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Upset The Rhythm presents...
PAN AMERICAN
RATTLE
Wednesday 7 November
Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA
7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS
PAN AMERICAN began during the
summer of 1997, Mark Nelson started recording a full length album for
kranky at home and at Sound of Music Studios in Richmond, Virginia. Mark
Nelson had been playing guitar and singing in Labradford, but wanted to
explore the possibilities of sampling and computer technology as well
as his interests in dub and techno. The self-titled, debut Pan American
album came out on kranky in early 1998. Nelson continued to work on Pan
American material as he worked with Labradford, learning to play pedal
steel guitar, releasing singles on European labels and getting some
studio time in with engineer Casey Rice. Rob Mazurek from Chicago
Underground Trio and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low contributed
cornet and vocals, respectively. The resulting album, 360 Business / 360
Bypass, was released by kranky in North America (and Blast First in
Europe) in early 2000.
After some landmark albums tracing out his territory of sternum-rattling bass rhythms, rippling electronics and outbursts of static with a dub undertow, Pan American slipped back into our consciousness after a break with Cloud Room, Glass Room (Kranky 2013), now adding the estimable talents of Steven Hess (Cleared/Haptic) and Nelson's former Labradford bandmate, Robert Donne to the project. While Nelson assuredly handles all production, the live feel is definitely more prominent, folding in the patter of Hess's percussion and Bobby Donne's languid bass at the centre of seven beautifully diffuse soundscapes bordering on the frontier lands of post-rock, dub techno and ambient electronica, yet never clearly falling within any one sector. Every element is given ample room to breathe thanks to Nelson's typically intricate production render, allowing Hess's hi-hats and cymbal strokes to really shimmer and Donne's bass to ring out wide and sag purposefully low, but you're never really focussed on either, the emphasis is on the whole ecology of sound and the way it's all in fragile and comfortingly sublime equilibrium; a cats cradle of ambient lushness intended to suspend the listener, pensile in its womb-like amniotic fluidity. In these days Nelson is working on his new project Anjou (2 albums on Kranky) and the next Pan American album. http://www.kranky.net/artists/panamerican.html RATTLE are a Nottingham based duo, Rattle focus almost exclusively on drums and more drums, beneath a delicate overlay of vocal harmonies and percussive effects. Formed by Katharine Eira Brown (also of Kogumaza) and Theresa Wrigley (also of Fists), Rattle began as an experiment in crafting rich songs and melody using drums and voice alone. Their music weaves and intertwines post-punk, minimalism and experimental rock, through off-kilter rhythms, patterns and counter melodies. Often starting by picking out the ghost notes from the drums to develop a melody, the song then reveals itself in rounds and harmonies with layer upon layer of rhythm and vocal, lending a choral feel to some of the tracks. Rattle effortlessly blend the avant-garde with irresistible melodies and hypnotic drum beats, using rhythm and harmony to create a refreshing sound that is utterly new - a pretty rare feat these days when we're saturated with so much music. Rattle's debut self-titled album will be released on Upset The Rhythm and I Own You, look out this November for it's exquisite, follow up entitled ‘Sequence’. |
Upset The Rhythm presents...
SIR RICHARD BISHOP
CIAN NUGENT
Thursday 8 November
Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 44 Pollard Row, E2 6NB
7:30pm | £10 | TICKETS
SIR RICHARD BISHOP is an experimental guitarist whose
improvisations and compositions often reflect the shadow worlds of
India, the Middle East, North Africa, and other points along the Gypsy
trail. Richard is perhaps best known as a founding member (along with
brother Alan Bishop) of experimental ethnic-improv pioneers and
underground tricksters Sun City Girls, who for nearly 30 years have
produced an extensive discography of over 50 full length albums, 20
one-hour cassettes and a dozen 7" records. Sun City Girls formed in 1981
after the Bishop brothers' stint in the group Paris 1942 which also
featured J. Akkari and former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker.
Richard's first solo record, Salvador Kali, was released by John Fahey's esteemed Revenant label in 1998 under the moniker Sir Richard Bishop (the name stuck). The album showcases Bishop's own particular obsessions and roots, drawing from a variety of worldwide sources. Locust Music issued his second record, Improvika, in 2004. This release consists of nine extemporaneous and free-flowing pieces for solo acoustic guitar. In 2005, Bishop began performing relentlessly as a solo artist, playing throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States. He has not stopped since. 2007 saw the album Polytheistic Fragments released on the Drag City Label. It includes works for acoustic, electric and lapsteel guitar, plus two piano compositions. Next up was The Freak of Araby (Drag City, 2009). In May of 2010, Drag City released the album False Flag by Rangda, a new group featuring Bishop, Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire), and Chris Corsano (Flower-Corsano Duo, Flaherty/Corsano, Jandek, Bjork, etc). Richard teamed up with fellow guitarist Bill Orcutt in 2014 for the excellent Road Stories album on Unrock, whilst Drag City again released his most recent solo record, Tangier Sessions. This album sees Bishop's music driven by clever stylistic juxtapositions and attractive melodicism, showcasing his love of Andulsian flamenco guitar style, infusing it with gestures from across Morocco's borders. Richard was also a co-founder of the Sublime Frequencies label (with Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet). The label, whose mission is dedicated to acquiring and releasing obscure sights and sounds from Africa, India, S.E. Asia and beyond, began in 2003 and currently has over 110 releases to its credit. http://www.sirrichardbishop.net/ CIAN NUGENT is a mercurial guitar player and composer from Dublin, Ireland. Cian combines personal passions, such as suburban/coastal blues, traditional musics, late 1960s-'70s singer-songwriters, jazz ambitions, 20th century composition and the Takoma school into a deeply personal style. New album, 'Night Fiction' is Cian Nugent's third album but his first taking on the role of singer-songwriter. Where his previous two albums: 2013's 'Born With The Caul' and 2011's 'Doubles' saw him exploring extended guitar based instrumentals with his band, The Cosmos, here he has reigned things in and focused his songwriting skills. Guitar fans, do not fear, there is still plenty of soloing and fingerpicking here. With 7 songs both solo and with his band, this album amalgamates everything Cian has done up to this point and reveals a more broad palate of influences, including The Velvet Underground, Richard Thompson, Television, Neil Young, John Lennon, Fred Neil, etc. Cian will perform this show as a trio showcasing lots of songs from his recent album,'Night Fiction', out now on Woodsist. |
Upset The Rhythm presents…
MARY LATTIMORE
LUCINDA CHUA
Monday 19 November
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS
MARY LATTIMORE is a harpist living in Los Angeles. She
experiments with her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand harp and effects.
Memories - places, vacancies, allusions - are fundamental characters in
Mary Lattimore's evocative craft. Inside her music, wordless narratives,
indefinite travelogues, and braided events skew into something
enchantingly new. Lattimore recorded her breakout 2016 album, 'At The
Dam', during stops along a road trip across America, letting the serene
landscapes of Joshua Tree and Marfa, Texas color her compositions. In
2017, she presented 'Collected Pieces', a tape compiling sounds from her
past life in Philadelphia: odes to the east coast, burning motels, and
beach town convenience stores. In 2018, from a restorative station - a
redwood barn, nestled in the hills above San Francisco's Golden Gate
Bridge - emanates 'Hundreds of Days', her second full-length LP with
Ghostly International. The record sojourns between silences and speech,
between microcosmic daily scenes and macrocosmic universal
understandings, between being alien in promising new places and feeling
torn from old native havens. It's an expansive new chapter in
Lattimore's story, and an expression of mystified gratitude. A study in
how ordinary components helix together to create an extraordinary world.
Throughout the shifting locales there is one consistent companion Lattimore engages: a 47-string Lyon and Healy harp. The instrument wires directly into her psyche. Pitchfork's Marc Masters posits, "she can practically talk through it at this point; she's created a language." Lattimore's voice sweeps beneath the plucks and washes of opener "It Feels Like Floating," enraptured by the winding current, and reappearing in the second minute of the immense "Never Saw Him Again." The track elevates towards a shimmering apex of static and percussion before organ drone yields to signature halcyon flutters. As with much of Lattimore's work, the track titles are telling; "Baltic Birch" is a somber windswept march that sways gracefully out of step, a remembrance of a recent trip to Latvia where she was struck by the abandoned resort towns along the Baltic Sea. "Hello From The Edge of The Earth" is an earnest reflection of Lattimore's love of the natural world, recognising the thresholds of varying terrains. 'Hundreds Of Days' is out now on Ghostly International. Mary also writes harp parts for songs and recordings, performing and recording with such great artists as Meg Baird, Thurston Moore, Sharon Van Etten, Jarvis Cocker, Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Ed Askew and Fursaxa.
https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/
LUCINDA CHUA is a London-based singer-songwriter whose had a very productive year. The gifted cellist was a member of FKA Twigs’ live band, composed a Tchaikovsky-inspired score for a Russian fashion documentary, and has fostered a wide-ranging community of collaborators from her city’s diverse indie scene—among them Westerman, Ben Vince, and Laura Misch. These wildly different projects show the breadth of the artist’s interests, unified by Chua’s subtle chamber pop touch. Chua’s mode isn’t vigor: her songs are understated and somber, the energy so subdued it’s practically somnolent. Chua used to tour long ago with Stars of the Lid, and indeed that ambient band’s mournful, super-delicate style offers a clear idea of how Chua approaches her music, she was also a member of Felix on kranky records too. There is an unflappable calm present in all of Chua’s work, and on the quiet and intensely-felt recent single, ‘Somebody Who’, she is breaking out on her own. |
Upset The Rhythm presents…
HEN OGLEDD
RAP
Friday 30 November The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, N1 6EU 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS
HEN OGLEDD is a project founded by Richard Dawson and
harpist, Rhodri Davies, with the addition of Dawn Bothwell and Sally
Pilkington. The name of the group is a reference from the Welsh for The
Old North. Each hailing from historically different tribal regions of
the Old North, the musicians in Hen Ogledd challenge the idea that the
ancient world was rife with magic, while the new is infiltrated by cold
logic. This has led to the band’s new album for Weird World, ‘Mogic’,
being created. This third record from the group is a phantasmal blend of
images and ideas that draw upon the mystical and technological. ‘Mogic’
is a discombobulating pop prayer exploring artificial intelligence,
witches, nanotechnology, pre-medieval history, robots, romance, computer
games and waterfalls. This dynamic album of eddies and swirls,
ravishing melodies, hallucinatory textures and rapid rhythms is pinned
down by some deft performances: Pilkinton’s picture-perfect pop and
earthy singing, Davies’ blazing harp splutterations and guitar moans,
Bothwell's twisted telephone techno and bamboozling lyric-bombs and
Dawson's utter bass. No small mention must go to special guest Will
Guthrie, one of the finest and classiest drummers there is, who's all
over this record like long grass on dunes. ‘Mogic’ is released on
November 16th and supported by a short tour of the UK of which, this
show is the London date!
https://youtu.be/5O9BXeFm_yg
RAP is a duo formed of Guy Gormley and Thomas Bush in London in 2009. Their music takes influence from both the rural and the industrial, and their ongoing involvement in with clubs and DJing. Its emotional music to dance to performed in a DJ / MC configuration. They have released two EPs to date via Jolly Discs and Stockhom-based label Born Free. |
Hope the rest of your day goes great, see you later!
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