misfit City’ this year, here’s what I know about so far in terms of January shows. Firstly, a couple of mini-festivals of indie pop/garage rock/punk/noise rock and indie folk in London, plus an afternoon of free improvisation in a Kentish Town record shop.
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Several of the characters who showed up for the Arrivée/Départ II festival last month are also showing up for this next one: it’s a similar aesthetic, and involves many of the same musical and professional friendships.
The 6th Annual Fortuna POP! Winter Sprinter (2016) (The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road, Islington, London, N1 9JB, England, Tuesday 5th to Friday 8th January 2016, various times) – £10.45 (or £32.70 for four-day pass) – information – tickets
It’s happening again… The 6th Annual Fortuna POP! Winter Sprinter 2016 is Go! Four nights, twelve bands, DJs… the perfect antidote to the post-Christmas blues with the creme de la creme of the Fortuna POP! roster – including former members of Broken Family Band and The Loves – plus special guests.
Overlapping the Winter Sprinter is something a little noisier, over in Shacklewell…
Repeater Festival (Bad Vibrations @ The Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Shacklewell, London, E8 2EB, England,
Thursday 7th to Saturday 9th January 2016, various times) – free entry – information
LUME, whose London jazz and free improvisation events I tracked during 2015, are continuing to expand their efforts. While they seem to have found themselves a more regular slot at the Vortex, early 2016 shows are taking place at assorted venues around the capital – galleries, shops, any suitable space. The first of these is in a heavy-duty experimental record shop in Kentish Town, which – although it’s only a short walk or bus hop away from the ‘Misfit City’ flat – I’ve not noticed up until now. I should visit it and go through my usual masochistic experience of being intimidated by serried racks of music made by people I’ve not heard of before; or perhaps I should just go to this show.
Hannah Marshall + Kordik Lucas (LUME @ Electric Knife Records, 16b Fortess Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 2EU, England, Saturday 16th January 2016, 1.30pm) – pay-what-you-like, £5.00 minimum
The first LUME gig of the year features a solo set from improvising cellist Hannah Marshall (whose collaborators have included Veryan Weston, Evan Parker, Lauren Kinsalle, Alex Ward and former Henry Cow members Tim Hodgkinson and Fred Frith), followed by a performance by the improvising duo Kordik Lucas duo (Slovakian analogue synth player Daniel Kordik and trombonist Edward Lucas, who also run the Earshots concert series and record label). This will be an in-store show so space is limited. There’s not much more information available on the evening at present, so keep an eye on the LUME and Electric Knife sites for updates (if anything new shows up, I’ll add it in here…)
Back to the centre of London for some no-nonsense math rock, post-hardcore and brainwork with knuckles… and what could be more festive and seasonal than a band called Shitwife?
TINJR Xmas Party with Axes, Shitwife, Vasa & Wot Gorilla (This is Not Revolution Rock/Jebs Presents @ The Borderline, Orange Yard, off Manette Street, London, W1D 4JB, England, Saturday 19th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £8.50-£9.60 – information – tickets
“Absolutely buzzing for this show. Not only will this be the Xmas party for This Is Not Revolution Rock / Jebs Presents, it marks Del’s 30th birthday and 200th show as a promoter. So we’re really pushing the boat out and there might be some free mince pies. Please spread the word and let’s pack the venue out from start to finish for this, the last show we’re putting on in 2015!”
(They’re so carried away by the occasion that they didn’t really introduce the bands… or assumed that everyone reading would know them. I’m in a hurry, so here’s the one-line version.
Axes – brash and playful mathrockers with a Foo Fighter pop vigour. Shitwife – astonishingly brutal drums/laptop/electronics juggernaut fusing rave, death metal, noise and post-hardcore. Side project of musicians in bands with equally tasteful names. Vasa – noisy synesthesic post-rock package. Wot Gorilla? – how to noodle away at prog-inspired math rock and not alienate people.
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Here’s Knifeworld’s frontman (and eccentric broadcaster, in every sense) heading over to Deptford to dig up something old for the end of the year…
Dear Boss: Kavus Torabi and others (The Bird’s Nest, 32 Church Street, Deptford, London, SE8 4RZ, England, Sunday 20th December 2015, 4.00pm) – free entry – information
It’s Chri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-istma-a-a-a-as! Join us as we are joined by avant-psych-rock multi-instrumentalist and all round Interesting Alternative guy Kavus Torabi (Knifeworld/Guapo)…(Mr. Steve Davis sadly can’t join us, as he’s gone skiing). And… come early to witness one of England’s strangest and most resilient midwinter traditions – ‘The Christmas Champions’ (a.k.a ‘The Mummers Play’). Our team of Jolly Boys and Guisers will offer up some seasonal shambols – preparing to entertain you with a short performance featuring William the Great, St George, Bull Slasher, The Doctor and old Beelzebub himself – with original music from James Larcombe (Stars in Battledress/North Sea Radio Orchestra). We’ll be doing it around 7-ish, I expect.
Boss. Wassail!
Beyond all of the throaty bombast I think that most of what’s beyond the mummery is DJ sets, although anyone who’s tuned in to Kavus on the Interesting Alternative Show will know that he can slap together some of the most extraordinarily eclectic sets you could ever hope to hear, featuring plenty of names you’d never heard, while telling cheerful lies about other cult artists who don’t actually exist. Fun to catch, in other words.
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On the subject of DJ sets, here’s one last one…
Café Oto NYE Party with Hieroglyphic Being 6-hour DJ set) (Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, UK, 31st December 2015, 10.00pm) – £20.00-£30.00 – information – tickets
We’re ecstatic to be welcoming in the New Year with Jamal Moss (a.k.a. Hieroglyphic Being), who will be flying in especially to Café Oto for a bumper 6 hour DJ set.
Jamal is one of the most unhinged and adventurous artists working in electronic music today; born in Chicago and raised in the heyday of the city’s house music scene, he has gone on to blur the lines between various forms of dance music, free jazz and industrial music, releasing countless singles and LPs, and even recently collaborating with the likes of Marshall Allen and Daniel Carter. His infamously unpredictable DJ sets have gardened considerable praise over the years, so we’re delighted to have him here for this very special occasion.
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And that’s it – although there’ll be a ramble through 2015 sometime between now and the end of January, and I may sneakily shuffle a few previously-incompleted posts back into the dates when I intended to publish them.
Back in London, Momentum Arts are setting themselves going with a Christmas gig tomorrow. They’ve got roots in, and are closely associated with, the Jeremy Corbyn movement, so the politically averse/committed should expect speeches and some familiar political faces to be included in the package along with the music. You can find out exactly who’s speaking, and in some cases what about) by following the information link). Personally, I share quite a few of their sympathies; but here’s what they have to say:
Momentum Arts Xmas Fundraiser with The Marzec Group + Mariela of Venus on the Radio + Maz O’Connor + Keith Burstein + others (Momentum Arts @ POW/The Prince of Wales, 467-469 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8HH, England, Friday 18th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £6.00-£7.00 – information – tickets
Momentum Arts is an open network where creative people from all walks of life and lovers of the arts can unite through a shared passion for contemporary progressive, socially democratic politics. We are very proud of this and always aim (as far as possible) to create organising spaces which are safe for all. For this reason we’ll be operating on a zero tolerance policy for homophobia, racism, classism, transphobia and misogyny. We’re excited to present the first Momentum Arts event upstairs at the Prince Of Wales in Brixton! Get down to hear our excellent speakers, some inspiring music or just have a bit of a dance.
Performing:
The Marzec Group‘s appreciation for the club culture and electronic music genres brings back a reality to jazz; a grit long forgotten. Channelling these influences through a fresh and sophisticated combination of jazz, soul, blues and electronic music, their intense and improvisatory grooves are tailor made for the dancefloor.
Mariela is a girl of many hats; a musician and published author influenced by the likes of Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, Jack White, Sergio Moroder and many others. With longtime collaborator Anthony she formed Venus on the Radio, a band which after recording in Abbey Road studios, was featured in BBC Introducing.
Maz O’Connor is a gifted singer of traditional and self-penned songs. Influenced by the folk songwriters of the 1960s; Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Neil Young along with her literary leanings make for a varied and intriguing body of work.
Keith Burstein is a composer whose work includes controversial operas which have provoked much comment and indignation from the right-wing press for daring to question the political establishment. Most notable among these is ‘Manifest Destiny’ (co-written with Dic Edwards) which portrays would-be suicide bombers who renounce violence and trigger a peace movement across the world. Keith will be performing two songs on piano, with a guest singer.
DJs Dr Punkenstein and Calvin De Kline will also be playing sets.
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In Deptford, something a little more straightforwardly musical:
Firstivus (The Bird’s Nest, 32 Church Street, Deptford, London, SE8 4RZ, England, Friday 18th December to Sunday 20th December 2015, 5.00pm onwards) – free – information & tickets
Two Deptford gig-scene lynchpins, Sinema City and Tom Moody –join forces for this year’s Firstivus – “a fun-filled weekend that will likely proved to be just a little too rhythmically-challenging for the whole family.”
Friday 18th opens, appropriately, with First (about whom no-one seems to know anything), followed by a pair of noisy drum-and-guitar duos (Charles Hayward‘s Bass Drum project with his son Riley Hayward, then the more secretive No One You Know). The music continues with garage-grungers Black Plastic Cardiacs/Bungle/Zappa-inspired progressive punk tanglers The Display Team, Gong-esque jazz-rock collisionists Psychoyogi, and finally by Ted Milton’s veteran schizo-disco art-punks Blurt (who are informed by poetry and puppeteering as much as by rock and roll).
Saturday 19th sports another diverse roster – stoner rockers The Cortège, the ”post-punk/alt-pop/awkward friendliness” of Dead Arm, The All New Greatest Hits Band (in which event organiser Tom Moody fronts the rhythm section of The Display Team), an acoustic Japanese interlude with shamisen player Hibiki Ichikawa and Champagne Dub, a new teaming of established friends: polydiscipline drummer Max Hallett (of A Scandal In Bohemia/Super Best Friends’ Club) and bassist Ruth Goller (Acoustic Ladyland, Oriole, Bug Prentice, many others), who’ve previously worked together in the encym trio. The evening rounds off with Afrobeat-ing Leeds post-punk trio Azores and headliners Boss Terror (who bring “drone, punk, spaced-and-motorway funk” as well as “Cockney tropical surf”).
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To be honest, I’ve got little idea of what’s going to happen with this next one, especially since it’s at The Others – but all of the clues point to a fusion of music, theatre and audience, and what time of year is better for that?
The Christmas Cabareilidh (Troupe @ The Others, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London, N16 5SA, UK, Saturday 19th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.00 – information & tickets
A brand new night out that fuses the fabulous fun of cabaret with the gaiety of a good old fashioned ceilidh. Fresh from the success of our last sell-out event, Troupe presents another Christmas Cabareilidh that promises to be even more delightful than the evening’s portmanteau. You’re invited to sit under the glowing haze of fairy lights, as our hilarious cabaret performers fill you with festive cheer. Dance with giddy abandon to the live folk music of our Cabareildih band and fill your stomachs and hearts with mulled wine, minced pies and cheery Christmas carols. Join us at The Others for an evening of irreverent yuletide song and dance- because nothing says Christmas quite like a Cabareilidh!
Carrying on with the London Christmas gig previews – next week, there’s a pair of simultaneous double-evening multi-band events happening within a mile of each other. The first of these is the Memphis Industries shindig – “two nights of festive fun” from one of the smartest small British pop labels at work today, with six bands and a host of present giveaways including limited edition art prints.
Lost Christmas – A Memphis Industries Christmas Special with Dutch Uncles, Outfit and NZCA LINES, The Go! Team, Menace Beach and Slug (Oslo, 1A Amhurst Road, Hackney, London, E8 1LL, England, Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £16.50 for each night / £30 for both nights – information & tickets – more information
Monday night kicks things off with three of the label’s bands “art-rocking till they drop”. The striking prog-pop babble of Dutch Uncles headlines; doom-toned Liverpudlian tech-pop band Outfit play the middle set; and (following a brace of high-concept singles over the course of the year) one-man white-pop/R&B hybrid NZCA/Lines opens the show.
Tuesday promises “unparalleled noisy fun, and possibly sailor outfits”. Flipzoid Brighton pop crew The Go! Team headline, their lineup a little different from that of recent years but their magpie polymusical energies still intact. Leeds indie supergroup Menace Beach are in the middle; while reformed noiseniks and north-eastern eclecti-pop upsetters Slug open things up with a live band including Peter and David Brewis of Field Music.
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The second of the double-night events is the one run by Gare du Nord Records, a pair of concerts which have an almost familial feel, revolving around certain hub projects (Hefner, Death In Vegas), certain locations (Walthamstow, Canterbury, Vienna), certain other sympathetic labels (Fortuna Pop, Audio Antihero) and a smart, sometimes wordy aesthetic.
Arrivée/Départ II – Gare Du Nord Records 2-Night Revue (Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN, England, Monday 14th December & Tuesday 15th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 each night – information – tickets on the door
Both nights are revues – a long main set from each of the two special Austrian guests, bolstered by short mini-sets from the other bands. There’s a lot of personnel crossover. Expect the same faces to keep popping up, reshuffled.
The Monday gig’s main set comes from Martin Klein, the Viennese singer-songwriter whose piano songs albums of and witty, deadpan performances are making him a rising star in Austria and Germany, and whose questioning, sometimes undercut romanticism should translate across further borders. Among the short sets are appearances by two former Hefner members: their frontman and prime creative force Darren Hayman and their multi-instrumentalist Jack Hayter, both now established as significant and highly individual solo songwriters (and while Darren might be the better known of the two, don’t underestimate Jack – I was enchanted by a battered set he played at Union Chapel last year).
Other players on the Monday bill are Cockney surf-punks Pit Ponies, Allo Darlin’ guitarist Paul Rains (taking a solo step-out from his main band’s classic indie-pop styles) and the “prim and improper” antifolk punksters Lucy’s Diary. There are also two acts who specialise in the soft-and-sharp – Cambridge’s Alex Highton (whose folk-, pop- and jazz-smattered songs conceal quick jabs of wit beneath their light and luscious surfaces) and Vienna-via-Canterbury trio Rotifer(creators of pitch-perfect country-tinged indie pop songs, sallies and snarks, and who also serve as a kind of scattered house band since various members play in six of the acts on offer during the night).
The Tuesday gig’s Viennese treat headliner is Bon Bon Beast – two multi-instrumental singer/producers, one of them Austrian (Ernst Tiefenthaler) and the other Swiss (Eloui), filtering their diverse past experiences into a straightforward acoustic jolly. Among the support acts, former Weather Prophets/Ellis Island Sound man Pete Astor continues his low-key live renaissance, and former Death In Vegas guitarist Ian Button brings along one of the various lineups of his psych-dusted pop project Papernut Cambridge. Since many of the people who play in the band are appearing in (or as) other acts during the evening, it’ll have been an easy roundup: Papernut Cambridge backing singer Helene Bradley, for instance, is performing a solo set as Citizen Helene (showcasing the soulful delivery and wistful irony which places her somewhere between Mama Cass and Kirsty MacColl).
Also playing are baroque orchestral pop songwriter Ralegh Long (presumably detached from the small orchestra which tends to follow him around) and Emma Winston’s one-woman Deerful project (miniature synths and brittle stories). Two Kentish acts round out the evening: lo-fi Canterbury pop band Picturebox and Whitstable’s Alex Williams (whose swerving career so far has encompassed indie rock with Fleeting Things, folk music with New Old World and lo-fi outsider clatter-pop with The Psychotic Reaction, as well as the odd ABC cover).
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More Christmas gigs shortly, including some events elsewhere in Britain…
I’ve been posting mostly shout-outs for gigs this year, so I might just as well submit to becoming Santa’s little shill as regards this month’s sprouting of Christmas/Hannukah/seasonal parties. From the flood on my Facebook account to the rumours and snippets I hear, this is a selection of what’s on for the next week or so (just London this time, though I’ve got some gigs elsewhere ready for the follow-up…)
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Fire Records Xmas Party with The Jazz Butcher Quartet + very special guest + Fire Records DJs (Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – free – information here and here
The first of several gigs in this post taking place at the Servant Jazz Quarters amongst the bottles, foxes and curios. Fire Records DJs will be playing from their typically wide-ranging hoard of music, and there’ll be two sets of live music. One guest is as-yet unnamed (it’s a surprise) and the other is the latest iteration of the three working decades of absurdist Northampton-based singer-songwriter Pat Fish as The Jazz Butcher.
The Jazz Butcher Quartet sees Pat take a sideways step away from the cunningly meandering rock’n’strum that he’s generally known for, and tease the ever-present jazziness out of his songs and into full focus via a collaboration with three dedicated jazz musicians The Jazz Butcher – drummer Steve Garofalo, trumpeter Simon Taylor and double bass player Steve New. The Steves and Pat were already old buddies from their time in the Northampton music scene, in particular due to their mutual work with the magnificently strange and wise alternative folk singer Tom Hall. The result’s a refreshed acoustic take on Jazz Butcher staples, wrapping itself round the old and new tunes and the playful wandering lyrics with utter flexibility.
The evening is absolutely free, apart from the drinks, but the Servant Jazz Quarters is a small place – so show up early if you want to be able to get in. Some footage of the JBQ is below.
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Swedish singer-songwriter Charlotte Eriksson, a.k.a. The Glass Child is hosting her own Christmas gig online. It sort of fits with her itinerant nature – having left her Gothenburg home at the age of eighteen, she built up both a label and a career while sofa-surfing through London, England and Berlin. You can’t fault the girl for thrift, for ambition and for investigating the art of the possible while living out of a suitcase. Playing a big interactive gig, but from nowhere in particular, certainly suits her style so far.
The Glass Child Christmas StageIt Show (online, Sunday 13th December 2015, 7.00pm CET) – pay-what-you-can – information & tickets
Charlotte’s own message:
Christmas, my children, is not a date. It’s a state of mind. December 13th is the day that Swedes celebrate “Lucia”, which basically means Swedish Christmas songs, gingerbread, tons and tons of candles, mulled wine (Swedish Glögg) and cosiness all around. Basically all of my favourite things!
Lucia is an ancient mythical figure with an abiding role as a bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters. The many Lucia songs all have the same theme: “The night treads heavily around yards and dwellings / In places unreached by sun, the shadows brood. / Into our dark house she comes, bearing lighted candles, / Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.” All Swedes know the standard Lucia song by heart, and everyone can sing it, in or out of tune. On the morning of Lucia Day, the radio plays some rather more expert renderings, by school choirs or the like. The Lucia celebrations also include ginger snaps and sweet, saffron-flavoured buns (lussekatter) shaped like curled-up cats and with raisin eyes. You eat them with glögg or coffee. (Do you guys understand why this is my favourite Swedish tradition?)
So I thought, what better way to celebrate this little Swedish Lucia day than with you! A cosy acoustic Christmas show with music, candles and maybe my first ever performance of a Swedish song. Like always: some new songs, some old songs, questions, chat and some insights behind my new album that I’m currently working on. Please join me for this evening show and we’ll create a memory worth remembering.
Some examples of Glass Child work so far are below.
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I’ve been covering Daylight Music gigs for several years now, but anyone who spends much time around those will know that parent organisation Arctic Circle spreads its activities a lot wider than those Saturday afternoons at Union Chapel – and in this case, a lot higher. Over to them:
‘Santas in Space’ featuring Camden Voices + Left With Pictures + Laish + boy and a balloon (Arctic Circle @ ArcelorMittal Orbit, 3 Thornton Street, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London, E20 2AD, UK, Wednesday 16th December 2015, 6.30pm) – £15.00 – information – tickets
We return to the most spectacular venue in London to bringing our unique brand of Fuzzy Feeling to the 376 feet high platform of the Arcelormittal Orbit. With the sparkling lights of London as a spectacular backdrop, watch as the sculpture becomes an astronomic live music space celebrating the Christmas season! Camden Voices will start the night off with their thirty-strong choir proclaiming yuletide glee followed by a series of the finest fuzziest musicians from our Daylight Music series – from the chamber indie of Left with Pictures to the luscious folk of Laish and the lo-fi pop of Alex Hall’s boy and a balloon. Finish the evening by wrapping your ear around a winter-warming set from DJ Ben Eshmade (Arctic Circle Radio/Chill) with a festive drink or cocktail in hand. Please note this event is for over-18s only.
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If that last one seems to be bordering on the twee for you, another ‘Misfit City’ regular event is offering something typically noisier and rucked-up around the edges:
Baba Yaga’s Hut Xmas Bash with Bad Guys, Melting Hand, Wren (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ Corsica Studios, 5 Elephant Lane, Newington, London, SE17 1LB, England, Wednesday 16th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 – information – tickets
Again, over to them:
Come down to the Baba Yaga’s Hut Xmas party. Three very heavy acts for you, mulled wine. Xmas hats. Getting drunk, the usual. London’s best classic metal band Bad Guys headline; plus the first ever London show for new heavy-psych/improvising jam supergroup Melting Hand (featuring Gordon & Russell of Terminal Cheesecake, Mike Vest of Bong/Drunk in Hell etc etc and Tom Fug of Gum Takes Tooth); and a Baba Yaga’s debut for London post-metal/sludge four piece Wren.
When I was growing up in north London, Crouch End was the “next village over”. It was the place where I went to primary school and first heard song by Neil Young, Steve Winwood and The Kinks (strummed out and sung in assemblies alongside battling hymns from the civil rights movement) and where I began sharpening my hunger for musical knowledge on the rich ranks of vinyl LPs in Hornsey Library. Over the years, I’ve continued to associate the neighbourhood with music – other people’s memories of old art-rock and punk gigs at the Hornsey College of Art; the star traffic through the Church Studio at the bottom of Crouch Hill (owned in turn by Eurythmics and Paul Epsworth), where you might find Erasure or Sisters of Mercy catching a mid-session coffee in the local café; and the Gareth Malone wet-dream of the Crouch End Festival Chorus, a local choir with a national reputation.
That said, Crouch End’s day-to-day music scene has always struck me as lacking. There have been exceptions to the rule – the steady reservoir of blues and roots playing at the Kalamazoo Club; the string of house concerts that Jenni Roditi ran at her loft between 2002 and 2009; more recently, a flowering of rootsy events at the Earl Haig Hall. But generally speaking, Crouch End has always seemed to me to export or traffick in music rather than play it, becoming an increasingly upmarket and bijou neighbourhood where shoppers vastly outnumber giggers; easily eclipsed by the musicality of other London neighbourhoods like Camden Town, Dalston, Shoreditch, even Tooting.
Well, more fool me. It turns out that I’ve regularly been overlooking and missing The End – an annual, musically expansive Crouch End festival that turns all of my gloomy observations about the neighbourhood’s gig shortcomings to dust – at least, for two weeks. As my penance, here’s the first half of an overview of everyone playing at this year’s festival, which starts tomorrow (all ticket details are to be found via the info links or at the festival website).
The festival kicks off with a concert navigating the blurry margins of folk and lo-fi alternative rock, with headliners good enough to warrant a post all of their own. The crepuscular but lovely Lowpineshave been racking up an unending stream of plaudits for their Anglo-Americana atmospherics, which recall old phonographs playing whispered, heartspilling songs in dusty basements, laced with judicious drums, intricate campfire fingerpicking and stargazing whistles of feedback like psychedelic pedal steel lines. Support comes from Oliver Girdler’s one-man lo-fi project Forced Random (which drifts ghostlike from instrument to instrument and from one slow soft-edged song to another) and from Reykjavík folk-rock trio Ylja (initially based around female harmonies and lap-style slide guitar but expanding into a broader palette that encompasses and recalls not just Fairport Convention, early Clannad and Pentangle but also the glowing starfield details of Sigur Rós and 1972 Pink Floyd).
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The Fierce & The Dead + a.P.A.t.T + Markers (Downstairs @ The Kings Head,2 Crouch End Hill, Crouch End, London, N8 8AA, UK, Friday 13th November 2015, 7.00pm) – £8.80 – information
The first of several events at The Kings Head hosts assorted sprigs from the thornier of British art-rock. Headlining are prog-punk quartetThe Fierce & The Dead (no strangers to this blog) who bring the rumbling immediacy of their quick-flaring complicated avant-garage instrumentals to the valley for the evening. In support, hazmat-suited Liverpudlian performance art troupe a.P.A.t.T, play “progressive pop that owes as much to Kurt Schwitters and the Chapman Brothers as it does to ABBA and Zappa”, drawing on a shifting tag-team of ‘Pool talent and bring strong flavours of the absurd, the deceptive and the cunning to whatever they do.
Opening the evening, Markers reunites two old friends from the omnivorous ferment of the 1990s London math rock scene – Jodie Cox (Ursa, Narrows, Exes, Rohame and Earth) and Jason Carty (Geiger Counter, Foe, Art Of Burning Water) as two electric guitarists without a singer, a rhythm section, any other instruments or much in the way of signal processing. Expect carefully poised, bare-branching instrumentals somewhere between Slintian maths, precise Fripp and Summers interplay, and the minimum-lines/maximum-impact approach of a Japanese ink painting or minimalist film.
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Kate Jackson & The Wrong Moves + Oh800 + YLJA (The Crypt Studio,145a Crouch Hill, Crouch End, London, N8 9QH, UK, Friday 13th November 2015, 9.30pm) – £8.50 – information
Kate Jackson (the former Long Blondes singer (and sometime British Electric Foundation/Heaven 17 collaborator) brings her current band The Wrong Moves to The End. She’ll be playing music from the upcoming “mysterious” album she’s been writing and recording with Bernard Butler over the past six years (though from what I’ve heard of it it’s more assured than mysterious – a muscular, classic pop rock mix with Kate’s big vocals and Bernard’s bright, sometimes startling guitar work).
Also on the bill are Oh800, a currently secretive new supergroup featuring Eoin “Oh Ruin” O’Ruainigh plus members of The Duke Spirit and F.U.R.S. The project is still enough under wraps not to have any tracks available to share, so you’ll just have to guess what they sound like, though it’s possible that the old Oh Ruin ingredients of blues, campfire tunes, Irish folk and fingerpicking will get a look-in. In addition, Ylja will be playing their second support slot of the festival, following the previous day’s appearance with Longpines.
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Joseph & Maia + Charlotte Carpenter + Annalie Wilson + Storme (Rileys The Ice Cream Café, 32 The Broadway, Crouch End, London, N8 9SU, UK, Friday 13th November 2015, 7.00pm) – £5.50 – information
An intimate gig of classic pop styles in one of Crouch End’s favourite drop-in cafes. New Zealand duo Joseph & Maia headline, playing songs from their debut album ‘Sorrento’ (a record which shows both their indebtedness to American songbook player-writers both old and new – Buckingham and Nicks, Ryan Adams, Paul Simon, Patsy Cline, Noah Gundersen – and their absolute assurance in working the same seams). Armed with a deeper and more ambiguous folk-blues approach, Northamptonshire-born Charlotte Carpenter sings songs of doubt and connection, softly, but with great emotional power held in check (like a surge pushing at a levee).
Rounding out the bill, acoustic festival favourite and all-round performer Annalie Wilson brings straight-ahead conversational, coffee-house songs on piano and guitar: while concert opener Storme (a Swedish singer-songwriter who’s come over to London to develop her songs, reversing the usual trend) is bold and dramatic enough to be a headliner, since her heavy-weather synth-pop aims for the same stadium-friendly altitudes as Florence + The Machine, Chvrches or even the more crowdpleasing moments of Björk .
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Becky Arundel + Nora Grefstad + Kloak (Kiss The Sky,18-20 Park Road, Crouch End, London, N8 8TD, UK, Saturday 14th November 2015, 3.00pm) – free
The first of the Saturday gigs is a celebration of young female songwriters. Becky Arundel writes and delivers muscled, determined folk-rock in the Melissa Etheridge vein, moving from unplugged strum to bursting electric explosions. Norwegian singer Nora Grefstad , who generally trades as Noraslittleworld, slides her path midway between Elkie Brooks and Beth Gibbons (offering slightly wonky, jazzy trip-hopped pop or full-diva piano balladry – in each case with a hint of smeared-lipstick, morning-after feeling). While there seem to be plenty of people contributing toKloak, in essence they’re two sassy-wise white girls – Georgia Meek and Gabrielle Mallett – putting together R&B-tinged electropop with a strong flavour of Eartha Kitt (those bent notes and divan stretches; that conversational yawp in the voice).
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Cortes + Bea Munro + Orfan (ThisIsWIRED @ Rileys The Ice Cream Café, 32 The Broadway, Crouch End, London, N8 9SU, UK, Saturday 14th November 2015, 7.00pm) – £7.70 – information
Showcase night ThisIsWIRED (which, since its initiation in Shoreditch seven years ago has incubated the early budding careers of musicians including Ellie Goulding, Raleigh Ritchie and Michael Kiwanuka) rolls up to a Crouch End ice cream parlour for a north London jaunt. Tonight’s players include crisp power-poppers Cortes and belting 22-year-old ‘60s-rock-siren revivalist Bea Munro; but for my money the likely star in the pack is gig opener Orfan, who uses his multi-instrumental skills to hone captivating yearning songs which touch bases with such odd-bedfellow influences as Nico, Prince and Boo Hewerdine.
In keeping with The End’s origins, peripatetic roots night Before The Gold Rush curate an outright folk & Americana evening. A truly enchanting set looks likely from Farrago, the psychedelic folk vehicle for the lucid, highly literate work of London songwriter Ian Bennett – vivid short stories couched in rich, longing arrangements and with colourful, falling poetic imagery. There’ll be a third appearance by Ylja, perhaps opening up to their lusher dream-folk tendencies. With flavours of honky-tonk and Grand Ol’ Opry, rising festival favourite Frida Wallin brings us the End’s most straightforward country music set to date. (She’s actually Swedish. Don’t let on or anything…)
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The Battles of Winter + Metro Verlaine + MOSES (The Crypt Studio,145a Crouch Hill, Crouch End, London, N8 9QH, UK, Saturday 14th November 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.50 – information
While Before The Gold Rush keeps the Americana and folk covered for the evening, the people at the Crypt hold down the indie and punk rock side of things. The Battles Of Winter embrace a driving post-punk indie sound compared to Echo & The Bunnymen, Interpol and The Doors. French “pop sauvage” trio Metro Verlaine are noisy electric romanticists inspired by the rush of Patti Smith/Richard Hell punk and the latterday spark of The Kills, as well as drawing on the original poète maudit fury of their namesake. The evening is opened by guttural punky rock’n’roll noise from M O S E S, who draw a London parallel to Wolf Mother and The Subways.
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The Wave Pictures + The Oreilles + Victor Lovlorne + Beverly + Pony & Trap + Nadine Khouri + Kindling + Annie Rew Shaw + Ryder Havdale + Kloak + Aphty Khea + Hudson Scott + Esther Joy Lane + others tbc (Hornsey Town Hall Arts Centre, The Broadway, N8 9JJ, London, UK, Saturday 14th November 2015, 7.00pm) – £16.50 – information
The big one. For this concert, at least thirteen performers will be taking up temporary residence in the battered but still beautiful Art Deco rooms of the former Town Hall, running quick-changeover mini-sets in the Supper Room, Committee Room and Council Chambers. Like a spontaneous party, the actual participants and their playing order seem to be in constant flux – as I quickly put this post together, the following seems to be the current setup.
Two bands are down from Yorkshire – The Wave Pictures (rattling Byrds-and-Motown garage-indie from Wymeswold) and teenaged Halifax trio The Orielles (a surf pop band from a landlocked town, teetering on the balance of their love of Riot Grrrl and the la-la-la). From America, buzz-pop Brooklyneers Beverly can’t quite make up their minds over whether to stick with Slowdive or Lush or to hit the accelerator pedal towards Surfin’ USA; pellmell Massachusetts indie-punks Kindling provide some rocket-powered shoegaze pop of their own. From Canada via Berlin, Ryder Havdale of The Mohawk Lodge might or might not come good on his promise to salt the lonesome indie-country rock of his main band with some Berlin-inspired electronics.
Several performers bring in captivating moods and stories. The blend of murmur, smouldering torch and cool eyed-vision in the work of Lebanese-British songcrafter Nadine Khouri has drawn comparisons with Patti Smith, PJ Harvey and Mazzy Star. Athenian-in-London singer Aphty Khea (a.k.a. MantRah) deals in self-produced slow-drag abstract soul and hip hop ideas; Texan gospel choir escapee and human love-wreck Victor Lovlorne in unsettling lo-fi basement ballads in a Will Oldham, Sparklehorse, Beefheart or Redbone vein. Piano singer Annie Rew Shaw mingles Christine McVie melodicism and wit with an eerie ghost-haunted songwriting style.
Of the rest, Kloak make a repeat appearance (this time unplugged) following their slot at Kiss The Sky earlier in the afternoon; Pony & Trap mix crisp girl-about-town rhythm-box funk with buzzy post-punk guitar hooks); and Oxford electropop diva Esther Joy Lane puts in an appearance, as does the elusive and underplugged Hudson Scott (at the moment, just a name on a wobbling list…)
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Emma Pollock + Ylja (Earl Haig Hall, 18 Elder Avenue, Crouch End, London, N8 9TH, UK, Sunday 15th November 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.50 – information
The last gig of the week features Scottish alternative rock heroine and onetime Delgados songwriter Emma Pollock, now three records into a solo career as well as being branched out into poly-genre supergroups (The Burns Unit) and socially-minded collective projects (The Fruit Tree Foundation), with her varied collaborations stretching well beyond her bright indie-pop beginnings to involve folk music, theatre work and string quartets. If you’re good, she might play you some songs from her upcoming album ‘In Search Of Harperfield’. Ylja, who by now are starting to look like the End’s house band, will play their fourth and final support slot of the festival at this gig.
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That’s all for this week, but I’ll try to put together a rundown of next week’s End gigs over the weekend…
As the opening concert of the South East Asian Festival 2015, there’s a performance at the Forge by My Tricksy Spirit, a new musical project which fuses the shimmering sounds of gendér wayang – Balinese gamelan instruments – with dub, electronic, ambient, trip-hop, and psychedelic rock. The Forge’s writeup is below (tweaked a little by me).
My Tricksy Spirit (The Forge , 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Monday 26th October 2015, ) – £10.00
Performed on the bronze-and-bamboo “gendér” metallophones which gives the music its name – and featuring intricate, interlocking melodies played with mallets and damped with the wrists – gendér wayang is a subset of Balinese gamelan music. Involving between two and four players (a small number for a gamelan ensemble) it is used in the island’s Hindu rituals including life-cycle ceremonies, temple festivals, purification rituals and cremations (as well as in the sacred wayang kulit shadow-puppet dramas, based on ancient Indian epics).
The My Tricksy Spirit project was started by Nick Gray, who teaches south-east Asian music at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London, and who runs the gendér group that forms the basis of the band. Using Ableton Live, several synths and effects, guitar, bass and drums, the music is played through a mixing desk – much like dub – to create an intense psychedelic journey through sound.
Tonight’s band features Nick Gray (violin and vocal), Paula Friar and Rachel Wilcox (gendérs) and four other musicians: Tomoya Forster of Pumarosa (bass guitar, effects, mixing desk), Julian Vickary of General Skank (synthesizer and effects), Charlie Cawood of Knifeworld (bass guitar, sitar, guitar) and Rob Shipster of Buttress Root Drumming (electronics, drums), who also produced My Tricksy Spirit’s upcoming album.
Support comes from electronica/world-house act Wax Wings and from another of Nick Gray’s SOAS gendér wayang ensembles, Segara Madu (who mostly play repertoire pieces from the Balinese village of Sukawati, as taught by the late I Wayan Loceng). More information and gig tickets are here, with the Facebook event page here.
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Arguably, there’s not been enough pop or R&B in here recently. Let’s set that straight.
Kill J + Loveless + Maasai (Ja Ja Ja @ The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road, Islington, London, N1 9JB, UK, Thursday 29th October 2015,) – £5.00/£7.00
Straight from the publicity:
Founded in 2009, Ja Ja Ja is the definitive Nordic website and club night celebrating the very best new music emerging from Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Denmark. Each month at London’s The Lexington, Ja Ja Ja hand-picks the finest emerging talent from the Nordic countries, making sure that only the best music is filtered through to your ears.
KIll J (a.k.a. Julie Aagaard) has been turning heads the past two years with her signature blend of dark experimental pop. A devastating one-two-punch with debut singles Phoenix and Bullet set the blogosphere buzzing, also catching the keen eye of ‘The Guardian’, ‘Indie ‘, ‘Stereogum’, ‘Pigeons and Planes’ and landing airplay on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6music. Deliciously diverse, the sugary sweet Cold Stone revealed a more innocent and naive side of KIll J, whilst Propaganda burst forth as “a bombastic, fangs-bared snarl at sexism” (‘Stereogum’). There’s more to come too, with an EP promised this fall.
Prominent identities in their own right, Eirik Tillerli and Filip Kollsete teamed up late 2013 to form Norwegian beat crooners Loveless. Following back-to-back remixes, debut single How To Love You was instantly added to national radio. Clocking in excess of 500K streams last year, their music has picked up attention from blogs, magazines and DJs all over the world; also landing them on some of the biggest festivals in Norway, not to mention their own club night in Oslo, Klubb Loveless (where guests include Artful/Artful Dodger and NVOY). New single They Don’t Know was recently hailed Record of the Week on BBC Radio 1xtra, serving the first taste of upcoming project ‘Relationships’.
Maasai is a Stockholm-based duo consisting of Dominique Teymouri and Zackarias Ekelund. Together they create soulful sound landscapes with a cinematic touch and lyrical depths. The pair broke on to the scene with debut single Memories, pulling inspiration from varied and abstract constructs – places, people, surroundings and everywhere in between. Follow-up tracks The Healer and Forgive Me have since held a captive audience; also hinting to the fearless, fragile and all-the-while dreamy atmosphere inhabited by MAASAI’s upcoming debut album – set for release later this year.
Resident DJs Project Fresh Socks are along for the ride in October; having also spun up a storm at Ja Ja Ja’s first club night of the season last week at The Lexington with CHINAH (Denmark), The Fjords (Norway) and Axel Flovent (Iceland).
Up to date information for this particular Ja Ja Ja night is here and tickets are here.
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Flapping-in-the-wind time… here’s what looks like a very interesting gig, but the colourful cloud of information around it keeps changing shape. Here we go..
Subterfuge presents Samhain Special/Labiatory New Year’s Eve Party with Rude Mechanicals + NiMBUL + Bad Suburban Nightmare + We Are A Communist + Jane Ruby + Milky Sugar (Subterfuge @ The Others, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London, N16 5SA, UK, Friday 30th October 2015, 7.00pm) – £3.00 to £6.00 and upwards
Run by arch, arty but heartful prank-rockers anarchistwood (whose own ingredients span post-punk cantatas, skeletal lo-fi garage pop, silly voices and quickfire sampler collages), this is the last Subterfuge club night of the year (hence the split between a Halloween/Samhain night and a New Year’s Eve shindig) and promises a fabulous musical sprawl – a right old grab-bag of this and that, in the best way. anarchistwood themselves are playing, though at the moment it’s unclear whether or not they’re teaming up with dysfunctional Chatham polymath and Stuckist art brute Sexton Ming (as the anti-supergroup called Nimbul), or playing as themselves. I guess that whichever way it goes you could expect a roughly equal mix of distracted behaviour, political protest, self-absorbed memory jigsaws and détournements with echoes of Beefheart, Crass, The Raincoats and the high point of a Pride parade. But that’s all it is – a guess.
Compared to Earth and Neil Young at their most dogged and noisy, Dan Hrekow – a.k.a Bad Suburban Nightmare – plays “impossibly slow and melancholic” grunge-drone instrumentals on a minimal setup of distorted guitar and pedals. In violent contrast, Rude Mechanicals play party music for paranoid schizophrenics, fronted by the peroxide-beehive rantings of Miss Roberts (who looks like a doubled-back-drag-queen version of Patsy Stone, and speak-sings like a collision between Dagmar Krause and Holly Penfield), Their songs are rattling hallucinatory-jam sandwiches about sinister neighbours, stand-up arguments and alien mice on the Tube, mixing jazz, punk and cabaret together in equal measures and played with both needle-sharp precision and full glamour oomph.
Of the rest, We Are A Communist provide “trashy guitar-laden sci-fi surf music, with stylophones to boot – a must for Man or Astroman? fans”; onetime Naked Ruby frontwoman (and current Deptford Beach Babes member) Jane Ruby turns up to sing her solo mixture of torch, garage rock’n’roll, flamenco and blues songs with twists of Spanish & Arabic flavours; and Milky Sugar performs “punk go go”… but that’s where I run out of information.
I’ve no actual idea about the order in which everyone’s going on, as the various info and flyers seem to contradict each other: either that or the whole event is morphing too fast for me to keep up with it. Presumably they’re working to some functional anarchist or I Ching method to establish it, or you just turn up and see what happens. Perhaps that’s what they’re doing. Either/and/or DJ Sugarlump SS, DJ KG Lumphead and MC Sadogasm provide some extra noises, punkvertery & Kodek provide visuals, and they’ve got a proactive but generous door price policy – three quid if you’re unwaged, four quid if you’re a student with an NUS card, and six quid if you’re neither but have shown enough commitment to arrive before 9pm. After that, they charge more. More information is here; keep track of developments as best you can on Facebook here; and there’s the usual array of tasters below.
Pausing only to remind you that the last week of October includes two of the Pierre Bensusan acoustic gigs at the Half Moon in Putney (which I mentioned in the previous post), here come the last of my selected London gigs for the month, and the first for the start of November. As ever, it’s just a small sampling of what’s on in town, but it’s what’s caught my attention.
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Bitchin’ Bajas + Tomaga + Demian Castellanos (Baba Yaga’s Hut & Hands in the Dark @ Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, UK, Monday 26th October 2015, 8.00pm) – £9.00
I’ve heard Chicago trio Bitchin’ Bajas described as “psychedelic easy listening” – presumably by someone who insists on being shouted at in conversation. Despite that swaggering faux-dumb name (the one that makes them sound as if they play manic Tejano to be drowned out by fist-fighting oil workers) they’re more ‘Bitches Brew’ than cathouse. They spin out protracted rhapsodic instrumentals drawing on a variety of introspective, mindful influences and parallels, looking back to the hallowed bucolic trance of Harmonia and Cluster, the ecstatic modular pulses of Terry Riley, the breezy but depthless Pacific cool of West Coast jazz, and perhaps the dissolving pastoralism of Talk Talk. Though they’re multi-instrumentalists, they wear their skills lightly, working wind instruments and mallet percussion into their mists of keyboard and workhorse organ and their landscape of lively rolling, rilling glissandi and drone chords. Sometimes overlapping into ambient electronica, they’re never quite dilute enough to fit into it: even at their most vaporous and transparent, they’re the smoke that never quite fades, the tang that holds your attention. As the clip below shows, they’re perhaps a little too diffuse to work at an open air festival: embraced by the Oto space, they should do just fine.
Synth/sounds looper Tom Relleen and drummer Valentina Magaletti keep in step – just about – as Tomaga, an impressionistic improvising duo drawing on drone music, free jazz and modular synth work hanging off the edge of rock. Simple oscillating melodies percolate loosely over a syncopated jazz lope with hanging coffee-can taps and rattles and shortwave radio whines; sometimes a synth organ hangs by itself, burbling, while the percussion sways and alarms like an approaching freight train. It’s music of preoccupation, with brief flashes of bright sunlight through the pressing focus.
Best known as the figure behind London psychedelic/kosmische projects The Orichalc Phase and The Oscillation, Cornish-born loop guitarist Demian Castellanos steps out under his own name for his most personal work so far. Like Fred Frith or G.P. Hall, Demian’s had a history of playing guitar with implements – paper, cutlery or whatever else came to hand – and feeding the sounds through volume swells and sundry pedals: like Hall, he’s also possessed of a nature-inspired, painterly view of music. For this current work, he’s going back to his formative years of woodshedding as a cottage-bound teenager at the isolated southernmost tip of the British coast; creating rich, portentous and melodious sound layers drawing on early-‘90s shoegaze, on raga and drone, and on echoing, guttering British, Indian, American and German psychedelic influences.
More gig info is here, and tickets are available here.
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On the first day of November, there’s a double bill of Japanese heaviness at Corsica Studios.
Zeni Geva (or Zeni Gaiva, depending on how you translate the phonetics – conceptually, it translates as “money violence”) have been around since 1987. Led by guitarist/singer/noise-chopper KK Null, and currently backed up solely by drummer Tatsuya Yoshida to make a quake-strength power duo, they have initial links to legendary noise-Dadaists The Boredoms (and even the venue-destroying pre-Boredoms chaos act Hanatarash, which featured Mitsuru Tabata, until relatively recently Zeni Geva’s second guitarist). You’d expect them to have an abrasive side, and you’d be right. Their default musical setting is one of boiling, barking aggression, with tight and furious knots of threshing machine guitar; their records have savage, sadistic titles like ‘Total Castration’ and ‘Desire For Agony’; their progressive hardcore approach takes assorted forms hostage (aside from the obvious, there’s math and noise rock, psychedelia and death metal in the tangle) and makes them jump like puppets.
And yet, in spite of this, there’s a world of difference between Zeni Geva and your average long-lived heavy-thunderfuck band. It’s mostly in the way they use calm – little, perfectly-formed lacunae of space in between the blurs and blows, bringing their bursts of frenzy into focus (Steve Albini is both fan and sometime collaborator, and you can see why). It’s a terrible cliché to compare Japanese musicians to martial artists, but in this case there’s some substance to it. The brutality is sheer craft rather than an end in itself, every movement seems considered and purely executed; and live, in between each flurry of songblows and each ugly song name, they seem enormously humble, friendly and pleased to be there.
Acid Mothers Temple have taken twenty years to set themselves up as a revered psychedelic institution, but it seems as if they’ve been doing it for much longer, such is leader Makoto Kawabata’s talent for back-engineering himself into the culture. Part of this is down to the way he and his cohorts have mastered the ingredients, including the tearing metallic squalls, mellow blues tracery and starry smears of Hendrixian guitar, the whispering lapping Gong synths, the Pink Floyd mantra riffs and Zappa-esque air sculpture solos, and the zoned-out post-James Brown grooves (with the addition of Japanese chanting and noise-squalls). Much of the rest of it is to do with AMT’s open, overlapping community approach. Their musical impetus has utilised multiple faces and names, from their own simpler reconfigurations (the heavier trippier playing of Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, the Sabbath-y sludge of Acid Mothers Temple & Space Paranoid) to the friendly absorption or co-opting of contemporaries (Acid Mothers Temple SWR, with Ruins, and Acid Mothers Afrirampo) and of heroes from the original psychedelic generation (the team-up with Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth as Acid Mothers Gong, and with Mani Neumeier as Acid Mothers Guru Guru). If old heroes are unavailable or disinclined to pool resources, AMT have simply shrugged and continued anyway (such as when they took up hurdy-gurdys and acid folk and briefly became Acid Mothers Temple & the Incredible Strange Band).
If this makes Kawabata and co sound like slick chancers (and even if AMT album titles like ‘Starless and Bible Black Sabbath’ do suggest both avid, nerdy fandom and piss-taking on a Julian Cope level), I’m selling them short. Acid Mothers Temple might be a brand as much as an ethos, but that hasn‘t stopped their project and record-releasing ethics being continually dedicated to possibilities and continuance,rather than simply banking a following (or colonizing someone else’s). Their communal origins may have been two decades behind those of their inspiration but were hardly any less sincere; and their exploration of less obvious musical areas en route (including opera, Terry Riley minimalism, Nepalese folk and southern European Occitan culture) have led them into interesting places and opened further doors to anyone following them.
First and foremost, anyone who’s seen AMT play will vouch to their talent of both mastering their sources and creating music which lives, thrills and involves in the moment. This week’s London concert features the more space-rock inclined Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. lineup – probably the easiest entry point to an increasingly rewarding musical world. See below for a full-length concert clip of the band in action.
More gig info is here, and tickets are available here.
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Also on the Sunday, it’s time for the monthly LUME gig: more jazz in Dalston…
Tom Taylor/Rob Luft and Cath Roberts/Seth Bennett/Andrew Lisle (LUME @ The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8JH, UK, Sunday 1st November 2015, 7.30pm) – £10.00
For our November Vortex gig, we welcome a duo and a trio to the stage, for a night of improvised music.
Tonight sees the first meeting of a new improvising trio featuring LUME’s co-director Cath Roberts (baritone saxophone), Seth Bennett (double bass) and Andrew Lisle (drums). Andrew is known for being one of the drummers in heavyweight Leeds anarcho-sextet Shatner’s Bassoon, and as a prolific improviser working with a multitude of musicians on the free scene (Colin Webster, Alex Ward, Daniel Thompson, Tom Wheatley and more). Seth leads his own ensembles Nut Club and En Bas Quartet, as well as being involved in many other projects across musical styles including Fragments Trio, Metamorphic and The Horse Loom. He and Cath play together as a duo, as well as in Word of Moth and Cath’s quintet Sloth Racket. In addition to this and her LUME work, Cath also leads Quadraceratops (a septet) and has a duo with guitarist Anton Hunter, Ripsaw Catfish.
The new duo featuring Tom Taylor and Rob Luft is a recent collaboration borne out of a mutual love of improvised music. The music draws attention to the many common features of the two instruments, and mixes high-intensity improvisation with more tender and reflective textures.
A former award-winning classical piano graduate at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, Tom is now a rising British jazz star, having transferred to London in 2009 to pursue a Masters in jazz piano at Trinity College of Music (studying with Simon Purcell, Liam Noble and Nick Weldon). Since then he’s played the main jazz festivals in Manchester and London and Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway. He’s a member of the Jack Davies Big Band and of Southbound (both of whom have recorded for V&V Records) and also plays in the collaborative electro-acoustic trio duck-rabbit with saxophonist Joe Wright and double bass player James Opstad. Rob began his career as a jazz guitarist in Sevenoaks, where he took lessons from Mike Outram and turned professional at 15. He has been a mainstay of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra for many years, having been its guitarist since 2010 and having played in the associated NYJO Nonet. He currently co-leads the band Organism and plays with various groups on the London jazz circuit; including positions with Nigel Hitchcock, Gareth Lockrane and the Callum Au Big Band.
A few posts ago, I covered Nonclassical and their various post-classical mashups. I’ve just cottoned on to the fact that they’re back with another one.
Inspired by Martinů (Czech Centre London + Nonclassical @ The Forge , 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Wednesday 21st October 2015, 7.30pm) – £10.00/£12.00
‘Inspired by Martinů’ juxtaposes selected parts of the oeuvre of 20th century Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (whose 125th birth anniversary we’ll celebrate in December this year), with London’s contemporary classical scene as represented by artists around the acclaimed Nonclassical label.
For this concert, Nonclassical founder, composer and DJ Gabriel Prokofiev (on laptop) will be joined onstage by piano virtuoso Lada Valešová, violin wunderkind Tereza Anna Přívratská (of Jubilee Quartet) and vibrant mezzo-soprano Lucie Špičková. They will be carrying out a unique attempt to reimagine Martinů’s most influential chamber pieces by creating real-time improvised soundtracks, avant-garde audiovisual installations and once-in-a-lifetime musical reworks.
Full details on and tickets for the event are here, with the Facebook page here. Nonclassical have been kind enough to point us towards a Martinů cheat sheet. I’ve probably plugged this a little too late for anybody else to enter the Martinů remix competition, but here’s the information on that if you’re interested. Here too is a video clip in which Nonclassical’s Eleanor Ward explaining some of the ideas behind both Nonclassical itself and the remix project.
As a fuller taste of Martinů, here are clips of part of one of his violin sonatas and a live performance of his Fantasie for theremin, oboe, string quartet and piano.
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Meanwhile, Daylight Music are setting aside the acoustic rock’n’folk songwriters for a week in order to take one of their occasional forays into contemporary classical fusion. Read on…
The Iskra String Quartet (their name meaning “a spark” – to ignite) is a London-based collaborative group of string players who enjoy making music together regardless of genre. The quartet has had a particularly strong relationship with Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson, whose music they’ve toured extensively across Europe: a particular highlight being a set of performances of Johannsson’s ‘The Miners’ Hymns’ in collaboration with American artist film maker Bill Morrison.
As sometime pop performers, Iskra has worked closely with pianist/composer Olafur Arnalds, with The xx (on the ‘Coexist’ album and on Jamie xx ‘s score for the ‘Tree Of Codes’ ballet) and with Radiohead (creating a string quartet remix of The Reckoner from ‘In Rainbows’) as well as with Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Katie Melua, Duke Special and My Brightest Diamond. Recently they performed as a trio alongside The Lone Bellow on ‘Later…with Jools Holland’. Within the world of film and theatre soundtracks, Iskra have collaborated with composers Dustin O’Halloran, David Julyan (with whom they performed for the 177th Daylight Music concert in November 2014) and Alex Baranowski (on the twice-BAFTA- nominated film ‘McCullin’ and for Sir Nicholas Hytner’s National Theatre production of ‘Hamlet’ starring Rory Kinnear).
Iskra’s first release was the three-track ‘Discoveries & Inventions’ EP in 2010. Their forthcoming album, ‘Iskra’ (1613 Recordings, October 2015) celebrates their tenth anniversary and features contributions from composers previously linked with the group (Johann Johannsson, Olafur Arnalds, Alex Baranowski, David Julyan) as well as new composer collaborators (Peter Gregson, Luke Anthony, Paul Frith and Isobel Waller-Bridge).
Working as Minotaur Shock, Bristol-based David Edwards first made a name for himself nearly fifteen years ago via albums and EPs of wide-screen pastoral folk-tinged electronica incorporating field recordings and other instances of nature-love (he once released an EP with a title that might have been lifted from a birdwatching manual.) Of his five albums since 2001, the most recent is 2012’s ‘Orchard’ for which he returned to his original record label Melodic following a two-album stint with 4AD. ‘Orchard’ also saw him returning to the use of acoustic instrumentation (strings, flutes, clarinets) in addition to his own electronics, drums and “weedy acoustic guitar”. He has a previous connection with Iskra – his 2008 composition ‘Accelerated Footage At Night’ (originally released on the ‘Amateur Dramatics’ album) was rearranged and performed by the quartet on ‘Discoveries & Inventions’.
As a composer,Isobel Waller-Bridgehas worked primarily in television and theatre and film (she won the Best Composer award at 2014’s Underwire Film Festival for her score for Claire Oakley’s film ‘James’, and has scored multiple plays performed in venues across the UK). Her work spans a wide range from large scale orchestral music to experimental to folk, and has been performed in concert halls across Europe, USA and the UK (sometimes by a mixed ensemble of her own combining acoustic strings with piano, minimal sounds and electronics).
Her ‘Music For Strings‘ album, featuring six symphonic works for large string orchestra (including Untouched By A Storm, during which the orchestra divides into twenty separate string parts), was released in April this year. Isobel has recently been commissioned to write a ten-minute “cosmological” work to score projection-mapping of the story of the universe onto Durham Cathedral as part of the Lumiere Festival in November.
A special additional guest, Angus Macrae, will be playing piano at points during the afternoon. These will be in a similar vein to the pieces found on ‘Awake’, the debut EP released by Angus this year, which featured intimate piano improvisations with a backdrop of spiralling tape delays, distant voices and deep analog synthesisers.
Like Isobel, Angus is a composer-musician best known for his soundtrack and theatre work, having composed for a wide range of productions at venues in London and Edinburgh; for short films including this year’s ‘Interlude’ (winner of the 2015 Sci-Fi London 48 hour film challenge), ‘The Listener’, ‘Way Out’ and the documentary ‘On Guardian Mountain’; and for dance works including Wayne Parsons’ ‘Meeting’ and Tamsin Fitzgerald’s ‘Lucid Grounds’ (the latter in collaboration with Alex Baranowski.) A follow up to ‘Awake’ is currently in development with a planned release in late 2015.
Up-to-date info on this particular Daylight Music afternoon is here.
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I first saw Pierre Bensusan many years ago at the Union Chapel. Although he was supporting fellow guitarist Antonio Forcione (who’s a master not only in terms of staggering technique but also in terms of showmanship), he more than held his own against the headliner’s prowess. Bensunan didn’t and doesn’t play with that hand-spinning percussive flash that’s in vogue with many acoustic fingerstyle guitarists, then and now (including Forcione and Jon Gomm, above). He didn’t need to. Instead he offered a deep, communicatory and involved playing style with a depth and complexity all of its own, drawing from his own French-Algerian-Sephardic background and broad listening, interweaving a host of simultaneous techniques from traditional to jazz to neo-acoustic, and spinning out polyphonic melodies as sun-warmed and vivid as a Mediterranean afternoon. He was a pleasure to hear.. and he’s back in London for three dates this coming week.
Pierre Bensusan (The Half Moon, 93 Lower Richmond Rd, Putney, London SW15 1EU, London, UK, Sunday 25th to Tuesday 27th October 2015, 8.00pm) – £10.00/£12.00
Here’s the tour blurb…
The “Mozart of Guitar” is back in the UK. Over the past forty years, fingerstyle acoustic guitar virtuoso Pierre Bensusan has taken his unique blend of world, Celtic, jazz and folk inspired music to all corners of the globe. Winner of the 2014 Independent Music Award in the Live Performance Album category for his triple live album ‘Ecore’ Pierre is recognized as one of the great guitar players of the 21st century. Described as a “genius” by the likes of Jon Gomm and ‘Melody Maker’, immortalised by the tune ‘Bensusan’ written in tribute by the late Michael Hedges, and referenced as an important inspiration to many other great musicians, Pierre Bensusan is a one-of-a-kind artist whose music transcends genre and time.
“How the guitar would want to sound if it could play itself” … in Pierre’s music there is an uninhibited sense of musical freedom and expression, a sense of something both playful and serious, otherworldly yet right here right now. His “manner” of playing defies classification – crossing world, classical, jazz, traditional, folk and more. None can be isolated as simply “world music”, “Celtic”, “Arabic” or “French”; rather, they represent our world in its current state, a world sharing itself, fusing cultures together in ways we have never experienced. Not to be missed!
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The final October gig previews are coming up shortly, plus the first November ones…
It’s a good week for acoustic guitar. It’s a good week for interfacing modern classical and electronica; or for catching some Montreal drama from a couple of Arcade Fire alumni. But first of all…
Workin’ Man Noise Unit + Casual Nun + Knifedoutofexistence (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ Birthdays, 33-35 Stoke Newington Road, Dalston, London N16 8BJ Monday 19th October 2015, 7.30pm) – free
Three grimy, wirey helpings of noise rock.
Rolling out of Reading in a skewed spray of Stella lager and caffeine headaches, headlinersWorkin’ Man Noise Unithave been hailed as the closest thing that England will ever come up with as an answer to Rocket From the Tombs. I’d hoped that whoever said that actually meant Peter Laughner’s Pere Ubu-spawning proto-punks (rather than making a Rocket From The Crypt typo) and to be fair, it’s near enough: while much of it is base-level punk/trash-blues rammed ’til it bleeds with blue-collar howling, the band’s nightmarish conviction and their overlaid sweep of jet-engine and sawmill-shear noise guitar is a little Tombs-esque, and pretty impressive.
Credit where it’s due – they’ve impressed noise-shaman Julian Cope enough to get a slot playing at one of his book launches, they’ve turned out a mean Black Sabbath cover EP, and their logo is an incontinent, blind-drunk logger-turned-chainsaw-murderer. Berkshire might not be where you’d usually go to pick up a raw chunk of backwoods ire, but the Unit are looking to change all of that.
Second on the bill, Casual Nun are a more spaced-out alternative to the Unit’s sonic savagery, offer something less straightforwardly brutal and a little more mysterious. The Londoners’ songs are looser-limbed, smudged with an echoing grind, concrete-blues riffs full of muscle-ache, and hallucinating echo-vocals. The result sounds like a kind of psychedelic hard labour: a tripping chain gang wearing to skin and bone. You could imagine men made up entirely of skinny elbow-and-knee joints, all linked together by bruises.
If one-man agony factory Dean Robinson-Saunders – a.k.a. Knifedoutofexistence – doesn’t end up onstage under a horrible, guttering post-supernova bloodlight, then something’s gone wrong. Merging the burnt-out ends of power electronics and sparse slow-motion grindcore to worrying effect, his songs sounds like a man bent under jet-black clouds, shouldering a sledgehammer and a headful of horrors and slowly, painfully demolishing the ruined hovel he’s hiding in. Compelling anti-heroics.
Up-to-date event information is here, and tickets are here – though, just to reiterate, this is a free gig. You can come and damage yourself gratis.
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Here’s information on the first of the week’s acoustic guitar gigs:
Jon Gomm & Matt Stevens (The Jazz Café, 5 Parkway, Camden Town, London, NW1 7PG, UK,Wednesday 21st October 2015) – £15.00
Born in Blackpool and now based in Leeds, Jon Gomm is one of Britain’s top percussive-fingerstyle guitarists, creating drum sounds, basslines and twisting melodies all at the same time from a single acoustic guitar. He’s also one of the few such guitarists worldwide who primarily applies those polyphonic skip, tap and slap skills to songwriting rather than to pure instrumental pieces, drawing his inspiration from assorted sources from Robert Johnson to Radiohead.
Born to a family deeply involved in music, Jon grew up in a household where touring musicians lodged on the understanding that Jon would get a guitar lesson out of the arrangement, meaning he received one-to-one instruction from the likes of BB King and Jack Bruce. A player since two and a songwriter since six, Jon’s been releasing records since 2003’s ‘Hypertension’ but is best known for Passionflower, a song which went viral on YouTube three years ago. It’s still a great showcase for what he does, so here it is again:
Though he doesn’t seem to have been formally credited yet, Matt Stevens is playing support. Increasingly a ‘Misfit City’ regular, Matt is a critically acclaimed guitarist and composer from North London. For his solo gigs, he uses a battered acoustic guitar and multiple layered lines of texture and counterpoint achieved via a loop pedal, plus variety of propulsive playing techniques and a fervent omnivorous musical mind steeped in everything from folk music to progressive rock to punk and process music (I wrote about one such performance here). Following three self-released albums (and a number of EPs and live recordings), Matt signed with Esoteric/Cherry Red Records to deliver his fourth album, 2014’s well-received ‘Lucid’ (which featured expanded instrumentation from members of King Crimson, Knifeworld, Chrome Hoof and Frost*).
Matt is also one-quarter of the acclaimed garage/prog/punk collective quartet The Fierce & The Dead, who are now two albums into their career and increasingly gaining attention across a broadening fanbase. Perhaps it’s partially due to this band’s success that Matt has announced that his next few acoustic gigs will be his last for the foreseeable future. In that case, this is the second-to-last gig (the other, in Rotherham, has already sold out) so this is your last chance – for now – to see the original Stevens method live. There’s a taste of it below…
Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufield + Klavikon (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ The Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, Tufnell Park, London N19 5QQ, UK,Thursday 22nd October 2015, 7.30pm) – £15.00
Catch it while you can – Montreal instrumentalists Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufield are playing what may well be one of their last duo gigs for a while before each returns to solo work. Best known to the general public via their contributions to Arcade Fire (and, to a lesser extent, Bell Orchestre), Colin and Sarah have been collaborating as a separate act for three years; culminating in this year’s ‘Never Were The Way She Was’, an instrumental concept album loosely based on “the life of a girl who ages slow as mountains”.
Eschewing looping and overdubs (though not timbral processing), both their studio recordings and live performances rely on carefully textured and timed interactions between Colin’s saxophones and Sarah’s violin (with assorted clarinets, cornet, French horn, flute and vocalisations also available as part of the palette plus Colin’s repertoire of breath-and-key noise, multiphonics, circular breathing and pitching tricks) If this sounds like familiar free improvisation territory – esoteric squeaks and clacks, mostly of interest to other improvising musicians – believe me, it isn’t. Colin and Sarah’s shared musical sense and composing chemistry is dramatic, tuneful and thoroughly accessible – a quest inside a pair of instrument cases and through a batch of effects pedals, ranging around the world and stewing together a thrilling mixture of elements from Arabic to Australian, Appalachian to Balkan via electricity, wood, cane and weather.
The results have thrilled avant-rock fans, jazz aficionados and more casual listeners alike. Delivered with majestic gusto, conviction and wit, a glittering, brooding spectrum of melodies, timbres and vivid musical associations emerge from the duo’s creative chemistry. Bass and tenor saxophones rendering chopped and screwed club sub-bass, skirling smokewalls and Chicago jazz inventions; the ghosts and progeny of old folk airs called up by bow and string; frowning, intricate dark-toned instrumental builds recalling Godspeed, King Crimson or The Dirty Three; and as an annealing factor, some of that Montreal dusk (ominous, hinting at past or future breakdown, but so fertle for inducing mood and edge). It’s a real pleasure to see two musicians walk shoulder-to-shoulder into the deeps and return with something so right.
Playing in support is Klavikon – Leon Michener’s one-man project which applies higher technology to the Cowell/Cage tradition of prepared-piano, amplifying and treating the signal via various pickups and real time analogue processing, and involving both serious and tongue-in-cheek playing-mechanism inventions which include a robot dog. Aleatoric ideas from Stockhausen and Cage fuse with electronic dancefloor work including “cascading batteries of percussion, sub-basses and abstract soundscapes” – see below.
Up-to-date gig information is here, and tickets are here.
And October rushes on, with a couple of Baba Yaga’s Hut shows…
Sax Ruins + Richard Pinhas (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ Corsica Studios, 4-5 Elephant Road, London, SE17 1LB, UK, Monday 12th October 2015, 7.30pm) – £11.00
Ruins (in both their original configuration and their various spinoffs) are among the best-known and most influential of Japanese experimental rock bands, with their complex rhythmic ideas and expression stretching across progressive rock, Rock in Opposition, jazz and punk. Founded in 1985, their stretchy, power-flurried drums-and-voice/bass guitar/nothing else approach has been described as “a palace revolt against the established role of the rhythm section” and set the initial format for any number of loud-bastard bass-and-drums duos.
Since 1994 they’ve also run assorted noise-rock and improv collaborations including Ronruins (a romping trio alliance with multi-instrumentalist Ron Anderson) and longstanding hook-ups with Derek Bailey, Kazuhisa Uchihashi and Keiji Haino. Post-2004, Ruins has given way to Ruins-alone: a solo project in both practical and actual terms, with Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins’ drummer, jabberer, main composer and only consistent member) opting to tour and record solo as a drums-and-tapes act.
Active since 2006, Sax Ruinsis yet another iteration of the Ruins concept – a musical tag team in which Yoshida spars happily with Nagoya-based saxophonist Ryoko Ono of Ryorchestra (an all-round improviser steeped in jazz, rock, funk, rhythm & blues classical and hip hop. Their recordings are “extremely complex with irregular beats, frequent excessive overdubbing, and restructured orchestration. The result sounds like a big band playing progressive jazz hardcore. For live performance of Sax Ruins they make hardcore sound like a huge band by full use of effects, also incorporating improvisation. Their shows unfold as a vehement drama.” For further evidence, see below.
Composer, guitarist and synthesizer player Richard Pinhas has often laboured under the reductive tag of “the French Robert Fripp”. This is unfair to him; he may have begun as an admirer of both Fripp and Brian Eno, but whatever he’s learned from them he took in his own direction. Starting out in the early ‘70s with a Sorbonne philosophy doctorate, a keen interest in speculative science fiction and a brief stint heading the post-Hawkwind psych outfit Schizo, Pinhas went on to lead the second-generation progressive rock band Heldon for four years between 1974 and 1978.
Geographically and conceptually, Heldon sat bang in the ‘70s midpoint between the artier end of British prog, the proggier end of British art-pop and the chilly sequenced robo-mantras of German electronics. Initially inspired by King Crimson, Eno and Tangerine Dream, they also shared both musicians and ideas with Magma, and at times squinted over the Atlantic towards Zappa and Utopia: no passive followers, they always brought their own assertive, inquiring spin to the party. (A late ‘90s revival version of the band brought in the psychedelic punk and techno imperatives of the dance movement).
Since Heldon, Pinhas has pursued an ongoing and diverse solo career. It’s taken in collaborations with Scanner, Peter Frohmader, Merzbow, Råd Kjetil Senza Testa, Wolf Eyes and Pascal Fromade, plus assorted words-and music projects involving speculative writers and philosophers such as Maurice Dantec, Philip K. Dick, Gilles Deleuze, Norman Spinrad and Chloe Delaume (these include the cyberpunk-inspired Schizotrope). When performing solo, Pinhas uses a loops-layers-and-textures guitar approach which parallels (and to some ears, surpasses) the densely processed and layered Soundscapes work of his original inspiration Fripp. I guess it’s most likely that he’ll employ this at Corsica Studios on the 12th (although as Tatsuya Yoshida has been another of Pinhas’ collaborators over the years, perhaps you might expect another spontaneous team-up…)
Up-to-date info on the concert is here, with tickets available here.
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On the Saturday evening, Baba Yaga’s Hut is running another gig, much of it apparently based around the noise-and-sludge projects which record at south London’s Dropout Studio in Camberwell. I’ve got to admit that I’m quite ambivalent about the hit-and-miss nature of noise-rock – I suspect that it’s too much of a haven for charlatans, and if I can’t drag out anything interesting to say about the noise they produce bar a slew of reference points, then what am I doing if not reviewing my own boredom? – but I like BYH’s omnivorous, ambitious and sharing attitude as promoters, so I’m happy to boost the signal on this one.
Sex Swing + Early Mammal + Casual Sect (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road, Islington, London, N1 9JB, UK, Saturday 17th October 2015, 8.00pm) – £7.00
Sex Swing are “a drone supergroup” featuring South London noisenik Tim Cedar (one of Dropout Studio’s owner/producers, previously a member of both Ligament and Part Chimp), Dethscalator’s Dan Chandler and Stuart Bell, Jason Stoll (bass player with Liverpool kraut-psych band Mugstar) and skronkophonist Colin Webster. On aural evidence, they inhabit a post-Can, post-Suicide hinterland of hell, spring-echoed and tannoy-vocaled – a sinister quotidian landscape of blank anomie and oppression; a Los Alamos penal colony haunted by uranium ghosts, ancient Morse telegraphs, metal fatigue and the zombie husks of Albert Ayler and Ian Curtis. (Well, that’s certainly someone’s perfect birthday present.)
Described variously as raw power, psych-blues, primitive lysergia and threatening backwoods jams, Early Mammal are another Dropout-affiliated Camberwell band. They’re a stoner rock three-piece who’ve drawn further comparisons not just to latterday stoner crews like White Hills or Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, or to predictable perennial touchstones like Captain Beefheart and Hawkwind parallels; but also to broody Harvest Records psych (Edgar Broughton and the ‘Obscured by Clouds’ Pink Floyd), Irmin Schmidt and (a rare and welcome cite, this) the grand dramatics of Aphrodite’s Child (the late-‘60s Greek prog band which skirted the 1966 Paris riots and served as an unlikely launch pad for both Vangelis and Demis Roussos).
Past incarnations have seen Early Mammal stir in some “Turkish-flavoured synth”, but the current lineup is a power trio of ex-Elks guitarist Rob Herian and 85bear’s Ben Tat and Ben Davis, adding baritone guitar and drone box to the usual guitar/bass/drums array.
I’m less sure about the south London/Dropout associations as regards Casual Sect, who seem to be north-of-the-river people; but, armed with their own hardcore noise-punk, they’ll either clatter away like wind-up toys or belly-sprawl on great bluffs of surly noise. They seem to love both citing and mocking conspiracy theory, so I’ll let them yell away on their own behalf – see below…
Up-to-date info on this gig is here, and tickets are available from here.
“More accomplished musicians have a loud argument about what ‘jazz’ even is these days,” say Chaos Theory Promotions. Their Jazz Market evenings continue to provide space for such arguments, and here’s another one…
The Geordie Approach + A Sweet Niche (Chaos Theory Promotions present The Jazz Market @ The Sebright Arms, 33-35 Coate Street, London, E2 9AG, UK, Friday 9th October 2015, 8.00pm) – £5.00/£7.00
The Geordie Approach is possibly the oldest secret from three internationally renowned musicians who’ve been working together for over ten years. It features acclaimed Leeds guitarist and producer Chris Sharkey (Acoustic Ladyland/Shiver/TrioVD), and Norwegian musicians Petter Frost Fadnes and Ståle Birkeland, best known for playing sax and bass respectively in Stavanger Kitchen Orchestra. This uncompromising and experimental trio pursues music within loose improvisational structures, adding a surprisingly broad range of flavours to their overall sound world.
The trio has a reputation for adapting and utilizing their performance space in an extremely effective and engaging manner. Birkeland, Frost Fadnes and Sharkey produce musical elements that often are contradictory in shape, moving between melody and noise, ambient grooves and abstract textures. They have performed across Europe, Japan and the UK in churches, art galleries, improvisation clubs, squats, abandoned tobacco houses, jazz festivals, concert halls and flamenco clubs. Each performance is a unique experience.
We hail the return of jazz punk trio A Sweet Niche to The Jazz Market after a seriously impressive performance in 2013. Band composers Keir Cooper and Oliver Sellwood (on guitar and saxophone respectively) explore an aesthetic of intricate rhythms & song-structures within a punchy energetic rock band format.
The nature of their collaboration is unique; Keir is an award-winning non-academy artist and Oliver is an award-winning PhD composer and academic. Despite their two tangential angles of experience, they have a shared musical vocabulary honed over nearly two decades. With new album ‘EJECT’ on the way in 2016 (and the recent addition of Big Beat Manifesto drummer Tim Doyle to the band), it’s high time we pulled these performers out of the murky underworld they reside in.
Tickets are available from here, and up-to-date information is here.
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There’s another Baba Yaga’s Hut evening on the same night as the Oto gig, this time concentrating on various noise-rock angles (from the reformatting of classic rock to the restructuring of sound to the straightforward joy of a gibbering hardcore racket.) See below.
Variously from Somerset, Watford and London, six-piece Hey Colossushttps://www.facebook.com/heycolossus have spent a decade gradually becoming alt.rock darlings thanks to their journey through assorted doomy noise rock avenues. Their current recipe involves slowing down and narcotising their alleged classic rock influences (Fleetwood Mac is one of those cited) via psychedelic echo and a certain post-rock dourness. It works well too – much of the time they sound like a guttering Led Zeppelin on strong cough mixture, or feed crunching brass-riff processionals and Stooge-esque whomps through an amber-toned ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ filter.
I suspect that the concept of supergroups doesn’t fit into noise-rock and post-hardcore. Nonetheless, Brighton’sLower Slaughter does sort of fit into that category, uniting people better known for other bands (bass player Barney Wakefield for Shudder Pulps, guitarist Jon Wood for “harsh party music” outfit Fat Bicth, Max Levy for vertiginously nervy singing in King Of Cats) and welding them together into a noisy, queasy-confident, raw-scream whole.
Creating hypnotic drones and grooves via two guitars and tom-centric drumming, Nottingham quartet Kogumaza have their feet in sludge metal and in post-rock; but while the latter’s become an increasing predictable and conservative genre Kogumaza have set out to reclaim some of its earlier, more inventive ideas (such as the lapping sonics of Seefeel) via their fourth member, live sound mixer Mark Spivey, who brings in dub-inspired approaches and old tape-looping techology to further manipulate and displace the band’s sound both live and on record. Fond of collaborations and split releases, they’ve also been known to bring in an unexpected banjo (although they probably won’t tonight).
As ifNecro Deathmort‘s name didn’t tell you enough about them, over an eight year career they’ve released albums called ‘This Beat Is Necrotronic’ and ‘Music Of Bleak Origin’ (although more recent albums have seen a shift towards a less morbid and more science-fictional outlook. Dark electronica festival veterans with a drone, doom and noise approach, the project entangles electronic instrumentalist AJ Cookson (The Montauk Project, Medes, Sol Invicto) with Matthew Rozeik (guitarist from post-metal/post-prog band Astrohenge). Their music rises from gurgling boneyard beats, medical-equipment breakdowns, squishy miasmas and faux-sax drones towards something ruined and regal – a grand deathbed vision.
Sharing Necro Deathmort’s current tour is Berlin-based dubstep/noise/electro fusilladeer DeadFader – memorably described as “chainsaw-step” by Baked Goods Distribution (who went on to rave about how the project coughs up “the most seismic grooves imaginable” and that the music “sinks its teeth into your arm and refuses to let go”). I can’t top that as a description right now – have a listen below and see if you agree with it.
Joining Necro Deathmort and DeadFader for the London date are Cementimental. Everything I can dig up about these guys is a barking blur of ludicrous disinformation: almost the only lucid facts coughed up from their promotional flotsam is that they’re led by a “noisician” called Dr. Age (or Tim Drage, who may or may not have a daytime/surface job in cute Lego animations) and have been doing “harsh noise, circuit-bending, rough music since 2000AD”. The Dr. is supported by a cast of obscure and possibly imaginary characters – a guitarist called Toru, a part-time turntablist, a man called Mrs Columbo (who handles the incoherent screaming), and “additionalists” called Murray the Eel and Sir Concord Discount (the latter’s a “rock goblin”). Maybe this makes Centimental sound like the joke band on the bill, and there’s plenty of humour in what they do (a couple of early tracks were called Too Long and Merzbow It Ain’t, while a more recent one’s called Commendable Amputation of an Excessive Gargoyle), but the fact remains that they’ve been going for nearly half again as long as their gigmates. Draw your own conclusions.
On the Thursday, there’s a Cafe Oto convening of music from Cairo, Bristol and Montreal, running in parallel to events in Egypt and Lebanon and covering a broad variety of influences and outcomes.
Maurice Louca + John Bence + Sam Shalabi (Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, UK, October 8th 2015, 8.00pm) – £12.00/£14.00
Cafe Oto, in collaboration with Thirtythree Thirtythree and Nawa Recordings, bring you the second edition of the five-part event series entitled ‘Labyrinths’ (or ‘Mātāhāt’ in Arabic) and based in London, Cairo and Beirut over October and November.
Maurice Louca is an Egyptian musician and composer born in Cairo where he lives and works. As well as being the co-founder of the bands Bikya, Alif and Dwarves of East Agouza, he lends his sound to numerous projects, composing for theatre, film and contemporary art. Inspired by many influences, from psychedelic to Egyptian shaabi, his second album ‘Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan (Salute the Parrot)’, released on Nawa Recordings in November 2014, shattered the confines of musical and cultural labelling and was dubbed by many as a game-changer for the region’s bustling independent music scene. Amidst his collaborations and inconspicuous touring across Europe and the Arab world in the last few years, Louca has sought a richer and much more complex sound. ‘Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan’, the fruit of such intense reinvention and a departure from his first solo album ‘Garraya’, is a work that leaves ample space for fluidity and improvisation, paving the way for unique live renderings.
From a family background rich in classical pedigree and firmly embedded in Bristol’s forward-facing electronic music culture, John Bence has pooled a breadth of influence scarcely credible for a composer only entering his second decade, and now he is starting to put his inspiration into live and recorded motion. As a producer he is already thinking ten steps ahead, often incorporating voice or home recorded percussion into his cyclical technique of scoring, recording, manipulating, re-scoring and re-recording in waves, creating heady, intoxicating ripples of harmony and noise. An obscure snippet of dub-plate drone under a previous moniker was enough for Nicolas Jaar, who instantly approached him about a release on his Other People label. Six months on, ‘Disquiet’ was released – a masterful hybrid of classical and electronic clocking in at a tantalising ten minutes. More, much more, is coming. Mercurial, elusive and of seemingly limitless imagination, John Bence is rising to the surface.
Sam Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian composer and improviser living between Montreal, Quebec and Cairo, Egypt. Beginning in punk rock in the late 70s, his work has evolved into a fusion of experimental, modern Arabic music that incorporates traditional Arabic, shaabi, noise, classical, text, free improvisation and jazz. He has released five solo albums (including ‘On Hashish’- a musical mediation on German writer Walter Benjamin; ‘Osama’, an audio collage on Arabophobia in the wake of 9/11; and his most recent ‘Music for Arabs’), five albums with Shalabi Effect (a free improvisation quartet that bridges western psychedelic music and Arabic Maqam scales) and three albums with Land of Kush (an experimental 30-member orchestra for which he composes). He has appeared on over sixty albums and toured Europe, North America and North Africa. Recent projects include the release of the sixth Shalabi Effect album, a duo album with Stefan Christoff, two albums on the Italian label Sagittarius with Beirut, Turkish and Egyptian musicians and a tour in the eastern U.S with Alvarius B (playing solo oud). He is also releasing ‘Isis and Osiris’ (a new composition for oud and electronics) on Nashazphone as well as releasing an album with The Dwarves of East Agouza (a Cairo based trio with Maurice Louca and Alan Bishop) while currently working on his sixth solo album.
Tickets and up-to-date information are here and here.
Here are details on some more interesting concerts coming up later this month. These run the gamut from soft psychedelic world-folk atmospherics to jabbering electric art-punk noise and sprechtstimme via dream-folk, caustic love songs and extended-technique art-rock instrumentals. (It was a shame to hear about the cancellation of the Charles Hayward gig in London on the 23rd – taking its ANTA, Gnob and Kavus Torabi support slots with it – but I’m sure that something similar will be rescheduled for anyone in need of their art-mash/stoner/prog/psych/metal salad…)
Dave Sturt presents An Evening of Dreams & Absurdities (Upstairs @ The Red Lion, Market Place, Wirksworth, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 4ET, UK, 23rd September 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.00
As part of the Wirksworth Festival Fringe, Dave Sturt (bass guitarist with Gong, Bill Nelson, Steve Hillage and Jade Warrior, as well as being half of Cipher) showcases tracks from his forthcoming solo album ‘Dreams & Absurdities’ in an evening of world-class all-instrumental musicianship featuring beautiful eclectic music, soundscapes and various field recordings from Gong tours and elsewhere. The music is “mostly mellow and ambient – somewhere between melancholy and elation.”
For the performance, Dave will be accompanied by three guests. Chris Ellis (guitar and piano) is a multi-instrumentalist/singer-songwriter/actor, an ex-member of Anglesey band Ghostriders, and an award-winning soundtrack composer – he’s also a collaborator with Dave on the Past Lives Project (which recreates the recent ancestral histories of British communities by resurrecting their old cinefilm recordings and setting them to new music). Brian Boothby (low whistle, djembe) is an acclaimed folk musician, dramatist and writer and a member of the Derbyshire mixed-arts collective Genius Loci. Jeff Davenport (drums, percussion, HandSonic pad) has worked with jazz musicians Andy Sheppard and Phil Robson, pop artists James Morrison and Laura Mayne, and currently collaborates regularly with “Silent Pianist” Neil Brand providing soundracks to silent films, as well as working in Europe and the Far East on various projects with all manner of musicians.
On the last post, I plugged a London double event on the 19th – a day with a Daylight Music concert at midday and a noisier rock gig in the evening (both events which are still about to happen as I post this). In another week’s time, history’s repeating (fortunately not as farce, though anyone familiar with the bands in the evening show can expect some twists and jabs of humour) so here’s what’s coming up on September 26th…
Daylight Music 200: Ex-Easter Island Head + French For Rabbits + Louis Barabbas, plus a photo exhibition (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, UK – Saturday 26th September 2015, 12.00pm-2.00pm) – free entry, suggested donation £5.00
An extra special event to celebrate the 200th Daylight Music, featuring some of the most popular acts from the last six years (643 performances by 530 different acts; 15,254 cups of tea or coffee drunk; 9,863 slices of cake scoffed; 5,003 pieces of quiche devoured) and during which we’ll be raising funds for Daylight Music in 2016.
Ex-Easter Island Head are a Liverpool based musical collective composing and performing music for solid-body electric guitar, percussion and other instruments. They have performed their original compositions solo, as a duo, trio, quartet and as a large ensemble across a wide variety of events from site-specific installation works to live film scores. They create a sensation whenever they play. If you’ve never seen musicians hitting electric guitars with mallets before, then cancel all other plans for the day and head down.
French For Rabbits hail from the remote natural setting of Waikuku Beach, in New Zealand’s South Island. Vocalist Brooke Singer expresses intimate narratives against the cast of the damp colonial cold; her voice delicately steeled against winsome guitar lines and the eerie instrumentation of her bandmates. It’s a weather-beaten dreamscape, nostalgic for warmth and hopefully lilting towards sunnier climes.
Louis Barabbas is a writer, performer and label director, best known for caustic love songs and energetic stage shows that leave you pumped up and breathless.
The icing on the cake this week is an instrumental soundscape provided by Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adrian Crowley, who (over his six-album career) has been described by the Independent as “a master of understatement” and cited by Ryan Adams as the answer to the question “who’s the best songwriter that no one’s heard of?”
To celebrate the fantastic photography taken throughout the lifespan of Daylight Music by a very talented bunch of volunteer photographers, there will be a lo-fi photo exhibition consisting of 200 postcards on the pews of the chapel for people to take away; plus there will be a limited numbers of brochures to buy featuring all of the photographs.
In the evening, there’s a change of pace and milieu over in Hackney as post-hardcore rubs up against a bit of playful English Dada. I’ve got a liking for those occasions when rock music drives itself up against persistent, wayward speech and stubs its toes on it; and this gig will offer plenty of opportunities for that…
Blacklisters + Joeyfat + Himself (Pink Mist @ The Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, London, E8 2EB, UK, Saturday 26th September 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.00
Blacklisters’ aggressive, confrontational and darkly humorous performances have earned them a reputation as one of the best acts on the UK underground, drawing comparisons to the likes of The Jesus Lizard and Pissed Jeans. Their debut album ‘BLKLSTRS’ was released in 2012 to critical acclaim, landing them supports with Scratch Acid, Pig Destroyer, Future of the Left and Big Business, as well as a live session at Maida Vale studios for the Radio 1 Rock Show. Tonight’s special show is in support of their fearsome new record ‘Adult’ on Smalltown America. Produced by Matt Johnson (aka MJ of Hookworms) the album is a clear progression for the band and sees them fuse abstract art-noise with the brutally minimalist riffs that first put them on the radar.
Also playing are amorphous cult stalwarts Joeyfat, a band who’ve been defying conventions of “band logic” longer than most of us have been able to get into shows at all. Their sinewy math-inspired spoken-word has seen them share stages with the likes of Bilge Pump, S*M*A*S*H, Clearlake, Lords, Dartz, Art Brut, Trencher and Green Day, obviously. Catch them at this rare London show.
Direct from Leeds (unless they stopped off some place on the way), Himself’s shouty/talky interactive noise rock has been winning them plaudits up and down the company, including from Radio’s Daniel P. Carter who invited them to record a live session for the Radio 1 Rock Show earlier this year.
Tickets for the Shacklewell Arms gig are available here and here. Note that this is an 18+ event.
Here’s the second of two previews for the first week of September, this one covering the weekend which has just arrived. Four gigs on Saturday (from post-classical to garage rock, from Afrobeat and kosmiche-influenced art pop to Canterbury-inspired lo-fi, from witty post-prog to Southern rock) and a chamber jazz gig on Sunday.
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After ten years of putting on post-classical club nights in east London, some way outside the heart of the British classical establishment, the Nonclassical organisation gets to play in the centre – a festival role, a high-profile corporate sponsorship, ads on the Tube and all. Come and judge whether they’re changing the game or being absorbed (beneficially or otherwise) into the belly of the beast. Whichever way this is going, the concert itself looks fascinating.
Nonclassical Club Night (Deloitte Ignite Festival @ Paul Hamlyn Hall, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9DD, UK, Saturday 5th September 2015, 8.00pm) – £10.00
Nonclassical label leader Gabriel Prokofiev (a polystylist composer with a background in electroacoustic work whose works include a Concerto for Turntables & Orchestra, an “orchestral remix” of Beethoven’s Ninth and production work on hip hop, grime, and electro records) will be performing at the event, as will five-string-electric-cellist/composer/technologist Peter Gregson (whose adventures in sound include film soundtracking, multiple premieres of newly composed work plus three albums of original compositions, and a “data sonification” of Twitter).
Also performing will be the amplified prepared-piano artist Klavikon (a.k.a. Leon Michener, who uses various pickups, real time analogue processing and playing-mechanism inventions including a robot dog to fuse aleatoric ideas from Stockhausen and Cage with electronic dancefloor work including “cascading batteries of percussion, sub-basses and abstract soundscapes”); the “post-a-cappella” group Juice Vocal Ensemble (whose voicework encompasses everything from classical sources to hip hop, Irish folk, close-harmony vocal jazz and the experimental approaches of Meredith Monk and of Björk’s ‘Medúlla’), and Gabriel’s DJ collaborator Mr Switch.
There will also be a collaboration between classical soprano Sarah Dacey and the “Tendons” music theatre project initiated earlier this year by Holly Lowe and Nwando Ebizie. Based around harp, spoken word, performance art and electronics while mingling repertoire work with improvisation, this draws on and expands two modern classical pieces (Salvatore Sciarrino’s ‘L’addio a Trachis’ and John Cage’s ‘Dream’) plus the ‘Siciliano’ from Bach’s ‘Sonata in E flat’ and was premiered in June at the Nonclassical Downtown Loft Concert at The Russet in Shacklewell – one of the label’s ongoing attempts to encourage a London equivalent of the New York loft-music scene of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
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If you prefer to have your brain tickled by other means, Group Therapy are presenting what they call a night of “good ol’-fashioned noise rock” down at an east London art-rock stronghold.
Trojan Horse + Thumpermonkey + Godzilla Black (Group Therapy@ The Sebright Arms,33-35 Coate Street, London, E2 9AG, United Kingdom, Saturday 5th September 2015, 8.00pm) Entry £7 otd £5.50 advance
What this actually seems to be is a night mixing a sharp-minded self-aware take on post-progressive rock and a rollicking contemporary version of what my local library used to call “popular instrumental”, and would stick in a rack alongside James Last and The Shadows (from which, long ago, in the early days of my musical education, I’d pull out the likes of Mike Oldfield, Sky and Vangelis’ ‘Heaven and Hell’, and later the raging electric jazz raga of David Torn’s ‘Cloud About Mercury‘ – ten years later, I’d might been using it to catch the Deodato lounge revival). But if my comment makes the gig sound as if it’s in any way mild or lounge-friendly or mild, think again. This is very much a rock evening and it’s explicitly clear that this night’s crop of bands have soaked up Boredoms, Swans, Big Black, Sonic Youth and The Melvins alongside any Genesis or King Crimson which they might have imbibed. It’s just that it’s refreshing to be able to go along to one of those gigs, with that label, and not encounter yet another bunch of predictable art-punks posing with their distortion pedals and their feedback zones while reheating old daydreams about free jazz and No Wave…
I’m bitching. I don’t like doing that. Let’s have a look at the bands on the bill.
Manchester’s Trojan Horse are post-prog omnivores with tuneful hearts and a refreshing lack of shame. While their records pillage, digest and absorb a wide diet from Pink Floyd to James Brown to The Kinks to the 13th Floor Elevators, they also use their appetites to build their own muscle and identity – one through which they filter a broad, contemplative awareness of British and Mancunian history and how it soaks through into the lives of present-day people (although you don’t need to analyse that in order to enjoy one of their rambunctious gigs).
Simultaneously theatrical and punk-lean, Thumpermonkey can stake a claim to being one of the smartest British bands this side of Everything Everything (with whom they share a geeky brainiac quality driven home by vigorous, tuneful force). Couched in a crunching but colourful hard-rock vein with big pinches of post-hardcore and prog, their dramatic convoluted stalk-and-punch compositions are playful but melodious and rewarding. You can bang your head to a Thumpermonkey song, but you can also think to it. In Michael Woodman (a man like a knowing fusion of Peter Hammill, Nick Cave and Peter Blegvad) they’ve also got a frontman who’s one of the best singers and cleverest current lyricists in rock, delivering allusive and elusive barrages of sly wordplay in a resonant rock-operatic voice.
Finally, the big, bold, brazen sound of Godzilla Black lands precisely midway between No Wave and pin-sharp easy-listening film themes, or between James Black and the John Barry Seven, with rollicking drums, tight stunt brass (and yes, all right, distortion and computer sleet). They also play at a blistering, speaker-pummelling volume, so maybe there’s something in that noise rock description).
Headlining, Nottingham’s Canteloupe offer an omnivorous mix of pop, Krautrock, Afrobeat and disco. London’s Barringtone (featuring former Clor frontman Barry Dobbin) continue to pursue their motoric English art pop in the wake of the ‘Fever Head’ single. From Bradford, Gurglez blend what their neighbours Jumbo Records call “the power of prog, the drama of opera and the AOR grooves of the 70’s… poetic moments à la Terry Durham and free-jazz à la Nice” and “(turn) them on their head with a kind of left of field madness that Zappa would be proud of” (which, to these ears. also makes them sound more than a little like Sleepy People…) There should also be one more act to be added, which you can find out about in due course with the other gig information here and here.
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If you’d prefer something a little looser (or, as a clincher, something that was free to get into) for Saturday night, there’s this literally free-for-all concert taking place in the middle of Hackney and hosted by Sound Events Solutions, who have also provided the summary…
The Little Things + Alkatraz + Picturebox + Marianne Hyatt + Pit Ponies (Sound Events Solutions @ Bohemia Hackney, Unit 2, Bohemia Place, Mare Street, Hackney, London, E8 1DU, United Kingdom, Saturday 5th September 2015, 7.45pm) – free
With The Little Things it’s funk, and then it’s 70s New York new wave alt-rock, and then it’s pop, but it’s all seamless and it’s funky and cool as fuck – an uncanny indie-ish dance party band that just never suck no matter how much they flirt with mass appeal.
Alkatraz provide the psychotic reactions and spontaneous psychedelic combustions of trippin’ psychedelic garage rock.
Picturebox (centred around home-recordist Robert Halcrow) are leading lights (and probably the main constituents) of Canterbury Lo-Fi, a new clandestine pop movement encapsulating all the charm but none of the noodling of the legendary old Canterbury Scene. When Halcrow sings a song like Ruth Bakes A Cake, he is neither being ironic nor twee nor coquettishly kitchen-sink. There is a light-hearted, profoundly uncynical love for humanity running through his lyrics that can sometimes remind you of the way Syd Barrett used to sing about the lost idea of simple kindness. Special things don’t always hit you over the head with a mallet, and neither will Picturebox. But you just never know, sometimes a movement can start with an instrumental named in allusion to a little hi-fi shop next to a supermarket car-park in Canterbury, some heartfelt tributes to pop stars, and lots of tea and cake.
Frontwoman of (variously) Dragstripper, Temple of Sound, Anarchistwood and Country Dirt, MarianneHyatt is a London-based deep southern songstress from Austin Texas. She’s equal parts Patsy Cline, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, has sung with The Frogs at ATP, with Bill Callahan at Meltdown Festival and played a late-night pickup in Richard Linklater’s ‘Slacker’. She writes and plays platonic lovesongs to sexworkers, country reggae odes to schizophrenic madames and protest tunes to natural disasters… a walking triumph of lost causes and no-longer living legends.
Pit Ponies are renegades from Naughties rockney/post-punk/knees-up beer boys Corporal Machine & The Bombers, fusing ‘90s indie with pissed pub fights and ‘70s pub-rock. (In spite of this preamble, they’ll actually be playing an acoustic set.)
After all of this, on Sunday, there’s jazz via the return of the LUME evenings via the Vortex. Blurb for the first evening is below.
Mark Pringle’s A Moveable Feast & Rebecca Nash (LUME @ The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, Dalston, London, N16 8AZ, UK, Sunday 6th September 2015, 7.30pm – £10.00
A Moveable Feast is a group led by jazz pianist Mark Pringle (a Peter Whittingham Award winner for the year 2015, following in the footsteps of previous recipients Gwilym Simcock, Trish Clowes and Elliot Galvin). Heavily inspired by time spent studying in Paris in 2013, the music draws on multiple cultural influences, containing themes of nature, wildlife, literature, the chaos of cities, the lives of people who inhabit them, woodland creatures and strange beasts… This autumn sees the group undertaking a national tour to promote the release of their album, ‘A Moveable Feast’, on Stoney Lane Records.
Featuring a twelvetet line up of strings, horns and rhythm section, the group explore Mark’s music with great freedom of approach, resulting in music that is eclectic, adventurous and highly unique. The band are Mark Pringle (piano), Percy Pursglove (trumpet), Chris Young (alto saxophone), Dan Searjeant (tenor and alto saxophones, flute), Alicia Gardener-Trejo (bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, alto flute), Ben Lee (electric guitar), James Banner (double bass) and Euan Palmer (drums), plus a string quartet of Christine Cornwell, Sarah Farmer, Megan Jowett and Lucy French.
Rebecca Nash‘s music, written with the intention of creating a new cohesive sound, blends together all the things she loves about music. Most important is a sense of purpose, identity and beauty. It is inspired by many musical influences which primarily include jazz musicians such as Pat Metheny and Wayne Shorter but also other styles too, such as electronica and folk music. Rebecca’s own style, rooted in the contemporary jazz genre, blends acoustic and electronic elements with strong melodies, underpinned by dense harmonies and unusual grooves with the aim of creating one overall soundscape.
This latest project is Rebecca’s first as a bandleader, and all of the music performed is original material from her forthcoming album, due to be recorded later this year. Tonight she leads a small group with herself on piano, Percy Pursglove on trumpet, Matt Fisher on drums, and Chris Mapp on bass guitar.
More information on the event is here, with tickets available here.
I got this through my feed this week – a Beach Boys cover done as Korean doo-wop.
This is The Barberettes, who’ve been singing together for three years and are in town next week, making their London debut. It’s also an audio visual flyer, of sorts, for this year’s London K-Music Festival. Presented by Serious (in association with the Korean Cultural Institute) this is a celebration of Korean music from “dynamic and energy-filled contemporary bands to eloquent and dignified traditional music” spread across some of the capital’s best venues during the course of September. Full details are below. (From here on down, it’s all press release.)
SU:M‘s name (pronounced “soom”) translates as “breath” and it expresses the physical connection of these two women to the music they create – sometimes a soft sigh, sometimes a cry, sometimes a silent holding of breath. Jungmin Seo plays the gayageum (a massive twenty-five-string zither) and Jiha Park plays wind instruments including the saenghwang (imagine the subtlest mouth organ, with seventeen bamboo pipes). They are an astonishing experience live – they’ve played Womex Cardiff and were seen at WOMAD last year. This opening concert of the K-Music festival of Korean music is their first London concert.
The evening will begin with a short solo set by Arthur Jeffes, leader of Penguin Cafe, who will play music by himself and his father Simon Jeffes inspired by their travels in Asia – and it will end with a short collaboration between Arthur and SU:M. Tickets available here.
The Barberettes (The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Friday 4th & Saturday 5th September 2015, 8:00PM) – £16.00
Formed for fun in 2012, The Barberettes are a spectacular vocal harmony trio, a timeslip girl group who turn classics of the ‘50s and ‘60s inside out as well as creating their own theatrical music with their close harmony covers and cute costumes. Singing doo-wop in Korean and English, they made their first album last year (in a retro homage to their inspirations, they called it The Barberettes Vol 1). This year they’ve already stormed SXSW in Texas and the K-Pop Night Out concert at Midem in Cannes – and now they’re bringing their unique style to the UK for the very first time. Tickets available here.
In England, we know a bit about Korean art music and hold some preconceptions about K-Pop – but we don’t know much about Korean rock music, and that’s where Seoul’s finest, No Brain, have built a huge following, playing over three thousand gigs across Korea in the last 15 years. Powered by raw vocals (Bull is the lead singer), razor guitars (Vovo plays guitar), sharp suits (Bogle plays bass) and a drummer called Dolly, they’ve won lots of Korean Music Awards, but never played London before. They’re playing an early set – support hits at 7.30, they play at 8.30pm. This is a standing show – tickets available here.
Jambinai are the next thrilling instalment in the tale of new Korean music. They sculpt sound in a way that’s drawn comparisons to Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Sonic Youth and the crystalline power of Sigur Ros – but they draw deep on Korean traditions. It’s not just a stage full of amazing instruments – Korean fiddles, massive zithers blended with glorious lyrical guitars – but also a conscious sense of using the tradition to create something thrillingly new. They’ve been seen at Womad and Glastonbury, but this is their first London show – catch them as Jambinai step out onto a world stage. Tickets available here.
There’s a theatrical strand to a lot of Korean music and, for more than twenty years, Noreum Machi have been creating a thrilling spectacle from virtuosic percussion, shamanic vocals and acrobatic dance. Powered by gongs, Samul Nori drums and wind instruments, they work within the framework of Korean traditional performance, with a commitment to communicate their music to audiences worldwide. Tickets available here.
The Pansori Night: Sang-il Nam + Aeri Park + ‘Poppin’ Hyunjoon + Bae Reon + Kye-youl Jun + Ji-sun Choi (Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace, Belgravia, London, SW1X 9DQ, UK, Wednesday 23rd September 2015, 7:30pm) – free ticketed event
The Pansori Night will bring together six talented performers for an evening of music, dance and song with a contemporary twist. Pansori is a form of vocal story-telling that reaches back centuries — the stories sung are often comic, with a Chaucerian comedy to them, but they are also more than just bawdiness, and can be romantic, sad and emotional to boot.
Rising Pansori talent Sang-il Nam will be joined by Aeri Park, one of Korea’s leading female pansori performers. Aeri Park will also perform with ‘Poppin’ Hyunjoon, who takes breakdance moves and blends them with traditional rhythms. Our three stars will also be joined by Bae Reon, playing the ajaeng – a seven-stringed instrument, percussionist Kye-youl Jun accompanying the pansori with the janggu (Korean drum) and traditional dancer Ji-sun Choi. This event is free but ticketed. Click here for more information.
Korean National Gugak Centre (Lilian Baylis Studio @ Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue, London, EC1R 4TN, UK, Wednesday 30th September 2015, 7:30pm) – £15 + booking fee
The Korean National Gugak Centre is one of the great arts companies of Korea, and this performance concentrates on Sanjo – that’s a style of instrumental music accompanied by a drum and sometimes by dancers, starting slowly and gathering speed, with a structure that allows for virtuosic improvisation. This evening shows off some of the great traditional instruments of Korean traditional music such as the geomungo (large zither), daegeum (transverse flute) and haegeum (Korean fiddle). This is the last date on the group’s European tour, and provides a fitting conclusion to the K-Music Festival. More information here.
Tickets for all events can also be obtained from Serious.
Here’s a quick signal booster (or, perhaps more accurately, noise booster) for the debut Mutations festival coming up in Brighton at the end of November. (The press release just came in from Stereo Sanctity today). Note that tickets go on sale in the middle of this week, and that there’s only a thousand tickets. I’ve just seen a Facebook counter suggesting that 330 people have already committed themselves to tickets. Move fast.
Mutations is a new multi-venue inner city festival in Brighton, England, born out of last years acclaimed DRILL:BRIGHTON. With Wire’s touring project moving onto the next urban sonic assault, co-curators One Inch Badge decided the time was right for a forward thinking, annual, artist-lead festival that would be static to Brighton on the last weekend of November
Spanning two days and nights on the 28th and 29th November with an incredibly intimate capacity of just 1,000, Mutations is a music-lover’s event. Alongside the music you can also expect pop-up record fairs, poster art exhibitions, photography and more.
Mutations is a creative mass of genre hybrids and expression, delivering some of the most inspiring, creative and interesting music the world has to offer; a host of other national and international acts including genuinely alternative rock, aggressive noise, experimental house, singer-songwriters, doom metal, electronica, drone, experimental folk and various other experimental sounds.
More quick London gig news – art rock, post-rock, electronica, and a dash of classic New York downtown.
Rumour Cubes + Dresda + kontakte @ The Facemelter (The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden, London, NW1 0AP, UK, Friday 7th August, 7.30pm – £8.00/£6.00)
Sumptuous instrumental and electronic post-rock from ex-Glastonbury and ArcTanGent Festival performers, plus a UK debut.
Post-rock veterans Rumour Cubes have been spreading tentacles of ambient, soaring soundscapes across the globe, catching people’s attention with their classical and electronic nuances, attention to the finest details and unassuming political statements embedded in their writing. Their work with poets and film-makers has allowed them to create a multi-media experience and has propelled them to performances at Glastonbury, ArcTanGent and a support slot for Sólstafir; while their albums ‘The Narrow State’ (2012) and ‘Appearances Of Collections’ (2014) received wide critical acclaim.
Celebrating their tenth anniversary this year, Dresda hail from Genova, Italy, and will be driving over to make their UK debut. Their music is intricate, dense and introspective yet gloriously cinematic. They have several well-received releases under their belts, including soundtracks for critically acclaimed Italian independent movie ‘The Krolevsky Case’, and the short movie ‘La lingua del disordine’. In 2009, they were featured on the Italian DVD edition of the Canadian documentary ‘RIP! A remix manifesto’, distributed by Feltrinelli Real Cinema nationwide.
Conceived in 2005 from a string of old 4-track demos and further realized via a labyrinth of digital workstations and computer software, kontakte blend organic instrumentation within an electronic and hypnotic framework of programmed beats and pulsing synths. Pooling influences such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai together with Brian Eno, krautrock and shogaze sounds, this duo manages to perfectly blend shimmering electronics and ethereal melodies. They have too many releases to name and have been remixed by many visionaries including Tim Holmes of Death In Vegas, Chris Olley of Six By Seven and Russell. M. Harmon.
There might also be tickets remaining for the performance of Arthur Russell’s Instrumentals early in the following week. This is a repeat visit of a show that’s been on and off the road at various points around the world since 2012 and which last visited London via Cecil Sharp House earlier this year… so if you missed it before, now’s your chance.
Visions presents: Arthur Russell’s Instrumentals, directed by Peter Gordon @ Visions Festival (Oval Space, 29-32 The Oval London, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9DT, UK, Monday 10th August, 7.30pm – £21.50 plus booking fee)
For those of you who don’t know about Arthur Russell’s turbulent, productive (and sadly curtailed) life, he was a vigorous participant within the downtown New York music scene between the mid-1970s and early 1990s. Having studied as an avant-garde cellist and composer, he rebelled into Manhattan nightlife, vigorous cross-fertilization and event curation. Russell rubbed up against Fluxus, disco, avant-garde theatre, New Wave and no-wave, making the most of the breadth of the prolonged New York creative ferment of the times, feeding his assorted roots and collisions into music of his own.
During the last decade of his life Russell wrote and performed voice-and-cello songs – predominantly solo but employing loops, echo and sundry effects. In these, he synthesized all that he’d learned into what were perhaps his most personal and accessible works. These are probably what he’s best known for now, thanks to the more prominent releases of albums such as ‘World Of Echo’ and ‘Another Thought’, but they’re only one aspect of his work
A notorious perfectionist reknowned for agonised work gestations (and who left hundreds of pieces uncompleted at his death) Russell nonetheless completed what was, at the time a remarkably bold, broad and modern array of work from orchestral pieces and theatre music to forays into electro-pop and dance music under project names including Dinosaur (for ‘Kiss Me Again’) and Loose Joints (‘Tell You Today’). Today this kind of equivalence and eclecticism is more commonplace in the orchestral or ensemble work of composers such as John Zorn, Django Bates, Anna Meredith or Tansy Davies. In the 1970s, though, Russell was a pioneer, notoriously shocking the staider elements of his avant-garde classical audience with ‘24-24 Music’ (a contemporary classical piece equating the pulses and disciplines of New York minimalism with those of disco music).
Coming from the zone of Russell’s talent which drew most on his contemporary classical roots, ‘Instrumentals’ is an example of his chamber music, Dating from the late ‘70s, it was initially conceived as a forty-eight hour piece, its duration far exceeding even the infamously massy protracted works of Morton Feldman. Versions of the work were performed over the years, and a selection of excerpts appeared on a Disques du Crepuscule release in the mid-‘80s.
The piece as it stands owes much to Russell’s friend Peter Gordon, a fellow eclectician from the 1970s downtown scene and Russell’s bandmate in The Flying Hearts and Gordon’s own ongoing Love Of Life Orchestra. Gordon worked closely on the original performed version, assisting on keyboards, arrangement and notation. Two decades after Russell’s death in 1992, Gordon brought a new version of ‘Instrumentals’ back to The Kitchen (Russell’s old home venue in Manhattan. Following the initial sold-out performance in March 2012, Gordon has periodically revived and toured the new arrangement. The performance at Oval Space will feature several members of Russell’s original ensemble, and will also feature photographs by Yuko Nonomura which were projected during the original 1975/78 Manhattan performances of ‘Instrumentals’.
Next week sees the first gig (for some time) for one of the most interesting of current British rock bands; some high-gloss cabaret; and the start of a psychedelic pop roadshow travelling around the UK. Read on…
Thumpermonkey don’t get as much attention as they deserve. It’s possible that this is because they don’t seem to take things seriously, addressing almost everything with a skewed and multi-levelled sense of cryptic grand-baroque geek humour. Just to illustrate this – a current work-in-progress Thumpermonkey song is “something which we’re calling Giraffes, which includes some vague narrative about doing a conga during an asteroid-based extinction-level event.” One of their older albums is called ‘Chap With The Wings, Five Rounds Rapid’ – a wry kill-the-monsters line filched from ‘Doctor Who”s laconic and unflappable Brigadier. In the same spirit as that reference, I’d suggest that while they are serious about what they do, they’re not necessarily serious about the way they do it – like many of my favourite things.
If what I’ve written so far leads you to expect strained, fey, sub-Zappa wackiness, then think again. Both in the flesh and on record, Thumpermonkey are a brooding and atmospheric proposition – seriously musical, travelling from blitzingly heavy quasi-metal riffs to spidery post-rock, from threshing post-hardcore to theatrical mane-tossing prog at a moment’s notice while Michael Woodman’s grand edgy vocals and complex multi-levelled lyrics ride on top like an arcane mahout with an arched eyebrow. They’ve been called “a sustained victory for intuitive cross-pollination” by ‘Prog’ magazine and every gig they play confirms this particular accolade. Here they are playing 419 (a song which at first appears to be one of their more delicate offerings, revealing its intensities later).
The other two bands on the bill are less well known to me, but aren’t short of blurb:
The Earls Of Mars are probably the most original thing you’ll hear all year. At their heart, the band are a ’70s-influenced rock band bringing together jazz, prog, space rock, doom and blues and forming it into a barking mad noise that you’ll either get or you won’t. If you don’t get it then close the door on your way out of the spaceship, as those of us who want to stay are off on a fantastical journey to who-knows-where, with The Earls Of Mars steering the ship. Enjoy the trip, ladies and gentlemen, as it’s going to be a fun ride.
Ham Legion‘s noisy lo-fi pop is punctuated with proggy outbursts, psychedelic breakdowns and passages of cod-metal joy. Tangy and tart guitar, egg noddle bass lines and light crispy drums are smothered in gooey boy/girl harmonies. Eat in or take away. For fans of Cardiacs, Deerhoof, They Might Be Giants, Split Enz, Heavy Vegetable.
Judge for yourselves – here are the videos for the Earls’ ‘Astronomer Pig’ single from last year, followed by some footage of a Ham Legion gig in Brighton a couple of years ago. As for tickets, they’re available here.
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The day after the Thumpermonkey gig, Holly Penfield plays one of her biggest gigs of the year…
Holly Penfield sings Judy Garland, The Hippodrome Casino, Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square, London, WC2H 7JH, UK, Friday 31st July 2015, 8.00pm) – £15.00 and upwards
Following a triumphant debut last year, Holly returns to the London Hippodrome, singing the songs of the legendary Judy Garland in her own inimitable style. Holly will be joined by her musical director Sam Watts and his magnificent seven-piece band. An unmissable evening for Holly and Judy fans alike, set in the glorious Matcham Room, located inside the Hippodrome Casino – formerly known as The Talk Of The Town, this is the venue of legends and home to Judy’s final London concerts.
Longer-term readers will know that I got to know Holly years ago via her own original ‘Fragile Human Monster Show‘ and the ‘Parts Of My Privacy’ album (which I wrote about ages ago – that review’s due a revamp and remount, I think). Both of those, though original songwriter pop, had their own theatrical and psychodynamic aspects which pointed towards Holly’s current work in vivid cabaret (and, latterly, as half of swing revivalists The Cricklewood Cats). As for Holly’s interpretations, she can and does cover cute showbiz camp and heart-tugging pathos within the same performance – you can see a couple of examples below.
Up-to-date information on the Judy concert is here and here, while tickets are available here. A mischievous part of me fancies swapping the audience from Holly’s show with the one from the Thumpermonkey/Earls/Ham Legion gig, and vice versa. I suspect that they all might enjoy it more than they’d expect to…
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On the same night that Thumpermonkey and co. play, The Luck Of Eden Hall are over from Chicago to play the first of two London gigs, launching a Kickstarter-funded UK tour which will take them to a wide array of venues and mini-festivals around England, Scotland and Wales, accompanied by a shifting cast of local psych heroes, left-field blues artists and quirky alt.pop shoegazers.
As for the headliners, you can expect clear-voiced, well-made classic pop beset by sudden gusts of psychedelic blizzarding. The Luck Of Eden Hall remind me of the drawn-out trucker-and-motorist tussle in ‘Duel’ – they come across like a more sombre Neil Finn or Andy Sturmer being stalked, dogged and sideswiped by Hawkwind, Ride or ‘Saucerful’-era Pink Floyd. Here’s a little evidence:
Shiver, The Fierce And The Dead, Alex’s Hand @ The Facemelter (The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden, London, NW1 0AP, UK, Friday 3rd July, 7.30pm – £8.00/£6.00)
A night of insane math rock, prog, jazzcore and experimental riffs from some of Europe’s finest.
Shiver are the latest group from Acoustic Ladyland and TrioVD guitarist and producer Chris Sharkey. The trio have been challenging audiences perceptions of music for just over a year, sitting as comfortably at EFG London Jazz Festival as they have when headlining the PX3 stage at ArcTanGent Festival. Stretching the span of instrumentation and the imagination, this trio flits between solid, head-nodding riffs, ambient spaces and frantic electronic cacophony. Tonight they will be playing new material from their recently released third album.
The Fierce & The Dead are a hugely respected and critically acclaimed noisy pronk four-piece from London. Their precise musicianship and schizophrenic, immensely complex, yet catchy music has earned them headline slots all over the UK. Featuring internationally renowned guitarist, loop artist, blogger and all-round independent music guru Matt Stevens, TFATD have shared the stage with bands including PHILM, Knifeworld, Thumpermonkey, Anathema, Cleft and Lost in the Riots. Tonight they will premiere unheard material from their upcoming EP.
Formed in Seattle a few short years ago, experimental four-piece Alex’s Hand subsequently relocated to Berlin and have been wreaking havoc on Europe’s DIY noise, post-punk and garage ever since. They’ve shared the stage with MoRkObOt, which must have been a bizarre evening. As at home on stage as they are playing avant garde installations (such as 24 hour festival Avant Garden) in a punk squat in Berlin, this will be their first venture to the UK.
I should put in a particular word for Alex’s Hand here, having watched them grow and sprawl over the past few years along a meandering but inspiring path from arch art-pop parodists to noisy song-brawlers and most recently to a kind of spontaneous noise-prog ensemble. There are a few ‘Misfit City’ reviews of their earlier material – one for ‘Madame Psychosis‘ and one for ‘This Cat Is A Genius‘. Although I’ve not covered Shiver yet, I do also have reviews of early Fierce & The Dead material (here and here), as well as a look at the band’s Matt Stevens playing a solo slot.
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If you’d rather spend a free evening with Uncle Frank, The Spiders of Destiny are playing another London gig of Zappa music on the same day. As ever, expect some of London’s most accomplished art-rockers to work their way back and forth through the Zappa catalogue. The Deptford venue they’re playing this time has plenty of history, whether under its current name, its old monicker of The Oxford Arms or any other title it’s enjoyed over several hundred years. If you don’t spot Frank’s ghost leaning on the sound desk and having an appreciative smoke, you could try looking out for the ghosts of Dire Straits or Christopher Marlowe instead… Up-to-date details here or here, with two-as-yet unnamed bands to be added to the bill.
The Spiders of Destiny (The Birds Nest, 32 Deptford Church Street, London, SE8 4RZ, Friday 3rd July 2015 – 7.30pm, free)
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Looking further ahead, Tim Bowness is out on a very brief tour in August, playing a handful of dates in England and Poland to promote his imminent album ‘Stupid Things That Mean The World’ as mentioned last month. His band features his usual cohorts of Andrew Booker (drums – also of Sanguine Hum), Michael Bearpark (guitar – Darkroom, Henry Fool), Stephen Bennett (keyboards – Henry Fool) and the more recent recruit Colin Edwin (bass guitar – Porcupine Tree).
The Lousiana, Wapping Road, Bathurst Terrace, Bristol, BS1 6UA, UK, Tuesday 25th August, 7.00pm – tickets here and here.
The Boston Music Room, 178 Junction Road, London, N19 5QQ, UK, Wednesday 26th August, 7.00pm – £17.00 – tickets here and here.
Ino Rock Festival, Theatre Letni, Inoclaw, Poland, Saturday 29th August – 35.94 euros – tickets here (other acts at the festival are Fish, Motorpsycho, State Urge and Millenium).
Playing support at the Bristol and London gigs will be Improvizone, the flexible live-ambient improvising collective led by Bowness band drummer Andrew Booker. The rest of the Improvizone lineup looks as if it will be drawn from the current Bowness band (Michael Bearpark is a frequent Improvizoner) so perhaps you should expect the same band playing in two very different configurations. Up-to-date news will be here.
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Levitation: ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ (2015 issue)
Another follow-up from last month – there’s now a release date from Flashback Records for the lost Levitation album ‘Meanwhile Gardens’. Mark Burgess of Flashback posted the following on the Facebook fan page for the band’s lost recordings yesterday:
There is at last a provisional release date for ‘Meanwhile Gardens’. 23rd October 2015! Pre-orders will be available in due course from the Bandcamp site and elsewhere. The album is now with the pressing plant, but the lead time on the vinyl is long (pressing plants are straining under the pressure of so much vinyl at the moment, hence the provisional nature of the release date). You should all give yourselves a pat on the back and raise a toast to this group because without this page it might never have happened. Thank you all for your enthusiastic support!
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
Misfit City 