Tuesday 20 May, 2008
STARS OF THE LIDmyspace
Lichens website
James Blackshaw myspace
St Giles-in-the-Field Church, 60 St Giles High Street, WC2 8LG
Doors 7.00pm ~ £12 adv. *SOLD OUT*
We've put together another date for beatific neo-classical droners Stars of the Lid following our sold out show at the Luminaire last November, and it promises to be particularly special - a church setting, projections, a string-trio and two killer support acts.
Stars of the Lid
Ambient drone duo Stars of the Lid formed in Austin, TX, by guitarists Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie. From their almost-rock beginnings to the almost-classical fugues of last year's critically lauded album 'And Their Refinement of the Decline' again on Chicago's Kranky records, Stars of the Lid have excelled at designing subtle, minimalist soundscapes composed of droning, effects-treated guitars along with piano, strings, and horns; where volume swells and feedback fills the gap of rhythmic instruments with undulating dynamic movement. Their trusty sidekick Luke Savisky will be in tow to provide his stunning visuals composed of layered 16mm films, and the band will again be accompanied by a string trio.
Lichens
Lichens is the personal vehicle of 90 Day Men front man and former TV on the Radio collaborator Rob Lowe. Lichens live is a transfixing experience, looping wordless vocals and avant-folk fingerpicking to create otherworldly sheets of deep-listening drone. Lowe's encapsulating live show soon captured the attention of Kranky Records and in the autumn of 2005 the label released Lichens' official debut, 'The Psychic Nature of Being'. Vinyl and further collaborative efforts with fringe droners White/Light and Cloudland Canyon have since been issued on the estimable psyche label Holy Mountain.
James Blackshaw
Initially inspired by the guitarists of the 60's Takoma label to teach himself fingerpicking, James Blackshaw writes long-form pieces primarily for solo 12-string guitar that are heavily influenced by minimalist composers and European classical music and which use drones, overtones and repeating patterns alongside a strong inclination for melody to create instrumental music that is both intelligent, hypnotic and emotionally charged. Blackshaw has so far released five solo studio albums on labels such as Important and Bo'weavil Recordings. His most recent album 'The Cloud of Unknowing' on Tompkins Square was listed as one of the 50 best albums of 2007 by The Wire (no. 24) and Pitchfork (no. 34).
Sunday 25 May, 2008
WHITE/LICHENS myspace
John Clyde-Evans website
Chora myspace
Café Oto, Print House, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, E8 3DL (map)
Doors 8.00pm ~ £5adv/£6 door (get tickets here)
White/Lichens
White/Lichens is the collaboration between Matt Clark and Jeremy Lemos' heavy guitar drone group White/Light and Robert Lowe's Lichens, who adds his voice, guitar and piano. While White/Light's name was inspired by the Velvets' feedback-drenched "White Light/White Heat," they also claim as influences Earth 2, Fripp and Eno, and the guitar solo on the title track from Maggot Brain. White/Lichen's debut album was released in 2007 on the Holy Mountain label; the album's five tracks are named after demons from the Goetia, evoked and compelled into obedience by King Solomon, contained in a bronze vessel that was sealed with magic symbols. As a result, the music is alight with giant, pulsating fire storms of oceanic sound and shorter pieces that are the sonic equivalent to opening cans containing mechanical dreams. There is a magic to these sounds that surely goes back to that first electronic musician in Egypt over 2,000 years ago. The tools might be different but the spectacular results are the same.
John Clyde-Evans
Astral Social Club/ Richard Youngs collaborator perhaps better know as Tirath Singh Nirmala recently resumed life under his birth name since returning from the Punjab region of India where he lived for a year. This transition is marked by Clyde-Evans' shift towards more abrasive noise textures from his formerly rather hypnotic, more pastoral drone sculpting. A recent John Clyde-Evan's output 'Apetal Thunderfall' (Digitalis) was recorded entirely during his stay in Jalandhar in 2007 using found software and audio sources. The resulting recordings feel almost primitive. Evans uses his uncanny ability to blend and mix multitudes of tones into sprawling thickets of sound.Over the course of 43 minutes, this music etches itself into your skull, drilling deep without drawing blood.
Thursday 05 June, 2008
VETIVER myspace
Meg Baird myspace
David Thomas Broughton myspace
PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE - Tickets for St Giles still valid for St Pancras Parish Church.
St Pancras Parish Church, Euston Road, London, NW1 2BA (map)
Doors 7.00pm ~ £11 adv (get tickets here)
Vetiver
Centered around the delicate voice and guitar playing of songwriter Andy Cabic and fleshed out with an ever-changing and hugely talented line up that in the past has included such fine players as Devendra Banhart, Otto Hauser and Kevin Barker, Vetiver's sound takes influence from a deep well of influences - late-'60s pastoral folk, tropicalia, '70s west coast rock, and much more beyond.
Vetiver's latest record due for release on May 2008, entitled Thing Of The Past [Fat Cat records] is formed entirely of cover versions of some of the band's favourite songs. In a way Thing of the Past is Andy's mixtape to the world - a collection of some of his favorite songs collected from some of his favorite records, but presented, sequenced, and in this case performed by Vetiver themselves, with a little help from their friends. With contributions included from Vashti Bunyan and Michael Hurley, the 12-song album album features covers of original songs by Townes Van Zandt, Bobby Charles, Elyse Weinberg, Michael Hurley, Loudon Wainwright III, Hawkwind, Biff Rose, Norman Greenbaum, Derroll Adams, Dia Joyce, Ian Matthews, and Garland Jeffreys.
Meg Baird
Meg Baird of Philadelphia's psych-folk troupe Espers, performs an intimate collection of re-worked traditional folk and homespun originals from her acclaimed debut solo album 'Dear Companion' [Drag City/Wichita]. Baird's beautiful and clear-toned vocals firmly stake a claim in the folk lineage alongside such 60s-era artists as Shirley Collins or Anne Briggs.
“[Baird’s] voice adorned only with acoustic guitar and dulcimer, brims with warmth and displays her gift for gorgeous, understated melancholy.” (The Guardian)
David Thomas Broughton
There’s no stage that can resist David Thomas Broughton’s dark and confessional folk sound, which webs albums such as “The Complete Guide To Insufficiency”. Atypical singer-composer he turns the stage into an exploration field to invent sounds, create loops and transform his collection of Will Oldham nods as a tormenting exhibit of personality.
Friday 11 July, 2008
RICHARD YOUNGS &
ALEX NEILSON
Alan Wilkinson / John Edwards / Steve Noble Trio
Phil Minton
Café Oto, Print House, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, E8 3DL (map)
Doors 8.00pm ~ £7adv/£8 door (get tickets here)
Richard Youngs & Alex Neilson
First ever live London blowout for Richard Youngs (electric guitar) and Alex Neilson (drums) pairing brings together Neilson's blistering omnidirectional percussion with Youngs' gorgeously e-bowed and distorted guitar work that harvests a frantic energy just as Tony Iomi as it is Sonny Sharrock.
Richard Youngs is a British musician with a prolific and diverse output, including many collaborations. Born in Harpenden, England, and based in Glasgow since the early '90's. He plays many instruments, most commonly choosing the guitar, but he has been known to use a wide variety of other instruments and objects, including the shakuhachi, theremin, oven tray, dulcimer,and even a motorway bridge! Already legendary free-drummer Alex Neilson has played with most of the musical underground’s heavyweights of this era. This one man folk renaissance movement has left a trail of recordings and thrilling live shows with Jandek, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Heather Leigh, Alasdair Roberts, etc in his youthful wake. As one of the most energetic and ‘in-tune’ free players around, Neilson has a better grasp than most on trying to get across the nature of improvisation.
Alan Wilkinson / John Edwards / Steve Noble Trio
'Wilkinson/Edwards/Noble are producing new, vital music of and for now. You need form to work at this level of spontaneity and certainty and any frequenter of the outer limits of the European music scene could vouch for the jazz porridge these three have put away. John Edwards is such a fixture around the London scene these days it's hard to remember who did bass duty before he turned up. Alan Wilkinson is a ferocious improviser, probably best known for membership of the demon Hession/Wilkinson/Fell trio; Flatouttakenoprisoners saxophonication, squeals, coughs, sustained improvisational experimentation and east London tribal chanting. Fierce and wonderful. Steve Noble is an upright drummer who reminds me of an old photo of Baby Dodds. Articulate, with a surgeon's accuracy, his crisp percussion work has accompanied dancers, funksters, poets and tuba players. But he's not played better than here: great power, allied to grace, a subtle touch and solid time - the drumming drives the music on to real heights. Obliquity: advancing obliquely; deviating from the straight; freedom from the humdrum constraints of time and place.' Bo Weavil recs.
Phil Minton
Minton is a highly dramatic baritone. He is perhaps best known for his completely free-form work, which involves "extended techniques" that are extremely unsettling. His vocals often include the sounds of retching, burping, screaming, and gasping, as well as childlike muttering, whining, crying and humming; he also has an ability to distort his vocal cords to produce two notes at once. As the DJ/poet Kenneth Goldsmith has described it:
Minton's range on this disc [A Doughnut in One Hand, FMP] runs from the sounds of a man choking on his own vomit to the sounds that grandpa makes when you finally decide to pull the plug on his respirator. Minton's like a little kid who's contact-miked himself playing yo-yo with his saliva; he's a baby drooling through his cries; he's mastered the art of the multiple burp; he's perfected the craft of goobering all over his finger and then running it over his lips while moaning. I'd hate to see what his mic looked like after he was done with it. ... Minton ... forces us to ponder the musical qualities of noises that we'd rather not deal with and for that fact alone, makes this an important recording.