2019 over and out!

Festive times to all!   Here’s our final UTR newsletter of the decade, we’ll return in 2020 all fresh-faced and renewed, we promise! 2019 has been one of our best and busiest years so far. We’ve had many live highlights this last year, from The Stallion warping all minds in January, to Xiu Xiu at Islington Assembly Hall, Coolies and their stunner of short, sharp set, Prison Religion, Daniel Higgs, White Fence, Mary Lattimore, Exek, Deerhoof at EartH, Lankum quaking The Dome with collective audience stomping too! The list is long, but our 15th anniversary label tour in March comes at the very top, dream realised and now reserved in a special place in our hearts. Really was the best of times, thank you all for sharing your time with us throughout these last 365!

Talking of Upset The Rhythm in label guise, 2019 has seen us continue our brisk release schedule too, with so many bona fide high points. We’ve released some absurdly great albums from Kaputt, Robert Sotelo, Lunch Lady, Normil Hawaiians, Trash Kit, Bamboo, Hygiene, Nots, Hash Redactor and Xiu Xiu. A host of essential 7” EPs from Vital Idles, Red Channel, Terry and Constant Mongrel rolled out into the world also! What an honour to be associated with these class acts one and all!   All of those vinyl documents from our class of 2019 are available in our webshop here.

You’ll also find in our shop the pre-order link for our first new album of 2020, Handle’s debut album ‘In Threes’! Incorporating a diverse range of influences, from samba to no wave, Handle, a three-piece from Manchester (now based between Manchester/ London/ Brussels) make a uniquely minimal sound, buoyed by a startling poetic tenacity.   Handle are made up of Giulio Erasmus and Nirvana Heire (former members of D.U.D.S) and Leo Hermitt, a genderqueer multidisciplinary artist. With this project they’ve trained their focus on looping, hypnotic synth lines, flexes of bass, clangorous percussion and expeditious vocals that cordially sprint.

Handle is just the first of many releases we have lined up already!   We’ve also been busy plotting out a host of exciting new live shows for 2020 too. Check out our listings section for newly confirmed concerts from Limpe Fuchs (concert and workshop), Old Time Relijun, The Silver Field, Massicot & Slagheap, Shopping, Pan American, Islet, En Attendant Ana, Trash Kit & Handle! Read on for more info on our first three shows of the year too, see you on the other side of yuletide.

Upset The Rhythm presents… DAN DEACON Thursday 6 February Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9NL 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS DAN DEACON returns in February 2020 with ‘Mystic Familiar’, his first album in five years and the stunning result of years of obsessive work, play, and self-discovery. It’s not only his most emotionally open record but also his most transcendent! Eleven kaleidoscopic tracks of majestic synth-pop that exponentially expand Deacon’s sound with unfettered imagination and newfound vulnerability. Since 2015’s ‘Gliss Riffer’, Deacon has branched out from his core body of work into a dizzying array of collaborative projects: scoring eight films, collaborating with the New York City Ballet’s resident choreographer Justin Peck on the dance piece The Times Are Racing; performing expanded arrangements of his music with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; and for the first time producing and co-writing an album with friends Ed Schrader’s Music Beat. Throughout all this Deacon was also working on a new suite of songs that wield the profundity of a philosopher and the absurdity of a jester. These songs make up his forthcoming ‘Mystic Familiar’ album, painting life as a psychedelic journey brimming with bliss and disruption, darkness and light. Opening track “Become a Mountain” immediately announces itself as something new, for the first time ever on record presenting Dan’s natural singing voice, unprocessed and with only minimal accompaniment. When Deacon proclaims “I rose up” here, it is Dan Deacon singing in the first person as Dan Deacon—a startlingly vulnerable shift in a songbook abundant with characters, metaphors, and distorted vocals. “Hypnagogic” takes us deeper into Deacon’s mind, a synth swirl similar to those which have begun his recent performances, absorbing the pulse of the room and extending that abstract moment in which a journey begins. From there, ‘Mystic Familiar’ then takes a propulsive leap with the robotic drums and soaring melodies of “Sat By a Tree” and the four-part “Arp” suite offering up a dialectic view of life. It’s an album that captures an artist mindfully evolving his music from playful beginnings to encompass a prismatic cosmos of addictive ideas, melody and purpose! This special Scala show celebrates the release of ‘Mystic Familiar’ and Dan’s long-awaited return to his spiritual kingdom of London! https://dandeacon.com/

Upset The Rhythm presents… TRASH KIT HANDLE Friday 14 February The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £9 | TICKETS TRASH KIT are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals) and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping and Bamboo, united by a shared decade of spry musicality that surges through their bodies, hearts and heads with Trash Kit. Their songs once succinct, patchwork post-punk numbers of an honest diary-like nature now tussle more with long-form songwriting, expeditious polyphony and cascades of sung-spoke vocals. This new focus began with their second album ‘Confidence’ (2014) and has now grown into something exhilarating and rapturous. New songs like ‘Disco’ have had their very fabric stretched into smart new shapes, allowing the band to run away with refrains and unlock the dancefloor. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater Kinney, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalised folk music as on their sincerity of vision. Since forming in 2009, Trash Kit have released three albums for Upset The Rhythm and a selection of singles, last July however they made their most majestic move yet with their resoundingly huge ‘Horizon’ album. Garnering countless glowing reviews and featuring in many end of year lists for 2019 ‘Horizon’ is an album that forever listens for the next moment and will meet you once more at the vanishing point. https://www.facebook.com/TRASH-KIT-329766302806/ HANDLE incorporate a diverse range of influences from samba to no wave. The three-piece from Manchester (now based between Manchester/London/Brussels) make a uniquely minimal sound, buoyed by poetic, urgent vocals. Each instrument (bass, drums, keyboard and voice) is permitted its own space, yet somehow the result is a brilliantly unified yet understated sonic experience that demands then commands your attention. Handle is made up of Giulio Erasmus and Nirvana Heire (former members of D.U.D.S) and Leo Hermitt, a genderqueer multidisciplinary artist, renowned for their challenging, thought-provoking work on the city’s arts and literary scenes. The group mesh politics with a trans experience of time and a vibrant, avant-garde freedom of approach. Powered by looping, hypnotic synth lines, quaking flexes of bass, clattering tribal percussion and expeditious, often agitated vocals that cordially sprint, Handle's songs - all of which clock in around the two minute mark - owe as much to performance poetry as they do to the vibrancy of post-punk. Handle's debut album ‘In Threes’ will be released March 6th by Upset The Rhythm and Maternal Voice and is a collection of frenetic sounds for frenzied forms. https://soundcloud.com/upset-the-rhythm/handle-punctured-time

Upset The Rhythm presents… EN ATTENDANT ANA Saturday 15 February PinUps (formerly The Islington), 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £6 | TICKETS EN ATTENDANT ANA are a Parisian quintet who diligently craft songs that shimmer, glide and sway with sophistication. Trouble In Mind recently released the group’s second album ‘Juillet’. Many of the songs on ‘Juillet’ feel hopeful, despite their melancholic tone, lacing a lilting melody or triumphant trumpet swell (courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Camille Fréchou) or charging guitar riffs from Tomasso or Bouchaudon. Whereas the tunes on their debut ‘Lost and Found’ felt wild & reckless, the songs on ‘Juillet’ feel focused, a set of songs that feel bonded together by the magnetic pull of each other; viewed as a whole, they dazzle. Songs like "Do You Understand?" and the first single "Words" point toward a new frontier for the group, effortlessly sharpening their razor-sharp hooks to such a fine point, you almost don't realise their complexity. Elsewhere, songs like "Flesh or Blood" and opener "Down The Hill" revel in a push/pull dynamic. Finally, songs like "From My Bruise To An Island" and the sparse "When It Burns" bridge a confessional narrative atop an amorphous ambient float. They feel important, and hint at an exciting future for a band letting go of its past and entrusting fate with its future. https://enattendantana.bandcamp.com/

Thanks for all your support this year as always! Onwards into the ‘20s! Have a wonderful Xmas and we’ll see you next year. Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

DAN DEACON Thursday 6 February Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9NL 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS   TRASH KIT HANDLE Friday 14 February The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £9 | TICKETS   EN ATTENDANT ANA Saturday 15 February PinUps (formerly The Islington), 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £6 | TICKETS   MASSICOT SLAGHEAP Monday 24 February New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £7.50 | TICKETS   ISLET Thursday 5 March Space 289, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £9 | TICKETS   THE SILVER FIELD Friday 6th March SET, 27A Dalston Ln, Dalston, London, E8 3DF 7.30pm-2.30am | £6 | TICKETS   LIMPE FUCHS Saturday 14 March IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG 7.30pm |£10 | TICKETS   LIMPE FUCHS - Workshop Sunday 15 March IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG 1pm-3pm |£15 | Very limited places: TICKETS    SPINNING COIN Wednesday 18 March The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   Upset The Rhythm & The Barbican present… RICHARD DAWSON: Delight is Right Barbican Hall, Silk St, Barbican, London, EC2Y 8DS Saturday 28 March 3pm - 11pm | £17.50-£25 | TICKETS   PAN AMERICAN MIYAGI-LAMMARDO DUO Tuesday 21 April Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS    OLD TIME RELIJUN Wednesday 29 April PinUps (formerly The Islington), 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS   SHOPPING Tuesday 5 May The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS

Limpe Fuchs in London this March!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

LIMPE FUCHS - Concert
Saturday 14 March
IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG
7.30pm |£10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/BgGxIHumz2

LIMPE FUCHS - Workshop
Sunday 15 March
IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG
1pm-3pm |£15 | Very limited places: https://link.dice.fm/o1ZmS8Umz2

LIMPE FUCHS is a German sound artist and instrument builder whose vibrant performances develop from a real time engagement with the ecology of the space at hand. Using wood and granite stone rows, ringing bronze within pendulum string instruments and employing the percussion, viola and voice she studied at the Munich Conservatory she sensitises the process of hearing through an exploration of music-making as a part of everyday life. An original member of ‘70s Krautrock duo Anima Sound, Limpe and then husband sculptor Paul Fuchs embodied a radical form of free living, farming and building instruments like the Fuchshorn, Fuchszither and Fuchsbass at a professional metal workshop in their Pfarrhof—a thousand-year-old former priest house—in rural Bavaria. Anima Musica' epitomised the ingenious marginal freak scene of the sixties and seventies and are often cited as a key influence on Krautrock. In 1971 they hitched a handmade mobile home and stage to an old Hanomag tractor and toured Europe bringing their anarchic, uncompromising improvisations to an impromptu public at 19 kilometers per hour. A champion of egalitarian performance, Limpe quit the group in the ‘80s when new experimental theatre work demanded agreement with more members and she felt that her voice was being compromised. Ever since she has devoted herself to “making music while listening to the streaming of time…with simplicity and emotion”, following the influence of soundscape artists. Whether improvising solo or with other players, Limpe unfailingly coaxes an otherworldly atmosphere from the sounds and silence of her surroundings with a childlike wonder, always open to surprise. Her engaging performances require attention from the audience as she moves freely in space evoking her natural sound-scapes while playing her viola woodhorn, bamboo flute, pendulumstring, a four-meter- steel constructed lithophone, sheet metal, pieces of wood and singing in her unique ephemeral bird-like style.






We follow up the Saturday night concert with a Sunday afternoon workshop based around a sound installation of Limpe Fuchs. Limpe invites participants to play her instruments in the sound installation and they can bring their own instruments too. Only three are playing, the others are listening. When all have played in different combinations, we decide how to go on. It is important to stay simple, so that the instruments are treated with love and the skill of ones hands is not overstrained. The sound of the ensemble has to be in balance between chaos and order. When the handling of the tools and precision of listening is growing starts nonverbal communication with music.

http://www.limpefuchs.de/en/

ISLET in MARCH

Upset The Rhythm presents…

ISLET

Thursday 5 March


Space 289, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA


7.30pm | £9 | https://link.dice.fm/uRa575NCk2

ISLET are a Powys trio whose free-spirited invention and exuberant intensity flows through experimental pop: hypnotic, exhilarating and defiantly unique. They began in Cardiff in 2009 when Emma Daman and brothers Mark and John ‘JT’ Thomas resolved to form a band with one rule: that anything was possible. Soon after, they were joined by Alex Williams. The band had no lead singer or set roles, switching instruments from song to song, melding psych rock, ethereal atmospherics and jagged post punk, with most gigs seeing the walls and spectators played as instruments. They were soon surrounded by a buzz of excitement and mystique, cherished locally, then globally. They wrote about their philosophy in their own zine, started a festival, helped other bands; they are stalwarts of the Welsh DIY community. Two albums (‘Illuminated People’, 2012 – shortlisted for the Welsh Music Prize – and ‘Released By The Movement’, 2013) and a handful of EPs followed, released on their own label, Shape Records. Now Islet have signed to Fire Records, with Emma Daman Thomas moving into focus with her unleashed, mesmerising vocals against a synth-driven sound, unexpected shifts of rhythm, playful inventive lyrics; an exhilarating, electronic purr that provokes thought and feeling. They have matured, are more tender and composed, but still eclectic, mysterious and intriguingly themselves. Brand new album ‘Eyelet’ will be released on March 6th!
https://islet.bandcamp.com/



x 

Handle - 'In Threes' debut album announced for 2020!

Time for some good news then! Our first release of 2020 will be Handle’s debut album ‘In Threes’! Incorporating a diverse range of influences, from samba to no wave, Handle, a three-piece from Manchester (now based between Manchester/London/Brussels) make a uniquely minimal sound, buoyed by a startling poetic tenacity. Handle are made up of Giulio Erasmus and Nirvana Heire (former members of D.U.D.S) and Leo Hermitt, a genderqueer multidisciplinary artist. With this project they’ve trained their focus on looping, hypnotic synth lines, flexes of bass, clangorous percussion and expeditious vocals that cordially sprint.

Handle's debut album ‘In Threes’ is a collection of frenetic sounds for frenzied forms, occupied by dark shapes that move beneath a roiling surface. Jolting, shattering, cracking, smoothed, bounded, buckled.  'In Threes' will be released on LP/CD and digitally through Upset The Rhythm and Maternal Voice on March 6th. Absolute Fiction will also press up a cassette version.

Check this! ’Punctured Time’ just premiered by Brooklyn Vegan!



‘In Threes’ is available to pre-order now from our webstore: http://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/

EN ATTENDANT ANA coming to London next Feb!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

EN ATTENDANT ANA
Saturday 15 February

The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT

7.30pm | £6 | https://link.dice.fm/WgVotAH8i2

EN ATTENDANT ANA are a Parisian quintet who diligently craft songs that shimmer, glide and sway with sophistication. Trouble In Mind recently released the group’s second album ‘Juillet’. Many of the songs on ‘Juillet’ feel hopeful, despite their melancholic tone, lacing a lilting melody or triumphant trumpet swell (courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Camille Fréchou) or charging guitar riffs from Tomasso or Bouchaudon. Whereas the tunes on their debut ‘Lost and Found’ felt wild & reckless, the songs on ‘Juillet’ feel focused, a set of songs that feel bonded together by the magnetic pull of each other; viewed as a whole, they dazzle. Songs like "Do You Understand?" and the first single "Words" point toward a new frontier for the group, effortlessly sharpening their razor-sharp hooks to such a fine point, you almost don't realise their complexity. Elsewhere, songs like "Flesh or Blood" and opener "Down The Hill" revel in a push/pull dynamic. Finally, songs like "From My Bruise To An Island" and the sparse "When It Burns" bridge a confessional narrative atop an amorphous ambient float. They feel important, and hint at an exciting future for a band letting go of its past and entrusting fate with its future.
https://enattendantana.bandcamp.com/

Massicot and Slagheap heading to London next Feb!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

MASSICOT
SLAGHEAP
Monday 24 February
New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN
7.30pm | £7.50 | https://link.dice.fm/6T5vkTccc2

MASSICOT are a Geneva trio that sound as if they can hardly contain their own energy. The no-frills bone-dry guitar sounds oscillates between hypnotically repetitive passages and noisy outbursts. Simone Aubert plays her rhythm guitar with a manic relentless energy. Drummer Colline Grosjean works her way from funk to krautrock to tropical beats and back again. Then over all that, in addition to her vocals, Mara Krastina plays her charming bright red mini-bass with a velocity that is guaranteed to ensure bodies start moving. Their new album is due out about now on the Harbinger Sound / Spurge Recordings label.
https://massicot.bandcamp.com/

SLAGHEAP are pure unfiltered energetic post-punk nonsense from four women in their pants. In turns melodic, naïve and raucous. The debut album from this Bristol quartet has been winning over fans everywhere and picking up plenty of airplay and shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. The 12" was the first release from Spurge Recordings and is a must if you're attuned to the attitude and tunes of The Raincoats or Au Pairs amongst others. But be assured this isn't a simply retrospective sound.
https://slagheapband.bandcamp.com

SHOPPING in 2020! New show announced!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

SHOPPING
Tuesday 5 May
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £10 | https://link.dice.fm/43JnT6NN71

SHOPPING are propulsive bass lines, primitive disco-not-disco drums and guitar lines sharp as broken glass. The band was formed in 2012 by members Rachel Aggs (guitar), Billy Easter (bass) and Andrew Milk (drums), who've all done time in a plethora of notable UK DIY bands including Trash Kit, Sacred Paws, Current Affairs and Wet Dog. They pull from a well of 70's post-punk with a voraciousness seldom seen these days, bringing to mind the jagged aggression of Gang of Four, the voracious yelp of The Slits and the dance inducing thrust of Delta 5 . Their debut LP 'Consumer Complaints' was released November 2013 in the UK via MILK records and quickly sold out its first pressing. A US re-issue of 'Consumer Complaints' came out in 2015 via Fat Cat records, followed up by their excellent second album 'Why Choose?’. ‘The Official Body’ followed in 2017, produced by Edwyn Collins and meeting with reviews proclaiming it as exhilarating as it was mesmerising! Now Shopping return on Feb 7th with their new record ‘All Or Nothing’.

Written across an intense 10-day period back in February, with sessions spent in London and Glasgow. The songs that emerged are some of Shopping’s boldest yet:  confident, elastic, streamlined grooves that crackle with energy and intention. Uniting these ten new songs is an expression of tenacity: commitment, leaps of faith and tests of courage. Four albums in, Shopping are as committed and focused as ever, regardless of any distance. As critics have noted, the trio’s vision – groove-centered; deeply queer; political by default – place them in a radical lineage of dance, a continuum connecting disco and post-punk to Chicago house and EDM. That spirit of liberation through rhythm is very much present on ‘All Or Nothing’, says Aggs. “We found ourselves singing about being true to yourself, in an often binary and belligerent digital age, and reclaiming agency when it feels like our personal freedom and privacy is constantly eroding.”  In an era dominated by spin and surveillance, ‘All Or Nothing’ invites us to remember what really moves us, in dance and in life.
https://shoppingfc.bandcamp.com/

TRASH KIT in London this Feb 14th!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

TRASH KIT
Friday 14 February
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £9 | https://link.dice.fm/Cv6zywCg91

TRASH KIT are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals) and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping and Bamboo, united by a shared decade of spry musicality that surges through their bodies, hearts and heads with Trash Kit. Their songs once succinct, patchwork post-punk numbers of an honest diary-like nature now tussle more with long-form songwriting, expeditious polyphony and cascades of sung-spoke vocals. This new focus began with their last album ‘Confidence’ (2014) and has now grown into something exhilarating and rapturous. New songs like ‘Disco’ have had their very fabric stretched into smart new shapes, allowing the band to run away with refrains and unlock the dancefloor. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater Kinney, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalised folk music as on their sincerity of vision. Since forming in 2009, Trash Kit have released three albums for Upset The Rhythm and a selection of singles, last July however they made their most majestic move yet with their resoundingly huge ‘Horizon’ album. Garnering countless glowing reviews and featuring in many end of year lists for 2019 ‘Horizon’ is an album that forever listens for the next moment and will meet you once more at the vanishing point.


https://www.facebook.com/TRASH-KIT-329766302806/