post-hardcore | Misfit City

Archive | post-hardcore RSS feed for this section

September 2015 – upcoming gigs – Gong’s Dave Sturt and friends travel the world from Derbyshire on the 23rd; London gets more Daylight Music eclectica plus a Blacklisters/Joeyfat/Himself jabber-rock summit on the 26th

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.

Up-to-date details here and here, with tickets available online from here or available from Traid Links via email enquiry.

* * * * * * * *

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.

More information on the concert is here.

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.

Tags: abrasion, ANTA, Arctic Circle (promoter), Bill Nelson, Blacklisters, Brian Boothby, Charles Hayward, Chris Ellis, Dave Sturt, Daylight Music (event), deconstruction, drift and float, Ex-Easter Island Head, feral snarl, free events, French For Rabbits, Ghostriders, Gnob, Gong, Himself, Hookworms, humour in music, intriguingly mixed bags, Ireland, Jade Warrior, Jeff Davenport, Joeyfat, Kavus Torabi, Leeds (England), listening to women, live concerts, Liverpool (England), London (England), Louis Barabbas, Manchester (England), men and women singing together, New Zealand, Past Lives Project, Pink Mist (event), rattlebag, screeching vocals, sprechstimme, Steve Hillage, stormy weather, the text is important, Tunbridge Wells (England), whisper to scream, Wirksworth (England), Wirksworth Festival (event)

September 2015 – upcoming London gigs – Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th: post-classical at the Royal Opera House, brainy prog’n’noise in Bethnal Green, art pop in Brixton, a garage band jamboree in Hackney, chamber jazz in Dalston

5 Sep

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.

* * * * * * * *

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.

* * * * * * * *

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 5^th 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).

In case you needed any more wheedling, here’s a typically effusive pre-gig write-up from ‘Organ’.

* * * * * * * *

An alternative is this friendly North/South art pop nudge down in Brixton.

Canteloupe + Barringtone + Gurglez + tbc (The Windmill, 22 Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, London, SW2 5BZ, UK, Saturday 5^th September 2015, 8.00pm) – price tbc

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.

* * * * * * * *

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, Marianne Hyatt 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.)

Up-to-date gig info here, some tasters here:

* * * * * * * *

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.

Tags: A Moveable Feast, Alicia Gardener-Trejo, Alkatraz, Barringtone, Ben Lee (jazz musician), Canteloupe, Canterbury scene, Chris Mapp, Chris Young, Christine Cornwell, Corporal Machine & The Bombers, Country Dirt, Dan Searjeant, DJ Mr Switch, duo music, Euan Palmer, Gabriel Prokofiev, Godzilla Black, Group Therapy (event), Gurglez, Holly Lowe, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Cage, Juice Vocal Ensemble, Klavikon, lo-fi, London (England), Lucy French, LUME (event), Marianne Hyatt, Mark Pringle, Matt Fisher, Megan Jowett, Nonclassical (event/promoter/record label), Nwando Ebizie, Percy Pursglove, Peter Gregson, Picturebox, Rebecca Nash, Salvatore Sciarrino, Sarah Dacey, Sarah Farmer, Sound Events Solutions (event), Tendons, The Little Things, Thumpermonkey, Trojan Horse

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories 2015, 20th century classical music, 21st century classical music, Afrobeat, alternative rock, art rock, Baroque music, chamber jazz, classical (Western art music), classical fusion, country reggae, crossover, dance music, disco, electronica, experimental music, experimental/avant-garde rock, folk music, folk-jazz, freak-folk, funk, garage punk, garage rock, hard rock, heavy metal, improvisation, instrumental music, jazz, jazz fusion, jazz rock, kosmische & Krautrock, math rock, New Wave rock, noise rock, political music, pop, post-hardcore, post-metal, post-progressive rock, post-punk, previews, progressive metal, progressive pop, progressive rock, psychedelic pop, psychedelic rock, pub rock, punk rock, reggae, rhythm'n'blues, RIO (Rock In Opposition), rock, singer-songwriter, skronk, techno, Zeuhl

November 2015 – upcoming gigs – Mutations Festival in Brighton, 28th & 29th November 2015

24 Aug

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.

Acts confirmed so far are Lightning Bolt, METZ, John Talabot, Josh T. Pearson, Tourist, OM, Chelsea Wolfe, Willis Earl Beal, Ought, Jane Weaver, Natalie Prass, BRNS, Kagoule, Vision Fortune, Blaenavon, All Tvvins, Lowly, Plastic Mermaids, Chastity, Mount Bank, Abi Wade, Sea Bastard, Blacklisters, Foreign Skin and Nature Channel.

Venues will include Concorde 2, All Saint’s Church, The Arch, The Old Market, The Haunt, Patterns, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, Green Door Store, The Prince Albert, The Hope And Ruin and The Bee’s Mouth, with more to be confirmed.

Pre-sale launches this Wednesday 26th August at 9.00am (exclusively via See Tickets) with general sale following on Friday 28th August at 9.00am.

Mutations Festival online:

Tags: Abi Wade, All Tvvins, Blacklisters, Blaenavon (band), Brighton (England), BRNS, Chastity, Chelsea Wolfe, festival previews, Foreign Skin, Hove (England), intriguingly mixed bags, Jane Weaver, John Talabot, Josh T. Pearson, Kagoule, Lightning Bolt, live concerts, Lowly, METZ, Mount Bank, Mutations Festival (event), Natalie Prass, Nature Channel, OM, One Inch Badge (promoter), Ought, Plastic Mermaids, Sea Bastard, Tourist, Vision Fortune, Willis Earl Beal

August 2015 – upcoming London gigs (Rumour Cubes in Camden on Friday 7th August, Arthur Russell Instrumentals in Bethnal Green on Monday 10th August)

6 Aug

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.

More details here, and tickets available here.

* * * * * * * *

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).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_LO4QIs-30

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’.

More information and tickets are available here.

Tags: Arthur Russell, chamber ensemble, Chaos Theory (event/promoter), Dresda, Genova (Italy), kontakte, London (England), New York City (USA), Peter Gordon, Rumour Cubes, The Facemelter (event), Visions Festival (event)

July/August 2015 – upcoming gigs – Thumpermonkey/The Earls Of Mars/Ham Legion in London; Holly Penfield’s Judy Garland show hits the Hippodrome; The Luck Of Eden Hall tour the UK

25 Jul

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 + The Earls Of Mars + Ham Legion (Guided Missile Special People Club, The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, N1 0XT, London, UK, Thursday 30th July, 8.00pm) – £7.00/£6.00

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx6qFZ_V8d4

* * * * *

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…

* * * * *

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:

Full tour dates below:

12 Bar Club, London, England, UK, Thursday 30th July 2015 (supported by Mark & The Clouds, Emily & Angeline, M U M M Y featuring Bic Hayes and Jo Spratley, The Blues Ghosts)
The Rocking Chair, Sheffield, England, UK, Saturday 1st August 2015 (supported by Skyligers)
RadFest 2015, Penmaenau Farm, Builth Wells, Wales, LD2 3RD, UK, Sunday 2nd August 2015 (also featuring Sendelica and others)
Bannerman’s Bar, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, Thursday 6th August 2015 (supported by Helicon, Frantic Chant, Filth Spector)
Nice n’ Sleazy, Glasgow, Scotland, UK, Friday 7th August 2015 (supported by Filth Spector)
The Magnet, Liverpool, England, UK, Saturday 8th August 2015 (supported by The Floormen and The Probes)
The 13th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus Festival, Castle Cellar Bar, Cardigan, Wales, UK, Sunday 9th August 2015 (three-day festival lineup also includes The Bevis Frond, Sendelica, Astralasia and others)
The Half Moon, London, UK, Tuesday 11th August 2015 (supported by Sendelica, The Blues Ghosts, Crystal Jacqueline)

Tags: Brighton (England), Cardigan (Wales), Chicago (USA), Christian Hayes (Bic Hayes), Crystal Jacqueline, Edinburgh (Scotland), Emily & Angeline, Filth Spector, Frantic Chant, Glasgow (Scotland), Guided Missile Special People Club (event), Ham Legion, Helicon, Holly Penfield, intriguingly mixed bags, Jo Spratley, Judy Garland, live concerts, Liverpool (England), lo-fi, London (England), Mark and the Clouds, men and women singing together, MUMMY, RadFest (event), Radnor (Wales), San Francisco (USA), Sendelica, Sheffield (England), Skyligers, The 13th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus Festival (event), The Blues Ghosts, the buds and spawn of Cardiacs and Tim Smith, The Earls Of Mars, The Floormen, The Luck Of Eden Hall, The Probes, Thumpermonkey, Wales

July/August 2015 – upcoming London gigs for 3rd July (Shiver/The Fierce & The Dead/Alex’s Hand in Camden, and The Spiders of Destiny in Deptford); Tim Bowness tours in August; a release date for Levitation’s ‘Meanwhile Gardens’

30 Jun

More art-rock roars coming up…

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.

More details here, and tickets available here.

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.

******

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)

********

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.

*****

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!

Tags: Acoustic Ladyland, Alex’s Hand, Andrew Booker, Berlin (Germany), Bristol (England), Chaos Theory (event/promoter), Chris Sharkey, Colin Edwin, Frank Zappa, Improvizone, Levitation, live concerts, London (England), Matt Stevens, Michael Bearpark, Seattle (Washington - USA), Shiver, Stephen Bennett, The Facemelter (event), The Fierce and the Dead, The Spiders of Destiny, Tim Bowness, TrioVD, Zappa-esque

June 2015 – upcoming London gigs – prog rock/math rock/post-hardcore @ The Facemelter; electro-pop/drum’n’brass/loops/experimental ambience @ Tuesdays Post; eclectic classical/experimental chamber music/kletzmer & Bulgarian voices @ The Forge

31 May

Some more early June gig previews for London – these would have been in the previous post if I’d picked up on them earlier.

Firstly, a Facemelter promotion (from the experimental rock/post-hardcore wing of the Chaos Theory organisation whose jazz gigs I’ve also enjoyed)…

Alright The Captain + Iran Iran + Porshyne @ The Facemelter (The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden, London, NW1 0AP, Friday 5th June , 7.30pm

Three heroes of math rock, alternative and post-rock travel from different corners of the UK to unite and form this amazing lineup.

Derby-based trio Alright The Captain masterfully combine virtuosic instrumentalism with unabashed musical experimentation and have effortlessly established themselves as a sonic force to be reckoned with, thanks to their increasingly inimitable, uniquely imaginative brand of math-rock. Their sprawling and varied career has seen them sharing stages with post-rock luminaries including Mono, toe, 65daysofstatic, Pelican, Tera Melos, ASIWYFA, Maybeshewill, Adebisi Shank (RIP), This Will Destroy You, ZU and many more. Their new album ‘Contact Fix’ (which ‘Musical Mathematics’ describes as “div(ing) in and out of math rock, prog and post rock – but, at its heart, it’s different”) has gone down a storm.

Iran Iran are another supremely talented bunch of musicians who stunned and impressed all who saw them at ArcTanGent last year. With insanely complex rhythms and thunderously heavy riffs, the four-piece from Bristol have evolved since their excellent first EP ‘Crystal Math’ and are packing a punch. They’ve played with Future Of The Left, Cleft, Alright The Captain, This Town Needs Guns, You Slut!, Alpha Male Tea Party, Death Pedals and many others. Fans of complex musical wizardry or heavy riffs will love their new EP ‘Milk Time For Spiders’.

Brightoners Porshyne dance between ambient intervals and melodic vocals to intensely intricate, fantastically crunchy prog rock riffs. With just a few single releases and a session filmed by Small Pond Recordings, they already sold out their first headline show in Brighton. This is your chance to catch the band before their career takes off.

More info here and here, and tickets here (£5.00 advance, £7.00 on the door).

At the end of the same week, Georgina Brett’s Tuesdays Post event returns to Stoke Newington with another evening of ambient/progressive live music, including ‘Misfit City’ favourites Darkroom…

Minny Pops/Spaceheads/Darkroom/Georgina Brett & Hems @ Tuesdays Post, (The Others, 6 Manor Rd, London, N16 5SA, Friday 7th June, 7.00pm)

Formed by vocalist/band leader Wally van Middendorp in Amsterdam in 1978, Dutch electro pioneers Minny Pops took their name from a primitive Korg drum machine. The band released several singles and a debut album, Drastic Measures, Drastic Movement, on independent Dutch label Plurex before joining the legendary Manchester label Factory Records in 1980 (which resulted in them being produced by Martin Hannett, touring with both Joy Division and New Order, and becoming the first Dutch group to record a Peel Session). Singles including Dolphin’s Spurt, Secret Story and Time were followed by the acclaimed album ‘Sparks In A Dark Room’ in 1982. The band released two further albums (‘Poste Restante’ and ‘Fourth Floor’) before splitting in 1985. In 2012, the band reunited for a series of gigs in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium and recorded a 7-inch single for Tim Burgess’ O Genesis label. After a pause to draw breath, 2014 has seen Minny Pops performing live once again.

Spaceheads are a cosmic duo of trumpet electronics and drums. Formed in 1990, they have developed a blend of electronics and sunshine fanfares over the course of ten albums, three EPs and much touring across Europe and the USA. Andy Diagram (also of James) plays trumpet with a mobile phone stuck to the top with a fish slice and Richard Harrison plays drums with big bendy metal sheets stuck to the top. They create live looped layers of brass driven by flurries of free flowing funky drums. Andy and Richard have achieved an intuition of what each is about to do next which makes their semi-improvised gigs a joy to behold. They release their first studio album in ten years – ‘A Short Ride On The Arrow of Time’ – this Autumn.

Darkroom – the UK-based duo of Michael Bearpark (guitars) and Andrew Ostler (synths)- expertly ride the line between luscious, old-school progressive rock and modern ambient electronics. At times reminiscent of early Tangerine Dream with hints of Fripp and Eno, they create clouds of sequenced synths, chewy grooves, and looped phrases to support a variety of acoustic and electric guitar melodies that twist and turn in surprising, occasionally aggressive, ways.

Hems Aka Henrique Matias will be playing live with Georgina Brett. Henrique is a multi-talented composer, programmer and DJ. He specialises in Multimedia programming (from internet things to Max/MSP and similars), although not all his live music and performances sounds like computer music (sometimes he takes his drum machines and crazy things out of the house). Georgina Brett’s music is created using her voice and effects pedals, creating instant choirs of sound, often in an hypnotic style. The point of this music is not only to captivate with extraordinary timing and melodic style but also to help the listener to relax in our ever-increasingly fast world.

Interactive visuals and multimedia projections are by Hanzo and Rucksack Cinema.

More information here – tickets £7.00 on the door.

By all accounts The Forge (in Camden Town) has spent the last few years becoming one of north London’s most interesting small venues for mixed music. I’ve yet to go there and see for myself: but in its full June calendar (also featuring funk, jazz, classical and Cuban music as well as assorted poetry) the following four concerts caught my interest:

Notus Winds & Eliza McCarthy (Wednesday 3nd June, 7.30pm)

Part of the classical monthly series Wednesdays at The Forge, this time featuring award-winning chamber ensemble Notus Winds and solo pianist Eliza McCarthy with a program of contemporary compositions (more information here). Tickets £10.00 to £12.00.

Programme:

Harrison Birtwistle – 5 Distances
György Ligeti – Ten Pieces
Arvo Pärt – Quintettino
Anders Hillborg – Six Pieces for Wind Quintet

Fenella Humphreys: Bach to the Future Part 1 (Tuesday 9th June, 7.30pm)

The first of three concerts presented by violinist Fenella Humphreys, featuring commissions of six new works by six of Britain’s leading composers to accompany Bach’s glorious 6 Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin. This first concert includes new works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Gordon Crosse alongside extraordinary music by Bach, Scott, Westhoff, Hindemith. Tickets £10.00 to £12.00.

Programme:

Cyril Scott – Bumble-Bees (1928)
Johann Paul von Westhoff – Suite no. 5 in D minor (1682)
Gordon Crosse – Orkney Dreaming (2014)
Fritz Kreisler – Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice op. 6 (1911)
Paul Hindemith – Sonata op. 31 no. 2 ‘Es ist so schönes Wetter draussen’ (1924)
Johann Sebastian Bach – Partita no. 3 in E major BWV 1006 (c. 1720)
Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Suite no. 1 (2014)
Eugene Ysaye – 2nd Sonata op. 27 (1923)

Reciprocity: a new work by Daniel Patrick Cohen (Wednesday 10th June, 7.00pm)

Reciprocity is a 28 minute work for voice, taped narration, eight celli, piano, and percussion. The piece was composed by Daniel Patrick Cohen from six poems by the late Darya Farha, a Canadian poet, therapist, filmmaker and clothing designer. Darya was an extraordinary woman whose sharp intelligence, dry wit, distaste for orthodoxies and boundless empathy fuelled restless journey through her unfinished life. Darya died of breast cancer in 2011 when she was 46, and Reciprocity was commissioned by her sister Juliana Farha, who lives in London. Reciprocity is not about cancer, however. Instead, its human and universal themes of joy, pleasure, fear and anger, along with its intriguing instrumentation are sure to engage a broad audience. You can read more on the project here, and here. Tickets £6.00.

She’Koyokh & Veda Slovena Bulgarian Choir (Thursday 11th June, 8.00pm)

In a unique collaboration, She’Koyokh & Veda Slovena Bulgarian Choir combine the fiery panache of klezmer and Balkan music with the timeless beauty of Bulgarian voices, weaving Jewish, Turkish and Balkan music into the rich tapestry of the Bulgarian choral tradition. Read She’Koyokh’s piece on their Veda Slovena collaboration here. Tickets £10.00 to £12.00.

(All events taking place at The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, London, NW1 7NL)

Tags: Alright The Captain, Amsterdam (Netherlands), Anders Hillborg, Andrew Ostler (Os), Andy Diagram, Arvo Pärt, Brighton (England), Bristol (England), Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Cyril Scott, Daniel Patrick Cohen, Darkroom, Darya Farha, Derby (England), Eliza McCarthy, Eugene Ysaye, Fenella Humphreys, Fritz Kreisler, Georgina Brett, Gordon Crosse, György Ligeti, Hanzo, Harrison Birtwistle, Hems, Henrique Matias, Iran Iran, James (band), Johann Paul von Westhoff, Johann Sebastian Bach, Letchworth (England), listening to women, live concerts, Michael Bearpark, Minny Pops, Notus Winds, Paul Hindemith, Porshyne, Richard Harrison, Royston (England), Rucksack Cinema, She’Koyokh, Spaceheads, The Facemelter (event), Tuesdays Post (event), Veda Slovena Bulgarian Choir

June 2015 – upcoming London gigs – A Formal Horse & Ham Legion; Olga Stezhko; The Spiders of Destiny play Frank Zappa; a Bowie Night in Soho

29 May

Here’s some quick info on upcoming gigs in early June which I’ve heard about – all of them in London.

Over the last couple of years, Westminster Kingsway College has established itself as one of the capital’s finest homes for quirky art-rock – by which I don’t mean student hobby bands thrown together for campness or for ironic prankery, but a rich, complex, committed electric music spanning the range between gutter-punk and flouncing prog via metal, jazz, folk, avant-gardening and anything else which gets melted down into the stew. Here’s one of those gigs that proves the point.

A Formal Horse + Ham Legion (Westminster Kingsway College, 211 Gray’s Inn Road, London, WC1X 8RA, Tuesday 2nd June, 6.30pm)

A Formal Horse is a new progressive rock quartet based in Southampton. Although the band’s sound is difficult to pinpoint, their dense instrumental passages are reminiscent of King Crimson and Mahavishnu Orchestra, whilst Francesca Lewis’ lead vocals evoke the whimsical surrealism of the 1970s’ Canterbury scene. Wonky melodies and serene vocals over a brutal sound – their music keeps you on your toes. However, A Formal Horse go beyond simply regurgitating the music of their predecessors. With influences as diverse as Bartók and Bon Iver, the band prove that there is still much territory to be explored in the field of British progressive rock.

In June 2014, the band released their debut EP, which was recorded by Rob Aubrey (IQ, Transatlantic). They went on to perform at London’s Resonance Weekend alongside Bigelf and Änglagård, and were described by Prog Magazine as a “festival highpoint”. Since, they have shared stages with Knifeworld and Lifesigns, cementing their position at the forefront of the British progressive scene.

Ham Legion spent 2014 honing their sound and developing a storming live show. You can expect a collision of beaming up beat power pop, grinding metal outbursts, dramatic changes of mood, sudden passages of twistingly epic prog then moments of restrained delivery and somber reflection. They are striking out in 2015 with the release of their debut album towards the end of the year.

Tickets available here – £6.00/£5.00

Olga Stezkho: ‘Eta Carinae’

Olga Stezhko (the far-thinking Belarusian classical pianist whose ‘Eta Carina’ album impressed me so much last year) has two London concerts coming up in the first fortnight of the month. The second’s likely to be an all-access crowd-pleaser. Given its charity fundraiser status, I’m not sure whether the first is likely to feature or indulge any of Olga’s intriguing conceptual preoccupations with Scriabin, Busoni, cosmology and early twentieth century consciousness, but even if it isn’t it’s a great opportunity to see a fine musician at work in a grand location.

Olga Stezhko charity piano recital in aid of Friends of the Belarusian Children’s Hospice (St Pancras Parish Church, Euston, London NW1 2BA, Thursday 4th June, 1:15pm – 2:00pm)

Programme not revealed – free admission, donations requested.

EC4 Music in aid of The Prince’s Trust (Barbican Hall, Tuesday 9th June, 7:30pm – 9:30pm)

The choir and orchestra of London-based EC4 Music return for their seventh fundraising concert in aid of The Prince’s Trust with a stirring selection of music from both sides of the Atlantic.

Programme:

Leonard Bernstein – Overture from ‘Candide’
Aaron Copland – Appalachian Spring
George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue
Vaughan Williams – Serenade to Music
Leonard Bernstein – Chichester Psalms
Eric Whitacre – Water Night
Hubert Parry – Blest Pair of Sirens

Performers:

EC4 Music Choir and Orchestra
Tim Crosley – conductor
Olga Stezhko – piano
Claire Seaton – soprano
Roderick Morris – countertenor
Thomas Herford – tenor
Adam Green – baritone

Tickets available here – prices from £10.00 – £35.00 plus booking fee.

Some of London’s most active art-rockers are brewing up a free Zappa homage in Croydon at around the same time. Details below:

The Spiders of Destiny play Frank Zappa (The Oval Tavern, 131 Oval Road, Croydon, CR0 6BR, Saturday 6th June, 8:30pm)

Great googly moogly! On June 6th, nine-piece tribute band Spiders Of Destiny come to The Oval Tavern to play a marathon set of music by the late, great Frank Zappa. Featuring world class performers with a sense of humour from notable prog/alternative bands such as: Knifeworld, Perhaps Contraption, Pigshackle, Medieval Baebes, The Display Team, Hot Head Show, Poino, Spiritwo, First, A Sweet Niche and more. So polish up your zircon-encrusted tweezers, trim your poodle, learn the mudshark dance and join us as we propagate the conceptual continuity instigated by one of the masters of modern music.

More info here – this gig is FREE ENTRY but there will be a donations jug doing the rounds during the intermission.

Anyone with an interest in David Bowie, rock history, cabaret, electropop and all of the other things that get swept up into Bowie’s art should head to Soho on Thursday 11th June for A Bowie Night at Gerry’s Club, at which pianist and writer Clifford Slapper launches his book ‘Bowie’s Piano Man: The Life of Mike Garson‘ (which also has its own Facebook page).

As well as readings and signings there will be performances of Bowie songs from avowed fans Danie Cox (from “flock-rockers” The Featherz), Ray Burmiston (of ’80s heroes Passion Puppets), club siren Katherine Ellis (Freemasons, Ruff Driverz, Bimbo Jones etc.) and acoustic singer Jorge Vadio. There’ll also be a performance from a longtime ‘Misfit City’ favourite – London balladeer, Brel translator and onetime ‘Pirate Jenny’s’ host Des de Moor, who’ll presumably be singing his Bowie-gone-chanson interpretations from his ‘Darkness and Disgrace’ show. (I’m particularly pleased to see that Des is back onstage. It’s been a long time.)

More on the book below, and more on Gerry’s Club here.

“It is pointless to talk about his ability as a pianist. He is exceptional. However, there are very, very few musicians, let alone pianists, who naturally understand the movement and free thinking necessary to hurl themselves into experimental or traditional areas of music, sometimes, ironically, at the same time. Mike does this with such enthusiasm that it makes my heart glad just to be in the same room with him.” – David Bowie

Mike Garson has played piano on sixteen David Bowie albums, including Aladdin Sane, with his celebrated piano solo on its title track, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, 1. Outside and Reality. He has also played live with Bowie on countless tours and shows, and remains his most long-standing and frequent band member.

For some time Clifford Slapper has been working very closely with Garson to write a book which explores the life of this extraordinary and eccentric modern musician. It documents in detail how as a pianist he was catapulted overnight from the obscure world of New York’s avant-garde jazz scene to a close and long connection with Bowie. In addition, Garson is recognised as a classical virtuoso, a jazz master and one of the world’s greatest exponents of improvisation. He has also recorded and performed live with other rock legends such as the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails. All of this is covered by this first ever biography of Mike Garson.

Its starting point was several days of in-depth and frank conversation with Garson himself, and covers a wide range of themes which will be of interest to all Bowie fans, but also to anyone with a passion for music, social history or the process of creative inspiration. Input has also come from many interviews with those who have worked with him over the years, including Earl Slick, Trent Reznor, Sterling Campbell, Reeves Gabrels, Dave Liebman and many others.

Tags: A Formal Horse, Aaron Copland, acoustic performance, Adam Green, almost acoustic, book launches, Charlie Cawood, Claire Seaton, Clifford Slapper, Danie Cox, David Bowie, Des de Moor, EC4 Music Choir and Orchestra, Eric Whitacre, fund-raising, George Gershwin, Ham Legion, Hubert Parry, Jorge Vadio, Katherine Ellis, Leonard Bernstein, live concerts, London (England), Mike Garson, Olga Stezhko, Passion Puppets, Pirate Jenny's (event), Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ray Burmiston, rock books, Roderick Morris, The Featherz, The Spiders of Destiny, Thomas Herford, Tim Crosley

February 2003 – live reviews – House of Stairs label launch concert (evening 2) featuring William D. Drake, Cheval de Frise, Stars in Battledress and Miss Helsinki @ The Arts Cafe, Toynbee Hall, Aldgate, London; plus Delicate AWOL @ 93 Feet East, Shoreditch, London, both 17th February 2003 (“East End might mean left-field tonight…”)

19 Feb

Less than a week ago, the House of Stairs label put on their Camden launch gig at the Underworld: Max Tundra DJ-ed, filling the gaps with a spicy and witty mix of art-rock, prank techno and pop buzz. But tonight we’re out east in the pizza, pine and paintings environment of the Arts Café for the second, “quiet” gig – and Richard Larcombe is de-facto man-on-the-muzak, even as he bustles about setting up for his turns in two of tonight’s bands. Eerie shapes and twists of music waft through the busy air: the chatter at the bar is underscored by the filtering eeriness of Messiaen and the swooping rattling studio gulps of Boulez. East End might mean left-field tonight.

Miss Helsinki, bless them, display more pop bones in their body. Popping up from the wreck of the much-lamented Monsoon Bassoon, they feature both of the Bassoon’s singing guitarists (Dan Chudley and Kavus Torabi) plus the increasingly ubiquitous Larcombe on bass and harmonies. But they’ve lost both a drummer and Kavus’s keyboard-playing brother Bobak in the last month: and so it’s a stripped-down-and-unplugged Helsinki trio playing for us tonight, both aided and hindered by a backing tape. It’s only their third live appearance.

Frustratingly, they’re still lolling like a tall layer cake whipped out of the oven too soon. There’s something to be said for a bit of engaging pop roughness; and for Torabi’s endearing habit of boggling like Tom Baker at the end of a tricky lick. But although Miss Helsinki’s ambitions are clear, they’re still struggling to reach them. They have a tough act to follow, of course. One of the few bands to unite the approval of both London proggies and the NME, The Monsoon Bassoon wrapped a broad spectrum of ingredients (including Naked City, King Crimson and Shudder to Think) into their explosive, racing psychedelic rock.

Though Miss Helsinki retain some of those flavours, they’ve pastoralised them: the bursts of unusual chording and rampant arpeggiating are still there, but the thrashing intensity has been replaced by a sunny warmth and they’ve obviously settled on Andy Partridge as their guardian angel. But Helsinki music is a good deal more complex and demanding than XTC’s, straining the abilities of Chudley and Torabi’s affable, unvirtuosic boy-next-door voices as they hop over the cheerfully convoluted melodies like tap-dancing cats on a hot tin roof.

Despite this – and despite the fluffed notes and stumbles over the over-detailed backing tapes – ‘I Felt Your Arms Around Me’ is a bright little gem of spiky-haired art-pop, powered by the same giddy celebration of the best Monsoon Bassoon songs. Kavus (air-punching and doing triumphant kicks from his guitar stool) obviously knows it. ‘Surf’s Up’ – featuring a repeated chant of “silhouettes you know from fire” – takes them to places last touched by the psychedelic folk-science of Gastr del Sol; and the romping cowboy-pop of ‘Rodeo’ (“the world seems drunk, with a stetson in place”) ensures that they finish on a note of charm and enthusiasm. Miss Helsinki are a long way from filling the Bassoon’s busy shoes, but the signs are good.

With Miss Helsinki, Richard Larcombe is a deft, understated bass player. With his own band Defeat the Young – backed up by brother James – he steps up to become a witty, elegant frontman with tales of social absurdity and romantic scrapes. But tonight, for Stars in Battledress (an equal-partnership duo of both Larcombe brothers), he takes a step sideways. Up onstage, he cuts a quieter, more sober figure than he does with Defeat the Young. His sophisticated social-jester persona is mostly absent. His ready wit is intact, but here it’s diffused – more musing in its nature, leaning on subtle insinuations and surreal impressions rather than crackling wordplay. It’s also tinted with a peculiar, guarded English melancholy, and there’s an unsettling sense of loss and submission behind Richard’s refined and aristocratic drawl. “Blessed are all with vision unswerving. / Don’t watch me weep – go back to sleep…”

On Richard’s guitar – round about where people usually paste their dude-rock logos or political slogans – there’s a beautifully executed painting of a mallard duck, apparently snipped from a spotter’s guide. It’s appropriate. Stars in Battledress’ drifting tapestries of songscape take place in a watery never-land England of ponds and rivers and thin blue children, posh academies and school gymnasiums, the rituals of government offices and the embarrassments of public speaking; Cambridge water-meadows distorted by a lysergic autumnal haze. Someone in the audience mutters that Stars in Battledress are the best argument he’s ever witnessed against a public school education. I think he’s failing to press past the immaculate antique sheen of their surface. Theirs is a ghostly watercolour world of ruefully suppressed emotions with a tidal tendency to seep back up. Part Evelyn Waugh, part Syd Barrett and part Sea Nymphs.

James – strumming and fondling snowfall arpeggios from his piano and contributing apple-bright harmonies – provides most of Stars in Battledress’ colours, picking up on his brother’s words and extending them outwards in rippling classically-inspired musical inventions. Richard plays some understated, skeletal guitar and trundles a harmonium through the queasy distress signal of ‘Haunted Hotel’, but mostly he stays out at the front, clasping the mike stand like a sad, dapper figurehead. There’s a break from this in the roaring-’40s guitar-waltz of ‘Hollywood Says So’, as Richard delves hilariously into ludicrous showbiz gaudiness (“drive fast cars, play guitars, win prizes / – girls in every port, in all five sizes”) but ends up spat out in a wad of comic bitterness. (“I’ve been over-directed, I’ve been cut in one take. / I’m a dated two-reeler that no-one will make.”) Their cryptic finale – the hummed, valedictory ‘Women from the Ministry’ – hovers in the mind like the flicker of antique cinema light, images of lost houses, withered photographs.

Cheval de Frise are… plain remarkable. Bare to the waist and sporting Trotsky glasses, Vincent Beysselance studies his drumkit with a jazz warrior’s eye, his lean expression and sculpted moustachios lending him the air of a razor-sharp beatnik. Guitarist Thomas Bonvalent looks as if the Taliban have booted him out for excessive zeal. Sporting an enormous bushy chest-length beard, battered clothes and an expression of sincerely crazed intensity, he’s twitching visibly even before he plays a note. His nylon-string acoustic guitar has been modified – or de-modified, with both the sound-hole and the pre-amp controls crudely and defiantly smothered with duct tape. As he plays, biting on a pick, his face seethes beneath his beard.

“Pastoral acoustic mathcore” was what someone wrote on the Cheval de Frise packet. Ah ha, ha, ha – I don’t think so. Pastoral acoustic mathcore would be very nice – perhaps a Guitar Craft picking exercise, pared down by post-punk minimalism and softened by visions of green fields. Are Cheval de Frise like that? No. For the first seven minutes or so, Cheval de Frise seem absolutely demented. After that – and once the broken seizures of drumming and the intricate splatterwork of guitar has had time to get to work on your brain and your reflexes – you start to understand. Although your body will make the connection before your mind does.

Right from the off, Bonvalent’s playing is disturbingly wild; slamming down obsessively on a single note or isolated interval, or spasming music up, down or across the neck of the guitar. Beysselance’s drumming is a boiling whirl of ideas and instincts, acted out with a brinksman’s forcefulness, with enough breakneck substance both to keep the duo’s momentum and to craze it with brilliant stress fractures. People cram to the edge of the Arts Café’s tiny stage, swaying like a wheatfield in a whirlwind, and yelping approval.

Behind the apparent free-scene chaos, Cheval de Frise have serious intentions. The drums have their melodies as well as their upheavals, and although Bonvalent’s open-mouthed drooling visage suggests a man in terminal acid psychosis, he frequently rips into hyperspeed, hypertonal spirals of intense picking which John McLaughlin would be proud of. Every now and again, in the midst of a free section, the two Friseurs exchange a quick cue-ing glance and then slam into perfect alignment, calling a rigorous Zappa-style composed music module up out of memory. Bonvalent’s playing might often parallels the spewing, disjointed clicking noises of the post-Derek Bailey improv school, but the musician he’s really closest to is the iconoclastic lo-fi jazz rebel Billy Jenkins. Deliberately or not, Cheval de Frise ‘s music is a hyperactive flamencoid strain of Jenkins’ “spass” approach – a slew of intense musicality in which ugly sounds, wrong notes, anti-technique and smash-ups in timing and phrasing are as part of the great spontaneous inspiration as skill, structure, complex ambition or the beautiful moment.

It is, also, an intensely devotional music, as burningly thrilling as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s qu’waali shriek, a gospel choir tearing the roof off the sucker, or the closer-to-God whirling of a Sufi dervish. Bonvalent’s physical abandonment (at points close to ecstatic convulsions) is religious in its intensity. As pieces skid to a halt, he bobs his head thankfully to the audience, smiling and almost moved to tears. If it’s like that onstage, it’s not that much less intense down here. Being up close to music this inspirationally driven raises the hairs on the back of the neck. When Cheval de Frise finally peel off their instruments and stumble into the crowd, the feel of the audience unclipping themselves from their joyful tenterhooks is like a dam bursting.

I don’t envy William D. Drake – a onetime Cardiac songwriter with a joyous genteel-gone-berserk keyboard style – for having to follow that. But I’m going to have to leave him to it, as I’m double-booked for gigs this evening; and so I have to slip out of the Arts Café to stride the Spitalfields half-mile or so over to 93 Feet East, to see Delicate AWOL on a rare London visit. I’ll just have to promise to catch up with the Drakey magic next time he plays… I will, really…

93 Feet East turns out to be an over-pleased-with-itself Brick Lane bar, milking the wobbly momentum of trendy Shoreditch Twattery while it still lasts. It also has the rudest security staff I’ve ever met. Not five minutes after the music stops, they’re in your face; all but digging their chins into your shoulders, dangling heavy barrier chains in one hand with the bored and arrogant stance of animal stockmen, yelling at you to move out. Regular punters must really want to come back to this place.

It’s a sorry way to end an evening, especially after Delicate AWOL have been exercising their luminous charm on you. Walking in on the band mid-flow, the first thing I see is Caroline Ross joyfully bouncing tiny beaters off the keys of her little glockenspiel. Its fairy tingles resound in the air as the rest of the band keep up a stiff-swung groove behind her. Delicate AWOL have been drawing connections between Latinate ’70s fusion and limpid Tortoise-school indie art-rock for a few years now. These days – extended from a guitar-rock indie four-piece to a more ambitious sextet featuring Ben Page’s swishing textural synths, Jo Wright’s Chet Baker-ish trumpet commentary and Ross’ own multi-instrumental enthusiasm – they’re in a much better position to cook up their jazzified stew.

Inevitably, the enchantingly gamine Ross is the focus, smiling beatifically from beneath her shaggy russet bob and swapping between percussion, flute and thoughtful slide guitar. There’s also her soft spring-thaw of a voice: a gentle but commanding stroke to soothe the ruffling from the craggier guitar of husband Jim Version and the dogged Can-ish rhythm-section circling of Michael Donelly and Tom Page. Rising above the hum and the wind-rattle of ‘That Terminal’s Down’, brushing against the reedy melancholia of a melodica, drawling through a sleepy-lidded chant of “your breath goes slow”, she’s hypnotic, bringing a hint of Scottish lullaby into Delicate AWOL’s sleepy mix. Alongside the Pram-like tinkles and kitchen-table craftsmanship, the woozy instrumental Americana of ‘The China-Green Prairie Tribunal’, the southern-border dance-steps of ‘Broken Window in a Mexican Bank’ and the doughnut-bulging space-groove they hop into for ‘The Rolling Year’.

One of Delicate AWOL’s greatest strengths is their ability to wander open-armed between these varied inspirations without ever inducing the suspicion that they’re simply trying to fill their basket with crowd-pleasing nuggets. Their intelligence is of the gentle kind – simply enjoying their explorations rather than ticking them off on a list and practising their traveller’s poses afterwards. Surprising, this takes them further than a ruthless musical ambition would – as does the way they flit disarmingly between other-worldliness and neighbourly charm, most evident in Version’s professorial enthusiasm and Ross’ affectionate, amused handling of fans and hecklers alike.

Even in the grubby concrete shell of an average indie-circuit venue, Delicate AWOL can get a campfire atmosphere going. A rewarding thing on a cold February night, especially with the impatient rattle of a chain behind you. If I ended up being treated like cattle, at least I got to spend half-an-hour home on the range beforehand.

Cheval de Frise online:
Homepage, Facebook, Soundcloud, online store, Last.fm, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, Spotify, Amazon Music

Stars in Battledress online:
Homepage, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Last.fm, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, Tidal, Spotify, Amazon Music

Miss Helsinki online:
(2022 update – no links available. See Kavus Torabi and Daniel Chudley Le Corre)

Delicate AWOL online:
MySpace,Last.fm , YouTube , Spotify , Amazon Music , Wikipedia entry

House of Stairs online:
(2022 update – there are no longer any web pages for the House of Stairs label, although there is a discogs.com page)

Tags: Caroline Ross, Cheval de Frise, Daniel Chudley Le Corre, Delicate AWOL, James Larcombe, Jim Version, Kavus Torabi, London (England), Richard Larcombe, Stars in Battledress, the buds and spawn of Cardiacs and Tim Smith, Thomas Bonvalet, Vincent Beysselance

February 2003 – live reviews – House of Stairs label launch concert (evening 1) featuring Nøught, Foe and Defeat the Young, The Underworld, Camden Town, London, 12th February 2003 (“the Underworld fills with familiar London pronk and math-rock faces”)

13 Feb

Well-worn jokes about “first steps” line up at my door, to be kicked aside. Let’s not goof about. As the House of Stairs label throws its musical launch party, the Underworld fills with familiar London pronk and math-rock faces, fans and musicians grinning at each other as if it was the first day of a school trip. The still-friendly fragments of The Monsoon Bassoon, the occasional Cardiac, plus those particular paying punters who materialise like the genie of the lamp at the faintest hint of a twitchy rhythm or a whole-tone scale blasted out of a loud guitar.

For once, the records being played between the bands nudge and tickle the audience’s mind rather than simply provide aural cud to chew in the interval. When you’re lucky enough to have avant-prog, lo-fi techno wunderkind Max Tundra on hand to do your DJ-ing for you, you get more than the usual jukebox package – Peter Gabriel songs mingle with prank cut-ups of Tony Blair speeches, hilarious jungle-electronica renditions of ’80s pop hits, and ear-opening art-rock oddities whipped from rare vinyl. Priceless from any perspective.

Defeat the Young are the most literate – or literary – members of the House of Stairs stable by a country mile. They’re also the most demanding listen. Richard Larcombe‘s wit is complex and arch; his melodies are crenellated and mediaevalesque, pumped out of harmoniums, sharp-fingered guitars and hurdy-gurdies. Also, while there’s a distinctly proggy kink to his music (like Kevin Ayers cuddling up with Gentle Giant or William D. Drake), he’s drawn more to Havelock Ellis and Groucho Marx than to Tolkien or Carlos Castenada. Thank God for that. A faux-Edwardian English Zappa with highbrow kinks might not be to everyone’s taste. But it’s infinitely better than being subjected to another charlatan wrapped in suspect mysticism and stale denim.

Like a skilful card-trick, Larcombe’s wicked sense of humour also works best up close. In the cavernous rock cellar of The Underworld, he seems out of place – squinting against dim lighting in a venue more accustomed to thrash-metal and ska-punk than to his own rampantly sophisticated English stylings. I always seem to come up with flower metaphors whenever I try reviewing Defeat the Young. Tonight, the phrase is “hothouse flowers”. With two nouveau-metal bands roaring up from behind them, I’m worrying over whether the rarified and sophisticated humour in DTY’s music will wilt in this blunter setting. But they try hard, displaying a determined refusal to compromise. A long, scene-setting introduction (involving virtually the entire plot of The Marx Brothers’ ‘Duck Soup’) sprinkles conceptual theatrics back into the agenda, while (at the other end of preciousness) Jodie Scott’s feedback-heavy guitar adds some belligerent beef to the sound.

Still, it’s not until ‘Nothing from Something’ that things really get moving, as Larcombe gets to grips with his maze-y rake’s progress, bringing some deceptively drawling wit to bear. By ‘Natural Cash’ he’s in ebullient form, punching the air while his feet cycle his pedal harmonium and his lime-tinted vocal quicksteps adroitly through the tricky pitches. Propelled by his perverse and wayward imagination, he guides us through a risque world of sepia photos, elegant penmanship, social theorising and sexual quirks, all couched in a shower of beautiful golden language. Tonight wasn’t really quite his night, but Richard Larcombe is undoubtedly a major talent. He’s already way out there in that field where the erudite spectre of Oscar Wilde grabs the twisty bones of art-rock for a feverish waltz (and for a good snog, if it’s lucky).

The gap between Defeat the Young and the harder-rocking shapes of the rest of the evening should have been bridged by the violent, mordantly comical dada-metal of Lapsus Linguae, but for reasons unknown, they’ve had to stay in Glasgow. The evil smirks and the transmogrified Iron Maiden t-shirts remain north of the border tonight, to infest the queasy nightmares of pub-rockers who’d rather be dreaming of Joe Elliott. So it’s straight on to Foe – whose drummer Paul Westwood hardly gets a break from his turn on the drums and hammer dulcimer for Defeat the Young before he’s clambering back behind the kit for his main band.

If a change really is as good as a rest, he doesn’t need the break – the light percussive touch he uses for Defeat the Young has no place in Foe. Pop-eyed, Westwood lashes his way through this set like an escaped convict desperately hurdling fences. Jason Carty and Crawford Blair thread the gaps in his drumming with rapid intricacies of guitar and bass – a constantly shifting and jerking formation, pouncing in multiple directions. They’re not so much a power trio as a pared-down swarm. One part Don Caballero, one part double-duo King Crimson, and one part higher mathematics, Foe’s music sounds as if it’s been threshed out in cold areas of the brain until it finally lost its temper and exploded. Yet – Westwood’s controlled, wide-eyed intensity aside – Foe themselves are calm, observing their music and keeping it ticking busily until the time comes to dive in with all six feet for a burst of sudden violence.

Sounds familiar? Consciously or otherwise, the all-instrumental Foe parallel the current Crimson’s cerebral-metal approach, apart from refusing to sweeten it with the occasional pop tune. Blair’s grinding bass is as brutal and pitiless as a giant clock ticking, but also carries their complex whole-tone melodies up and down the scale and across the contorting tempi. Carty’s metallic creative/disruptive guitar acts as dissector and illustrator – raiding the harmony and timing of each piece and asking the tricky questions before rocking out into triumphant predatory riffs, pulling the whole band into line with it. Sometimes Foe hurtle like speed-metal Rock in Opposition; sometimes they spend a couple of seconds pinging and pulsing like free-jazzers; sometimes they slam into unyielding hardcore for a few bars.

“How do I play this again?”, yells a mock-baffled Carty, during a break in the action. He’s chuckling – he does remember it, but it’d be easy to get lost in the wanton folds and traps of this music. It’s a real lark’s tongue-twister; more Cuneiform than uniform. In spite of that, there’s a woman dancing in the front row. Incredibly, she’s performing a delighted bump and grind to Foe’s music – her pelvis and body twirls and undulates in perfect time to their constantly altering rhythms. So much for this being brain-only music.

She turns out to be the girlfriend of Nøught‘s drummer. Which explains a lot. Nøught themselves emerge onstage shadowed by conflicting reputations. They’re not actually a House of Stairs band at the moment, but they could be so easily. For evolutionary rockers, grumbling hopefully over their CD players, Nøught are a beacon band – assimilating the instrumental ideas of King Crimson, John McLaughlin and R.I.O., then marrying them to the urgency and directness of punk, grunge and hardcore. But their constant line-up and instrumentation changes (perhaps driven by James Sedwards’ need to bring a variety of tools and voices to his music) have tended to scupper the band and dip it into inactivity rather then renew its energy. Today’s Nøught are a conventional rock power trio plus keyboards, dispending with the second guitarists or Theremins of past live outings. They could be an octet with triangles, euphoniums and bagpipes next week and it wouldn’t surprise me too much. I’d just be happy so long as they kept playing, and stopped disappearing.

Sedwards himself is surrounded by guitars. Two of them are impeccably-finished Les Pauls mounted on flat racks, their strings prepared with objects and blocks (as if John Cage had infiltrated Yes ‘ road crew.) But his guitar of choice is the trashy, rhomboid Fender Jaguar: a Kurt Cobain favourite. It tells you a lot about his approach. Yes, Nøught do like to make a lot of noise. Sedwards’ reticent, un-rocking look (like a young Rowan Atkinson) belie his talents as a fierce, assertive guitarist. And then some. Nøught’s music leaps out of his guitar in a series of bucketing, challenging jumps: a boggling harmonic steeplechase, leaving few notes untouched. Imagine quickfire origami, performed with steel sheets, and you get some idea of how Nøught work.

Their raciness also brings to mind King Crimson’s ‘Red’ gone mutant mariachi. There’s constructive dissonance a-plenty – Sedwards revels in throwing flamboyant, startling chords into his majestic grand designs, catching us off guard. On record, Sedwards revels in the use of choppy strings and blazing big-band brass, and though there’s nothing of that here, there’s been a renaissance in the keyboards department. That muscular undercurrent of organ (triumphant chords supporting the widening paths of guitar and wiry, driven bass) brings an unexpected rhythm’n’blues feel back to the music. Touches of Hendrix or Muddy Waters roots to blend in with the Fripp roars, the John McLaughlin jumps and the Sonic Youth smashes, bringing a different grittiness to Nøught’s aggressive playing. The band has never sounded so human, so assured – and it’s a good balance to those industrial moments when Sedwards assaults his flat-mounted guitars with drumsticks or runs the screams of whirling power-drill chucks through the pickups. Whatever else Nøught’s downtime has provided, it’s brought them a sense of roots and placement that was so lacking in the wall-of-noise incarnation that rattled the walls of venues a year or so ago.

This is an undersung gig, to be sure – a half-full (though comfortable) Underworld suggests that half of the art-rock community in London haven’t even heard about the concert – but there’s a definite sense of homecoming heroes to this one. Good foundations for a strong new house of deserving players, I hope.

Nøught online:
Homepage, Facebook, MySpace, Soundcloud, Last.fm, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, Amazon Music

Foe online:
MySpace, Bandcamp, Last.fm, Amazon Music

Defeat the Young online:
(2022 update – no links available. See Lost Crowns.)

Max Tundra online:
Homepage, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Instagram, Mixcloud, Bandcamp, Last.fm, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, Tidal, Spotify, Amazon Music

House of Stairs online:
(2022 update – there are no longer any web pages for the House of Stairs label, although there is a discogs.com page)

Tags: Crawford Blair, Defeat the Young, Foe, James Sedwards, Jason Sylvan (Jason Carty), Lapsus Linguae, London (England), Max Tundra, Nought, Paul Westwood, Richard Larcombe, the buds and spawn of Cardiacs and Tim Smith

December 2002 – album reviews – Various Artists: ‘House of Stairs Volume 1: Useless in Bed’ compilation (“happily balanced on the rougher brinks and fringes”)

4 Dec

Various Artists: ‘House of Stairs Vol. 1 – Useless in Bed’

Placing yourself on faultlines, rather than easily marketable turf, brings risks but inspiration – ask a San Franciscan. That the three London art-rock bands who originally set up the House of Stairs label (The Monsoon Bassoon, Geiger Counter, and Ursa) have all now split or mutated into something else is perhaps proof of both.

Regardless, ‘Useless In Bed’ – the first House of Stairs release – is a declaration of brotherhood. Compiling the work of musicians dwelling on various faultlines (though still mostly centred on London art-rock, it also takes in music from Chicago, Atlanta and Bordeaux), it both defines the edges of prog, jazz, art-rock, hardcore, electronica, folk, improv and noise rock, or encourages people to spill across them.

Hard-rocking math-proggers Foe – sprung from the wreckage of Geiger Counter – offer the most urgent track. ‘Triangulator’ is full of furious refracting guitar lines over Crawford Blair’s piano-growl of bass. For six minutes it swings, chops, drops down trapdoors, executes perverse King Crimson leaps between mordantly grim chords, and savages minor keys like The 5uu’s on far too much coffee. Geiger Counter’s posthumous statement is ‘Drink Your Milk’ – less obviously wired than ‘Triangulator’, it still carves up its grunge-y math riffs with heavy enthusiasm, embracing sweeter interludes of short-lived luminous peace as it does so. Nouveau Metal is spreading…

The Monsoon Bassoon‘s own posthumous offering is a explosive and complicated song from when their mingling of Henry Cow and gamelan-Crimson art-rock ran full tilt into their love of American alt.rockers like Shudder To Think. The psychedelic squeal of guitars on ‘Stag’ marches from plateau to jagged plateau in a skirl of trippy flute and meshing riffs, held together by the band’s tight discipline.

These days various Bassooners have regrouped in Miss Helsinki, who deliver a sparkling piece of progressive pop called ‘I Felt Your Arms Around Me’. Less surreal than most Bassoon confections, it’s still an acid-flavoured love song whose rattling good XTC jangle and tootling clarinets don’t stop it hurtling delightedly into a complex, storm-tossed middle section in which they see just how much you can rock the train without slinging it off the rails.

If you’d prefer to stick with the Bassoon’s skronkier legacy, Chicago’s Sweep the Leg Johnny are still juggling that torch. With the superb ‘Only in a Rerun’, they’re obviously on a roll – it’s a rich mixture of harsh Schizoid Man tones and flamboyant jazz-metal attack from the raw husky wail of Steve Sostak’s alto sax and Chris Daly’s bloodthirsty roar of guitar, tossing Sostak’s airy vocal like a bull tossing a skinny matador. Slewing between dEUS busyness and violent post-Slint minimalism, this is a rough bareback ride to put a wicked smile on your face.

Manic Glaswegian pranksters Lapsus Linguae provide ‘Olestra (There’s Only One Drinking Fountain in Heaven)’. A stab of theatrical art-metal somewhere between Faith No More and Beck (with a Resident eyeballing it from the director’s chair) it has all you need to storm the castle of pomp. There’s a man called Penelope Collegefriend singing in a rampant bellow like a punk Freddie Mercury; there’s an inexplicable strings break and a rolling piano line continually chopped off with guillotine precision; there are namechecks for Hermann Hesse and Charlton Heston, and choicely bizarre lyrics like “More I eat, the hungrier I feel – / I lick menus, ignore the meals.”

Holding up the genteel-er proggie end are the whimsical and witty projects of the Larcombe brothers. With ‘Sand (Blowing About)’, Stars in Battledress provide a beautiful dance of fluent piano and autoharp: but beyond the divertimento prettiness, James Larcombe leads the duo through eddies of suggestive Debussyan chords.

Richard Larcombe goes on to turn in a conceptual tease on Defeat the Young‘s wonderful ‘I’m Ruining Something’ – an absurdist essay on the corruptions of power which blends Gentle Giant with Lewis Carroll and Stravinsky. Larcombe greets his ensemble of actors, trombone, and full-blown operatic chorus as a lounge-lizard lord of misrule, sighing a manifesto of playful destruction in his arch, refined tones. “I’m recognised as your one sovereign Lord Protector / Trust me – I’ve learned of your country by tape and slide projector. / Each day I’ll go out of my way to spoil, deface and tarnish, / like he who ruins carpentry by swapping glue for varnish.” Oboe, piano and hammer dulcimer float in a dreamy arrangement like an August haze. Apparently there’s a whole album’s worth of this story in the Larcombe shed – ‘The Golden Spike’ – and it’s only one of their dastardly plans.

Both of House Of Stairs’ lo-fi electronica boffins seem to grab inspiration from bargain-bucket electrical goods. Desmotabs create an appealing Stylophone fanfare buzz on ‘Gaseous Exchange at the Alveoli’, let their drum machine go nuts and assault a heart monitor, and squiggle some demented Mini-Moog solos before the entire track melts like a Dali model. Max Tundra (the Frank Zappa of the techno world) continues his marvellous and bizarre mission to fuse hardcore dance music with prog rock. ‘Life in a Lift Shaft’ equals Desmotabs buzz-for-buzz while festooning tough and hilariously uptight Tundra beats with jittery robot piano and fat sub-bass from the tar-pits. Alarm-clocks fly past on tiny wings trying to take bites out of the zany, sunny tune.

The free-er bands – as usual – have a harder time. Gnarly bass-and-drums duo Guapo can be the missing link between ‘Red’ and Ruins when they want to be. However, their grinding ‘Pharoah’ – despite Dave Smith’s excellent Brufordian snarework – is mostly as subtle as a flying breezeblock. Dragging large chunks of pyramid across the desert and insisting that you appreciate each tortuous step, they occasionally snap, shoot off the flywheel and go ape with some fearsome tattoo riffs. Hardcore acoustic fusioneers Cheval de Frise hop up and down with impatience on ‘Chiendents’, banging their heads against their own lo-fi envelope, manically coiling up tighter and tighter acoustic guitar scrabbles against the tussling drums. Compression to destruction, breaking out in wild slashes.

And finally there’s the hardcore department, with the recently defunct Ursa demonstrating why they’ll be a sad loss to the British heavy scene. Avoiding hardcore’s usual fixed, deafening riffage and reductive howling, ‘The Blooding’ begins with a studied ponderousness and heaviness which gives way to an inspiring controlled demolition. Galloping punked-up Iron Maiden guitar runs charge under giant toppling riffs, the band dodging falling masonry via nifty turn-on-a-dime spins while losing none of their brute power. American Heritage, likewise, execute proggie timeswitches with rapid and brutal thrash flair, their sound a bleak, bare cliff of thick guitar noise. It’s anyone’s guess as to why they’ve called their track ‘Phil Collins’ – it’s an unlikely tribute, whether it’s aimed square at the Genesis drumstool or at the white-soul crowdpleaser.

Anyhow… here’s a house of many doors, happily balanced on the rougher brinks and fringes and demonstrating the breadth of personalities camped out in even one small part of today’s art-rock community. Admirable.

Various Artists: ‘House of Stairs Volume 1: Useless in Bed’
House of Stairs, HOS001 (5030094077829)
CD-only compilation album
Released: 2nd December 2002
Get it from: (2020 update) best obtained second-hand

Tags: American Heritage, Atlanta (Georgia - USA), Bordeaux (France), Cheval de Frise, Chicago (USA), Crawford Blair, Daniel Chudley Le Corre, Defeat the Young, Desmotabs, Foe, Geiger Counter, Glasgow (Scotland), Guapo, James Keddie, James Larcombe, Jason Sylvan (Jason Carty), Jodie Cox, Kavus Torabi, Lapsus Linguae, London (England), Matt Thompson, Max Tundra, Miss Helsinki, Paul Westwood, Richard Larcombe, Stars in Battledress, Sweep the Leg Johnny, the buds and spawn of Cardiacs and Tim Smith, The Monsoon Bassoon, Thomas Bonvalet, Ursa, Vincent Beysselance

July 1999 – EP reviews – Cardiacs/Camp Blackfoot’s ‘Cardiacs Meet Camp Blackfoot’ EP (“an explosion in a fairground repair shop… a belting mixture of howling-for-vengeance free-jazz saxes, prog-from-hell and hardcore trash-blues”)

12 Jul

Cardiacs/Camp Blackfoot: ‘Cardiacs Meet Camp Blackfoot’ EP

You already know Cardiacs, or you ought to. They’re that gang of besuited gentlemen from Chessington, Kingston and Milton Keynes – upsetters of pop rules known for busting out of tight waistcoats, with a sound like an explosion in a fairground repair shop. And who specialise in hatefully brilliant singles midway between masochism and ecstacy, as pleasurable as scratching a really luxurious, pestilential itch.

‘Sleep All Eyes Open’ doesn’t let that line of guilty pleasures down, tying knots in Super Furry Animals and The Glitter Band to make a glammy mess of noisy guitars and monkey-gland logic. Here’s something that really enjoys how gloriously dumb-to-the-max it is – listen to those handclaps, and that dum-dum riff bouncing its knuckles along the ground. Yet it evolves fast, ideas yomping around, running off into ever-more crowded angles and arguments while Tim Smith yelps like a circusful of trampolining dogs. Cardiacs always cram their songs to bursting point but never lose any of it to blind alleys or prog meandering. And if I still haven’t a clue what they’re singing about, I think there’s something in the back of my head which does, whooping and waving a flag whenever I hear them let something like this out of the box.

The five-year-old bonus tracks (from the mind-boggling ‘Sing to God’ album) haven’t worn badly either. ‘Dirty Boy’ hammers and claws through seven minutes of huge black-metal guitars and ends up flailing against the wall in an ecstatic stuck groove of wailing choir and electric-shock organ. Foundling is a mediaeval creak of sleep, death and aching men’s feet, worthy of Robert Wyatt. Finally, there’s a celebratory, singalongaTim instrumental mix of ‘Insect Hooves on Lassie’ – and that’s so tuneful it could get a corpse up and idiot-dancing within seconds. These guys are old enough to be Blur’s granddads, for God’s sake – how come they still make almost any other British rock group sound half-hearted and half-asleep?

Camp Blackfoot, hanging onto the other half of this EP, grab the challenge with both hands and a ravening mouthful of teeth. It says here that they’ve chewed their way out of the corpse of Thirteen Ghosts (Oxford’s finest in thrash-improv… hmmm), and they don’t bother with all that business of the dichotomy between social discipline and chaotic emotions. They just hit the record button and scream. A belting mixture of howling-for-vengeance free-jazz saxes, prog-from- hell and hardcore trash-blues comes tumbling out onto the carpet and burns a huge hole in it. Somewhere, Lester Bangs is laughing his head off.

If you wanted to hear serious avant-garde psychobilly locked into a no-holds-barred deathmatch with art-noise, you’ve come to the right place. Ruins forcibly manhandling the Blues Explosion into a blender wouldn’t even come close to the shredding monster-movie music of ‘The Blue Hood’; while ‘The Other Giaconda’ is what might’ve happened had King Crimson ever really exploded onstage in squalling Stooges style, neurotic precision blowing the safety valve a foot deep into the ceiling. And ‘The Red Mist’ tops the lot- squiggly Morricone noises that burst into enormous barbed- wire riffing and an epically hallucinating murder song, a weird doomed narrative which sees a desperate man’s mutter rising to a horrified scream: “The street melts under my feet… I’m drowning in a boiling sea of salt,/ faces are ugly / I – Mother of God!”

Songs to crash your car to, and the soundtrack to strutting away from the blaze looking cooler than ever. Not really something that works with Coldplay, I think.

Cardiacs/Camp Blackfoot: ‘Cardiacs Meet Camp Blackfoot’
Org Records, ORG 056CD (5 028151 010568)
CD-only EP
Released: 12th July 1999
Get it from: (2020 update) Limited edition of 1,000 – best obtained second-hand.
Cardiacs online:

Camp Blackfoot online:

Tags: 'Organ' (magazine/promoter/record label), Alex Ward, Benjamin Hervé, Bob Leith, Camp Blackfoot, Cardiacs, Greig Stewart, Jon Poole, Lex Fontaine, London (England), Luke Barlow, Oxford (England), Tim Smith

June 1999 – album reviews – The Monsoon Bassoon’s ‘I Dig Your Voodoo’ (“gloriously twisted tunes with gritty, testifying zeal”)

7 Jun

The Monsoon Bassoon: ‘I Dig Your Voodoo’

You could say that The Monsoon Bassoon are like three train-tracks converging on a single set of points. Going full-tilt on the first is a savage, grinning, tuneful thing from that edgy end of indie-rock that spawned Pixies or Shudder To Think – one eye a gimlet, the other a Catherine wheel. Riding the second, there’s a rigorous interlocking mechanism poised like a mantis: its lifeblood a nerve-pumping mix of math-rock mesh and prog rock verve. Careening along the third track is a thrashing shotgun wedding of baroque black metal and head-fuck psychedelia, steam spurting out of every joint. High speed. Impact imminent. This could be messy.

In fact, it ends up as something wonderful. Where there should’ve been mangled smoking fragments strewn across the neighbourhood, an ornate and brand-new beast is racing ahead. Gleaming gears whirling, showering fat sparks – taking on the stodgy, mulchy, rotted-down state of guitar rock and carving an intricate furrow through it, smashing exuberantly through fences en route. Ten tracks of delirious celebratory intricacies, and explosive rock detonations, ‘I Dig Your Voodoo’ rejoices unashamed in the sheer excitement of motion. If you could fix it so that a tropical rainstorm blasted through a double reed, you’d probably end up with this kind of melodious shrapnel.

The very thought of latterday psychedelic rock can prompt a checklist: druggy sonic syrup, honeybee harmonies, static songs, ad-infinitum wobbly jamming… Forget that. Instead, and for starters, imagine a roller-coasting XTC arguing their way down the corkscrew. Imagine Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci if they’d been shorn of their Brian Wilson fixation, off their heads on chaos theory and frantically shagging a stapling machine. In The Monsoon Bassoon two duelling slashing guitars, a fat-geared-but-light-footed rhythm section and three urchin-meets-starchild singers (Sarah Measures, Dan Chudley and Kavus Torabi) fractalise their songs into manic battling melodies. There are pop hooks aplenty, generally on the verge of turning into egg-whisks and grappling irons: there’s an alphabet soup of puzzling riffs, quirks and blissful deranged woodwind. If the band are clearly enthralled by their own avid craftmanship, they’re also firing up their gloriously twisted tunes with gritty, testifying zeal, running the shoe-leather off the soul-punk poseurs.

Even so, managing to bag an NME Single of the Week with each of their three singles so far must have been as vividly strange for the Bassooners as their songs are to everyone else. At a time when artier British tastemakers generally save their praise for musicians across the Atlantic – Flaming Lips and Pavement, Jim O’Rourke, Godspeed, Dave Pajo and his ever-unwinding adventures – left-field rockers over here are rarely given many sniffs of approval. While there are some exceptions, the Bassoon doesn’t fit the gaps in the sorter. They lack the 1960s classic-pop castellations of the aforementioned Gorky’s, or Super Furry Animals; nor do they have the latter’s comfortable indie pounding and canny dilution of experimental juices: nor do they ever resort to those sullen, reductive punk-gang posturings with which Mogwai feel they need to justify their own rugged sound-paintings. Operating right off the critical and commercial radar, driven by a stubborn and guileless enthusiasm, the Monsoon Bassoon give off the impression of a band mounting an unexpected coup which is as much of a surprise to them as it is to everyone else.

That said, a shortage of ambition – or of sheer bloody cheek – is the last thing that this band need to worry about. With joyous, inspirational disregard for their own dignity, The Monsoon Bassoon blow the lid off the whole shebang in a well-overdue explosion – and the last that I heard, it was still heading skywards. When ‘The King of Evil’ kicks in at Mach 3 (with its interweaving jitterbug melodies and Sarah purring her foxy way along the switch-backing melody) and when it closes in a welter of rough’n’ready choral excitement, giant celebratory chords and the sound of Kavus and Dan’s guitars utterly losing it, screaming in delight… you can hear liberation. This is rock music flowering into shape without the usual restrictions on decreed shape, or on fashion manifesto; and it’s all the better for it, yelling “fuck you, get out of my way!” while in the same breath flashing a brilliant grin and adding “but you can come too.”

There are left-field forebears to spot, for sure. Beyond the Naked City reed-punk and the manic gearshifting, there’s a chainmail of intent and disciplined guitar patterns (equal parts Television and Henry Cow) while their zeal for distressed chords and textures would do Sonic Youth proud. Blue Junction – in which meticulous chamber-minimalism suddenly explodes into New Wave thrash – anchors them to Steve Reich, as does their ‘Magic Roundabout’ way with a circling riff. Sometimes the band resemble a younger, more hyperactive King Crimson (those revolving guitars, Sarah’s daredevil flutes and reeds, the way the music booms back and forth between celestial minimalism and bellowing, screaming blasts of red-hot air) yet they have more of a sense of sheer fun and active dynamism. The lunatic shadow of Cardiacs walks alongside them too – unsurprisingly, as it’s Tim Smith’s jaggedy production that’s trimming off any of the album’s residual cuteness, feathering the guitars with a swarming shiver, and turning the music into a multi-coloured paintbomb blowing up in a garage.

But The Monsoon Bassoon are very much their own people – sporting their irrepressible pop edge; spin-drying their surreal, prismatic lyrics into motion-blurs; bouncing melodies off a riot-ballet of pummelling rhythms. The band’s collective readiness to go from ragged pop coo to thrash to heavy prog to freak-noise – all at the flick of a wrist – ensures that nothing has time to go stale. They could be strafing and racing, relentlessly hammering a metallic riff to death until it haemorrhages rainbows, as they do on The Constrictor and Commando. Or (as on ‘Soda Pop and Ash’) they could be fattening a snakey wisp of wistful melody on those knotty guitars and skewering your attention through your third eye. Or – as on the fragmentary, wonder-struck ‘Volcano’ – they could be sliding off the edge of the world, pupils dilated, as a lone glissando guitar scribbles hazy colour across the sky. Whichever way they go, a brainstorm of invention is guaranteed to hit you in the ears at just the right moment, spinning the music into a fascinating new course.

‘Wise Guy’ was the first of their singles to wear a bizarre groove in London indie-radio playlists and has lost none of its ability to set your head dancing. Six minutes of choppy pop (as if they’d collided the best bits of ‘Red’, ‘Fear of Music’, ‘Living in the Past’ and ‘Paranoid Android’ to audaciously tuneful effect), it periodically explodes like axe-heads coming through hotel-room doors, twirls pirouettes, and leaps up to a trumpeting, triumphant, speaker-melting fanfare. Kavus, Dan and Sarah babble about uncut diamonds and flashbulbs and gravity gone bored; about digging (perhaps into trouble, probably into revelation), and about “three silver sixes” (which might be about dice, and might be about something more occult). Both wild and meticulous, the music races away into a game of pouncing, quick swap grooves and joshing body-slams. Through the flashes, the song’s actual meaning is more elusive, more felt than voiced; it flirts around you and threads its way into your instincts, dancing on giddy splinters as it does.

Yet in spite of the tangled, giddy innocence their enthusiasm suggests, there’s more to the Monsoon Bassoon than just adrenalin art or an agreeably scrambled psychedelic circus. As their leaf-storm of lyrics tumbles by, it leaves scratches of faith, fear, things seen from the corners of eyes and in the corners of souls. Flashes of purgatory, intimations of danger – “lovely tornado, / who is such a fucking laugh, / turns up on my turf… Like glass I may crack. / Unlike glass I’ll not be replaced.” The menace lurking in the places where a glittering chord can’t hurl illumination. It’s all of a piece with the band’s fizzing, open spirit of inquiry: it’s the other side of the receiver. Their journey offers fractured glimpses of disturbing places – a kaleidoscopic stream of raw life-jolts, bad comedowns, metaphysical jitters and naked feelings all fusing together.

It takes guts and risk to walk the Bassoon’s kind of wayward line, to let yourself be carried along in the impulses of creating this music’s headlong rush. Towards the end of the gloriously-titled Fuck You Fuck Your Telescope, there’s a panicked, repeating wail of “wake up teetering everyday.” On Blue Junction the music bursts from serenity into pulsing frenzy as soon as Kavus blurts “he was out of the country and down on his luck / when you came out laughing and I came unstuck.” Among the chopping riffs and lofting spirals of ‘Best of Badluck 97’, Kavus is seething and licking wounds. “I broke my neck to kiss her / The year this mother went up to 11. / Saddle-sore and still there’s more… / No sword of iron ever struck such blows. / Such a swarm of death, self-centred I… / Inside I’m six foot deep.” Shortly afterwards, the whole group carols “and I can’t catch up, / and I can’t wake up, / and I won’t grow up, / and I can’t stand up” as if their collective backs are against the wall, and all that they can do is sing the threat away: a harmony of defiance.

The forbidding tones of ‘In the Iceman’s Back Garden’ (slow, pagan, cathedralline), closes the album like a shower of luminous earth hitting a coffin lid. It’s the sort of epic you’d expect from a band stuck into their fourth album, grown-up, newly spiritual and eager to wrestle with the indifferent savagery of the universe. A world away from the vivacious peekaboo of ‘Wise Guy’, it’s no less impressive. If the former was a firework display, ‘…Iceman’ is the glow on the lip of a volcano, showing that The Monsoon Bassoon are just as effective when rooted to the planet and letting something dark and troubling seep through them to the surface. It starts off as dark embers, slowly fanned and building up to destroying flame: an enormous iron clang, then a foreboding clarinet, intoning over the top of a massive, bells-of-doom guitar lattice that’s enough to send most of the Goth bands of the world running home to mother. And this time there’s an almost religious terror in the vocals – a fierce song commemorating the end of something as it has been known before, and tinged with fear as to what will happen next.

The voices and lyrics are murky, mysterious, entranced. Faces, dirt, hair, stars, cries and eyes creep out of the word-darkness – little clues. In one of the few clear moments, they’re keening “He won’t dare…” There are a few moments of tumbling vocals, slashing guitars and urgent reeds during which the whole thing seems to whirl: then the guitars flail and the clarinet screams as a fierce, beautiful, terrible light pours down from above. A final, desperately beautiful chant, then they beat our hearts to death with a riff the size of the sky before bursting into a stream of starry feedback that sweeps all before it. If the apocalypse is going to be this beautiful, roll on Doomsday.

Stubborn, ludicrous, gloriously eccentric; ‘I Dig Your Voodoo’ is all these things: but it’s also one of the bravest, most exciting British rock albums of its time… by a long twisty neck. Jumping the tracks with style and a vengeance.

The Monsoon Bassoon: ‘I Dig Your Voodoo’
Weird Neighbourhood Records, WNRS4 (5 024545 078428)
CD-only album
Released: 7th June 1999
Buy it from: Best obtained second-hand. (Note, April 2013 – Believers Roast plan to reissue this along with the rest of the Monsoon Bassoon catalogue at some point in the next few years.)
The Monsoon Bassoon online:

Tags: a flicker of Fripp, Admirals Hard, apocalyptic roars, Appleblim, Authority (band), Daniel Chudley Le Corre, gemlike sparkle, glorious twitch, Hatchjaw & Bassett, intriguingly mixed bags, James Keddie, Kavus Torabi, Knifeworld, Laurie Osborne, listening to women, London (England), men and women singing together, murmur to wail, music tied in knots, over too soon, Sarah Measures, stormy weather, the buds and spawn of Cardiacs and Tim Smith, The Monsoon Bassoon, Tungg!, twangy guitar, word salad, Zappa-esque

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories 1999, album reviews, alternative rock, art rock, cross-disciplinary pop, experimental/avant-garde rock, math rock, post-hardcore, post-progressive rock, process music, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, reviews, rock

June 1998 – EP reviews – Mogwai’s ‘No Education=No Future (Fuck the Curfew)’ (“the politics are in the sound”)

30 Jun

Mogwai: ‘No Education=No Future (Fuck the Curfew)’ EP

Mogwai – Glasgow’s “young team” of guitar noise-puppies – are just drawing out of their teens, but they’re already two-and-a-half albums old, and tour veterans. The name’s appropriate – in the sleeve photos they may look a little cute and fresh-faced to an twenty-seven-year-old codger like me, but if ‘No Education…’ is any indication, they do change into something far scarier at night. (They beat Hanson’s burbling Ewoks, anyway).

The punch-card stabs of guitar are pure Slint, but whereas Slint would lay muttered, emotional stories over their six-stringed dots and dashes, Mogwai are vocal-free and rely on pure, bullish emotion as walloped out by plectrum and drumstick. The explicit political rage of the EP’s title isn’t spat out in teen-punk slogan songs, nor in Prodigy chants. It’s carried in the rushing up against the front of the beat: it’s in their surges against the decay of sound. It’s in the faith (which they share with Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine) in big dirty noise over a mediocre world. The politics are in the sound.

Perhaps it’s because of the sparse, distant, classical-in-rebellion melodies from Luke Sutherland’s guesting violin, but Xmas Steps carries an odd resemblance to King Crimson‘s Larks Tongues In Aspic. It emerges from a soft interlocking hush of irregular rolls of bass and barely-there guitars (similar to the tension-gatherings of Bark Psychosis) then rises – nerves preparing for the clench – to a building, slashing crescendo and an eventual scrubbing, screeching roar of amp-shredding overdrive and machine-gun spurts of snare, before unclenching its fists and subsiding down into peace again, calmed by the mothering voice of the violin. It nods to Neu!’s jerky rhythms of robot-thrash as much as to Slint or Crimson, but, crucially, it’s warmer than any of them. You can hear the exact moment when strummed guitars, under growing pressure, begin to rebel and distort. Towards the end there’s a papery bang of noise; perhaps an amp blowing up from suppressed rage and cutting across the quiet wind-down.

After Xmas Steps the other two tracks seem like little brothers, but maintain the interest. Rollerball’s a sort of classical Krautrock etude. Soft guitar figures, sub-audible tinkles of piano off on the fringes, rough points of drum decoration: the final sound is of the lads downing instruments and strolling out of the studio, and it’s as much a part of the piece as any of the notes were. Small Children in the Background lays its sleepy guitar glints over a glassy fuzz-trail. It rises, almost orchestral, to an emotional peak, then cuts out to small and precious ensemble playing as sensitive as an eyelash. Whispers of voice lap back and forth at the front of the mix.

Without words, without direct vocals, without even an individual signature to each player, Mogwai’s music is oddly impersonal… but still, somehow, powerfully emotional. As they glower out from behind their clanking guitars, they might place themselves among the Glasgow arties, but in fact they’re in another place altogether. They’ll hate me for mentioning the “prog” word, but – in the best sense – it’s there in the music already. They’re already far closer to the intensely shaped, angular expressionism of Rothko, Henry Cow or The Monsoon Bassoon than they are to The Delgados’ Velvet Undergound impressions or to Bis’ synthesised pogo-sticking.

At the moment, they’ve got all the dynamics, all the expressive intensity they need – all they need now is the technique, and they’ll break through to that level their music is yearning towards. Expect great things from them by the time they hit twenty-five. ‘Til then, the least we can do is to lift the curfew on them.

Mogwai: ‘No Education=No Future (Fuck the Curfew)’
Chemikal Underground Ltd., CHEM026CD (5 020667 342652)
CD-only EP
Released: 29th June 1998
Get it from: (2020 update) Original EP best obtained second-hand; download available from Chemikal Underground
Mogwai online:

Tags: Glasgow (Scotland), Luke Sutherland, Mogwai

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories 1998, alternative rock, EP reviews, experimental/avant-garde rock, instrumental music, minimalism, post-hardcore, post-rock, reviews, rock, space rock

December 1997 – album reviews – Cynical Smile’s ‘Stupas’ (“it’s what’s firing off underneath the distortion that counts”)

1 Dec

Cynical Smile: ‘Stupas’

It often occurs to me, while watching a punk band play or having my ears pinned back by the roar of a punk record, how much drive is vibrating within such narrow confines. Such motivation compressed into such a rigid structure, number balls clattering in violent frustration in the rigged rock lottery machine. How there’s so much rebellion and desire for expression nailing itself down to fast 4/4, power chords and punishing speed when it should be expanding outwards.

Hearing Cynical Smile‘s debut album brings this idea back to me again. Southend punks they may be, but rattling around in “Stupas” are the seeds of something far more interesting than another moshing four-piece crammed into a Transit van. They’re usually compared to Rage Against the Machine, which is about equal parts helpful and bollocks. All right, they’re multi-racial (singer Ed is black, the other three white) and they have a similar luxurious, lunging approach to their in-your-face riffing. But though Matt Shears’ bullscraper guitar does test the edges of the envelope, there’s little in it to suggest the punk-Belew experiments of Tom Morello, and Ed’s spitting vocal is less brattish and polemical than that of Zack de la Rocha. Cynical Smile have less texture than Rage Against the Machine; their big advantage, though, is that they’re a lot less irritating. Both bands have a broader reach than most of their contemporaries: but Cynical Smile’s is, crucially, born of instinct rather than craft. It’s what’s firing off underneath the distortion that counts.

https://youtu.be/_LCqJABbYMI

This Cynical Smile isn’t a smirk: it’s a snarl, “the grin on a shotgun.” The thrumming didge-drone on The Circle builds up into a roar – “You got to make a stand as they try to control ya… / I get ripped off again… / Let the ritual begin” – and they stalk out of the garage to test themselves against a harsh, booby-trapped world; whether it’s illustrated in Stitch’s aggressive con-man swagger, the way When Friends Become Enemies waltzes around Ed’s paranoid suspicions (“Enemies will get straight to you / when friends become enemies. / Your hopes won’t bring them back… / and if you die they’ll kill you again”), or how Killing Bugs growls “why am I trying to make sense out of things you don’t believe? / Don’t even think of wanting me to go – ‘cos I was leaving. / …I know you and see through you: your ignorance is my shield.”

https://youtu.be/l6z691xuRwM

This time though, fighting the fight leads the band out onto further musical limbs. Gunga Din’s basic bolshiness sounds like a junior Bad Brains (“move! move aside!”), and the eye- rolling power-riffing and punk-funk bass pops of Scum throb and crash like Living Colour’s hardcore experiments on the neglected ‘Stain’. Live 4 mixes hip hop (in the voice and rhythms) with Nirvana squalls, making the most of Matt Russell’s growling Billy Gould bass boings, Dan’s swat-splash of drumming and Shears’ sneaky bit of jazzed-up guitar. Even Feeling Retarded (with Tony Maddocks’ sea-monster backing vocals upping the hardcore) switches rapidly through a series of quick-change modes.

https://youtu.be/c2-kqc-7US0

At the peak of Cynical Smile’s battling, their music is at its most balefully triumphant. On Methadone, Ed frothes and sneers against junkie delusions, as the riff yells like an alarm – “you justify; you wanna lie. / You justify to die. / “No, these things will not change me” – you feel it take control” – and finally, witheringly, he sketches a junkie death in broad slashes. “I can’t feel my body, I can’t choose my eyes, I don’t hear them screaming, my brain starts to die. / Left on the block of pain, someone else to take the blame. / You think you’re all different / but you’re fucking well the same.” Shear’s bizarre solo kicks the song into a Van der Graff Generator-shaped finale: a melange of voices, sounds and murmurs swarm around the life support bleeps that inevitably stretch out into the long continous goodbye tone.

https://youtu.be/wzLM2DHSGKw

With a whine of lonely data, Limbo follows Cynical Smile’s battling logic to a philosophical extreme, locking Ed into an existential battle. “I try to touch, I try to grasp, / …feels like nothing there, a vacuum of air. / …Book me in young, before you kill me: / tear out my soul before you leave me, / make sure I don’t get up when you knock me down – / build yourself a condo in limbo…” The guitar drops out, letting the hushed bass and drums etch a bleak picture on their own.

https://youtu.be/flZBkbiUSO4

But they finish with a battered victory. Give Up the Ghost struggles valiantly against the draining of life from fighting bodies, as Shears’ guitar rings out like Keith Levene’s: “They called… / No, the time is not today! / I know it’s killing me…” Though ‘Stupas’ will probably be just the ticket for those in love with the sweat and flail of the moshpit, it drops hints of something greater.

Cynical Smile: ‘Stupas’
Org Records, ORGAN 035CD
CD-only album
Released: 1st December 1997
Get it from: (2022 update) Last.fm, Tidal, Spotify, Amazon Music – CD best obtained second-hand.
Cynical Smile online:
Homepage, Last.fm, Spotify
Additional notes: (2020 update) This was Cynical Smile’s only full album.

Tags: Cynical Smile, Southend (England)

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories 1997, funk metal, hip hop, post-hardcore, punk rock, rapping, rock

September 1995 – live reviews – Organ Night: Lake of Puppies + The Monsoon Bassoon + Fear of Fear @ The Monarch, Chalk Farm, London, 19th September (“music to spin the brain like a top”)

24 Sep

Just across the road, the great decaying wheel of the Roundhouse is housing Cirque Surreal and Wakeman with Wakeman. Over here, in the less salubrious surroundings of the Monarch, a collection of various punks, proggies and other wonderful low-lifers (including myself) are cramped together to check out some rather lower-profile musicians. Somehow, I think we’ve got the better deal.

This is ‘Organ’ Night, so we’re guaranteed a rich feast of music from all directions, as exemplified by opening act Fear of Fear, whose Metallica-meets-PJ-Harvey take on the punk/funk thing is tight and excellent. But judging by the overwhelming number of Alphabet Business Concern T-shirts filling the room, plus Bic Hayes hanging around near the bar, it’s a pretty safe bet that tonight is going to have a strong Cardiacs flavour. And yes, those unjustifiably obscure prog/punk/music-hall eccentrics do have a lot to answer for as regards the shape of this evening. Some of the seeds they’ve sown during their lunatic nine-album career are springing up with a vengeance in this little Camden pub.

The Monsoon Bassoon are a real brain-skewing treat, and a demanding one. Their music has those Cardiacs components of mind-boggling tempo changes, raucous crashing melodies and cheerful gibberish in Cockney/Estuarine English (although they’re originally from Plymouth, so my ear must be out of tune). The War Between Banality and Interest is a fine example, a Cardiacs-type tossed rhythmic salad so perkily crazed that it makes ‘Larks’-period King Crimson sound like James Last. Aside from Cardiacs and King Crimson, The Monsoon Bassoon show an affinity with the wilder American side of things: the “anything goes” spirit of Captain Beefheart and (to pick a more recent example) Mercury Rev. The double voice-and-guitar team of Kavus and Dan, Sarah’s voice, flute and clarinet, and the rhythm section of Laurie and Jim offer us song titles to die for and music to spin the brain like a top.

How is it that they can play songs so insanely complex yet so insanely catchy? Five hundred hooks and time changes in each four-minute burst, it seems. And how can they play it with such unflappable cheerfulness, Kavus in particular finding the time for some Who-style scissor jumps? Forget it… just stand back and have your mind tickled… Oh, comparisons? well, if I must…

Some simplified examples: Bullfight in a China Shop is a stretchy boogie in 5/4 with Mercury Rev flute, Leyline PLA is like a crunchy thrashy Schizoid Man played by an unholy alliance of The Buzzcocks and Ian Anderson with the odd lick of harmonised Queen guitar. Bright Lucifer goes from a cataclysmic snare-roll opening to Cardiacs-meets-‘Thrak’ mayhem, while Aladdin mates Frame by Frame with Living in the Past. Tokmeh has elements of that wandering Frippy gamelan sound of the ’80s, but ends up as the sound of five instruments dancing separate dances to a common end – a freaky fugue. And that’s where The Monsoon Bassoon are at. A pure, wild, Dionysiac musicality with a roguish five-fold intelligence kicking it into gear: hung up on no scene, naturally sparking and kinking. Let them into your life and watch your world take on brighter, loopier colours.

Headlines Lake of Puppies have a more direct link to Cardiacs – they’re led by William D. Drake, who was formerly Cardiacs’ keyboard player, And yes, it does show – although the anarchic musical mayhem which is one of the central Cardiacs characteristics is absent here, Drake’s new band share that specifically English eccentricity. In fact, they take it down a few notches and on a few steps. If Cardiacs’ Tim Smith is the intense, slightly scary motormouth maniac on the rural bus, Bill is his refined elder cousin who restricts his own lunacy to deranged sessions on the tennis court. Lake of Puppies are like Cardiacs exhuming the ghost of Noel Coward for tea on the lawn: all summery waltzes, genteel harmonies from Bill and from singing bassist Sharron, easy-going nylon-string guitar (from Craig) and the cosy burr of baritone sax and clarinet. Kevin Ayers could get a mention on the influences list, as could the Kate Bush of Coffee Homeground.

All of this is not as harmlessly cuddly as it sounds. Although the lyrics are difficult to make out amidst the weaving melodies, I get the impression that Lake of Puppies are singing about trickier subjects than crustless sandwiches. There’s the occasional burst of noise when Bill abandons his piano for fuzzy organ and the band launch into gutsy cyclonic roaring, and the music is just too complex and cerebral to be entirely cosy. But in the prog environment of today – where bands tend to be either sickly, prissy and pompous or thrashily confrontational and noisy – Lake of Puppies stick out as a sunnily listenable and enjoyable alternative. And I wouldn’t be surprised if all of that gentility was a Trojan horse for something gloriously warped… definitely one to check out again.

Keep it up, ‘Organ’!

Lake of Puppies online:

The Monsoon Bassoon online:

Fear of Fear online:
(no online presence)

Additional notes: (2020 update) Lake of Puppies didn’t last very long, with various bandmembers going on to The Shrubbies, North Sea Radio Orchestra and Quickspace while William D. Drake eventually started a solo career. There have been a couple of Lake of Puppies concert reunions over the years, with the latest one being at 2018’s ‘Spring Symposium‘. The Monsoon Bassoon lasted until 2001, with Kavus Torabi moving on to a multitude of projects including Knifeworld, Guapo, Cardiacs, Gong, The Utopia Strong and a solo career, while Laurie Osborne moved into dubstep with Appleblim. Daniel Chudley Le Corre also has an intermittent solo career. Several former Monsoon Bassoon members occasionally reunite in sea-shanty band Admirals Hard. I have no idea what happened to Fear of Fear.

Tags: 'Organ' (magazine/promoter/record label), Adam Wakeman, Cardiacs, Chin Keeler, Cirque Surreal, Craig Fortnam, Daniel Chudley Le Corre, Fear of Fear, James Keddie, Kavus Torabi, Lake of Puppies, Laurie Osborne, Rick Wakeman, Sarah Measures, Sharron Fortnam (Sharron Saddington), The Monsoon Bassoon, William D. Drake

February 1995 – album reviews – Laundry’s ‘Blacktongue’ (“a scuffed, brooding black-iron hybrid”)

20 Feb

Laundry: ‘Blacktongue’

Pity the aging hardcore punk purists. They’ll talk about the punk wars they fought in order to kill off prog rock, but they forgot that little pockets on each side of a war have a tendency to learn each others’ languages and swap cigarettes during lulls in the battle. Or that invaders tend to crossbreed with the invaded. In Britain at the beginning of the ’80s, the likes of Magazine and Cardiacs drew prog rock ambition back into punk energy. Over in the States in the ’90s, the second coming of punk was spearheaded by Kurt Cobain – a Robert Fripp fan. You can shout and proclaim your Year Zeroes all you like, but you can’t kill knowledge or the desire to grow.

Hence, in the here and now, the appearance of bands such as Laundry. Like the lunatic punk/prog/funk/freak metal band Primus (with whom they share their astonishing drummer Herb Alexander), they hail from the fertile Bay Area scene in northern California and have roots in art punk bands Grotus and Sordid Humor. But they’ll just as readily admit to drawing from European prog and art rock such as Can and King Crimson as from the usual suspects; the terrifying electro negativism of the likes of Nine Inch Nails, plus strange post-punk/psych experimentalists like Butthole Surfers. Laundry’s deep black, forbidding music (using similar instrumentation to the later, stripped down versions of King Crimson) plants itself in that dark and hellish area in which “alternative” and “prog” seem must suited to meet and surprise each other.

Musically at least, it’s an unselfconscious blend – a scuffed, brooding black-iron hybrid of ‘Discipline’ rock gamelan, gruff Nomeansno hardcore force, and Pearl Jam histrionics. The latter comes courtesy of former Sordid Humor drummer Toby Hawkins’ snarling Vedder esque baritone, while guitarist Tom Butler chops out minimal metal riffs or a Fripp-like mixture of metallic rending noises and compellingly ugly solos. The real strength, though, is in the rhythm section: Herb swaggering around his drums like a funkier, fluider Bill Bruford and the remarkable Ian Varriale playing phenomenally dirty, polyphonically funky basslines on the Chapman Stick (which has so long been considered an instrument for jazz technicians and art rock eggheads that it’s a revelation to hear it sounding as raw as it does here).

Despite the strong musicality of the players, this is far from an airy prog trip. This Laundry seems to be where the darkest, dirtiest stains on the soul are scoured out, or are wrung out by the mangle. The oppressed, threatening, dissatisfied feel of grunge, which forced a seething dysfunctional contemporary rage into the mainstream, still casts a long shadow over contemporary American rock; and Laundry are very much part of that.

And how. Toby Hawkins (although he seems to have escaped Trent Reznor’s pathological need to actively shock or destroy the sensibilities of his audience) is consumed by the sort of fuck-up negativity that even the most confrontational of hardcore bellowers or the darkest of grungers would find difficult to relate to. Recurrent images of disgust, physical and mental sickness pervade ‘Blacktongue’: Alice in Chains were a barrel of laughs by comparison. The harsh, paranoid sexual fable of the title track and the grinding depression/sedation rant of ‘Misery Alarm’ are just two examples: the fantastical psychosis of ‘Monarch Man’ (prefaced by colossal distorted cat purring) lays colourful musings of twisted beauty over a tortuously funked up Crimson-ic march, while the angel messenger in ‘Skin’ brings only word of freezing, disease, and sexual loathing.

Not light-hearted stuff by any means, and the unremitting bleakness of the album does tell against it. While the music draws on fury and darkness to swell its compulsive strength, the lyrical content – reading like notes from an agonised, hopeless therapy session – displays an unrelenting despair, misery and withdrawal from human life, without the leavening of humour and compassion that make such thoughts palatable. Consequently, many a ferocious burst of taut musical excitement is dragged down by the millstone of Hawkins’ suicidal roar.

There are some moments of relief, however. If you’re into the pattern side of Laundry’s music, there’s the disconnected Stick geometries of ‘Monkey’s Wrench’. If you’re looking for redemption in song, there’s ‘Canvas’, in which Hawkins (backed by Butler’s lilting arpeggios) breaks out of his doomy caterwauling to discover the possibilities of art therapy and achieve a measure of peace. “Try to make sense of your shadow, paint a picture of the way it should be, colours arranged carefully…/ Inside the frame on the wall, paint your heart under a waterfall / paint your world the way it should be, so you can understand what you see.”

Generally, though, Laundry are more interested in dysfunction than healing. And despite Hawkins’ self-flagellating attempts to build significance out of the topic, it takes the wit of a guest to really get things moving. “I can’t stand it for anyone to be more awkward, self hateful, stupid, or inappropriate than I am” crackles the sardonic, telephone relayed voice of Bay Area artist Don Bajema on ’19’. Over a marvellous brooding thudding riff (a slower, darker ‘Thela Hun Ginjeet’), Bajema unwinds his cynical but concerned ideas: deliberate awkwardness, withdrawal and self humiliation may be his only logical response to and defence against a sick and ridiculous world, but it’s simultaneously an unwanted mask against those he truly loves, “the last people I would want to see me like this…” A disturbing confession, but one that rings so true that it’s easily the moment that makes the album.

Will Laundry clean up? Dubious – even deep-dyed grungers will have trouble with their uncompromising grimness and suspicion of anything approaching a tune; and Toby Hawkins’s obsession with depression and psychosis comes across all too often as self-indulgent droning and ranting, without the redemptive melodies of Nirvana or Pearl Jam. What draws the band out of this trough of misery is their brutal power, their brooding energy and the masterly rhythmatism of Varriale and Herb: the powerful spine of the music which tugs them towards the darker, unforgiving end of progressive rock, towards Hammill-esque heart-crushing and 21st century schizophrenia. Flawed and muddied by defeatism it might be, but ‘Blacktongue’ is still a potent (if still no more than potential) statement from a band in waiting.

Laundry: ‘Blacktongue’
Mammoth Records/Prawn Song Records, MR0098 2 (35498009822)
CD-only album
Released: 20th February 1995
Get it from: (2020 update) Best obtained second-hand.
Laundry online:

Tags: Chapman Stick, Don Bajema, Grotus, Ian Varriale, Laundry, Primus, Sordid Humor, Tim "Herb" Alexander, Toby Hawkins, Tom Butler

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories 1995, album reviews, alternative rock, art punk, art rock, experimental/avant-garde rock, grunge rock, hard rock, instrumental music, post-hardcore, post-progressive rock, progressive rock, reviews, rock, spoken word

Newer Entries →

Search

Misfit City

September 2015 – upcoming gigs – Gong’s Dave Sturt and friends travel the world from Derbyshire on the 23rd; London gets more Daylight Music eclectica plus a Blacklisters/Joeyfat/Himself jabber-rock summit on the 26th

November 2015 – upcoming gigs – Mutations Festival in Brighton, 28th & 29th November 2015

August 2015 – upcoming London gigs (Rumour Cubes in Camden on Friday 7th August, Arthur Russell Instrumentals in Bethnal Green on Monday 10th August)

July/August 2015 – upcoming gigs – Thumpermonkey/The Earls Of Mars/Ham Legion in London; Holly Penfield’s Judy Garland show hits the Hippodrome; The Luck Of Eden Hall tour the UK

July/August 2015 – upcoming London gigs for 3rd July (Shiver/The Fierce & The Dead/Alex’s Hand in Camden, and The Spiders of Destiny in Deptford); Tim Bowness tours in August; a release date for Levitation’s ‘Meanwhile Gardens’

June 2015 – upcoming London gigs – prog rock/math rock/post-hardcore @ The Facemelter; electro-pop/drum’n’brass/loops/experimental ambience @ Tuesdays Post; eclectic classical/experimental chamber music/kletzmer & Bulgarian voices @ The Forge

June 2015 – upcoming London gigs – A Formal Horse & Ham Legion; Olga Stezhko; The Spiders of Destiny play Frank Zappa; a Bowie Night in Soho

February 2003 – live reviews – House of Stairs label launch concert (evening 1) featuring Nøught, Foe and Defeat the Young, The Underworld, Camden Town, London, 12th February 2003 (“the Underworld fills with familiar London pronk and math-rock faces”)

December 2002 – album reviews – Various Artists: ‘House of Stairs Volume 1: Useless in Bed’ compilation (“happily balanced on the rougher brinks and fringes”)

July 1999 – EP reviews – Cardiacs/Camp Blackfoot’s ‘Cardiacs Meet Camp Blackfoot’ EP (“an explosion in a fairground repair shop… a belting mixture of howling-for-vengeance free-jazz saxes, prog-from-hell and hardcore trash-blues”)

June 1999 – album reviews – The Monsoon Bassoon’s ‘I Dig Your Voodoo’ (“gloriously twisted tunes with gritty, testifying zeal”)

June 1998 – EP reviews – Mogwai’s ‘No Education=No Future (Fuck the Curfew)’ (“the politics are in the sound”)

December 1997 – album reviews – Cynical Smile’s ‘Stupas’ (“it’s what’s firing off underneath the distortion that counts”)

September 1995 – live reviews – Organ Night: Lake of Puppies + The Monsoon Bassoon + Fear of Fear @ The Monarch, Chalk Farm, London, 19th September (“music to spin the brain like a top”)

February 1995 – album reviews – Laundry’s ‘Blacktongue’ (“a scuffed, brooding black-iron hybrid”)

Archives

Calendar

Blog Stats

Recent Posts

All Categories

Tags

Top Clicks

Search

Follow Blog

Blogs which Misfit City follows:

Search

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Archives

Calendar

Blog Stats

Recent Posts

Category Cloud

All Categories

Tags

Top Clicks

Search

Follow Blog

Blogs which Misfit City follows: