Friday, 27 October 2023

The Reds, Pinks & Purples in London next June!


 

 

What’s your favourite colour towards the magenta end of the spectrum? Why choose! The Reds, Pinks & Purples are heading to London next June, finally! Hazy, cathartic guitar pop galore from San Francisco, lucky us! Tickets now on sale.

Upset The Rhythm presents…

THE REDS, PINKS AND PURPLES
Wednesday 12 June
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £14 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Re84c06db473

THE REDS, PINKS & PURPLES is the post-indie project of Glenn Donaldson from San Francisco who releases songs like monthly postcards to a loyal following, amassing a huge catalogue of cathartic guitar pop – releasing 8 LPs over the last 5 years (on Tough Love, Slumberland). Donaldson’s hazy, melodic DIY pop captures a cinematic mood, with Donaldson referring to films like “Summer of ’42” and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. The band debuts in the UK in June 2024 as a five-piece made-up of musicians from SF's thriving indie-pop underground.


https://theredspinksandpurples.bandcamp.com/




Friday, 20 October 2023

'Decent Shapes' by SCREENSAVER released today!


Exceedingly happy that our 158th release stormed into the world today! 'Decent Shapes' by Naarm/Melbourne synth-fogged post-punks SCREENSAVER is a triumph of mood and function.

Pin-sharp dynamics, twisting melodies and seismic tremors of delirious urgency all jostle to stare deeper into the black mirror of now. Krystal Maynard’s dramatic / cavernous vocal is always on point and all ten songs shudder and shimmer into stark reality. Couldn't recommend anything more!

'Decent Shapes' is streaming everywhere from today + a glam gold-pressing is available on LP in all the best shops, including Upset The Rhythm's webshop too.

If you're reading this from the southern hemisphere go and pick this up from Poison City, SCREENSAVER are also launching the album tomorrow at The Curtin in Melbourne too, lucky everyone!



Tuesday, 17 October 2023

Brontez Purnell - 'Bachelors Theme' VIDEO

Now we’re talking!
Brontez Purnell returns today with an absolute thunderclap of a single from his forthcoming album ‘Confirmed Bachelor’! ‘Bachelors Theme’ is out now digitally, accompanied by a video made by actor / sad clown / muse, Brandon Flynn. ‘Bachelors Theme’ opens the album and sets the scene perfectly with the heady rush and swoon of it all. Jagged riffs, bubblegum bounce and Brontez’s vocals effortlessly racing to dizzying effect. It’s a tour de force of bop and bravado.    

'Bachelors Theme’ is taken from Brontez's cracking new record 'Confirmed Bachelor', out Nov 10th on Upset The Rhythm, available to pre-order now on crystal-clear 180g vinyl here.

Special thanks to Maria Cecila Tedemalm for the ace edit too!
Enjoy!


Monday, 16 October 2023

screensaver - 'Future Trash' video!


To celebrate our new album from SCREENSAVER coming out this Friday, the Australian synth-punks have made an amazingly atmos-heavy vid for ‘Future Trash’, let’s set the scene: moody lighting, abrading live performance and eerily empty shopping centres!




Supply dictates demand, pre-order our gold vinyl version of 'Decent Shapes' now!

Friday, 13 October 2023

Phew twice next week in London!

 

 
 
 
 
Hello everyone!
 
Firstly, thank you all for coming to see Apostille, The Smashing Times, Martin Newell and of course The Make Up recently, your attendance makes all these amazing times possible! We are indebted.
 
Our next Upset The Rhythm events will take place at Cafe OTO on Tuesday/Wednesday next week, where we're beyond fortunate to have Japanese underground music legend Phew grace the stage for two nights. We've put together a really stacked residency, Alison Cotton and Me Lost Me will perform on the Tuesday, whilst Ana da Silva and Sunroof will both present sets on Wednesday. Total dream-come-true scenarios.
 
Tickets are flying, so please buy them in advance to avoid missing out, live music starting at 8pm both evenings FYI.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Read on for everything you need to know about next week's double bill, alongside our full show listings for our other October concerts. These include Lande Hekt, Supermilk and Charley Stone's Actual Band at The Lexington on October 23rd, Protomartyr and Es at the Electric Ballroom on Oct 26th and Loopsel, JJulius and Cate Kennan at MOTH Club on Oct 27th. Variety in all things.
 
What a way to see out the month!
Lucky London!! Enjoy...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Upset The Rhythm presents…

PHEW
ALISON COTTON
ME LOST ME
CHIARA LEE & FREDDIE MURPHY (DJ SET)

Tuesday 17 October
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL

7.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Ne228acb66c8

+

PHEW
ANA DA SILVA
SUNROOF
CHIARA LEE & FREDDIE MURPHY (DJ SET)

Wednesday 18 October
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL

7.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/t6505dd3f0dc

PHEW is an avant-garde vocalist, electronics innovator and post-punk artist. Phew was a founding member of the legendary Japanese punk band Aunt Sally. After the band’s breakup in 1979, she continued her career as a solo artist, releasing a collaborative single with Ryuichi Sakamoto in 1980, and her first solo album, ‘Phew’, with Conny Plank, Holger Czukay of CAN, and Jaki Liebezeit in 1981. In 1992, her third album, ‘Our Likeness’, was released on MUTE (recently reissued), again at Conny’s studio, with Jaki Liebezeit of CAN, Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten, and Chrislo Haas of DAF. Since the beginning of the 2010s, she has released a series of works that combine voice and electronic music, and has gained international recognition as a forward facing electronic artist. She has also released collaborative works with Ana da Silva (Raincoats), Seiichi Yamamoto (Boredoms) and others. Phew's expansive ‘Vertical Jamming’ was released on vinyl for the first time via Disciples last year, whilst Mute recently released her stunning record ‘New Decade’; a stark, haunted album, populated by voices that intone empty pleasantries in English and Japanese, against a backdrop of fractured, dubbed-out electronics.
https://phewjapan.bandcamp.com/music 

ALISON COTTON is a viola player based in London working in composition and improvisation. Her debut album ’All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre’ was released in 2018 firstly on cassette on Bloxham Tapes, followed by a vinyl release on Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube (USA). In July 2019 her longform piece, ‘Behind the Spiderweb Gates’ was released on the Australian label, Longform Editions. As well as the viola, she uses an array of other instruments (her voice, harmonium, percussion, recorder, omnichord, shruti box and piano) to create long, haunting folk drones. Cotton’s new album ‘The Portrait You Painted of Me’, is a 6-track record – her first for Rocket Recordings. ‘Mumurations Over the Moor’ is a wordless piece of layered vocals, drifting like fog towards a sunset over the green undulations of North East England. ‘The Last Wooden Ship’ evokes the shipyards of Sunderland, laced with piano and percussion events, while her voice calls out like a siren urging listeners to a rocky demise.
https://alisoncotton-uk.bandcamp.com

ME LOST ME delights in experimenting with songwriting and storytelling, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully push the boundaries of genre. Led by Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent who takes influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music, the project has transformed since 2017 from a solo endeavor to an expanded group; regularly collaborating with acclaimed North-East jazz musicians Faye MacCalman and John Pope. Me Lost Me’s music has been described in The Guardian as "stripping folk back to its bones while letting its future echoes bleed out", and by BBC Radio 6's Tom Robinson as a "brilliant peculiar noise". Me Lost Me’s incredible new album ‘RPG’ is due for release on July 7th via Upset The Rhythm.
https://www.melostme.com/  

ANA DA SILVA is a founding member and songwriter of the pioneering post-punk band The Raincoats. Across four daring full-length records, The Raincoats helped shape the timeless notion that punk is what you make it - an act of raw expression, not any one sound. The Raincoats have offered creative and spiritual inspiration for several generations of artists. They set a crucial precedent for feminist work within a DIY punk context, marked all the while by Ana’s poetic lyrical style and innovative noise guitar playing. After The Raincoats’ hiatus in 1984, Ana collaborated with The Go-Betweens, This Heat’s Charles Hayward and choreographer/dancer Gaby Agis. In 2005, Ana released her solo debut, ‘The Lighthouse’ - a self-recorded collection of spare, elegant experiments in electronic indie-pop. Ana has also collaborated with Phew on an extraordinary album ‘Island’ released by Newhere Music in 2018.
http://www.anadasilva.net/

SUNROOF is the pairing of Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones. Their new album, ‘Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 2’ is available via the Parallel Series of Mute. ‘Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 2’ is a set of eight improvised modular electronic music instrument pieces recorded at the duo’s respective home studios. The recording sessions followed release of their debut from 2021 but where Vol. 1 was the result of four decades of friendship and collaboration, this new album came together in a relatively short space of time. Recorded in the same spirit as their previous sessions - with no pre-planning and no rehearsal - they met up with “unpatched” modular systems, and began improvising. Without any of the parameters they followed in the first sessions, the duo allowed the pieces to expand naturally, keeping editing to a minimum.
https://mute.ffm.to/sunroof-emivol2

CHIARA LEE & FREDDIE MURPHY (DJ SET) are two artists and curators based in Torino, Italy. With the moniker Father Murphy they released a series of concept albums and performed extensively across the world. Their DJ sets often include avant church music, droney soundscapes, atmospheric noise, sound sketches, cracklings electronics and left-field beats.
https://murphy---lee.tumblr.com/



 
 
 
 
 
 
Upset The Rhythm presents…

LANDE HEKT
SUPERMILK
CHARLEY STONE’S ACTUAL BAND

Monday 23 October
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £9 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/s8612f0fbfaf

LANDE HEKT crafted politically aware, heart-on-sleeve, punchy yet tender, punk-flecked songs with her band Muncie Girls, more recently she turned her hand to an even more personal songwriting approach by writing a solo record - 2021’s Going To Hell. The debut full-length was released via queer and trans run independent label Get Better Records and documented her experience coming out as gay. It set out her stall as a solo artist with supreme storytelling abilities and a knack for understatedly luminous melodies. Lande’s music sits beautifully alongside such artists as The Wedding Present, The Replacements and Sharon Van Etten.

Lande met 2022 armed with a whole new collection of song-form vignettes and musings on her life for her second album House Without a View. This record continued to explore ideas of queer identity, as well as her changing relationship with gender, dealing with childhood trauma, and confronting the isolation and period of adjustment brought by the pandemic. This year Lande Hekt continues her poignant musical introspection with two new singles ‘Pottery Class’ and ‘Axis’. Bittersweet ‘Pottery Class’ captures the feeling of yearning for someone and longing for a space to share with that person. In the song, Lande reflects: “we could move to the city, go to shows and join a pottery class / But you’d always be overwhelmed by everything that moves too fast / I don’t care where we live, I just want you back.”
https://landehekt.bandcamp.com/

SUPERMILK is a band from North London comprising members of Doe, Cheerbleederz, Nervus and Onsind. FFO Guided by Voices, XTC, Bis, The Rentals, Bob Mould.
https://supermilk4u.bandcamp.com

CHARLEY STONE is an English multi-instrumentalist musician based in London. From 2007 to the present Stone has both performed solo and played with a number of artists including the Priscillas, the New Royal Family/the Famous Cocks, Abba Stripes, Deptford Beach Babes, Charlotte Hatherley, Ye Nuns, Joanne Joanne and Salad. In addition, Stone currently plays in the Fallen Women, Desperate Journalist, and Sleeper. For this show Charley will be joined by her full band!
https://charleystone.bandcamp.com/
 
 
 
 
 
 
Upset The Rhythm presents…

PROTOMARTYR
ES

Thursday 26 October
Electric Ballroom
184 Camden High St, Camden Town, London, NW1 8QP
7pm-11pm | £17.50 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/hca4d1d3c365

PROTOMARTYR are a post-punk band from Detroit who have mastered the art of evoking place: the grinding Midwest humility of their hometown, as well as the x-rayed elucidation of America that comes with their vantage. Protomartyr—vocalist Joe Casey, guitarist Greg Ahee, drummer Alex Leonard, and bassist Scott Davidson—have become synonymous with caustic, impressionistic assemblages of politics and poetry, the literal and oblique.

The group’s forthcoming sixth album, recorded at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, is called Formal Growth In The Desert. And though frontman Joe Casey did have a humbling experience staring at awe-inspiring Sonoran rock formations and reckoning with his own smallness in the scheme of things – as recounted in the single “Elimination Dances” - the title is not necessarily a nod to the sandy expanses of the southwest. Detroit, too, is like a desert. “The desert is more of a metaphor or symbol,” Casey says, “of emotional deserts, or a place or time that seems to lack life.” The desert brings an existential awareness that is ultimately internal. Formal Growth In The Desert is a 12-song testament to “getting on with life,” even when it feels impossibly hard. “I was trying to find a way forward after some pretty heavy things, without lyrically resorting to, Oh my god, my life sucks,” Casey says. “I was trying to see what was beyond the trouble.” The titles of the two opening songs—the moody “Make Way” followed by the charging ennui of “For Tomorrow”—complete that thought. A filmic sensibility is manifest in the band’s dynamic, spacious sound and Casey’s storytelling, too, whether he’s critiquing ominous techno-capitalism or processing aging, the future, and the possibility of love.
http://protomartyrband.com/

ES returned this April with an incredible new EP called ‘Fantasy’. A four-track contact-high anxiety amid fact and facsimile, this release attempts to define a sound that still resonates in an increasingly confused public theatre, where cerebral dreams manifest in corrupt fascination. Echoing the legendary Pylon or the later, disco-inspired releases from PIL, tracks like ‘Emergency’ and ‘Unreal’ blend the band’s established disjunctive style of gothic restlessness with brighter, poppy, and danceable tones. These stylistically unwind in transition with the increasingly claustrophobic pieces like ‘Too Late’ and ‘Swallowed Whole’, syncopating a parallel design of the frantic and the fashionable. Es deconstruct our modern wreckage of personhood and self-deceit, granting a sense of solidarity inside alienation. Inside ‘Fantasy’ we visualize our own estrangement, and it is only when this mirror fades that we find the tools to fight back.
https://esband.bandcamp.com/  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Upset The Rhythm presents…

LOOPSEL
JJULIUS
CATE KENNAN

Friday 27 October
MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, London, E9 6NU
7.30pm-10pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/zc893d7209b7

LOOPSEL conjures music like foggily remembered dreams. The songs on her new album  Öga for Öga are like paths in the forest forest, are heavily, almost treacherously, reverberated, with finger-plucked guitars acting as your signposts amongst the flora and fauna of field recordings, pads, and the cool, calm voice of Elin Engström. The album is the second from Engström as Loopsel. She is a Gothenburg-based musician and one-half of both the group Monokultur and the team behind the tiny Mamma’s Mystersika Jukebox label. During what seemed like the nadir of the pandemic, the blurry, otherworldly sounds emanating from their living room snaked into the DFA office, where the otherwise dutifully DIY pair found the scale of worldwide release and distribution.
https://loopsel.bandcamp.com/

JJULIUS is the name of the swirling, singular world built by Julius Pierstorff, somewhere deep in the cobwebs of Gothenburg, Sweden, where dub and kosmische and post-punk sounds all sit around and tell ghost stories to each other. Originally a fully DIY project on Mamma’s Mysteriska Jukebox, the label he runs with his partner Loopsel, his latest long player VOL. 2 was released worldwide in conjunction with New York’s seminal DFA Records. Now he emerges from the shadows to play some shows, it’ll be louder and looser, as it should be.
https://mammasmysteriskajukebox.bandcamp.com/album/jjulius-vol-2

CATE KENNAN is a composer and recording artist from Los Angeles who writes melodic music on synthesizers and other instruments. Her debut album, The Arbitrary Dimension of Dreams, was released by Post Present Medium in 2022.
https://catekennan.bandcamp.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
Thanks as ever for reading.
Have a terrific weekend and we'll see you next week!
Upset The Rhythm
 
 
                 
 
 
 
 
 
 
UPSET THE RHYTHM
UPCOMING SHOWS 
PHEW
ALISON COTTON
ME LOST ME
CHIARA LEE & FREDDIE MURPHY (DJ SET)
Tuesday 17 October
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL

7.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Ne228acb66c8

PHEW
ANA DA SILVA
SUNROOF
CHIARA LEE & FREDDIE MURPHY (DJ SET)
Wednesday 18 October
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL

7.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/t6505dd3f0dc

LANDE HEKT
SUPERMILK
CHARLEY STONE
Monday 23 October
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £9 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/s8612f0fbfaf
 
PROTOMARTYR
ES
Thursday 26 October
Electric Ballroom
184 Camden High St, Camden Town, London, NW1 8QP
7pm-11pm | £17.50 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/hca4d1d3c365
 
LOOPSEL
JJULIUS

CATE KENNAN
Friday 27 October
MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, London, E9 6NU
7.30pm-10pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/zc893d7209b7
 
STEVE GUNN
BRIGID MAE POWER
Friday 3 November
St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, NW1 1UL
7.30pm | SOLD OUT
 
WOLF EYES
YEAH YOU

RUBBER
Sunday 5 November
100 Club, 100 Oxford St, Oxford Street, W1D 1LL
7.30pm | £14 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/b59d2922fb18
 
DEAR NORA
R. AGGS

Monday 13 November
The Waiting Room, 175 Stoke Newington High St, London, N16 0PE
7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/wcbfc13f5224
 
BILL ORCUTT GUITAR QUARTET
(Bill Orcutt, Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza & Shane Parish)
RATTLE
Thursday 16 November
St Mary the Virgin, St Mary's Pl, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1 1DX
7.30pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/nbf97235de2b

RUTH MASCELLI
CHARLÈNE DARLING GROUPE

Saturday 18 November
The Waiting Room, 175 Stoke Newington High St, London, N16 0PE
7.30pm | £8 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/tc44dce1c5c1
 
DEB GOOGE
TOO MANY THINGS

Thursday 30 November
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £11.00 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ed3a9e85f413
 
Upset The Rhythm present their 20th birthday party with…
LINDA SMITH & NANCY ANDREWS
RATTLE
RUSSELL WALKER

Saturday 9 December
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL
7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Y1c88667d259

LANKUM
Wednesday 13 December
Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London, NW1 8EH
(Produced by UTR and Parallel Lines)
7.30pm | SOLD OUT
 
THE HOMESICK
Thursday 22 February
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £10.00 | Tickets: link.dice.fm/bf946caa252b
 
 

Wednesday, 4 October 2023

SCREENSAVER - 'Future Trash'


“Must haves, must haves!”

Screensaver return today with their third compulsive single from forthcoming album / synth-punk whirlwind ‘Decent Shapes’ (out October 20th through Upset The Rhythm and Poison City). ‘Future Trash’ ponders the transience of man-made objects vs the permanence of landfill in a moody and twitchy 3 mins 50. Sublime and mercurial in equal parts. ‘Future Trash’ is out now everywhere digitally, whilst ‘Decent Shapes’ is available to pre-order on gold vinyl courtesy of UTR right now here