Featuring “seasonal surprises that are guaranteed to give you a Yuletide glow”, the last Daylight Music concerts for the year excel at being unashamedly cuddly and kid-friendly: not just the harbouring church atmosphere of the Union Chapel, but the laying on of hot chocolate, mince pies and face painting and “a guest appearance by a certain scarf-wearing snowman.” In parallel to all of this, though, there’s the usual thoughtful and intricate Daylight musical overlay, sneaking crafted contemporary folk and pop, classical music, accessible avant-garde experimentation and a little punk rock into the family proceedings.
Arctic Circle presents:
Daylight Music 241 – That Fuzzy Feeling Part 1: School Of Noise + HSS Choir + Laura J Martin + Enderby’s Room + Whoa Melodic + The Action Men + Spaceship Mark Union Chapel, 19b Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 3rd December 2016, 12:00pm – free event (suggested donation: £5.00) – information
Top position on the first of these (on Saturday 3rd) is taken by a School of Noise showcase (the performance result of sound workshops encouraging young people and adults towards creativity and experimentation with noise and sound, in which both students “create music, conduct orchestras of food, build analogue synthesisers, record sounds to film, learn about acoustic ecology, and compose original experimental sound art.” The Daylight taste for alt.choral is covered by the Bethnal Green-based, mixed-ability punk-rock-loving Hackney Secular Singers Choir.
Laura J. Martin put in a Daylight appearance back in September, singing oblique state-of-the-nation folk songs from a personalised perspective of disconnection, blandification and gentrification; the potentially glum subject matter warmed up by her sweet manner, inquisitive multi-instrumental musical diversity and Liverpudlian outlook (an elliptical wit, plus a reluctance to take authority as given). With a debut single scheduled for early next year, indie-folk quartet Enderby’s Room marshal guitar, ukulele, banjo, omnichord, French horn, harmonium, accordion and double bass under three voices; juggling the hooded delicacy and mood mastery of Low-esque sadcore with the uplift, bubbling rhythms and storytelling impetus of British and American folk music. Here they are playing on board a rumbling steam train.
Whoa Melodic is Michael Wood, who previously played bass and piano and sang in Singing Adams before going on to solo alt.pop work as Michaelmas. Associated with the Where It’s At is Where You Are label, Michael’s also worked with The Leaf Library, the Hayman Kupa Band and last year’s ‘A Girl & a Gun’ James Bond tribute. The new work under the old name is an extension of ongoing ideas, and Michael half-promises to deliver some old Michaelmas favourites in his set.
The show’s rounded off by a performance by politi-comical Dada-masculine dance troupe Action Men, and by an appearance by School of Noise sound collector, film maker and educator Mark Williamson, returning in his solo guise as Spaceship Mark (for which he travels out to sites of specific or conceptual interest in order to record on-the-spot improvised music – previous and ongoing choice sets have included abandoned Royal Observer Corps posts, traffic blackspots and the former Kelvedon Hatch nuclear bunker). He’s bringing a project called ‘Null’… and there the mystery begins.
More on the second Fuzzy Feeling show in due course…
The first of the seasonal gigs are crossing my radar. So far, rather than just being bloated blowouts, they’re embodying and communicating ideas of support, communality, resistance (in some respects), humour and what Arctic Circle call “that fuzzy feeling”.
This probably sounds as loose and woolly as the old jumper you’ve just dug out from the back of the drawer – but at a time when we’re ducking or getting enmired in Twitterstorms of hateful, sleety 2016 bile, a little of that doesn’t go amiss. Better to be a snowflake than a mean hacking cough, I reckon.
So here we go…
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Play for Progress present:
Play for Progress Fundraiser: Alex Roth + Alice Zawadzki + Shirley Smart + others The Albany Pub, 240 Great Portland Street, Regent’s Park, London, W1W 5QU, England
Friday 2nd December 2016, 6.30pm – information here and here
The guitar playing and general musicality of polymathic composer and improviser Alex Roth has graced Blue Eyed Hawk, Otriad and, most, recently, experimental fusion guitar trio Future Currents (as well as the repertoire of assorted contemporary classical ensembles). The work of Alice Zawadzki covers a similar number of bases – jazz singing; classical violin; original songs; the exploration and interpretation of a bevy of inspirations including folk and folklore, poetry, the music of New Orleans and of Joni Mitchell. Improvising cellist Shirley Smart originally studied classical music in London and Paris before immersing herself in jazz and Middle Eastern music during a long cultural sojourn in Israel, soaking up the stew of Hebrew and Arabic roots music and Western art music which has informed her projects ever since ( Sound Of The Ground, Melange, Sawa Trio).
Sharing a common Sephardic Jewish heritage, all three musicians are regular collaborators within the ten-strong Sefiroth, a Sephardic Jewish electro-acoustic chamber ensemble. They’re getting together for a trio performance in Marylebone this Friday, playing a selection of Sephardic ballads as part of a fund-raiser supporting Play for Progress (a charity delivering therapeutic and educational music programmes to children who are victims of conflict and war).
Also promised for the Friday fundraiser bill are “saucy jazzers, the best dad band you’ve never heard, duelling violins with electronics, a Scottish trad/ceilidh band, and a sweet voice with a sultry harp.” I’m not sure who any of these other people are – the event’s being publicized as a concert which is about community rather than names. Assuming that the Sephirothers are setting the bar for quality, it’ll all be worth seeing. For an example of Sephiroth in full flow, see below.
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I have *no idea* what this has to do with proceedings…
On the same night as the Play for Progress event, Society of Imaginary Friends are hosting another in their series of music and poetry soirees up in Wood Green at vegan restaurant Karamel, with their usual boho-insurrectionary feel, sounding off as if the revolution’s already happened, with an arts café on every corner and democracy becoming a constantly active roots-up ferment. The stage is set for an evening of poets, Bolan-ista power-pop transformationalists, members of Eclectic Opera, plus the Society’s own expansive art-pop-prog-chanson-etc. (Bring yer own hyphen.)
Society of Imaginary Friends present:
‘We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thang!’: Society of Imaginary Friends + Kirsten Morrison + Peter Shipman + Her + Jed Demochowski + Martin Wakefield + Nighmar Askouski + DJ Ontjdrew DJ set Kabaret @ Karamel Restaurant, The Chocolate Factory 2, 4 Coburg Road, Wood Green, London N22 6UJ, England
Friday 2nd December 2016, 8:00pm – free entry – information
“We’re in a feisty festive mood, comrades. Ready to man the cortical barricades. Love is good, good, good! Let the bells toll our message across hill and dale…
“To help you celebrate the end of oppression we have the virtuosic, stratospheric soprano and Lene Lovich’s right hand girl Kirsten Morrison – she will be joined by the magnificent counter-tenor Peter Shipman. What is more, we are featuring the punk Goddess, Her (aka Julie D. Riley); singing his beautiful songs will be lead singer of the VIPs and now charted soloist, the extraordinary Jed Demochowski; performing his intensely gripping poetry, Martin Wakefield; Nighmar Ascousky has something of the night for us; and to groove into the burning night we have the one and only DJ Ontjdrew. Society Of Imaginary Friends will be doing what they do. Plus some surprise guests…”
For more about the Society, have a read of my preview for their last show here. As was the case then, I’m unable to get the full skinny on everyone involved, but here’s a clutch of videos and soundclips relating to the upcoming show (including one of Peter Shipman being upstaged by a dog…)
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More on the actual fuzzy feeling in the next post…
In between appearances at the WOMAD and Supernormal festivals, Georgian saz player and singer Aşıq Nargile is embarking on a three-date British microtour in August, calling in at points in Scotland, Yorkshire and London.
In case you’re looking at the picture and thinking (lazily) “another girl folk singer”, it’s worth noting that “Aşıq” is an honorific, not a forename. It denotes a particular type of traditional Georgian bard, multilingual and mobile, who travels through the country’s diverse regions as vessels for music, news, concepts and culture both old and new. (A little like a Caucasian version of a West African griot, although perhaps without the satirical upsetter elements).
Originally from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, Nargile Mehtiyeva has carried the cosmopolitan traditions of her home town with her, but has chosen to base herself in the southern Borcali region. For the moment, she’s the only female aşıq at work there. A trilingual singer and player of the saz lute since her mid-teens, she’s now both a teacher of the traditional forms and (via the Sayat Nova initiative) an ambassador for Georgian culture. Her concerts involve interlocking musicality and literacy – a “vocal recital of epic folk poetry (in) Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Russian… by turns ecstatic and deeply expressive… interspersed with bursts of virtuosic, highly ornamented saz.” in the shape of “moving laments or upbeat folk dances.” For those who don’t speak any of those languages, the shows are still musically sensual experiences – propulsive and silvery cascades of wiry stringwork, accompanied by a vocal like an elastic lassoo and the stately assurance of someone backed up by a couple of thousand years of heritage.
Tour dates are as follows:
The Old Hairdressers, 23 Renfield Lane, Glasgow G2 6PH, Scotland, Tuesday 2nd August 2016, 7.30pm (supported by Tut Vu Vu + Muldoon’s Picnic) – information
Delius Arts & Cultural Centre, 29 Great Horton Road, Bradford, BD7 1AA, England, Wednesday 3rd August 2016…. (+ support act t.b.c.) – information here and here
The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, England, Thursday 4th August 2016, 7.30pm (with Heather Leigh) – information
While the Bradford gig is solo, the Glasgow show sees Nargile playing as part of a splendidly adventurous and diverse triple bill alongside two very different Glaswegian groups who have next to nothing in common bar their musicality.
Despite their cosy and informal appearance, a name that comes from drunken Irish misadventure, a repertoire reaching from “the sublime to the ridiculous” and their emphasis on fun and friendship in singing, acapella group Muldoon’s Picnic unites a number of very dedicated and talented Glasgow-based singer and scholars. Its six or seven regular members (not least in-house arranger Katy L. Cooper) have already made their mark in a brace of other vocal ensembles – Trembling Bells spin-off Crying Lion, Glasgow Madrigirls, The Four Hoarse Men, Voicebeat, Voicemale, Sang Scule, and “barbershop-prog” group Honey & The Herbs – plus more church, chapel, cathedral, workplace and community choirs than you could shake a stave at. As for that repertoire, it embraces gospel, shanties, Scots ballads, English carols, Afro-American spirituals, sacred harp songs, Victorian parlour music and music hall songs and assorted pieces cast up and circulated by the world music movement. Where other choral groups dabble, this one delves. The songs are sung not just in English but in other tongues of the British Isles (Scots Gaelic, Cornish, Manx and Welsh) and further afield: Breton, southern African Sotho, Ugandan Luganda and eastern European languages (Bulgarian, Croatian and Georgian – in the latter’s polyphonic music, they touch base with Nargile.)
The third act on the Glasgow bill, Tut Vu Vu, play their dark-browed and looming electrophonic instrumentals in a cloud of disinformation. When someone compares them to Anaïs Nin and David Lynch and they claim that it’s all a misunderstanding; someone else mentions musique concrète and they respond with askance, amused looks. When given the chances to set things straight, they deliver misleading mission statements filled with science fiction technogabble about phased plasma and hydrogen sulphide. What’s demonstrably true is that they’re an alliance of Glasgow art-punks who’ve already been around a decade’s cycle of experimental groups – Iban Perez in The Sparkling Shadazz, Rags & Feathers and A Rhythmtic) Raydale Dower, Matthew Black and Jamie Bolland in rattling theatricalists Uncle John & Whitelock.
Expect something of an oblique and inscrutable wall between the quartet’s current work and their previous brainy trash-lungings. A band apparently in search of a new dialect (while drawing on assorted shredded utterances from Krautrock, Beefheart, ‘90s rave or ‘80s arsequake) a typical TVV track can be a bizarre collage of muffled falsetto wails and feedback drones, of layered tribal toms and analogue-synth bass-farts, of approaching-horns guitar shapes; all of which is cunningly and immediately sculpted for maximum enigmatic impact, rather than being tossed out of the speakers for someone else to sweep up.
In London, Nargile is playing a double header gig with Heather Leigh. One of the most unconventional pedal steel guitarists in contemporary music, Heather belies her traditional country music heritage (a West Virginia birth, a descent from coal miners) and instead reinvents both her instrument and her voice as a conduit for strange and ghostly improvisations. Aided by cruel amplifier tones and strange, skittering, instinctive hand techniques, her compositions emerge like spectral possessions of strings, pedals, larynx and language. Often touching on themes of trauma, abuse and hidden, subjective experience, Heather’s eerie and disturbing work has already led her to collaborations with Peter Brötzmann, Jandek, Thurston Moore and plenty of others since her emergence in the 1990s.
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August also sees the start of Borderless, a delightfully rambling live music series at Battersea Arts Centre running roughly parallel to the Olympic Games in Rio. Run in collaboration with GOAT Music (set up last year by former Roundhouse music bosses David Gaydon and Lou Birkett) it aim to showcase “the UK’s best homegrown talent and unique artists from around the globe, in the intimate and beautiful setting of the Council Chamber… Borderless will provide an alternative cross-cultural celebration. Samba to tropical beats, dance to Afrobeat legends, skank to reggae and let the new generation of jazz take you to another place. Break down the borders and shuffle your feet to global rhythms to hear the biggest tunes from all over the planet. We’ll also provide a platform for the freshest artists and exciting talent currently taking the UK by storm. Hear the artists sound tracking the underground scene, dominating the airwaves and paving the way for the alternative UK music scene.”
Glad to hear it. Bring it on. What do you have?
GOAT Music and Battersea Arts Centre present:
Borderless: Hackney Colliery Band + Bring Your Own Brass Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, Battersea, London, SW11 5TN, England
Tuesday 2nd August 2016, 8.00pm – information
Hearing about Hackney Colliery Band initially caught me between hackles and chuckles. For a moment, I thought it was about taking the piss out of a great and still-living industrial British art form while cynically attempting to replace it. After all, when there are still genuine colliery bands maintaining the tradition across old mining heartlands from Tyneside to Derbyshire, Shropshire to Leicestershire and the Rhondda Valley (and dotted across the Yorkshire pitscape from Grimethorpe to Dinnington, Frickley to Queensbury) why would you want to substitute them with a slick London parody? On the other hand, my sense of the absurd soon kicked in – since Hackney’s been sprouting all kinds of cartoonish artisan features for the past decade (from craft beer to boutique muffins and shoes), why not an ersatz coal mine?
As it happens, HCB have got little to do with any of this. The name’s a little dab of post-modern British showbiz and the band (excellent, by the way) don’t stick to the grand dignity and mournfulness of colliery music, being more of an omnivorous brass beast immersed in and rejigging a variety of horn-party traditions from jazz, r&b, funk and others, including New Orleans tunes from both fun and funerals. Much the same can be said of the support act, Bring Your Own Brass – a band who, as “up-and-coming brass hip-hop ripsnorters”, have been known to parp out a Rakim cover or two. If this makes them sounds like a novelty act, they aren’t. Sound and vision reveal them to be well-scrubbed, well-studied white disciples of a wide span of styles, clambering over Afrobeat, rap, funk and marching-band ideas with head-bopping panache.
Recently, both bands seem to have cornered the market in boutique festivals and showbiz event (between them they’ve got Olympic Games and Brit/Mercury award appearances under their belts, as well as shows at Ally Pally, with slots at Wilderness, Stow and Meatopia to come later in August for BYOB and a hefty European tour for HCB). HCB’s previous set at the MOBO awards suggests that they can impress at a formal roots level as well, unless it was a case of contacts trumping authenticity. Just as long as bands like these aren’t crowding out bands like Kokoroko; although BYOB’s teamup with Bristolian rapper and slam poet Solomon O.B (see below) suggests that, as far as fellow musicians are concerned, there aren’t any practical or philosophical problems.
Back to the centre of London for some no-nonsense math rock, post-hardcore and brainwork with knuckles… and what could be more festive and seasonal than a band called Shitwife?
TINJR Xmas Party with Axes, Shitwife, Vasa & Wot Gorilla (This is Not Revolution Rock/Jebs Presents @ The Borderline, Orange Yard, off Manette Street, London, W1D 4JB, England, Saturday 19th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £8.50-£9.60 – information – tickets
“Absolutely buzzing for this show. Not only will this be the Xmas party for This Is Not Revolution Rock / Jebs Presents, it marks Del’s 30th birthday and 200th show as a promoter. So we’re really pushing the boat out and there might be some free mince pies. Please spread the word and let’s pack the venue out from start to finish for this, the last show we’re putting on in 2015!”
(They’re so carried away by the occasion that they didn’t really introduce the bands… or assumed that everyone reading would know them. I’m in a hurry, so here’s the one-line version.
Axes – brash and playful mathrockers with a Foo Fighter pop vigour. Shitwife – astonishingly brutal drums/laptop/electronics juggernaut fusing rave, death metal, noise and post-hardcore. Side project of musicians in bands with equally tasteful names. Vasa – noisy synesthesic post-rock package. Wot Gorilla? – how to noodle away at prog-inspired math rock and not alienate people.
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Here’s Knifeworld’s frontman (and eccentric broadcaster, in every sense) heading over to Deptford to dig up something old for the end of the year…
Dear Boss: Kavus Torabi and others (The Bird’s Nest, 32 Church Street, Deptford, London, SE8 4RZ, England, Sunday 20th December 2015, 4.00pm) – free entry – information
It’s Chri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-istma-a-a-a-as! Join us as we are joined by avant-psych-rock multi-instrumentalist and all round Interesting Alternative guy Kavus Torabi (Knifeworld/Guapo)…(Mr. Steve Davis sadly can’t join us, as he’s gone skiing). And… come early to witness one of England’s strangest and most resilient midwinter traditions – ‘The Christmas Champions’ (a.k.a ‘The Mummers Play’). Our team of Jolly Boys and Guisers will offer up some seasonal shambols – preparing to entertain you with a short performance featuring William the Great, St George, Bull Slasher, The Doctor and old Beelzebub himself – with original music from James Larcombe (Stars in Battledress/North Sea Radio Orchestra). We’ll be doing it around 7-ish, I expect.
Boss. Wassail!
Beyond all of the throaty bombast I think that most of what’s beyond the mummery is DJ sets, although anyone who’s tuned in to Kavus on the Interesting Alternative Show will know that he can slap together some of the most extraordinarily eclectic sets you could ever hope to hear, featuring plenty of names you’d never heard, while telling cheerful lies about other cult artists who don’t actually exist. Fun to catch, in other words.
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On the subject of DJ sets, here’s one last one…
Café Oto NYE Party with Hieroglyphic Being 6-hour DJ set) (Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London, E8 3DL, UK, 31st December 2015, 10.00pm) – £20.00-£30.00 – information – tickets
We’re ecstatic to be welcoming in the New Year with Jamal Moss (a.k.a. Hieroglyphic Being), who will be flying in especially to Café Oto for a bumper 6 hour DJ set.
Jamal is one of the most unhinged and adventurous artists working in electronic music today; born in Chicago and raised in the heyday of the city’s house music scene, he has gone on to blur the lines between various forms of dance music, free jazz and industrial music, releasing countless singles and LPs, and even recently collaborating with the likes of Marshall Allen and Daniel Carter. His infamously unpredictable DJ sets have gardened considerable praise over the years, so we’re delighted to have him here for this very special occasion.
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And that’s it – although there’ll be a ramble through 2015 sometime between now and the end of January, and I may sneakily shuffle a few previously-incompleted posts back into the dates when I intended to publish them.
Back in London, Momentum Arts are setting themselves going with a Christmas gig tomorrow. They’ve got roots in, and are closely associated with, the Jeremy Corbyn movement, so the politically averse/committed should expect speeches and some familiar political faces to be included in the package along with the music. You can find out exactly who’s speaking, and in some cases what about) by following the information link). Personally, I share quite a few of their sympathies; but here’s what they have to say:
Momentum Arts Xmas Fundraiser with The Marzec Group + Mariela of Venus on the Radio + Maz O’Connor + Keith Burstein + others (Momentum Arts @ POW/The Prince of Wales, 467-469 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8HH, England, Friday 18th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £6.00-£7.00 – information – tickets
Momentum Arts is an open network where creative people from all walks of life and lovers of the arts can unite through a shared passion for contemporary progressive, socially democratic politics. We are very proud of this and always aim (as far as possible) to create organising spaces which are safe for all. For this reason we’ll be operating on a zero tolerance policy for homophobia, racism, classism, transphobia and misogyny. We’re excited to present the first Momentum Arts event upstairs at the Prince Of Wales in Brixton! Get down to hear our excellent speakers, some inspiring music or just have a bit of a dance.
Performing:
The Marzec Group‘s appreciation for the club culture and electronic music genres brings back a reality to jazz; a grit long forgotten. Channelling these influences through a fresh and sophisticated combination of jazz, soul, blues and electronic music, their intense and improvisatory grooves are tailor made for the dancefloor.
Mariela is a girl of many hats; a musician and published author influenced by the likes of Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, Jack White, Sergio Moroder and many others. With longtime collaborator Anthony she formed Venus on the Radio, a band which after recording in Abbey Road studios, was featured in BBC Introducing.
Maz O’Connor is a gifted singer of traditional and self-penned songs. Influenced by the folk songwriters of the 1960s; Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Neil Young along with her literary leanings make for a varied and intriguing body of work.
Keith Burstein is a composer whose work includes controversial operas which have provoked much comment and indignation from the right-wing press for daring to question the political establishment. Most notable among these is ‘Manifest Destiny’ (co-written with Dic Edwards) which portrays would-be suicide bombers who renounce violence and trigger a peace movement across the world. Keith will be performing two songs on piano, with a guest singer.
DJs Dr Punkenstein and Calvin De Kline will also be playing sets.
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In Deptford, something a little more straightforwardly musical:
Firstivus (The Bird’s Nest, 32 Church Street, Deptford, London, SE8 4RZ, England, Friday 18th December to Sunday 20th December 2015, 5.00pm onwards) – free – information & tickets
Two Deptford gig-scene lynchpins, Sinema City and Tom Moody –join forces for this year’s Firstivus – “a fun-filled weekend that will likely proved to be just a little too rhythmically-challenging for the whole family.”
Friday 18th opens, appropriately, with First (about whom no-one seems to know anything), followed by a pair of noisy drum-and-guitar duos (Charles Hayward‘s Bass Drum project with his son Riley Hayward, then the more secretive No One You Know). The music continues with garage-grungers Black Plastic Cardiacs/Bungle/Zappa-inspired progressive punk tanglers The Display Team, Gong-esque jazz-rock collisionists Psychoyogi, and finally by Ted Milton’s veteran schizo-disco art-punks Blurt (who are informed by poetry and puppeteering as much as by rock and roll).
Saturday 19th sports another diverse roster – stoner rockers The Cortège, the ”post-punk/alt-pop/awkward friendliness” of Dead Arm, The All New Greatest Hits Band (in which event organiser Tom Moody fronts the rhythm section of The Display Team), an acoustic Japanese interlude with shamisen player Hibiki Ichikawa and Champagne Dub, a new teaming of established friends: polydiscipline drummer Max Hallett (of A Scandal In Bohemia/Super Best Friends’ Club) and bassist Ruth Goller (Acoustic Ladyland, Oriole, Bug Prentice, many others), who’ve previously worked together in the encym trio. The evening rounds off with Afrobeat-ing Leeds post-punk trio Azores and headliners Boss Terror (who bring “drone, punk, spaced-and-motorway funk” as well as “Cockney tropical surf”).
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To be honest, I’ve got little idea of what’s going to happen with this next one, especially since it’s at The Others – but all of the clues point to a fusion of music, theatre and audience, and what time of year is better for that?
The Christmas Cabareilidh (Troupe @ The Others, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London, N16 5SA, UK, Saturday 19th December 2015, 8.00pm) – £8.00 – information & tickets
A brand new night out that fuses the fabulous fun of cabaret with the gaiety of a good old fashioned ceilidh. Fresh from the success of our last sell-out event, Troupe presents another Christmas Cabareilidh that promises to be even more delightful than the evening’s portmanteau. You’re invited to sit under the glowing haze of fairy lights, as our hilarious cabaret performers fill you with festive cheer. Dance with giddy abandon to the live folk music of our Cabareildih band and fill your stomachs and hearts with mulled wine, minced pies and cheery Christmas carols. Join us at The Others for an evening of irreverent yuletide song and dance- because nothing says Christmas quite like a Cabareilidh!
I’ve been posting mostly shout-outs for gigs this year, so I might just as well submit to becoming Santa’s little shill as regards this month’s sprouting of Christmas/Hannukah/seasonal parties. From the flood on my Facebook account to the rumours and snippets I hear, this is a selection of what’s on for the next week or so (just London this time, though I’ve got some gigs elsewhere ready for the follow-up…)
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Fire Records Xmas Party with The Jazz Butcher Quartet + very special guest + Fire Records DJs (Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN, England, Friday 11th December 2015, 8.00pm) – free – information here and here
The first of several gigs in this post taking place at the Servant Jazz Quarters amongst the bottles, foxes and curios. Fire Records DJs will be playing from their typically wide-ranging hoard of music, and there’ll be two sets of live music. One guest is as-yet unnamed (it’s a surprise) and the other is the latest iteration of the three working decades of absurdist Northampton-based singer-songwriter Pat Fish as The Jazz Butcher.
The Jazz Butcher Quartet sees Pat take a sideways step away from the cunningly meandering rock’n’strum that he’s generally known for, and tease the ever-present jazziness out of his songs and into full focus via a collaboration with three dedicated jazz musicians The Jazz Butcher – drummer Steve Garofalo, trumpeter Simon Taylor and double bass player Steve New. The Steves and Pat were already old buddies from their time in the Northampton music scene, in particular due to their mutual work with the magnificently strange and wise alternative folk singer Tom Hall. The result’s a refreshed acoustic take on Jazz Butcher staples, wrapping itself round the old and new tunes and the playful wandering lyrics with utter flexibility.
The evening is absolutely free, apart from the drinks, but the Servant Jazz Quarters is a small place – so show up early if you want to be able to get in. Some footage of the JBQ is below.
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Swedish singer-songwriter Charlotte Eriksson, a.k.a. The Glass Child is hosting her own Christmas gig online. It sort of fits with her itinerant nature – having left her Gothenburg home at the age of eighteen, she built up both a label and a career while sofa-surfing through London, England and Berlin. You can’t fault the girl for thrift, for ambition and for investigating the art of the possible while living out of a suitcase. Playing a big interactive gig, but from nowhere in particular, certainly suits her style so far.
The Glass Child Christmas StageIt Show (online, Sunday 13th December 2015, 7.00pm CET) – pay-what-you-can – information & tickets
Charlotte’s own message:
Christmas, my children, is not a date. It’s a state of mind. December 13th is the day that Swedes celebrate “Lucia”, which basically means Swedish Christmas songs, gingerbread, tons and tons of candles, mulled wine (Swedish Glögg) and cosiness all around. Basically all of my favourite things!
Lucia is an ancient mythical figure with an abiding role as a bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters. The many Lucia songs all have the same theme: “The night treads heavily around yards and dwellings / In places unreached by sun, the shadows brood. / Into our dark house she comes, bearing lighted candles, / Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.” All Swedes know the standard Lucia song by heart, and everyone can sing it, in or out of tune. On the morning of Lucia Day, the radio plays some rather more expert renderings, by school choirs or the like. The Lucia celebrations also include ginger snaps and sweet, saffron-flavoured buns (lussekatter) shaped like curled-up cats and with raisin eyes. You eat them with glögg or coffee. (Do you guys understand why this is my favourite Swedish tradition?)
So I thought, what better way to celebrate this little Swedish Lucia day than with you! A cosy acoustic Christmas show with music, candles and maybe my first ever performance of a Swedish song. Like always: some new songs, some old songs, questions, chat and some insights behind my new album that I’m currently working on. Please join me for this evening show and we’ll create a memory worth remembering.
Some examples of Glass Child work so far are below.
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I’ve been covering Daylight Music gigs for several years now, but anyone who spends much time around those will know that parent organisation Arctic Circle spreads its activities a lot wider than those Saturday afternoons at Union Chapel – and in this case, a lot higher. Over to them:
‘Santas in Space’ featuring Camden Voices + Left With Pictures + Laish + boy and a balloon (Arctic Circle @ ArcelorMittal Orbit, 3 Thornton Street, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London, E20 2AD, UK, Wednesday 16th December 2015, 6.30pm) – £15.00 – information – tickets
We return to the most spectacular venue in London to bringing our unique brand of Fuzzy Feeling to the 376 feet high platform of the Arcelormittal Orbit. With the sparkling lights of London as a spectacular backdrop, watch as the sculpture becomes an astronomic live music space celebrating the Christmas season! Camden Voices will start the night off with their thirty-strong choir proclaiming yuletide glee followed by a series of the finest fuzziest musicians from our Daylight Music series – from the chamber indie of Left with Pictures to the luscious folk of Laish and the lo-fi pop of Alex Hall’s boy and a balloon. Finish the evening by wrapping your ear around a winter-warming set from DJ Ben Eshmade (Arctic Circle Radio/Chill) with a festive drink or cocktail in hand. Please note this event is for over-18s only.
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If that last one seems to be bordering on the twee for you, another ‘Misfit City’ regular event is offering something typically noisier and rucked-up around the edges:
Baba Yaga’s Hut Xmas Bash with Bad Guys, Melting Hand, Wren (Baba Yaga’s Hut @ Corsica Studios, 5 Elephant Lane, Newington, London, SE17 1LB, England, Wednesday 16th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 – information – tickets
Again, over to them:
Come down to the Baba Yaga’s Hut Xmas party. Three very heavy acts for you, mulled wine. Xmas hats. Getting drunk, the usual. London’s best classic metal band Bad Guys headline; plus the first ever London show for new heavy-psych/improvising jam supergroup Melting Hand (featuring Gordon & Russell of Terminal Cheesecake, Mike Vest of Bong/Drunk in Hell etc etc and Tom Fug of Gum Takes Tooth); and a Baba Yaga’s debut for London post-metal/sludge four piece Wren.
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Featuring “seasonal surprises that are guaranteed to give you a Yuletide glow”, the last Daylight Music concerts for the year excel at being unashamedly cuddly and kid-friendly: not just the harbouring church atmosphere of the Union Chapel, but the laying on of hot chocolate, mince pies and face painting and “a guest appearance by a certain scarf-wearing snowman.” In parallel to all of this, though, there’s the usual thoughtful and intricate Daylight musical overlay, sneaking crafted contemporary folk and pop, classical music, accessible avant-garde experimentation and a little punk rock into the family proceedings.
Misfit City 