May salutations!
Thank you all so much for coming out
to see Bill & Twig and Escape-ism this previous week, what an
eclectic pair of shows they were! Upset The Rhythm have got four more
shows coming up over the next two weeks so we thought we’d fill you in
on those today.
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Upset The Rhythm presents…
CALVIN JOHNSON
THE CATENARY WIRES
ROSE MERCIE
Monday 6 May
HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP
(3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates)
7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS
CALVIN JOHNSON has been rockin'
it hardcore throughout the NW corner of the United States of America
since way back. Olympia, Washington is where he hangs his hat. Beats,
rhymes and lots of dark chocolate are how he whiles the hours. Calvin’s
work in underground culture started as a teenage fan volunteering at the
local community radio station, KAOS-FM. He moved on to writing for
fanzines, organizing music and film events, playing music in various
ill-fated bands. Calvin established K Records, a locally oriented media
outlet, in 1982. In 1993 Calvin founded Dub Narcotic Studio in which he
has documented the work of Mirah, the Blow, Versus, Built to Spill, Fitz
of Depression, Make-Up and Little Wings. It has also been the incubator
of many Calvin experiments in collaboration and self-expression, such
as Beat Happening, Halo Benders and Dub Narcotic Sound System. The
decade of the double zeroes saw him set out into the world, acoustic
guitar in hand, as a solo artist of musical platitudes. This show sees
Calvin as troubadour, baring his soul and playing tracks from his
wide-ranging opus ‘A Wonderful Beast’, released last October on K
Records. Dig.
https://calvinjohnson.bandcamp.com/ THE CATENARY WIRES are Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher. They specialise in emotive indie duets, capturing the spirits of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, and releasing them into modern Britain. In their previous lives, Amelia and Rob featured in indie bands Talulah Gosh, Heavenly and Tender Trap, and released several records on Calvin Johnson’s K Records. A new Catenary Wires LP is due this Summer too, look out! https://www.tapeterecords.de/artists/the-catenary-wires/ ROSE MERCIE is, above all, the coming-together of Charlène, Inès, Louann and Michèle. The chemistry between these four musicians from Paris is incredible, and propels each song in a swarm of imagery. Melancholic and moving, percussive and vocal, shooting glances to an elsewhere which has never felt so close; a place where Electrelane are dancing to The Shangri-Las. Rose Mercie’s debut album is out now on Jelodanti Records SDZ Records and Monofonus Press. https://rosemerciemonofonus.bandcamp.com/album/rose-mercie |
Upset The Rhythm presents…
THE ESSEX GREEN
TOM O.C WILSON
LOWELL THOMPSON
Friday 10 May
Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA
7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS
THE ESSEX GREEN are a
neo-psychedelic pop outfit from Brooklyn, NY, via Burlington, VT. The
band is primarily composed of songwriters Jeff Baron, Sasha Bell, and
Chris Ziter and specialises in a classic sound inspired by 1960s–1970s
pop and folk in the tradition of bands like The Left Banke and Fairport
Convention. The group’s new album ‘Hardly Electronic’ was released
through Merge last summer and is stacked with harmonies, upbeat melodies
telling melancholy tales, layers of keys, and sparkling Telecasters.
Their time-honored custom of fusing obsession with spontaneity has been
refined through experience and wisdom. ‘Hardly Electronic’ explores the
evolution of old friendships, the sadness of losing touch, the
inadequacies of technology, and finally, the desire for reconnection
with songs like “Bye Bye Crow” and “Slanted by Six.” Themes of
connectivity are on display in the war cry chorus of “Don’t Leave It in
Our Hands,” while songs like “Bristol Sky” and “January Says” hint at
how the same technology-connected culture can create division and
distance, even in the most personal of relationships. On the flip side,
the wonders of technology (and jumbo jets) made the recording possible.
With Chris and Jeff in Vermont and Sasha living in Montana, finding ways
to work together was challenging. The result is classic Essex Green
sonic diversity.
http://www.essexgreen.com/ TOM O.C WILSON is a London-based Anglo-American with an insatiable appetite for musical discovery. His music straddles the line between the classic English pop songwriting tradition (Ray Davies, Andy Partridge, Damon Albarn) and the sophistication of current US acts such as Dirty Projectors and Deerhoof. Yet his musical canvas also draws upon wider influences, be that the exuberance of contemporary jazz (Denys Baptiste, John Hollenbeck), the raw emotional impact of twentieth century classical composition (Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti), or the irresistible rhythmic pull of Sardinian guitarists such as Paolo Angeli and Marino De Rosas. Tom's debut album "Tell A Friend" was released in 2017 on Pickled Egg Records, and was previewed in a series of high-profile gigs, including a session for BBC Radio 3 Exposed and headline shows at Cafe Oto and Servants Jazz Quarters in London. www.tomocwilson.co.uk LOWELL THOMPSON writes songs that are pure pop, charging along with crashing choruses, guitar countermelody, and surprise changes. They zig-zag away from pigeonhole – the plaintive singer-songwriter tune becomes a caveman-rhythm dirge before taking a honky-tonk turn. http://www.lowellthompson.com/ |
Upset The Rhythm presents…
HEN OGLEDD
(Sally Pilkington, Dawn Bothwell, Richard Dawson & Rhodri Davies)
RAP (Jolly Discs)
Tuesday 14 May Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ 7.30pm | £14 | 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: Pilkington’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’ was released last November and supported by a short tour of the
UK, this new date follows on from their sold out Courtyard Theatre
extravangaza and Late Junction festival appearance.
https://www.henogledd.com/ 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 with clubs and DJing. Live they perform in a DJ / MC configuration. They recently released their third record, EXPORT via Jolly Discs. jollydiscs.bandcamp.com/album/export |
Upset The Rhythm presents…
PRIESTS
APOSTILLE
HYGIENE
Thursday 16 May
100 Club, Oxford Street, London, W1D 1LL
7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS
PRIESTS are a group of rock
iconoclasts from Washington, DC. Bred in punk, Priests play rock’n’roll
that is as intellectually sharp as it is focused on pop’s thrilling
pleasure centres, that is topical without sloganeering. The high-wire
physicality of their live shows and their commitment to cultural,
political, and aesthetic critique have all made Priests truly subversive
in a literal sense, doing things you would not expect. With fireworks
of noise and arresting melodies both, Priests’ 2017 debut album ‘Nothing
Feels Natural’ feels urgently present for an album heralded as a modern
punk classic. This April they return with their second album ‘The
Seduction of Kansas’ out on their own imprint Sister Polygon Records.
Entering their eighth year as a band, Priests—drummer Daniele Daniele,
vocalist Katie Alice Greer, and guitarist G.L. Jaguar—remain an inspired
anomaly in modern music. A band on its own label—jolting the greater
music world with early releases by Downtown Boys, Snail Mail and Sneaks,
they are living proof that it is still possible to work on one’s own
terms, to collectively cultivate one’s own world. New single, ‘The
Seduction of Kansas’, is Priests’ purest pop song to date. It is dark
and glittering, though there is still something fantastically off about
it, decadent and uneasy at once. Its title is a moving target, probing
questions about the realities and mythologies of America in 2019 without
giving in to easy answers.
https://www.666priests666.com/
APOSTILLE is a man who's torn
through enough sound-systems to know the difference between gesture and
meaning. Alongside running his own DIY record label, Glasgow native,
Michael Kasparis has spent the last few years making forays into the
realm of hardcore punk with his groups Anxiety and The Lowest Form.
Throughout all this, his solo electronic venture, Apostille has
continued to evolve with each twist and turn of the world. What started
off as a quest to whip up a mood and force that into a song has steadily
become more of a mission in communication. His audacious 2015 debut
album 'Powerless' self-released through Night School set the template by
hooking up his honest delivery to some manic expositions in electronic
pop. At once minimal and courageous with intent to connect, Apostille
songs race off with unchecked abandon, skittering drum machines, thick
walls of sequenced synth and decidedly elastic basslines. 'Choose Life'
(his most recent album) is both the album Apostille chose to make and
had to make. He dialled down the clown, built up a new-found confidence
in his voice and melody in general and began to feel more at home in the
refuge of pop music (with a capital P). All the truest pop music speaks
to us of escape and through this new album Apostille allows its
transformative power to fully manifest. It's an album full of life and
energy, and like his live show as disobedient as it is heroic in its
pursuit of liberation.
https://apostille.bandcamp.com/ HYGIENE released a slew of singles and an LP on various DIY labels in the US and the UK at the turn of the decade, now the London post-punk stalwarts return from hiatus with their sophomore effort, ‘Private Sector’. Where their debut LP ‘Public Sector’ (2011, La Vida Es Un Mus) reflected a nostalgic longing for an unrealised socialist modernist utopia, ‘Private Sector’ finds them confronting the grim realities of the present. Hygiene rail against the neoliberal madness of utility cartels, tax havens and privatised railways, seizing the moment as the current period of interregnum sees the old ideological certainties come into question. Proving nostalgia to be an inescapable trap, the band continue to hearken back to the kind of post-punk that existed before anybody knew to affix the ‘post’ prefix. ‘Private Sector’ (out May 24th through Upset The Rhythm) has the signature Hygiene sound, mixing brooding melodies with a choppy, aggressive approach and a restricted pop sensibility. However, this ever-so-slightly-more mature record finds the band taking advantage of the musicianship of their friends, mixing in the odd viola, glockenspiel, piano and keyboard. Recommended for fans of Real Ale, British Rail Class 55 Deltics, Euston station and Jeremy Corbyn. https://www.facebook.com/Hygiene-126660907380779/ |
Have a fantastic long weekend!
See you on the bank holiday!
Upset The Rhythm
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UPSET THE RHYTHM
UPCOMING SHOWS
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