The fourth helping of Brighton psychedelia from the Confinement Tapes series is more Heavy Lamb, and more Jesse Cutts. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. As was the case last time, while Jesse isn’t the only Lamb player the line between what’s him and what’s Lamb is blurring into the inconsequential. Certainly ‘All Dust’ is an actual Heavy Lamb piece at least: revisited, re-arranged and re-seasoned by Jesse and the other remaining Lambkin (John Gee), with Jesse’s mum, frequent collaborator and core Confinementeer Jo Spratley back on lead vocals, as she was for last month’s take on Cardiacs’ ‘Odd Even’.
It’s tempting to suggest that they should make it a permanent arrangement: Jo sounds happier doing Lambwork than she does in any other project, and the song itself is a delightful complication, unpacking plentiful musical material from inside a sleek indie-pop/rock shell. Threes against fours, sudden teases of hot spaces; voice keeping inside the chords but finding any conceivable space to hop around inside there; Propelled by Jesse’s cunning, slippery bass the chords themselves obligingly fold over and flip into new spaces so as to give the melody more space to roam and loop back. The Cardiacs influence is strong, but so’s the love for any batch of raucous goodtime English sunshine-pop. The lyric’s as complicated, digressive and warm as the music; something about fragile hearts surviving on the tide, something about continual replenishment. So far, it’s peak Lamb: not just an ideal bridge between rock disco and broader music, but great fun in its own right.
As with ‘All Dust’, the two instrumental pieces also contained in the package are new recordings, all played in their entirety by Jesse; in contrast to some of the more archival odds and sods on Confinement Tapes releases, these were only put together this month. In ‘Gutter Pigeon’, wobbled piano encountered during a downpour switching into orchestrated chord clambering, a lazy little pavement circus. After a shimmery start, ‘Small Things’ compresses and unpacks an album’s worth of development in a single six-minute tune. Lovely. If there’s a prog tone to all of this, it’s in keeping with those leisurely Kent’n’Sussex prog tones from Canterbury, Herne Bay and all of the other Mellow-on-Seas these kind of sunny benevolent English meanders come from.
From up the Thames estuary (and following his life-blasted, gutter-country cover of ‘The Dark End of the Street’ at the end of last month), Jack Hayter continues his lockdown broadcasts with a visit to 1990s Irish indie. As he recounts, “in 2004 an American band provided the British with a national anthem… ‘Mr Brightside’. Back in 1992 an Irish band did the same thing with ‘Where’s Me Jumper’. In the time of Corona we’re not dancing in the disco bumper-to-bumper. Neither are we going out shopping much… so this is all a bit pants, really. Dunno why I did this.. and I played bum notes too.”
Yes, the bum notes are obvious (not least because Jack lampshades each one of them with a quirk and a chuckle), but his warmth, humour and charm – even via webcam – are so engaging that it’s all forgivable. More importantly, it’s what he brings to the song that matters more than a finger-slip or two. The original Sultans of Ping version of ‘Let’s Go Shopping’ – the product of young men imagining a contented, domestic afterlife for a reformed raver and pillhead – almost vanishes under the sweet conscious hokiness of its string arrangements and its honky-tonk drum click. Jack’s version (basic voice and guitar) gently trims off the hints of irony and any tongue-in-cheek trappings.
As I mentioned last time, few people have such a skill at uncovering the tender core of a song. Watching Jack’s treatment is like watching a great little bit of subtle pub theatre story unfold. In his hands, it’s no longer something simple and jolly, but something grown touching and tender. Love for one’s wife, a nostalgia for wilder times but no regrets of any kind; embracing grown-up responsibilities (and burdens) with a sunny chuckle – “you can push the trolley – and I’ll push the pram.” And then, after this cheerful jaunt, lazy and affectionate, the cloud comes: lockdown bleakness casting a shadow over Jack’s face for a moment as the world shrinks and chills, and even dull everyday pleasures become fraught with peril. “Let’s go shopping, / we can wish away our fears. / Let’s go shopping, / the shops are really… near.” Jack plays this cover down as some kind of throwaway. Nothing he ever does is really a throwaway.
Billie Bottle‘s life has been in flux for a while – the transition from “he” to “they” to “she”, the rearrangement of day-to-day living and bands and dressing and sundry ways of doing things. Still, Billie’s an unfailingly positive and proactive character (as shown in her series of songs with non-binary musician/activist Kimwei – the most recently-aired one being here) and most of the unsettledness had eased down just before the plague blew in this spring.
From indoors, she’s just revealed some multi-layered new work taking on and reflecting both her innate calm and musicality, and the impact of an unsettled world. For now, though it’s just a lyrics video, with Billie announcing “well me lovelies, it feels like the right time to share one of the projects that have been on the go here in Bottledom over seven weeks of UK lockdown. My auntie read me the Ted Hughes poem, ‘Wind’, down the phone and I was struck by its power and pertinence. It blew itself into a kind of song, ‘Wind: Upheaval Imminent’. May you also be filled with its gustiness!”
As a member of Mike Westbrook’s band, Billie’s an heiress to his chamber-jazz poetics as well as to the playful jazzy lilt of the Canterbury sound. Both were well in evidence on last year’s ‘Grazie Miller’ EP, and they’re just as clear on ‘Wind: Upheaval Imminent’, a Hughesian account of a storm which “wielded / blade-light, luminous black and emerald, / flexing like the lens of a mad eye.”). Initially it’s an interplay between Billie’s high androgynous tenor and a sketching, dabbing piano; with drums, subtle blocks of organ, a near-subliminal bass, and a few judiciously-placed sound effects and concrete-instrumental coloration making their way into the mix.
Mostly, though, it’s the words and the voice. Billie responds to a setting in much the same way that Robert Wyatt handles a cover, and her carefully-timed leaps from note to note (all with an underlying, broken-up sense of swing) recapture the poem’s sense of awe; its trepidation and exultation, its illustration of the way that fragility shades strength. (“The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace, / At any second to bang and vanish with a flap: / The wind flung a magpie away and a black- / back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house / rang like some fine green goblet in the note / that any second would shatter it.” ) She uses the sprung challenges of jazz – the rhythm eddies, the intrusion of unexpected harmonic currents – to dig into the hinted upheaval in Hughes’ words.
As with the poem, the music ends unresolved – “now deep / in chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip / our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought, / or each other. We watch the fire blazing, / and feel the roots of the house move, but sit on, / seeing the window tremble to come in, / hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.” Structurally brilliant, captivatingly emotive, and an excellent marriage of text and music, it’s one of the best things Billie has ever done in a persistently ripening career.
Heavy Lamb/Jesse Cutts: ‘CONFINEMENT-release4’ The Confinement Tapes, CONFINEMENT_release4
Download/streaming single
Released: 4th May 2020
Get it from: free/pay-what-you-like download from Bandcamp Heavy Lamb/Jesse Cutts online:
Jack Hayter: ‘Let’s Go Shopping’
self-released (no catalogue number or barcode)
Video-only single
Released: 10th May 2020
Get it from: currently view-only on YouTube Jack Hayter online:
Billie Bottle: ‘Ted Hughes – Wind: Upheaval Imminent’
self-released, no catalogue number or barcode
Video-only single
Released: 11th May 2020
Get it from: currently view-only on YouTube Billie Bottle online:
“This old earworm in my head while I take my lonesome walk in the time of Corona. A very rough and ready recording and, sorry, got some of the words wrong. Stay safe and stay well.” Warm, self-deprecatory sentiments from Jack Hayter; under voluntary lockdown in Gravesend, broadcasting via webcam, and toying with his pedal steel and with this venerable “best cheatin’ song ever”.
As ever, he plays himself down. Certainly he can’t complete with the deep Southern soul tones of James Carr from the original version: so regal that they transformed the Penn/Moman tale of stolen backstreet fumbles into the tragedy of a king felled by love. Jack’s voice, in contrast, sounds as if it’s been on the sticky end of about a hundred too many bar fights, losing a lung along the way. As ever, though, it’s a strength – a magnificent, humanising flaw which lends his originals and his interpretations a battered and compassionate humanity.
Compared to the majesty of Carr’s pair of cheaters, Jack’s pair of illicit lovers may be past their best; possibly ignorable shunt-asides in the game of life, perhaps stuck in wrecks of marriages, but neither age nor circumstances kills off instinctive passions. Jack’s rendition tempers the tragedy with an air of flinching defiance: his lovers are going to feel the weight come down on them eventually, but they’re going to drain these moments for whatever all-to-rare life savourings present themselves. “I know time is gonna take its toll / We have to pay for the love we stole / It’s a sin and we know it’s wrong / Oh but our love keeps coming on strong…”
Bijou Noir‘s Eurotrance version of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ (originally broadcast as part of the Give|Take label’s COVID-20 Live Streaming Series) really ought to be laughable, but it isn’t. The original Beatles version was a benchmark, their front-and-centre pop suddenly kissed by raga and the avant-garde with none of any of the elements involved being diminished. Four decades of airplay might have dulled its impact, but that’s no reason to deny that impact: the feeling of a song curling up at the corners like a magic carpet, of time running every whichway; and beyond that, the ‘Book of the Dead’-inspired call for the death of ego and the willing surrender to the journey beyond it.
Staying true to his own methods, Bijou Noir’s Augustus Watkins sacrifices much. He ignores the original’s specific psychedelic dislocation; he strips the song back to the melody line; and then he refurbishes it with layer upon layer of blushing skirling synthwork, of the kind mined by Simple Minds back in the start of the ’80s. In many respects, it’s the clean edit, and we know what kind of butchery that can involve.
Augustus gets around this by tapping into a different egolessness: that of the communality of the dancefloor, where hundreds of solipsistic experiences can merge into a collective spiritual one. What’s left after all of the 1960s sonic wizardry is removed? Lennon’s instinct for tune and directness; a set of instructions which need no technology and, indeed, next to no culture; added to this, Bijou Noir’s knack for the triggers of clubland and the transcendent post-humanity of electronica.
In contrast to the two songs above, ‘Diggin’ It’ might be original, but perhaps it isn’t the best song that a revitalised Holly Penfield has to offer these days. The chorus is pure, hoary corn and it doesn’t have the tango grace of last year’s ‘La Recoleta’. Still, there’s a winning exuberance to its roadhouse rock swagger and its brassy flourishes. Further evidence of Holly’s ongoing trip into roots rock, it’s happy to be a simple celebration of love and contentment, and it brims over with the fulfilment that was missing from the angsty synthpop of her Fragile Human Monster years.
With time having added a little extra whisky grain to her gorgeous, gutsy voice, Holly’s spreading the satisfaction – “Never thought I could get this far, / but if love is all then that’s what you are. / With your secret smile and forgiving eyes / your laughing style makes you Buddha-wise / Drank from cups of tears and trust, / paradigms of pain. / Thirsting for / something more -/ and now my glass is overflowing in the pouring rain.” In the spirit of sharing, this is a free download from here, and you can cop a direct quick listen here…
Jack Hayter: ‘The Dark End of the Street’
self-released (no catalogue number or barcode)
Video-only track
Released: 28th March 2020 Get it from: view on Vimeo and YouTube Jack Hayter online:
Bijou Noir: ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ Give|Take, GT012 (no barcode)
Download/streaming single
Released: 28th March 2020 Get it from: free download from Give|Take online store oy pay-what-you-like from Bandcamp Bijou Noir online:
Holly Penfield: ‘Diggin’ It’
Raymond Records (no catalogue number or barcode)
Download-only free single
Released: 31st March 2020 Get it from: free download here Holly Penfield online:
I like the idea of a mobile arts venue. A seabound one is even better. LV21, a forty-metre decommissioned former lightship, once kept other ships from foundering on the rocks along the Kentish coast. Now it’s a floating art space and performance facility, moving intermittently between Thames estuary towns. Although it’s been resting at a long-term Gravesend mooring since summer 2016, LV21 still fits the measure for art-on-the-move (while its sister vessel, LV18, performs a similar function at a similar mooring up the coast at Harwich).
Wherever it happens to be at the time, LV21 opens up in full each summer for the overlapping International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend and International Lighthouse Heritage Weekend, allowing visitors to explore the vessel and immerse themselves in lightship and lighthouse history from around the world. Also on offer at the event this year – this weekend – are lessons in tying sailor’s knots, a soldering and radio workshop (build your own pocket amplifier and speaker) and Nicola Pollard of stripped-down drama company Up The Road Theatre inviting discussion for the next UTR production, ‘Peril At Sea’ (set to explore “stories, memories, myths and songs of smuggling, shipwrecks and survival” and to tour around English coastal towns including Lowestoft, Portsmouth and Wells-next-the-Sea).
Of course, it’s music rather than knots that’s attracting my interest. Also on hand is Jack Hayter – wandering multi-instrumentalist, onetime Hefner member, ex-Dollboy-er, Ralegh Long and Papernut Cambridge collaborator; the writer and performer of memorable contemporary folk songs and a relatively recent new Gravesend resident. He has two interesting – and very different – nautical music productions going on in the bowels of the ship.
The first of these is ‘Flashes & Occultations’, a sonic installation in the generator room comprising “a seventy-seven-minute-long sonic improvisation on lighthouse life.” It was originally released by London indie label Where It’s At Is Where You Are in 2017 as part of their ‘Seven@77‘ compilation, on which it loomed massively over the thirteen other pieces (each of them clocking in at a measly seventy-seven seconds). In typically dry and witty fashion, Jack describes it as a salvage job on a foolhardy, ambitious effort to sidestep the requested seventy-seven-minute pedal steel improvisation in favour of an attempt to make “a transient sound sculpture from the identification patterns of distant lighthouses, buoys and light vessels; to convert their flashes and occultations into small voltages using telescopes, light-sensitive resistors and photodiodes, then to use those derived signals to trigger samples and control analogue synths. I was overambitious and my experiments were largely a technical failure. I also got cold and muddy while recording foghorns. Worse still, those supposedly unique and exciting light patterns often turned out to be “one flash every twenty seconds” or “red occulting thrice every minute on a Tuesday. Then I ran out of time.”
Salvaging the project wreckage, Jack returned to the original brief – improvising on pedal steel around field recordings, stirring in documentary dialogue, eight-bit synth pads and calling in a few friends and favours to obtain further ingredients: poetry, wordless harmony singing, harmonium drones and electronic oscillator. Despite his disclaimers, he came up with an effective, charming piece – at different points lulling, humorous and lyrically haunting – which absolutely deserves its second life amongst the Gravesend solenoids and gauges, where Jack claims he might play along with it “from time to time” on live fiddle. Here’s a short excerpt with accompanying video (filmed up at the Firth of Forth) – also, if you’re curious but can’t make it down to LV21 this Saturday, here’s the whole piece in audio.
Jack’s second musical contribution of the day is the one-off free live gig he’s performing in the ship (on deck? in the hold?) during the evening, in which he’s going to be performing “a set of my songs and stories which will loosely follow the river from Deptford down to Gravesend finishing up at Margate, with diversions.” Here’s where you get to see Jack in the raw – a rangy, weatherbeaten feller with a voice as chewed-up and resilient as an ancient poster still clinging onto a seafront fence. His recent album, ‘Abbey Wood‘, is one of 2018’s under-the-radar triumphs, a compelling song collection recorded in defiantly threadbare folk fashion but with infusions of avant-garde turn-up-and-play instrumentation. Its ace in the hole, however, is Jack’s songwriter vision. As ever, he writes with a documentarian’s timing and eye for sparse, telling detail; with a poet’s knack for sifting detritus and forgotten trash to find significance; and with a determination to tell stories from those broad, deliberately ignored margins of society which actually make up its overlooked majority.
Jack’s songbook includes tales of post-war slump and of the rural working class swept into conflict; the hopes and dreams of sewage workers; the luckless POWs sunk with the SS Andora Star; the fumblings of early love under the shadow of the Cold War. Crucially – and despite his sharp, assured literacy – he always writes these from the inside and on the level, rather than as booky preachings from above. These are stories about people on lean means, living within strung-together moments: a compassionate, sometimes subtly angry cinema of life’s grain outside the slick and aspirational. They vouch and voice for the itinerate, the sidelined; the workers who just get on with it; the kids with foggy futures stirred and impelled by vast indifferent forces.
Jack’s delivery of these tales, meanwhile, is battered, warm, inclusive, strangely dignified, and mesmeric. Check out an earlier review I did of one of Jack’s previous live performances; or have a dip into the selection of tracks below.
Jack Hayter @ International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend 2018 Light Vessel 21, (currently moored at) St Andrews Quay, Royal Pier Road, Gravesend, Kent DA12 2BD, England
Saturday 18 August 2018
• ILLW full event duration: 12.00pm-11.00pm
• Flashes & Occultations installation: 12.00pm-4.00pm
• Jack Hayter free live set: 7.00pm-11.00pm
– free event – information here, here, here and here
There’s a pair of interesting female-focussed gigs coming up over the next two weeks in two of London’s more creative music corners, mingling elements of latterday folk, post-punk, Rock In Opposition, experimental noise and avant-garde pop…
Partly due to the pressure of time, and partly due to the eloquence of the press releases, I’ll let them speak for themselves…
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Club Integral presents:
‘Anonymous Was A Woman’: Anne Garner + Mary Currie + Lis Stewart IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, Waterloo, London, SE1 7LG, England
Thursday 9th November 2017, 8.00pm – information here and here
“A night of music by women. Three very different sets from three extraordinary artists.
“Anne Garner‘s lyrical work is inspired by curiosity and a sense of wonder, a hunger to explore and explain the emotional inner life. The magic lies in the ambiguity, in the unanswered question and the breath between notes. It’s in poetry and harmony that Anne finds her safe space, in enveloping and beguiling moods, a place from which to speak the unspoken. Anne will be performing music from her upcoming album, joined by Jack Hayter on pedal steel guitar, Nick Samuel on saxophone and James Murray on guitar.
“Mary Currie is a singer perhaps best known for her work with Gareth Williams (This Heat). Williams and Currie recorded a limited-run cassette-only album, ‘Flaming Tunes‘, in 1985, which over time has become a classic of the lo-fi DIY underground. Since Gareth’s death at forty-eight from cancer, Mary has worked with several collaborators including Howard Jacques (These Records, Bermuda Triangle Test Engineers) and Mick Hobbs (Officer!) in folk group Bucket, and with Mick, Howard and Monica Ruud on a project called Whole New Concept. Mary will be be singing with Alison Craig (Shötley Crüe) – essentially traditional sea songs and modern folk songs.
“Lis Stewart plays mostly folk music on a 1918 Lachenal 55 key Maccann Duet concertina. She plays from time to time with south London folk collection The No Frills Band. For Iklectik, she will be performing English, French and Scandinavian folk tunes, both traditional and modern. Expect driving rhythms and haunting melodies.”
A quick reminder of the two upcoming London concerts launching this year’s Folk at The Foundling season…
“Folk at the Foundling brings traditional music from the British Isles and beyond to the unique surroundings of the Foundling Museum, showcasing folk legends and breakthrough artists. Set in the our intimate Picture Gallery, the evenings offer the chance to explore the Museum and learn about our rich musical past. Guests can wander through the beautiful rooms whilst enjoying a drink, before hearing music from some of today’s best folk artists, brought to you by The Nest Collective.”
The Nest Collective presents:
Folk At The Foundling: Three Cane Whale The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, St Pancras, London, WC1N 1AZ, England
Friday 24th March 2017, 6.30pm – information here and here
“Multi-instrumental acoustic trio Three Cane Whale comprises Alex Vann (mandolinist for Spiro), Pete Judge (trumpeter for Get The Blessing and Eyebrow) and Paul Bradley (acoustic guitarist for Scottish Dance Theatre). They combine the influences of folk, minimalism, classical and film music to produce intricate works with a cinematic sweep and intimate delicacy, something “fascinating, remarkable, and impressively original” (‘The Guardian’), in which “the aroma of muddy leaves and old nettles is almost tangible” (‘The Observer’).
“The band’s eponymous debut album was recorded live in an 18th century Bristol church, and chosen by Cerys Matthews as one of her top five modern folk albums in the ‘Sunday Telegraph’. Second album ‘Holts And Hovers’ was recorded in twenty different locations, including churches, chapels, a greenwood barn, an allotment shed, the top of a Welsh waterfall, and the underside of a Bristol flyover: it was awarded ‘fRoots’ Editor’s Choice Album of 2013. Tonight they’ll be performing an intimate unamplified double set.”
The Nest Collective presents:
Folk At The Foundling: Jimmy Aldrige & Sid Goldsmith + Samantha Whates The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, St Pancras, London, WC1N 1AZ, England
Friday 28th April 2017, 6.30pm – information here and here
“Acclaimed folk duo Jimmy & Sid (Jimmy Aldrige and Sid Goldsmith) are fast building a reputation for their arresting and moving performances of traditional and original folk song from the British Isles. Their sensitive musical arrangements and stunning vocals bring an integrity to their performances, telling stories of hardship, joy, struggle and celebration. Their second album ‘Night Hours’ has been well-received by critics, with its driving banjo and guitar arrangements alongside close vocal harmonies.
“Samantha Whates‘ beguiling voice draws on the contemporary music scene, whilst retaining a strong affinity with the traditional music of her Scottish roots. She has performed throughout the UK and at major London venues including the Union Chapel, the Vortex and Cecil Sharp House: her 2013 debut album of original works, ‘Dark Nights Make For Brighter Days’, has enjoyed critical acclaim and radio play on BBC 6 Music.”
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On a different tack, the beginning of April also sees sinister textures massing on a corner of the south coast…
Kino-Teatr presents:
‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ – With an Original Live Soundtrack Kino-Teatr, 43-49 Norman Road, St. Leonards, Hastings, East Sussex, TN38 0EQ, England
Saturday 1 April 2017, 7.15pm – information here, here and here
“This classic 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene, is considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema. It tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.
“The live music for this performance is provided by Non-Blank (Oliver Cherer, Jack Hayter, Riz Maslen and Darren Morris) who perform semi-improvised suites of music based on recordings, schemes and strategies made and devised in and around various locations, collections and libraries of sounds. Having sprung from London’s improvised music scene, Darren is a seasoned performer, composer and producer (recent projects include the soundtrack to the Sundance premiered film ‘We Are What We Are’, pre-production of the internationally performed ‘Massive Attack v Adam Curtis’ and touring work with former Beta Band-er Steve Mason). Riz is well known for her long list of recordings and projects under the Neotropic moniker; while Oliver has been trading for the last decade under his musical alias Dollboy. Jack (formerly guitarist with pop band Hefner) has carved out a niche as a pedal steel player, along with his unique story-telling combining electronic loops, samples and traditional instruments.
“Non-Blank use old tape machines, organic/analogue/digital instruments and voices to improvise around and react to each venue they play in, responding to each environment they inhabit. Recent shows (at various venues including the Union Chapel, H20 Finland, the De La Warr Pavilion and Coastal Currents) have included spontaneous compositions involving church organs, a male voice choir, audience members and school children armed with hand bells and bloogle resonators. The group bring their unique and often off-kilter talents in these journeys of discovery: no two shows are alike and it is their aim to bring these performances to as many new audiences as possible, particularly in public spaces.”
(Below is a forty-five video of Non-Blank in action in 2014 at the De La Warr…)
Some more imminent shows, mostly of slightly skewed varieties of pop.
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Arctic Circle presents:
Daylight Music 226: Boy and a Balloon + Russell Swallow + Jack Hayter Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, England
Saturday 4th June 2016, 12.00pm – free/pay-what-you-like event (suggested donation: £5.00) – more information
Subtitled “Inside/Out”, this particular Daylight Music session is a showcase for some of the long-running concert series’ regulars. As they put it:
“Under the moniker Boy And A Balloon, Alex Hall is a Hampshire born singer-songwriter. A London busker, and once a session guitar player (touring extensively for Motown legends Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) he now creates skewed indie music – reviving songwriting styles from the glory days, and fusing it with contemporary and chamber acoustic instruments.
“Dismantling the idea of cleanness, Alex accompanies his delicate vocals on his mainstay guitar (a bashed up three-quarter-size nylon-string version played through a StreetCube amplifier) to create glitchy and humanly imperfect timbre. Merged with a simplistic songwriting style to underpin and iron the creases out of the music, Boy And A Balloon attempts to create a new brand of idiosyncratic pop songs. It is a true and purposeful statement and philosophy that songwriting will shine through roughness. Taking major influence from musical icons from all his troubadour heroes of the ’40’s right up to the ’70s, Boy And A Balloon is about the innocent and inevitable loss of something human, precious and innocent – so apparent in today’s fast paced and overwhelming technological world.
“Calling on the classic grooves of James Bay, the storytelling of Tracey Chapman, and the gorgeous ambience of Howling, Russell Swallow‘s sound is brooding, confessional, indie. His songs and stories are driven by sensual imagery & sticky melodies, powered by rich tenor vocals, synths and driven guitars.
“Previously of the mighty Hefner (as well as Spongefinger and Dollboy), multi-instrumentalist Jack Hayter‘s beautiful, heartbroken music is full of folk-tinged dissonant woe. He’s a self-styled ‘singer and writer of no-tune showtunes’ and a ‘rotten-gutted, scorched-throated pedal steel machine’: a unique songwriter given time and freedom to blur the lines between the trad. folk of his influences and the London anxieties of his past with dirty fuzz, biting wit and of course, ‘the universal language of a drunkard’.”
(Jack usually appears at Daylight Music on acoustic guitar and voice: elsewhere on this blog there’s a detailed review of one such occasion.)
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When they emerged in London about five years ago, Weird Dreams perpetuated the well-worn image and substance of a literary indie band in a classic four-man mould. They jangled their guitars; they drew on ‘60s-tinted Beach Boys and girl-group inspired pop; then, citing a fascination with the underbelly cinema of David Lynch, they subverted that pop with dark and bitter lyrics about loss, misunderstanding and cruelties. To seal the deal, it emerged that they’d first been formed after a chance conversation in a retro clothes shop. Their debut album, ‘Choreography’, seemed tailor-made to appeal to the Edwyn Collins, Smiths and Belle & Sebastian fans. After that, it all seems to have gone wrong, though possibly wrong in the right kind of way. Dark hints at a four years of “loss, derealisation and the constructing of a new identity” suggests that the band hit multiple meltdowns.
Whatever happened, it’s seen the Weird Dreams base shifted from north-east London to Paris, left singer and songwriter Doran Edwards as the only remaining member, and altered the band’s sound from concise, short-story guitar power pop into something looser and more textured; more in keeping with their name; more electronic, decidedly psychedelic and definitely hypnagogic. Though you can still hear the skeletal outline of their previous musical identity, Weird Dreams’ current way of working cites unsettling photojournalism and avant-garde electronic composing as influences – alongside the grand synthtronic filmscapes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and the DIY radiophonic pop mistings of Broadcast. It sometimes sounds as if Doran might have kept in touch with his inner Lynch, but also turned up a little heat under his inner Splet.
Doran’s new approach also allows him to unhook from pithy storytelling and dip into a questing, introverted fantasy. One of the new songs, Calm, explores autogenic therapy – or to put it another way, the consciously-willed emptying-out of stress, body part by body part, suggesting a simultaneous emptying out of soul and identity, even as the music itself travels through phases of mood-shift from disassociation to rapture and rhythm. Another song, Heaven’s Hounds, revisits memories of 1980s synth pop and wraps them in a swathe of trickling dream pop guitar arpeggios and sampler gusts (the results echoing both the narcosis swoon of My Bloody Valentine and the unearthed-technology-meets-folk-reinventions of Eyeless In Gaza).
Performing as a Doran-fronted five-piece, the reinvented band are playing the following venues this month:
The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LE, England, Wednesday 8th June 2016, 7.30pm – information
Rough Trade East, 91 Brick Lane, Spitalfields, London, E1 6QL, England, Friday 10th June 2016, 6.30pm (instore) – information
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Tricity Vogue (photo by James Millar)
If you’d prefer something a little more vivid and straightforward to fill your week, or just someone with dirtier jokes – in fact, if you happen to be in London and fancy a homburg-hatted cross between the dear-departed Victoria Wood and the still-very-much-in-yer-face Amanda Palmer, with a couple of twists of Lorraine Bowen and Marie Lloyd – then you could check out Tricity Vogue instead. The ukulele-toting queen of “thinking women’s burlesque cabaret” (and part-time tongue-in-cheek gender warrior) has an upcoming bar residency at London’s Wilton Music Hall which coincides or clashes with the Weird Dreams tour. You can expect her to deliver her own blues or jazz-inflected numbers about vampires or drunken penguins, list-songs about lady pirates and paeans to espresso coffee (which, naturally, accelerate into a distracted frenzy); and she’s a dab hand at nicking and recycling tunes (turning My Favourite Things into My Drag Queen Wet Dream’, or repurposing the ‘Doctor Who’ theme for a song about mundane parallel universes).
Tricity’s take on music hall proves that it’s an art form which, like Wilton’s itself, might need a careful patch-up, brush-up and infusion of new talent occasionally, but which doesn’t need that much refurbishment and alteration to remain fun. Plus, while she’s more than happy to deliver some snags along with the fluff. Alongside the kitschy daftness and double-entendres there are surprising delicate songs about lost origami, a sense of humour which ranges from cute to gallows (sometimes hitting both ends simultaneously, as in Pet Assassinator) and a set of ribald, pointed memoirs from an chequered love-life.
Wilton’s Music Hall presents:
Tricity Vogue
Cocktail Bar @ Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley, Whitechapel, London, E1 8JB, England
Tuesday 7th June to Friday 10th June, 9.00pm – more information
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 wise and strange 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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On the Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week, there’s a pair of simultaneous double-evening multi-band events happening within a mile of each other. The first of these is the Memphis Industries shindig – “two nights of festive fun” from one of the smartest small British pop labels at work today, with six bands and a host of present giveaways including limited edition art prints.
Lost Christmas – A Memphis Industries Christmas Special with Dutch Uncles, Outfit and NZCA LINES, The Go! Team, Menace Beach and Slug (Oslo, 1A Amhurst Road, Hackney, London, E8 1LL, England, Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th December 2015, 7.00pm) – £16.50 for each night / £30 for both nights – information & tickets – more information
Monday night kicks things off with three of the label’s bands “art-rocking till they drop”. The striking prog-pop babble of Dutch Uncles headlines; doom-toned Liverpudlian tech-pop band Outfit play the middle set; and (following a brace of high-concept singles over the course of the year) one-man white-pop/R&B hybrid NZCA/Lines opens the show.
Tuesday promises “unparalleled noisy fun, and possibly sailor outfits”. Flipzoid Brighton pop crew The Go! Team headline, their lineup a little different from that of recent years but their magpie polymusical energies still intact. Leeds indie supergroup Menace Beach are in the middle; while reformed noiseniks and north-eastern eclecti-pop upsetters Slug open things up with a live band including Peter and David Brewis of Field Music.
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The second of the double-night events is the one run by Gare du Nord Records, a pair of concerts which have an almost familial feel, revolving around certain hub projects (Hefner, Death In Vegas), certain locations (Walthamstow, Canterbury, Vienna), certain other sympathetic labels (Fortuna Pop, Audio Antihero) and a smart, sometimes wordy aesthetic.
Arrivée/Départ II – Gare Du Nord Records 2-Night Revue (Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN, England, Monday 14th December & Tuesday 15th December 2015, 7.30pm) – £5.00 each night – information – tickets on the door
Both nights are revues – a long main set from each of the two special Austrian guests, bolstered by short mini-sets from the other bands. There’s a lot of personnel crossover. Expect the same faces to keep popping up, reshuffled.
The Monday gig’s main set comes from Martin Klein, the Viennese singer-songwriter whose piano songs albums of and witty, deadpan performances are making him a rising star in Austria and Germany, and whose questioning, sometimes undercut romanticism should translate across further borders. Among the short sets are appearances by two former Hefner members: their frontman and prime creative force Darren Hayman and their multi-instrumentalist Jack Hayter, both now established as significant and highly individual solo songwriters (and while Darren might be the better known of the two, don’t underestimate Jack – I was enchanted by a battered set he played at Union Chapel last year).
Other players on the Monday bill are Cockney surf-punks Pit Ponies, Allo Darlin’ guitarist Paul Rains (taking a solo step-out from his main band’s classic indie-pop styles) and the “prim and improper” antifolk punksters Lucy’s Diary. There are also two acts who specialise in the soft-and-sharp – Cambridge’s Alex Highton (whose folk-, pop- and jazz-smattered songs conceal quick jabs of wit beneath their light and luscious surfaces) and Vienna-via-Canterbury trio Rotifer(creators of pitch-perfect country-tinged indie pop songs, sallies and snarks, and who also serve as a kind of scattered house band since various members play in six of the acts on offer during the night).
The Tuesday gig’s Viennese treat headliner is Bon Bon Beast – two multi-instrumental singer/producers, one of them Austrian (Ernst Tiefenthaler) and the other Swiss (Eloui), filtering their diverse past experiences into a straightforward acoustic jolly. Among the support acts, former Weather Prophets/Ellis Island Sound man Pete Astor continues his low-key live renaissance, and former Death In Vegas guitarist Ian Button brings along one of the various lineups of his psych-dusted pop project Papernut Cambridge. Since many of the people who play in the band are appearing in (or as) other acts during the evening, it’ll have been an easy roundup: Papernut Cambridge backing singer Helene Bradley, for instance, is performing a solo set as Citizen Helene (showcasing the soulful delivery and wistful irony which places her somewhere between Mama Cass and Kirsty MacColl).
Also playing are baroque orchestral pop songwriter Ralegh Long (presumably detached from the small orchestra which tends to follow him around) and Emma Winston’s one-woman Deerful project (miniature synths and brittle stories). Two Kentish acts round out the evening: lo-fi Canterbury pop band Picturebox and Whitstable’s Alex Williams (whose swerving career so far has encompassed indie rock with Fleeting Things, folk music with New Old World and lo-fi outsider clatter-pop with The Psychotic Reaction, as well as the odd ABC cover).
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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.
More Christmas gigs shortly, including some events elsewhere in Britain…
Pausing only to remind you that the last week of October includes two of the Pierre Bensusan acoustic gigs at the Half Moon in Putney (which I mentioned in the previous post), here are the last of my selected London gigs for the month, plus one for the start of November.
As ever, this is just a small sampling of what’s on in town, but it’s what’s caught my attention. Actually, there are some more concerts in the week which I’m also wanting to mention – Holly Herndon, Jenny Hval, Laura Moody – but those are for a subsequent post. Let’s clear these ones first.
Alastair Penman album launch @ The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Monday 2nd November 2015, 8.00pm) – £5.00 to £15.00
British saxophonist Alastair Penmanis rapidly emerging as a dynamic and versatile performer and composer, presenting contemporary music in new and exciting ways. He is soprano saxophonist with the award-winning Borealis Saxophone Quartet, who released their debut album ‘The North’ in 2014 and are Park Lane Group Young Artists 2014/15. In an orchestral setting, Alastair has had the pleasure of working with conductors including Sir Roger Norrington, Dimitry Sitkovetsky, Baldur Bronnimann, David Hill and Stephen Cleobury, and in the jazz arena he has performed with Mike Gibbs, Clare Teal, Steve Waterman, Mark Nightingale, Gareth Lockrane, Julian Arguelles, Liane Carroll, Issie Barratt and John Helliwell.
Although classically trained, Alastair enjoys exploring many musical worlds; such influences can be heard in both his compositions and performances, which often transcend genre definition. Having obtained masters’ degrees in both Information and Computer Engineering (University of Cambridge) and Saxophone Performance (Royal Northern College of Music), Alastair has a strong interest in the fusion of live saxophone performance with electronic effects, backings, and enhancements to create often previously undiscovered sound-worlds. He will be performing at the RNCM Saxophone Day in November 2015, presenting new works for saxophone and electronics.
At this concert, Alastair is launching his debut album ‘Electric Dawn’, which continues his exploration of the fusion of saxophone and electronics, creating rich soundscapes and haunting melodies as well as showcasing his explosive technique. Produced by legendary saxophonist and producer John Harle, ‘Electric Dawn’ features commissions from Jenni Watson, Geoff Sheil and Dan Harle, new arrangements of works by Graham Fitkin and Marius Neset, and several of Alastair’s own compositions.
Several of the ticket deals for the evening include a copy of the album. More information and tickets are here.
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Fenella Humphries (photo by Gary Barton)
Fenella Humphreys: Bach to the Future Part 3 (The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Tuesday 3rd November 2015, 7.30pm) – £10.00-£12.00
Violinist Fenella Humphreys presents the third of her Bach to the Future projects at The Forge, featuring commissions of new works by Britain’s leading composers to accompany Bach’s glorious Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin. The third concert includes new works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Adrian Sutton alongside extraordinary music by Bach, Sibelius, Biber and Ysaye.
Programme:
Jean Sibelius – En Glad Musikant
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies – new work (2015)
J.S. Bach – Sonata no. 3 in C major BWV 1005
Heinrich Biber – Passacaglia in G minor
Adrian Sutton – new work (2015)
Eugene Ysaye – Solo Sonata no. 3 ‘Ballade’ op. 27
Fenella is also making studio recordings of the project for Champs Hill Records over two CDs – ‘Volume One’ was released in August 2015.
I’ve previously covered, in passing, the Labyrinths series of international live music events (presented by Thirtythree Thirtythree – the team behind St John Sessions – and Nawa Recordings) which are taking place throughout 2015 across Beirut, Cairo and London. Here’s another one, featuring music spanning Palestine, France, the Ukraine and Sussex and mingling Western and Eastern classical, jazz, folk baroque and Arabic forms.
Lubomyr Melnyk + Kamilya Jubran & Sarah Murcia + James Blackshaw (St John Sessions @ St John at Hackney Church, Lower Clapton Road, Clapton, London, E5 0PD, UK, Tuesday 3rd November 2015, 6.30pm) – £16.50
Lubomyr Melnyk is a Ukrainian composer and pianist who has pioneered ‘Continuous Piano Music’. Classically trained and greatly affected by the minimalist movement in the early 1970s, he has developed his own unique language for the piano, named after the principle of maintaining a continuous, unbroken stream of sound. The rapid sequences, coupled with Melnyk’s awe-inspiring ability of playing up to 19 notes per second with each hand simultaneously create a tapestry of sound that transcends sonic waves into a very tangible, physical experience. Having spent much of his artistic life in obscurity, Lubomyr Melnyk’s work was recently rediscovered by a whole new generation of music lovers, offering the piano virtuoso a well-deserved renaissance with world-wide tours.
Kamilya Jubran (Palestinian singer and oud player) and Sarah Murcia (French jazz double bassist and composer) will present the UK debut of their ‘Nhaoul’ project as a quintet also featuring Régis Huby (violin), Guillaume Roy (viola) and Atsushi Sakai (cello). Kamilya and Sarah’s first meeting dates back to 1998, when Sarah joined Sabreen – an innovative Palestinian group whose lead singer was Kamilya – for an album and concert tour of Europe and the Middle East. ‘Nhaoul’ (Arabic for “loom”) was first created together as a duo as a result of a profound exchange around their respective musical interests.
The basis of their duet rests on an amazing musical and aesthetic convergence which has solidified through delving deeper into several compositions by Kamilya based on prose poems, so as to give to the oud a total rhythmic and melodic freedom. Sarah has approached them in a vertical way in adding her harmonies. Her string arrangements, cast against Arabic music, deal with the economy, colours, matter. Kamilya Jurban, on the other hand, comes from a highly melodic and modal culture and thinks her music horizontally.
Over several years of reflection and mutual learning, the two musicians worked to create a common language: Sarah made a point of learning to play the quarter-tones of oriental scales and memorize long labyrinthine sentences – of the oral tradition – which are the rule in Arab music. Kamilya Jubran, in turn, began to internalise the methods of limited transposition and complex rhythmic structures (asymmetry, polyrhythm), following Sarah’s suggestions. The texts selected for setting are chosen from the work of contemporary poets; or are, for ‘Suite Nomade’, excerpts from Bedouin poems from the deserts of the Sinai and Negev published by Clinton Bailey in his collection ‘Bedouin Poetry’ (Saqi Books, reissued in 2002). Kamilya Jubran sings them in dialect remembering the Bedouin women she came across in her childhood.
Hastings-based guitarist and pianist James Blackshaw primarily plays an acoustic 12-string guitar in fingerstyle fashion (for which he has grown long pick-like fingernails on his right hand). A musician blending ideas from assorted folk cultures around the world and from the classical concert hall, James has been compared to cross-genre guitar explorers such as Bert Jansch, Robbie Basho, John Fahey, Jack Rose and Leo Kottke. He has released albums on the labels Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Static, Digitalis Industries, Important Records, Tompkins Square, and Young God Records.
James has previously collaborated with Lubomyr Melnyk on ‘The Watchers’, a 2013 collection of improvised duets recorded at the Vortex Jazz Club. It’s possible that they might repeat the engagement at this gig.
Heading back to Camden Town and the Forge, here’s something familiar in a new setting…
The Arensky Chamber Orchestra presents: Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 (The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NL, UK, Wednesday 4th November 2015, 8.00pm) – £12.00
Led by international prize-winning conductor William Kunhardt, The Arensky Chamber Orchestra has established itself as one of London’s most exciting young ensembles since its debut in 2009 – dedicated to revitalising the concert experience with theatrical and brilliant productions of classical music. Described as “deeply moving” by ‘The Independent’ in 2014, the ACO has produced numerous broadcast recordings on national radio and regularly performs in the country’s leading venues, including Cadogan Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room.
The orchestra’s performances fuse electric performance with lighting design, “live” programme notes delivered from the stage and unusual venue use. Past collaborators have included leading soloists such as Jennifer Pike and Benjamin Grosvenor, guest directors including the leaders of the Philharmonia, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and institutions and festivals ranging from the Royal College of Art to the Greenwich and Docklands Festival. The ACO also regularly combine their performances with specially created food and drink menus and commissioned work from other artists, including video DJs, artists, actors and dancers.
The ACO return to The Forge with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s opulent Second Symphony, arranged for chamber orchestra. Revered as the greatest pianist of his time, yet scorned as an out-of-date and sentimental composer, Rachmaninoff’s music is an oasis of drama, colour and feeling in the increasingly rational and cold 20th Century musical world. Whilst all Rachmaninoff’s music sings with a heart-wrenching honesty, his Second Symphony is perhaps the most personal piece he ever wrote. Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony – a huge failure – had led to three years in the musical wilderness, to crushing self-doubt and writers block. He published his Second only after intense courses of hypnotherapy and years of reworking the manuscript.
As a result, it is a true autobiography of his soul: it speaks of fierce patriotism, exile and of a yearning to return to a home that was now lost to him. It tells of his worldwide triumphs, yet also of his failings and self doubt. The “dies irae” chant lurks in the shadows, a morbid reminder of Rachmaninoff’s preoccupation with death. But above all it sings with extraordinary beauty, sumptuous colour and unending, impossible-to-forget melodies. Join the ACO as they unravel the luxurious sound-world of this symphony with excerpts, short performances and stories from Rachmaninoff’s life. Then sit back and enjoy perhaps the ultimate Romantic symphony, and the world premiere performance of its new arrangement.
“Music is a calm moonlit night, the rustle of leaves in Summer. Music is the far off peal of bells at dusk! Music comes straight from the heart and talks only to the heart: it is Love! Music is the Sister of Poetry and her Mother is sorrow.” – Sergei Rachmaninoff
Several things have drawn me toward central and south American music recently. One of these things is Alex Ross’ fascinating history (in ‘Listen To This’)of the journey of the chaconne from Africa to south America, and from there to Spain, moving on through Europe and feeding into Monteverdi, the emerging baroque music atmosphere at Versailles, and Bach (there’s a version the whole story at Alex’ blog, here). The other is the Harp Consort’s wonderful 2002 album, ‘Missa Mexicana‘, which carefully constructs an impression of a Spanish colonial church service in Baroque-era Puebla City, threading secular dances through a Juan Gutiiérez de Padilla mass, with African, traditional Spanish and fresh Mexican musical ideas intertwined. With both of these in my mind, it was intriguing to see this advertised…
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Jaime Martín/Arturo Chacón-Cruz perform Mexican Magic (Royal Festival Hall @ Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, Waterloo, London, SE1 8XX, UK, Friday 6th November 2015, 7.30pm) – £9.00 to £65.00
Experience a dazzling programme of Mexican classical music as we celebrate The Year of Mexico in the UK. Mexican classical music is about more than folklore and colour. Eclectic and sophisticated, it spans a broad spectrum of musical possibilities and embodies the spirit of Mexico in all its richness and diversity. Join London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jaime Martín for the slithering sounds of Revueltas’ ‘Sensemayá’, Ibarra’s ear-teasing ‘Sinfonía No. 2 ‘and Márquez’ toe-tapping ‘Danzón No.2’ alongside a selection of popular songs from Mexico (sung by tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz).
Programme:
Ricardo Castro – Intermezzo from ‘Atzimba’
Charles Gounod – L’amour… Ah! lève-toi, soleil (from ‘Roméo et Juliette’)
Federico Ibarra – Sinfonía No.2 (Las Antesalas des sueño)
Various – Mexican Songs
Leonard Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from ‘West Side Story’
Silvestre Revueltas – Sensemayá
Arturo Márquez – Danzón No.2
The Facemelter is back with some more heavy noise for metal fans…
Krysthla + Colours To Shame + Darkeye (The Facemelter @ The Black Heart, 2-3 Greenland Place, Camden Town, London, NW1 0AP, UK, Friday 6 November 2015, 7.30pm) – £6.00-£8.00
A night of schizophrenic tech metal and brutal groove, barely staying still for a second, with a lineup of some absolute beasts from all over the country.
Forged into being in 2012, Krysthla are a five-piece from Northamptonshire proudly boasts four of the original members of UK metal legends Gutworm and influential frontman Adi Mayes of metal heavyweights Deadeye. After spending over two years writing and perfecting a new sound and crafting tracks worthy of taking on the music world once again, Krysthla are without a doubt already stamping their mark on the UK metal scene, with the release of their debut album ‘A War Of Souls And Desires’. With multiple tours and major festival appearances across Europe and the USA, including Hellfest Open Air Festival and Bloodstock Open Air and gigs with Soulfly, SikTh, Napalm Death, American Head Charge and Amen, plus label releases with Europewide distribution through Plastic Head and music videos on MTV, ‘Scuzz’ and ‘Kerrang!’ under their collective belts, they know how to lay down truly crushing performances.
Glaswegian four-piece Colours To Shame are also bringing their furiously unique sounds to London. Taking an all-encompassing, no-holds-barred approach to creating heavy music, the band have been setting themselves apart from their peers since forming in 2010. A schizophrenic blend of heavy music, these guys don’t quite sit in any one genre, which we love as it keeps us on our toes. This show will be in support of their most recent release; ‘Who Is The Fifth?’, self-released digitally in November 2014. Mixed and mastered by Justin Hill (SikTh) it has been awarded the track of the week by ‘The Guardian’ and ‘Team Rock Online’.
Replacing the previously-scheduled Darkeye as second support is Zephyr, a London-based progressive metalcore band who’ve formed, written and recorded a debut EP, ‘An Odyssey For The Living’ – and received rave reviews for it – all in the space of nine months. This is an outfit that’s turning heads with their visceral intensity combined with surreal grandeur; a combination of the ferocious and the sublime.
Finally, here’s the slightly topical Saturday afternoon show from Daylight Music. Familiar songs this time, but a mystery lineup.
Daylight Music 205 – A Girl and a Gun: James Bond Special (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, UK, Saturday 7th November 2015, 12.00pm – 2.00pm) – free (£5.00 donation encouraged)
Everyone knows the iconic music of James Bond, and record label Where It’s At Is Where You Are love it so much that they’ve created ‘A Girl and A Gun‘, an excellent online album of covers of Bond themes. Since 25th March this year, WIAIWYA has released one new track for the project every week, aiming to end up (on 7th November) with Ed Dowie rolling off a version of the Bond theme straight from the Union Chapel’s organ.
This week, Daylight Music is hosting a special 007 show celebrating the album, featuring many of the bands on the compilation. Grab your black tie for the occasion, and expect some rather special surprises.
More information on the concert is here, with up-to-date information on the ‘Girl And A Gun’ project here. (They’re keeping quiet on who’s actually performing, but if you want to make some educated guesses, here’s who played on the album – Jack Hayter, Robert Rotifer, The Weisstronauts, World Of Fox, Michaelmas, Sly And Unseen, Darren Hayman, Citizen Helene, Deerful, The Great Electric, Crock Oss, Papernut Cambridge, The Elderly, Seks Bomba, Jeff Mellin, Picturebox, Ralegh Long, Glass, DJ Downfall feat. Theoretical Girl, The Left Outsides, Pam Berry, Charm Bracelet & Ramesh, Maija Sofia, Snow Leopard Brotherhood, Tim The Mute, Keiron Phelan with Drita Kotaji, Rory McVicar, Ms Goodnight, Rebecca Jade aka Lady Lowrey, The Fenestration, The Vatican Cellars, Cee Bee Beaumont and the Leaf Library.)
More upcoming September gigs, from tomorrow through to Saturday 19th…
a.P.A.t.T. + Tom O.C. Wilson Ensemble + 4tRECk + Some of My Best Friends (The Windmill, 22 Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, London, SW2 5BZ, UK, Thursday 9th September 2015, 8.00pm) – £6.00/£7.00
a.P.A.t.T. , 2015
A Brixton evening of skewed and experimental pop, shading off into other directions including R’n’B, improvised instrumentals and assorted prankery. (Age restriction – 18 years minimum)
The a.P.A.t.T. of today take a skilled yet cheeky approach to playing progressive pop that owes as much to Kurt Schwitters and the Chapman Brothers as it does to ABBA and Zappa. In touring new album ‘Fun With Music’, a.P.A.t.T. have condensed their vision-quest into forty-five minutes of hooky, style-busting live band material, evading capture at every turn. This is the band that swaps instruments live mid-track and has even run its own small country for an evening: it’s a restless and relentless take on 21st century music and performance through a lens of knowing, winking, quintessentially British humour.
The Tom O.C Wilson Ensemble offers forward thinking pop music that combines classic songwriting values with boundless musical curiosity. Wilson describes himself as “a composer and performer driven by the desire to create music that doesn’t exist but should”, and his work (ranging from experimental pop albums to concert pieces for amateur orchestras) has won praise from Field Music, Michael Finnissy and Devendra Banhart among others.
The USSB of Hamburg-based Some Of My Best Friends is a Unit of Science, Socialism and Booty. Some Of My Best Friends use tunes and words. Some Of My Best Friends don’t approve of unnecessary effort. Some Of My Best Friends never travel with more than one case. Think psycho dub, garage soul, trap, and Karl Marx’s booty in sequin overalls.
In existence for years and years, Sam Callow’s 4tRECk project makes music based around spontaneous improvisation, chance, using various instruments (piano, guitar, violin, accordion, home-made stringed instruments, percussion, voice) the “wrong” way, ideas, and detailed composition. The results are broad, with a melancholic side.
Friday 11th sees the launch of a “new regular night, bringing you new sounds and non-traditional world music, folk, contemporary classical, trip hop and downtempo music. We start with some truly breathtaking bands…” This kind of blarney could be an attempt to heat up some very thin and bland material indeed, but the people behind Whispers & Hurricanes are Chaos Theory, who already sweat bullets to bring interesting jazz, post-prog, metal and post-hardcore into and out of London, so I think we can trust them. Here’s the bill:
Seven-piece band Mishaped Pearls are at the forefront of a very exciting new wave of UK folk. Their adventurous song combination of the ancient and the new finds an echo in their musical make up – banjo, saz baglama, bodhran, violin and mandolin mix with acoustic guitar, keyboards, electric bass and drums, all led by the mezzo-soprano voice of Manuela Schuette. Their music’s roots in tradition expand into progressive folk and rock, eastern modal music and shows elements of contemporary classical influence. Their most recent album ‘Thamesis’ has received outstanding reviews across the media.
Consisting of multi-instrumentalist and composer Caroline Jago and drummer Lesley Malone (both also of Sol Invictus) plus singing violinist Éilish McCracken, Seventh Harmonic are a neoclassical darkwave ensemble creating sensual euphoric epics that draw on a great diversity of influences. The music blends an intoxicating kaleidoscope of rhythmic intensity and soaring vocals with ethno-symphonic overtures, defying categorisation yet always beating with a dark romantic heart.
Forged amongst the hustle and bustle of North London’s folk scene, TEYR (“3” in the Cornish language) are a trio of formidable musicians who showcase the many sounds of the British Isles. With roots running from Ireland to Wales to Cornwall, James Gavin (guitar and fiddle), Dominic Henderson (uilleann pipes and whistles) and Tommie Black-Roff (accordion), the players thrive on close interplay and pushing the possibilities of acoustic music. Having met on the traditional music scene through late night sessions, each performer holds an intuitive sense of folk music, evident in their deft arrangements and compositions. The trio draws influence from neo-folk groups such as Lau, Kan and Lúnasa, whilst harnessing an innovative combination of strings, reeds and voices. With this distinct mix, TEYR strike an enigmatic path through the current folk wave.
Tickets from here – note that this is another 18-and-over event.
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Admittedly the following is late rather than early September, but if you look forward to Saturday 19th you can anticipate spending from noon until early afternoon admiring architecture to a soundtrack of chamber classical, contemporary folk and experimental pop, and then head into the fringes of south-west London for something a little scruffier and garage-friendly.
In conjunction with the Open House London Weekend (which takes in their home venue of the Union Chapel as well as a wealth of other fantastic London architecture – check it out), Daylight Music are doing a special double-length all-ages Saturday session. Details below…
Daylight Music 199: Sean O’Hagan, Ellie Lovegrove/Illumina, Pip Mountjoy + Elephant (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, UK – Saturday 19th September 2015, 10.00am-2.00pm) – free entry, suggested donation £3.50
Sean O’Hagan is a legend of the indie scene, initially from his work in Microdisney and latterly from his time in The High Llamas who have been following their own lights for the past eighteen years, making records and essentially occupying their own genre in doing so. Their music is timeless; elements of retro and modern share the space, creating a unique time and place that is outside the lines of history as we experience it. Today Sean will be providing a solo performance.
Consisting of Ellie Lovegrove (trumpets) and Richard Moore (church organ), classical chamber music duo Illumina were formed in 2012 for a bespoke private recital and enjoy performing a wide variety of music, including works by Handel, Bach, Purcell, Stanley, Elgar, Damase, Takemitzu, and Eben.
Up-and-coming singer-songwriter Pip Mountjoy has been championed by BBC Introducing. She has toured the UK extensively, supporting the likes of Ryan Adams, John Smith, Slow Club, playing festivals such as Glastonbury, Isle of Wight and Cambridge Folk, and leaving audiences “simultaneously entertained, depressed, amused, bemused and delighted.”
Elephant is an intriguing creature hand reared by Lymington-based Alex Hall. Armed with a laptop and a modest collection of instruments, he set forth in piecing together and recording a collection of material inspired by his love of experimental indie, ’60s surf pop and more contemporary lo-fi electronic music. This is the result.
Approximate timings:
10.00am Doors
10.30am Elephant
11.30am Illumina
12.30pm Pip Mountgrove
1.30pm Sean O’Hagan
In between, there are musical interludes by unsigned indie-folk duo Swallow & The Wolf (about whom there’s an ever-growing buzz) and by Jack Hayter (the multi-instrumentalist perhaps best known for work with Darren Hayman and Hefner, and on this occasion providing pedal steel improvisations similar to his Dollboy work plus “the odd jazz standard” though his solo performances of his own engagingly battered folk songs are also well worth seeing).
In the evening, in Kingston-upon-Thames, there’s a benefit gig: another in the ongoing series of support fundraisers for the cruelly-stricken Tim Smith of Cardiacs. Even if Cardiacs in the raw, uncompromising original isn’t quite your thing, if you’ve got any interest in slightly complicated, roughened pop and garage-band grit, go along anyway. These are among the warmest of gigs…
From The Pond: a benefit for Tim Smith featuring Redbus Noface + 7shades + Sterbus + t.b.c. (The Fighting Cocks, 56 Old London Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, London, KT2 6QA, UK, Saturday 19th September 2015, 7.00pm) – £10.00
“A multi-faceted psychedelic pop-punk benefit gig… four extraordinary bands (all Cardiacs-y), beautiful and exclusive merchandise… every penny raised goes to Tim.”
Redbus Noface is the band project from latterday recording engineer and long-ago Cardiac Mark Cawthra. The first Redbus Noface album, ‘#1 If It Fights The Hammer, It Will Fight The Knife’, was released in 2011 and represents many years of Cawthra songwriting and musical ideas – a sturdy, beautifully crafted art-pop gem in the tradition of assorted English mavericks such as XTC.
Led by Neil Spragg, 7shades are a musical project which “pays tribute to the music of Tim Smith and Cardiacs – but with all original music” – a sometimes-nine-piece band delivering vigorously convoluted pop and blurts of punky, proggy, psychedelic noise, all equipped with a fantastical and humorous edge and no fear of either looking or sounding ridiculous.
Sterbus is from Rome, but his musical heart is in the shaggier, dreamier end of 1990s Britpop and American indie rock (Blur and Cardiacs, Elliott Smith and Nirvana, Supergrass and Pavement) and also delves happily into prime prog (with King Crimson, Zappa, Porcupine Tree and the fuzzier rockier chunks of the Canterbury scene). Self-releasing – and working mainly solo – he’s mixed this menu into a series of albums of warm double-jointed oddpop. Returning to the Fighting Cocks for his second Smith benefit gig, he’s performing in duet with his regular band foil Dominique D’Avanzo (him on guitar, her on clarinet, recorder and mouth harp, and both of them singing) for what he describes as “something very Sea Nymph-y and full of chords that Tim would love.”
Sadly, one of the scheduled bands has had to pull out… but if you’re still interested in the garage-rocker sounds of The Spencers (who “make noises. Loud noises. Noises that make you all happy and sad and angry… and sometimes, all at the same time” via a grime of guitars, low-budget organs and rock-siren vocals, plus distinctly Cardiacs twists of wandering harmonies and attention-deficit mood‘n’pace changes) here’s a taste of them anyway.
The event will be compered by writer and comedian Robin Ince (he of ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage‘) who’s apparently “bringing a friend. And may be doing a little music.” There will also be visuals by South Coast animator Cyriak Harris, whose hilarious, playful and slightly disturbing videos have been a YouTube staple ever since he delivered a monster-movie ‘EastEnders’ tribute to the BBC nearly a decade ago…
Ongoing news regarding From The Pond (including any last-minute substitutes for The Spencers) is here and tickets are here.
More September gigs shortly, plus a look at October and further on.
Prescott – as beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella…
Prescott + A Sweet Niche + V A L V E (The Harrison, 28 Harrison Street, Kings Cross, London, WC1H 8JF, UK, Wednesday 26th August, 7.00pm) – £5.00
Prescott are a percolating musical alliance between Kev Hopper (who once played elasticated bass guitar for Stump and went on to participate in offbeat experimental projects from laptop improv to pocket pop), veteran avant-indie/improvising drummer Frank Byng (of Crackle, Snorkel and the Slowfoot label) and polymath keyboard player Rhodri Marsden, whose curiosity, industry and dry wit has drawn him through a patchwork career of interesting music (including The Keatons, Zuno Men, The Free French, Gag and Scritti Politti) and deft, wry journalism on everything from drum machines to dating disasters.
According to the Harrison’s blurb, the band deliver “a curious mix of the melodic and discordant with syncopated funky, skewed beats and lopsided, sometimes jabbing riffs that emerge from a complex web of musical interactions and expand or contract like sections of a stuck record.” The band themselves talk about “jabbing heteroclite riffs, circular rhythmic patterns, vibrating harmonic clashes, irregular note intervals, all contrasted with pockets of beautiful melody” and their trick of “microriffing” – repeating the same tiny melodic segment for “as long as they can hold their nerve” (out of a sense of persistence, a zest for irritancy or a desire to pay homage to loop culture) .
I’ll add that while these descriptions make Prescott sound like a set of ticks on a battered art-music bingo card, they’re actually one of the most entertaining and even danceable bands I’ve seen in recent years; pumping out a surprisingly melodious batch of hiccups, peculiar grooves and inventive colours, and sometimes seeming to plug into a monstrous late-Miles Davis synth-fusion groove (entirely by mistake).
I’ve written about A Sweet Niche before, having encountered them a few years ago when they were roaring the roof of a cellar off in Spitalfields. Between them, guitarist Keir Cooper, baritone saxophonist Oliver Sellwood and drummer Tim Doyle have an intimidating list of project credits. In this band, however, they make a brinksman’s racket of free-form punk-jazz, bringing in whatever else they’ve learned from excursions into rock, theatre work and the thornier ends of contemporary classical.
Making the most of their disparate backgrounds (Oliver is a qualified musical academian, Keir more of a non-institutional outsider, newer boy Tim somewhere in between) they’ll attack their musical ideas at full blurt and with plenty of noise, like angry men stripping the wreck of a ca. They’ll toss disparate fragments up into the air and rant about them, but then sideswipe expectations with a run at a cute theme. Last time I described them as “if Bagpuss had joined Slayer”, and they seemed to like it. See what you think.
V A L V E is the solo project of Chlöe Herington – reedswoman, experimenter and Magma/Zappa/Peter Maxwell Davies fan. She’s best known for blowing taut, assertive bassoon and saxophone parts in Knifeworld and Chrome Hoof, but has also worked with lo-fi art-rockers Jowe Head & The Demi Monde and elusive psycho-lounge band Made By Monsters, as well as a clutch of contemporary classical projects. V A L V E places the bassoon to centre stage, surrounded by Chlöe’s clusters of technology and (when required) selected guests. At the Harrison, the project will be appearing in “its first non-gallery show ever”, which might either involve letting it off the leash or playing a little more safe. (Come and find out.)
Dotted around Chlöe’s other band commitments, V A L V E releases have been sparse so far – odd fits and starts on Soundcloud or YouTube plus a couple of Bandcamp tracks. Here are a few tasters, including the soundtrack to a dinosaur battle, something which Chlöe developed from a piece of music found in a skip, and a more sombre contemporary classical effort.
Up-to-date gig information available here and here. (Or, if none of this really floats your boat and you’d prefer some lustrous art-rock croon, here’s one last linking plug for the Tim Bowness/Improvizone gig at the Boston Music Room on the same night.)
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On the Saturday, it’s time to welcome back Daylight Music, who are starting up a new series of free midday gigs (and are still writing their own promo blurb, which makes things a little easier for me).
Daylight Music 198: Pete Astor + TEYR + The Left Outsides (Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, Islington, London, N1 2UN, UK – Saturday 29th August, 12pm to 2pm)
Ex-leader of The Loft, The Weather Prophets and numerous other esteemed acts, Pete Astor creates timeless chamber-pop, brimming with wry lyrical insight and haunting melodic hooks. Now recording for Fortuna POP!, he has his first full length album for four years ready for release. This has been made with Ultimate Painting, Veronica Falls and Proper Ornaments main man James Hoare along with Pam Berry (Black Tambourine, Withered Hand) on vocals, Alison Cotton (The Left Outsides) on viola, Jack Hayter (Hefner) on pedal steel and guitar, Emma Winston on synth bass (Darren Hayman’s Long Parliament, Owl & Mouse) and Susan Milanovic (Feathers) on drums. The recent single, ‘Mr Music’ has been very warmly received with Astor and band recording sessions for Marc Riley and headlining the Church stage at this years’ Indie Tracks festival among many other recent live outings. For the Daylight Music show Astor will be joined onstage by James, Pam, Alison, Jack, Emma and Susan making a seven-piece group playing Astor’s songs, old and new, for an edifying and nutritious lunchtime performance.
Forged amongst the hustle and bustle of North London’s folk scene, TEYR (“3” in the Cornish language) are a trio of formidable musicians who showcase the many sounds of the British Isles. With roots running from Ireland to Wales to Cornwall, James Gavin (guitar and fiddle), Dominic Henderson (uilleann pipes and whistles) and Tommie Black-Roff (accordion), the players thrive on close interplay and pushing the possibilities of acoustic music. Having met on the traditional music scene through late night sessions, each performer holds an intuitive sense of folk music, evident in their deft arrangements and compositions. The trio draws influence from neo-folk groups such as Lau, Kan and Lúnasa, whilst harnessing an innovative combination of strings, reeds and voices. With this distinct mix, TEYR strike an enigmatic path through the current folk wave.
The Left Outsides are Mark Nicholas and Alison Cotton, a London-based husband and wife duo whose atmospheric, hypnotic songs echo Nico’s icy European folk, pastoral psychedelia and chilly English fields at dawn. Their second album ‘The Shape Of Things To Come’ has just received a welcome and much-praised vinyl release on Dawn Bird Records and an album of new material is currently being recorded. The duo have played across the UK, France, Germany and in the USA; and have recorded radio sessions for Stuart Maconie’s Freakzone, Tom Robinson’s show on BBC6 Music, Pete Paphides show for Soho Radio and Tom Cox’s radio show.
As ever, Daylight Music is free, although you’ll have to pay for your tea and cake, and further donations are encouraged. Full up-to-date information is available here.
