Alright everyone!
I hope you're all getting into the
Halloween swing of things by donning capes and fangs. Our next show
falls on All Hallows' Eve, this Friday, and sees an immense
double-headline from two of our very favourite bands: 100 Flowers and The Yummy Fur.
100 Flowers evolved out of the hugely influential US punk group the
Urinals. Their music plays with tension/release and is whip-smart,
angular post-punk of the highest calibre.
The Yummy Fur are Scottish art-rock aficionados, known for their brilliant string of releases in the 90's, sardonic lyrics and dissonant dancefloor acumen.
What a treat (no
trick) to have both acts playing for us at New River. Tickets are £10 on
the door from 7.30pm, spooky costumes warmly encouraged!
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Then on Monday night we have synth bop powerhouse John Maus performing in London for us on November 3rd at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town. This will be John's biggest show ever!
We're thrilled to have Alpha Maid performing too, with her meticulous experimental take on grunge and the rawest electronics.
Nov 3rd is special for another reason
too, it’ll showcase John’s debut performance with live projections and
multi-screen mapping, capturing the frenzy of his live show through the
lens of a 24-hour rolling newsroom from a numinous dimension.
Read on for lots more detail, including full write-ups of both shows and or upcoming concerts for Phew, Isaiah Hull & Freddie Murphy (Nov 4th - ICA) and Tristwch y Fenywod & Anna Peaker (Nov 12th - St Matthias Church).
Enjoy!
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Upset The Rhythm presents… 100 FLOWERS
THE YUMMY FURFriday 31 October New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/teff2cfdc2f2 100 FLOWERS
are a post-punk band from Los Angeles, California, active primarily in
the early 1980s. The group evolved from the politically charged punk
outfit The Urinals, who were known for their raw, minimalist sound and
radical brevity, many of their songs clocked in under a minute. As their
musical interests expanded and matured, the trio mutated into 100
Flowers in 1981, taking their name from Mao Zedong’s “Hundred Flowers
Campaign,” a brief period in Chinese history encouraging open
expression. The new moniker reflected their increasingly sophisticated
and experimental approach to music, while maintaining a subversive,
critical edge. The band consisted of the same core lineup from
the Urinals: John Talley-Jones (vocals, bass), Kjehl Johansen (guitar,
vocals), and Kevin Barrett (drums). Under the 100 Flowers name, they
moved beyond the stark minimalism of their previous incarnation,
embracing more complex song structures, abstract lyrics, and an eclectic
mix of influences ranging from Wire and Gang of Four to Captain
Beefheart and Pere Ubu. Their sound retained punk’s urgency and DIY
ethos but integrated funk, avant-garde noise, and jarring time
signatures, all hallmarks of the emerging post-punk genre. In 1983, 100
Flowers released their self-titled LP on the independent label Happy
Squid Records, which they co-founded. The album was critically
well-regarded within underground circles, praised for its angular guitar
work, sharp lyrical content, and inventive rhythms. Songs like
“Sensible Virgins” and “Motorboat to Hell” showcased their unique fusion
of intelligence, irony, and punk rebellion. The group disbanded in
1983, but their influence endured. Both 100 Flowers and the Urinals
became cult favorites, especially among later generations of punk, indie
rock, and lo-fi musicians. Their music was rediscovered and reissued
over the years, including a retrospective compilation, 100 Years of
Pulchritude, which brought renewed attention to their groundbreaking
work. https://100flowers.bandcamp.com/album/100-flowersTHE YUMMY FUR
are Glaswegian DIY pop legends with their energetic mix of angular
riffs, super-short songs and biting social commentary. Consisting of
lead singer and guitarist John McKeown and an interesting line-up of
other musicians, the band were favourites of John Peel and recorded two
Peel Sessions, as well three totemic albums: ‘Night Club’ (Slampt /
Guided Missile, 1996), ‘Male Shadow at Three O’Clock’ (Vesuvius, 1998)
and ‘Sexy World’ (Guided Missile, 1998). All three are essential. The
group disbanded in 1999, and ten years later ‘Rock Action’ released
‘Piggy Wings’, a compilation of their best 7” and album tracks. The band
have since reformed to play with a line up featuring original members
John McKeown, Paul Thomson and Brian McDougall. |
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Upset The Rhythm & Parallel Lines presents…
JOHN MAUS
ALPHA MAIDMonday 3 November O2 Forum Kentish Town, 9-17 Highgate Rd, London NW5 1JY 7pm | £25 | Tickets: https://www.parallellinespromotions.com JOHN MAUS
is a truly enigmatic musician. Broadly cut from the synth pop cloth,
he’s fashioned the frosty minimalism of its fabric into a cloak of
infinite meaning, genuine grace and absurdist humor over the course of
four defining albums since 2006. His music is a highly mutable affair,
whilst often described as retro-futurist on behalf of the 80’s drum
machines and synth sounds employed, John’s music is more personal than
the nostalgic re-tread implied. There’s a cinematic quality to his
songs, with pathos conjured through propelling bass-lines, trailing
arpeggios and of course his deeply resonant vocal. Moroder helped map
out the territory but Maus is more interested in seeking cadence through
his love of Renaissance polyphony and the experimentation behind post
punk. It’s an amalgamation of musical ideas as radical as its intent. Maus
is a ‘man out of time’ trying to make sense of the inhumanity of our
world through his mobilisation of the language of punk rock. His aim is
true as he reaches for the seemingly impossible. It’s a want to emerge
as part of greater multiplicity, to appear, to become, to connect that
powers his songs and the man himself. It’s now been 14 years since the
widely lauded album We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves
(2011) appeared like a thunderbolt of maniacal energy and turned
everyone’s heads. Now regarded as an experimental pop classic, Pitiless
Censors was a huge breakthrough for Maus as a recognised artist and led
to a vast reappraisal of his past work. Two decades and seven
albums into his career, Sept 26th sees John Maus release his most
transcendent album yet: Later Than You Think. Arriving via his new label
YOUNG, the album explores themes of grief, justice, rebirth,
transformation, and spiritual warfare - coalescing into a work of
confession and confrontation: an aural metaphysics where affect,
intellect, and spirit converge in search of the beautiful, the truth and
the real. https://johnma.us/
ALPHA MAID (aka Leisha Thomas)
is a guitarist, vocalist, and producer from South London. Her debut EP
Spy (2019) was released by the collective/label CURL. She continues to
collaborate in various forms with fellow members such as Coby Sey and
Mica Levi. Alpha Maid's debut vinyl release CHUCKLE EP (2021) was
released on the C.A.N.V.A.S. collective/label, and garnered significant
critical attention. In spring 2023 Alpha Maid teamed up with Mica Levi
to self-release their joint EP spresso. Alpha Maid’s new album Is this a
queue, is released via AD 93 on the 29th October. Written across many
years and different places, the LP documents a journey and the people
Alpha Maid met while moving around, collating moments of the present.
Her guitar remains a constant amongst an array of sonic influences
throughout: from dub which honours her Jamaican heritage and the
Windrush Generation, to the twinges of an emo love song in On Smoke.
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Upset The Rhythm presents… PHEW
ISAIAH HULL
FREDDIE MURPHYTuesday 4 November ICA, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH 7.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/j37d81ca0772 PHEW
is a legendary figure in Japanese underground music. 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),
Yoshimi (Boredoms, OOIOO) 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 ISAIAH HULL
is a poet and rapper from London, appearing often alongside frequent
collaborator / producer aloisius. Hull’s music glistens in a ghostly
way. Heart-wrenching and laugh-inducing in equal measure, Hull deems
himself a “stand-up tragedian.” Above minimal, glittering production,
reminiscent of Triad God or Dean Blunt, and dark glitch-imbued beats
that sound like they’re emitting from turntable on its last legs, Hull
shares his heartfelt and diaristic poems-as-tracks – witty and harrowed
and never shying from the grim political realities of life in the UK.
Combining impeccable flow with singular production, Hull is an
unstoppable force to be reckoned with. Hull’s debut album ‘Pocomania’
was released through Young earlier this year. https://young.bandcamp.com/album/pocomaniaFREDDIE MURPHY
is a sound artist and curator based in Torino, Italy. His sonic
research has shifted from cathartic performances to express the Catholic
sense of guilt to an intimate investigation on feelings of loss and
acceptance connected with grief, using an approach to composition that
is bound to visual imagery and concepts linked to rituality. His musical
practice involves experimenting on the duality of natural/synthetic,
using acoustic recordings processed into synthetic sounds, as well as
mimicking natural sounds using analogue tools. As a founding member of
the seminal experimental outfit Father Murphy he released a series of
concept albums on labels such as Joyful Noise, The Flenser, Avant! and
performed extensively across the world. Appearances include Venice
Biennale and Santarcangelo Festival (IT), Dark Mofo Festival
(Australia), Le Guess Who!? Festival (NL). https://linktr.ee/freddiemurphy |
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Upset The Rhythm presents… TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD
ANNA PEAKERWednesday 12 November St Matthias Church, Wordsworth Rd, London, N16 8DD, UK 7.30pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Aec543e61aa5TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD
is a band of three queer women who play avant garde gothic music using
dual-zither, bass and electronic drums. Their lyrics are sung entirely
in the Welsh language (Cymraeg), and flicker in the moon-glow. Tristwch y
Fenywod (translated as… The Sadness of Women) are Gwretsien Ferch
Lisbeth (Guttersnipe, Petronn Sphene), Leila Lygad (Hawthonn) and Sidni
Sarffwraig (Slaylor Moon, The Courtneys). Formed in 2022 in Leeds, where
the band are primarily based, Tristwch y Fenywod sounds like an early
4AD group dredged from the waters of an Anglesey swamp. Sapphic love and
desire, existential darkness, political and environmental
anguish/celebration, psychogeographic romance, pagan mysticism, imaginal
explorations of Celtic history and myth, psychedelia, and myriad other
variations of reverie are fantasised through their songs. In
August 2024 they released their self-titled debut album through Night
School Records to critical acclaim, and have since performed at various
UK festivals such as Supernormal and Supersonic, including two memorable
nights with Upset The Rhythm at St Pancras Old Church back in January
this year. https://night-school.bandcamp.com/album/tristwch-y-fenywodANNA PEAKER
is an artist based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, who began experimenting
with sound in 2016. Her work centers around quiet electronics, amplified
objects, and processed autoharp. She has released music with Longform
Editions, Alter, Infant Tree, Chocolate Monk, and Regional Bears. |
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