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 Upset The Rhythm & Parallel Lines presents… LANKUM RICHARD DAWSON
Saturday 26 October
Eventim Apollo, 45 Queen Caroline St, Hammersmith, London, W6 9QH 7pm | Tickets: https://www.eventimapollo.com/events/lankum/ LANKUM have gained worldwide acclaim for their engrossing albums and captivating, often euphoric live performances. Comprising brothers Ian Lynch (uillean pipes, tin whistle, vocals), Daragh Lynch (vocals, guitar) alongside Cormac Mac Diarmada (fiddle) and Radie Peat (harmonium, accordion, vocals), Lankum channel a diverse set of influences and histories to create a beautifully rare thing: a songbook from and for the people. This October the acclaimed Irish group will play their biggest headline show to date at the legendary Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London. This will be their only remaining UK concert in 2024 outside of summer festivals. The band have consolidated their reputation as one of Ireland’s most important voices following the release of their 4th, Mercury-nominated, album False Lankum (Rough Trade), which has garnered critical praise across the board and brought their music to legions of devoted new fans. False Lankum is conceived as a single piece of music, comprising 12 inter-connected songs unfolding across an epic 70 minute duration. Drawing on traditional songs and primitive techniques, the band have created an immersive, psychedelic listening experience incorporating experimental overtones and rumbling drones wedded with classic songwriting, close vocal harmonies and timeless narratives. The Lankum live show has evolved into a modern day powerhouse, with the band’s acoustic instrumentation and close-harmony vocals transforming into a vast, kaleidoscopic wall of sound. http://lankumdublin.com/ RICHARD DAWSON has drawn so
many long drafts from the whirlpools of Elemental North Eastern
Archetypes, he may now be one himself. Fearless in his research and
willingness to follow his inspiration, Dawson has created an impressive
catalogue of music and storytelling steeped in both ancient myths and
contemporary dread. A fog of sickness, trauma and mute inevitability
inhabits these records and is often expressed in the havoc with which
Dawson’s hands produce sounds from his long-suffering guitar, an
instrument as bruised, individual and indefatigable as its owner.
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 Upset The Rhythm presents… TYVEK GEO VIRVON VARVON Wednesday 30 October New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/G309daf25a4e TYVEK have remained a singular force. The Detroit group formed somewhere in the mid-aughts by songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and sole consistent band member Kevin Boyer, who enlisted various friends to cultivate a raw, rudimentary punk sound that manages to get back to basics while at the same time presenting abstract perspectives and weird concepts not normally explored by your everyday garage band. There have been mutations over the years as the band toured regularly and released a run of solid albums with labels like Siltbreeze and In The Red, but with every reformation, Tyvek still didn't sound quite like anyone else. Their new album, the self released Overground (Ginkgo, 2023), stays true to their reputation for delivering hit after hit of blistering punk and remains tightly wound until it unspools into the dreamlike title track, an extended post Velvets plea for human decency. Tyvek's current line-up of all-stars guarantee an intense live show: Shelley Salant (Shells, XV), Alex Glendening (Deadbeat Beat), Fred Thomas (Idle Ray), and Emily Roll (XV) channel the high-energy rock'n'roll of Detroit's past while side-stepping the cliches to push forward into an uncharted future. https://tyvek.bandcamp.com/ GEO are a no wave oddity from The Netherlands, the more mismatched the moving parts appear, the more their music starts to make sense. Since the Groningen quartet’s inception in 2019, they have built a framework of skeletal agit-funk, cartoonish chromatics and neoteric art punk vignettes – sketching negative spaces where chaos and cacophony can sound perplexingly catchy. ‘Out of Body’ – Geo’s long-awaited debut album was released on Erste Theke Tontraeger in April. Geo’s jitterbug, birdbrained post-punk spiels are in the spirit of gung-ho deconstructionists like The Contortionists, The Fall and Gang of Four. On ‘Out of Body’, they play emotions out against each other like some kind of absurdist Punch and Judy show. https://geoband.bandcamp.com/ VIRVON VARVON are part-time punks from London, featuring members of Black Time, Midnight Mines and The Jazz June. They've played Gonerfest in Memphis, Get Lost Festival in Hamburg, and released an LP and two tapes on Girlsville Records. https://girlsville.bandcamp.com/album/virvon-varvon-four-bars-of-hate-2 |
 Upset The Rhythm presents…
SHANNON AND THE CLAMS MOCK MEDIA POZI Tuesday 5 November Islington Assembly Hall, Upper St, London, N1 2UD 7pm | £20 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/i36cc53102af SHANNON AND THE CLAMS are from Oakland, California and comprise of Shannon Shaw (vocals, bass), Cody Blanchard (vocals, guitar), and Ian Amberson (drums, vocals). Sounding like a prom band from 1964 getting dosed with acid and having the sweetest lovelorn freak out, Shannon And The Clams defy expectations. Imagine a brawling Etta James, backed up by the 13th Floor Elevators singing Shangri La's tunes. Shannon has a voice that can go from a sweet girl group croon to a bluesy ballsy growl before you realize you're headed for the (dance) floor. It's total punk rock bop, brimming with doo-wop glory delivered to your door by the Homecoming Queen and Kings of weirdo rock 'n' roll. Shannon & The Clams’ sonics go from black and white to technicolor on their new album, The Moon Is In the Wrong Place, produced by longtime collaborator Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Faced with the unimaginable sudden loss of Shannon’s fiancé, the project is a holistic exploration of grief and celebration of life coupled with the most expansive, exciting songs and arrangements of their celebrated catalog. The Moon Is In the Wrong Place marks Shannon & The Clams’ 7th studio album together and is out now via Easy Eye Sound. http://shannonandtheclams.com/ MOCK MEDIA, Canada’s new supergroup, contains members: Evan Aasen (Painted Fruits), Garnet Aronyk Muhammad (Crack Cloud), Austin Boylan (Pottery) and Bennett Smith (N0V3L). Mock Media originates in Vernon, British Columbia, a small farming town surrounded by blue lake and majestic mountain ranges. Such wholesome beginnings naturally sparked a heady wanderlust and DIY-spirit within its founding members. Mock Media’s debut LP Mock Media II, out Nov 17th, captures this firebrand four piece’s head-on plunge into enthralling existential contradictions: songs that explore the darkest corners of humanity yet come out at the other end with the unwavering joy that marked their genesis. It’s an album of sneak eclecticism, the high-wired punk rock stylings serve as Mock Media’s framework to clad their agog explorations into pop, electronic, and world folk music. https://mockmedia.bandcamp.com/album/mock-media POZI are the sort of band to tackle the creative cycle of deconstruction and rebuilding with relish. Second album 'Smiling Pools' is testament to that. An LP that sees them at their most expansive yet, it follows a gradual swelling of their sound across two EPs preceding the urgent, self-enforced minimalism of their debut album PZ1 in 2019. The trio of Toby Burroughs, Rosa Brook, and Tom Jones quickly established something of a foundational template on that first album: a hyper-skeletal sound palette of drums, bass and three distinct vocals disrupted by Rosa’s churning violins, from which emerged biting social observations and political angst. These hallmarks haven’t fully gone away over time, but from that urgent energy there has emerged greater confidence and a playful desire to push further out from the loose genre tag of post-punk. https://poziband.bandcamp.com |
 Upset The Rhythm presents… DEAN SPUNT GUESTS M-G DYSFUNCTION Tuesday 12 November New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/E8acfa797c7d DEAN SPUNT’s new album for Drag City is titled ‘Basic Editions’ (out Sept 27th). It’s an excursion in electronic sound that unpacks his fascination with language – in this case, the syntax of systems and processes. By turns meditative, compulsive and consumptive, Basic Editions distills a 64 voice module through a headfull of ideas – somewhat like pouring a cornucopia of possible ambient moods and EZ listening impulses backwards through a funnel, inspiring a deceptively absurd rainbow of soul to spray out the other end. With this new release, Dean identifies his process as “using sounds, rather than making sounds”. This approach to music-making is a train of thought that’s been rolling out from the far horizon of the past for ages now – but for Dean, whose previous works within and without No Age depended on their making of sounds, it’s a fresh work stance. Given, however, No Age’s traditional further manipulation of their own sounds (via loops and treatments), Basic Editions delivers further unexpected hard-rights and lefts in the non-aesthetic aesthetic that has defined Dean’s path over the past two decades. Steering toward wacked digital soundscapes that bounce colourfully across the stereo azimuth, Dean creates a kind of post-ambient neo-exotica that hinges upon a giddy conflation of cosmic and comic. https://deanspunt.bandcamp.com/music GUESTS are Jessica Higgins and Matthew Walkerdine of Glasgow, UK, both formerly of the bands Vital Idles and Mordwaffe. They have been closely tied with DIY music, art and publishing for over a decade. Using (amateur) electronics, singing, speaking and field recording they make songs which blend the rhythms of popular music and contemporary approaches to collage, sampling, improvisation and repetition. As inspired by film and art as they are the legacies of twee underground and avant garde experimentalism, their loose, domestically twinged compositions explore feelings, atmospheres and moments which are hard to articulate and the quite literal notion of being a “guest”. “I wish I was special” is their debut record on World Of Echo and has drawn some comparison with the private musings of Flaming Tunes, Idea Fire Company’s domestic electronics, or perhaps even Annea Lockwood’s framing of emotional connection within avant garde structures. https://by-guests.bandcamp.com/album/i-wish-i-was-special M-G DYSFUNCTION is the music and art project of Fred M-G. M-G Dysfunction has previously shared the stage with acts such as The Bug, Marie Davidson, Caroline, Gnod, Divide & Dissolve and Meatraffle. M-G Dysfunction live shows combine musical influences from the likes of Dean Blunt and Death Grips with elements of stand-up comedy and clowning. Most recent single ‘Junglists Only’ came out in August 2024. The third M-G Dysfunction full-length ‘Mista Self-Isolation’ will be released before the end of the year. https://mgdysfunction.bandcamp.com/ |
 Upset The Rhythm presents… URANIUM CLUB HYGIENE Thursday 14 November Number 90 Live, Main Yard, Wallis Road, London, E9 5LN 7.30pm | £13 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/yd631fde96ea URANIUM CLUB released their fourth album, ‘Infants Under the Bulb’, back in March this year through Static Shock Records and Anti Fade. The Minneapolis band recorded the album over the course of 2023 by long time collaborator Grant Richardson and is just as rampant and agitated as ever. Uranium Club once again win their dear listeners over with eccentrically wild guitar parts, revolving voices, elastic-tight drums and the addition of their very own Saints-styled horn section. Lyrically, ‘Infants Under the Bulb’ opens up the history books of unsolved mysteries - unidentified, unsolved, unanswered subjects of suspicious acts or individuals across the last century. Who, what, when and where… but mostly, why? Ignorant humanity of earth orbits the sun once again. The Somerton Man, Bergmann, Bauby, Denton, phone phreakers, and just what is lurking behind the cosmic organ of The Wall? As always, the artwork was handled in-house by the Club and ambitious as ever. The spectacular cover shot captures a carefully coordinated event orchestrated by the Club to photograph a crowd of the local volunteers wearing ponchos standing together in an open field to make the shape of a giant spiral. https://staticshockrecords.bandcamp.com/album/infants-under-the-bulb HYGIENE returned last year with their most urgent and essential recordings and not many bands can say that after 15 years. '15 Minute City' EP (Static Shock) is an absolute bundle of DIY greatness…it has the chaos and chorus of one the classic 70’s / early 80’s Swell Maps 7”s. ‘L.T.N’ is a robotic and stiff post punk song that doesn’t outlast it's welcome as it lasts just over a minute. Last track ‘Petrol’ is a childlike punk gem that gets stuck in your head after one play. https://staticshockrecords.bandcamp.com/album/15-minute-city |
 Upset The Rhythm presents…
TARA CLERKIN TRIO ABLE NOISE Saturday 16 November EartH Theatre, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, London, N16 8BH 6.30pm-10.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Aeb338640a1d TARA CLERKIN TRIO are Pat Benjamin, Sunny Joe Paradisos and Tara Clerkin, three musicians involved in a number of cult Bristol bands over the years before confidently settling down in triangle formation. They are inspired by and borrow from jazz, trip hop, electronica, psychedelia & minimalism, twirling the non-pretentious strands of these threads together into a trippy green winged-cloak, adorning Arthur Russell and dripping in blue jam. Their self-titled debut LP was released in 2020 and was a sleeper hit, coming in at 35 in the Wire's top 100 albums of the year and in Bleeps top 10. Their latest EP, ‘On The Turning Ground’, was released on World of Echo in November. Whilst their inspirations might be centreless, but the trio still possess a very obvious anchor in the form of their hometown. Bristol stands as a city of multitudes, heterogenous and vibrant in such a way as to allow it to renew and remake time and again. Tara Clerkin Trio drink from that same well, duly reflecting a rich musical heritage built on fwd-facing electronic subcultures and experimental urges. As such, ‘On The Turning Ground’ finds them subject to their own subtle internal evolution, the pervasive sense that you've caught them mid-bloom, on their way to becoming but never anything but themselves. https://taraclerkintrio.bandcamp.com/ ABLE NOISE are an experimental baritone guitar and drum duo, based between The Hague and Athens. Through the use of voice, tape and alternative methods of playing their instruments, they create a minimal and visual musical performance. Their output is primarily focused on live concerts, letting their music be shaped by the physicality of their playing, the acoustic and aesthetic properties of the space, and the dynamics formed between themselves and their audience. Their recorded work relies less on their respective instruments, and more on an assemblage of field recordings, heavily processed instrumentation, and exploratory mixing techniques. They released their recorded debut in 2020 through the Glasgow label GLARC, and their next recorded work is due to be released in late 2024 through London label World of Echo. https://glarc.bandcamp.com/album/recordings |