Jeffrey Alexander + Christina Carter - August show announced!

 

New show announced and… it’s a corker!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

JEFFREY ALEXANDER & THE HEAVY LIDDERS 
CHRISTINA CARTER 
Saturday 8 August
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL


7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/g5abdad7e406

JEFFREY ALEXANDER has been frittering around the edges of the psychedelic underground for decades, evolving his own musical space that overlays dusty folk, cosmic jazz, deep psych, free improv, and even (gasp!) indie rock. He’s been called a “psych rock lifer” (UNCUT), crafting “digressive jams that meander through free-form jazz, bluesy kosmische” (PROG) and “extremely highgrade psych” (MOJO). Convened in 2019 on Alexander’s relocation back to his native east coast, Philadelphia’s Heavy Lidders are the latest hard-touring expression for the guitarist’s music, joining a vast and tangled discography (and tape list) that includes the beloved long-running west coast Dire Wolves Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band and, before them, the Iditarod and Black Forest/Black Sea, as well as a bushel of solo play-all-the-instruments projects, a stint with Jackie-O Motherfucker, sessions with Kemialliset Ystävät and Avarus and others.

The newest studio LP, “Liquid Donnon” (released 12 June 2026 on Riot Season), catches Jeffrey Alexander & The Heavy Lidders at their heaviest, “heavy” in the Lidderverse being far from a monolithic musical idea. There’s heavy like the album-opening “From Loch Raven to Fells Point,” one of several tracks with elegant and gnarled conversational jams featuring the core Lidders lineup of Alexander alongside guitarist Drew Gardner and bassist Jesse Sheppard (both of Elkhorn) and drummer Scott Verrastro (Kohoutek, Bardo Pond). But there’s heavy, too, with tracks where Gardner shifts to dream-space vibraphone, and those with Christina Carter of Texas noise-psych legends Charalambides on veil-crossing wordless vocals, her first collaboration with Alexander in some 20 years. She will indeed be fronting the band on this brief UK tour. For fans of Meat Puppets, Trad Gras och Stenar, Ornette inspired Krautrock, Sonny + Linda Sharrock, Jerry - Jorma interplay, SPACE.

https://jeffreyalexander.bandcamp.com/


CHRISTINA CARTER was born in the bayou city of Houston, Texas in November of 1968, and co-founded the group Charalambides there in December of 1991. Ever since she has deeply mined her own vein of sound-as-music with voice, guitar, harmonica, and piano. For the past several years, Christina has utilized extended improvisational guitar passages within and without song structures and investigated 'the song' as a thing unto itself, specifically concentrating on 'the word'- both in her own lyric writing and her interpretations of the work of other lyricists. In addition to performing extensively in the US, UK and Europe as a solo artist, Christina has played and recorded in various groups and duos with Jeffrey Alexander, Maria Chavez, Loren Connors, Spencer Dobbs, Sandy Ewen, Julia Hungerford, Alistair Lingren, and Joe McPhee, amongst others.

Concurrent with her work as a musician, Christina has expanded her involvement in writing and visual art. Her poetry has been published by Digitalis Industries, The Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal, Glass Eye, Slow Toe, and Shelter Press. In 2007, her art piece Forever 21 appeared at Salon Mijangos in San Antonio, Texas as part of a concert/exhibit featuring Tom Carter, Warmer Milks, and Tetuzi Akiyama. Forever 21 was a labor of love and destruction: six of her handwritten diaries cut up painstakingly with scissors into miniscule pieces, which then filled a large yellow plastic shopping bag. In 2024, Unifactor published For Want Of Walls, Christina’s book of personal yet abstracted writing and watercolor paintings. Christina currently resides in Austin, Texas. Her latest release is the solo voice, guitar and accordion album Like A Bayou To Its Gulf (Bud Tapes 2025). 

https://christinacarter.bandcamp.com/
 

Season 2!

Best news O’clock! We’ve teamed up with Spoilsport Records to release Season 2’s incredible debut album - ‘Power of Now’! April 24th is the date for your diaries, with the record available for pre-order today digitally and on black vinyl via Bandcamp.
 

We’re also sharing their first single ‘Abundance of Power’, up on all the digital platforms now, alongside the song’s most excellent video made by band member Freya McLeod (check out YouTube)… enjoy!

Season 2 formed in late 2024, bringing together seasoned Melbourne musicians with previous and current projects including Parsnip, The Stroppies and Phil and the Tiles. The five piece, comprising Carolyn Hawkins, Claudia Serfaty, Charlotte Zarb, Freya McLeod and Matt Powell, quickly set to work writing winsome, DIY, shimmer-pop hits that careen through your mind in a gratifying dizzy rush. 
 
With a clear collective vision and little time to waste, Season 2 spent 2025 writing and recording, appearing live only a handful of times. Finally, this April, the band are primed for their debut release, a full-length album entitled 'Power of Now'. ‘Power of Now ‘is a cerebral explosion of melody, hooks, drones and rhythm. In the vein of The Feelies, The Vaselines and The Clean, Season 2 have whipped up a sonic whirlwind. It's a giddy thrill of snappy slap, catchy gang vocals and crystalline guitar refrains. 
 
'Abundance of Power' is a bittersweet bop of ponderous bass, crisp chord flashes and grounded vocals that dwell on slighted futures and bored realities. 'Becomes a Dream' is delirious race of scrappy strumming and flying phrases that unsettle as much as they pinball endorphins - "pour the ink into the sand, watch the dog it bites the hand". "Tell me something, elbows on the table, I'll tell you nothing, leave you tugging at the cable" they sing on the peppy future single 'Tugging at the Cable', capturing a certain innocent, wide-eyed expressiveness. Season 2 do sparky well, their songs are instant rewards, tunnelling into your subconscious and testing the dance floor. They keep everything moving, the beat and the conversation. Season 2 sound barely controlled and all the better for it, you have no choice but to be swept up.
 
'Power of Now' was recorded by Alex Macfarlane (The Green Child, Chateau) and mastered by Mikey Young. It will be released digitally and on LP (black vinyl) on April 24th, internationally via Upset The Rhythm and domestically in Australia by Spoilsport Records.
 

Susannah Stark tomorrow in London!

 

Hello everyone!

Tomorrow is looking great - Upset The Rhythm will host our first show at Theatreship, an historic cargo boat moored in Canary Wharf that doubles as an arts space.

 

We are beyond lucky to have Susannah Stark & Band headlining this show. Stark's recent album Minor Gestures (Stroom / Night School) frames song as a dialogue with the natural world, mythology, and history, inviting listeners to enter a space of reflection rather than resolution. It is equal parts immersive and marvellous.

 

Tomorrow Stark will be joined with an ensemble of Glasgow musicians, accompanying her on accordion, trumpet, percussion, and drones, conjuring shifting sonic states. Karolina Lebek and Ecka Mordecai will also perform too, so if you enjoy evocative soundscapes and entwined folk textures this will prove sublime.

 

Live music will commence from approx 8.15pm and tickets will be available on the door from 7.30pm. Please read on for all the particulars.

 

 

 

Upset The Rhythm presents…

SUSANNAH STARK & BAND
KAROLINA LEBEK
ECKA MORDECAI
Tuesday 20 January
Theatreship, South Quay Plaza, London, E14 9SH
7.30pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Db4300074e6f 

SUSANNAH STARK’s new album opens with questions that set its reflective tone while drifting on a current of birdsong, rivers and synths. Sung in Gaidhlig and English, her second album for Stroom and Night School, ‘Minor Gestures’, is a dialogue between place, history and the listener. Collaborating with experimental and folk musicians in Glasgow, Stark navigates acoustic textures with fluidity while blending breath, drone and rhythm. The result is a meditative soundscape that celebrates vulnerability and curiosity. From the responsive waters of 'Caochan' to the unanswered queries of 'Ceistean gun freagairtean', this is ritualistic sonic poetry.

https://susannahstarkmusic.bandcamp.com/ 

KAROLINA LEBEK is an artist working across a range of media including video, photography, sound, installation and live performance. Inspired by roots within Lemko culture of the Carpathian Mountains of Poland, Karolina Lebek's music is a blend of contemporary folk, classical and electronic music. The use of recorded sounds and analogue instruments, such as the wooden flute and harp, brings an organic texture to the tracks, while layered electronic beats infuse a modern pulse. This fusion creates an atmosphere that honors the rich heritage of the Carpathian Mountains while pushing boundaries of musical expression.

https://soundcloud.com/potikk 

ECKA MORDECAI is an artist based in London. Situated between sonic, performative and olfactory disciplines, her work is driven by sensation: entwining cello, horsehair harp, voice, eggflute, scent and improvisation into time-based objects expressive of emotional complexity.

https://eckamordecai.bandcamp.com/track/leau-dhiver 

 

 

Green Stuff by Dog Chocolate!

  

“Bonkers and exquisite” isn’t just a lyric in Dog Chocolate’s new single ‘Green Stuff’ - it’s the perfect snapshot of the band themselves! Spindly cascades of guitar squall, plinky keyboards and eco-minded camaraderie burst into vivid being on Green Stuff, out today. This floral chorale features on the group’s forthcoming album ‘So Inspired, So Done In’, arriving Feb 27th.

Catch Dog Chocolate celebrating with an album launch at Paper Dress Vintage, London (Feb 27th), followed hot on its heels by a show at Truck Store, Oxford (Feb 28th).

‘So Inspired, So Done In’ can be pre-ordered from all the best shops and our very own webshop / bandcamp now.

UTR
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London show for Keiji Haino confirmed!

 

 

Upset The Rhythm are delighted to welcome the legendary Keiji Haino to London next March! This show at the ICA will be the UK premiere of his Polygonola performance, wherein Haino-san will play a unique, suspended, polygonal metal instrument that produces a rich variety of complex non-integer overtones. Tickets on sale now!


Upset The Rhythm presents…

KEIJI HAINO 
Tuesday 17 March
ICA, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH
7.30pm | £25 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/V8e7432de701

KEIJI HAINO was born in Chiba, Japan on May 3, 1952. Inspired by Antonin Artaud, he aimed for the theater, but an encounter with The Doors stimulated him into music, where he has examined and absorbed a wide range of expressions from the early blues, especially Blind Lemon Jefferson, or European medieval music to popular songs across the world.  In 1970, he joined a group Lost Aaraaf named after Edgar Allan Poe’s poem as a vocalist. Meanwhile, he started to work on home recordings and learned the guitar and percussion autodidactically. In 1978, Haino formed a rock band Fushitsusha, and since 1988, after a recuperation period from 1983 to 1987, he has been internationally active in various forms including solo, groups such as Fushitsusha, Nijiumu, Aihiyo, Vajra, Sanhedrin, Seijaku, Nazoranai or The Hardy Rocks and DJ as “experimental mixture,” as well as in collaboration with artists from different backgrounds, drawing the performance of the guitar, percussion, hurdy gurdy, string instruments, wind instruments, local instruments from across the world and DJ gears to the extreme through idiosyncratic techniques. Haino has released more than 200 recordings and performed live at least 2,000 times.

In March 2026 Japan, Haino will present two exclusive performances in Europe on polygonola, a metal-flat polygonal instrument, based on the 2nd dimensional vibration theory, built by Naoki Skura. One fo these performances will take place at the ICA on March 17th.

https://keijihaino.bandcamp.com/album/my-lord-music 

Yellow Swans - London show!

One of our favourite bands, who played Upset The Rhythm so many times in our early days, are back! Please be upstanding for the return of YELLOW SWANS, thank you 2026!


Upset The Rhythm presents…

YELLOW SWANS
Monday 16 February
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/r1ab97cac2bd 

YELLOW SWANS have carved an influential path through America’s experimental music underground, at the axis of noise, psychedelia, industrial, drone, and hardcore. From their 2001 founding to the duo’s final shows (and subsequent hiatus) in 2008, Gabriel Mindel Saloman and Pete Swanson released well over 50 recordings documenting studio experiments, live improvisations, and numerous collaborations. Together they relentlessly toured North America, Europe, and Oceania, performing at numerous international music festivals including Sonar (ES), Open Circuit (BE), and Sonic Protest (FR), and were invited to join Art Council England’s Free Noise Tour in 2007. Yellow Swans performed for Upset The Rhythm multiple times over these busy years. Now, after a 15 year break, they have returned to recording and performing. Their music continues to be restless, ragged, and forever in flux, untethered and unresolved. Check out the duo’s two new cassette albums on Bandcamp now, ‘Out of Practice I & II’, the second is particularly striking and alien, enjoy!

https://yellowswans.bandcamp.com/ 

 

 

 

Bill Orcutt - solo show in London next April!

 

Not content with having Orcutt Shelley Miller playing twice next year in London, we are BEYOND happy to announce a solo show from Bill Orcutt on April 13th at Bush Hall too!


Upset The Rhythm presents…

BILL ORCUTT
Monday 13 April 
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherds Bush, London W12 7LJ
7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/U67bfce667c6

BILL ORCUTT is a guitarist and composer. He has been described as “thrillingly original” (Will Ainsley, Bandcamp Daily) as "a go-for-broke guitar improviser," (Ben Ratliff, New York Times) “creating a new language” (Marc Masters, Pitchfork) whose playing would "make Derek Bailey do a double-take" (Lars Gotrich, NPR). Orcutt tours actively, appearing at festivals worldwide, including Rewire (The Hague), Presences Electronique (Paris), Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Goner Fest (Memphis), Musique Actuelle (Victoriaville), Big Ears (Knoxville), Music Unlimited (Wels), Le Guess Who? (Utrecht), Nouveau Festival du Centre Pompidou (Paris), Unsound (Krakow), a Maida Vale session for BBC 3 (London) and a Tiny Desk concert for NPR.

2025 saw Orcutt release ‘Another Perfect Day’,  his first solo electric guitar record since 2017’s eponymous Bill Orcutt. While that eight-year gap might not seem like a ton of time on the cosmic scale, it nonetheless represents a busy half-decade plus for Orcutt projects: a raft of improv collaborations, an acclaimed run of chopped and looped albums on Fake Estates, and the collision of Orcutt’s computer and guitar music on Music For Four Guitars and last year’s How to Rescue Things, both on Palilalia. The undeniable alchemy of those latter mashups inspired not only a wider appreciation of Orcutt-as-composer, but also the resurrection of Orcutt-as-bandleader, as the Bill Orcutt Quartet hit the road in support of Four Guitars, Orcutt’s first work with a proper score. ‘Another Perfect Day’ sees Orcutt building tension with short phrases, repeated with slight variability until it seems like they’ll never stop, finally slamming into a fresh line like the dawning valley at the crest of the mountain pass. It’s an affirmation that Orcutt is above all a lead player - angular runs scaling the heavens, ricocheting back to ground zero before climbing again. 

https://billorcutt.bandcamp.com/

EarthBall - London headline show!

  

Upset The Rhythm presents…

EARTHBALL
Friday 17 April
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL
7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/u7705d1dcd32

EARTHBALL are a wild ensemble from Canada, mainly based on Vancouver Island. EarthBall's live shows epitomise their commitment to spontaneous composition, offering audiences a unique experience with each performance. The last two years have seen EarthBall release their debut LP 'It's Yours' and a live album entitled 'Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2' featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford on Upset The Rhythm. This winter they returned with their best effort to date 'Outside Over There’ - a gathering of sound at the forest's edge; where feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary between chaos and clarity. Perhaps John Olson of Wolf Eyes sums up the album best:

“Outside Over There is an eight-track odyssey that unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven-minute masterpiece, ‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a little.” 

https://upsettherhythm.bandcamp.com/album/outside-over-there

Dog Chocolate - 'So Inspired, So Done In' announced!

 

Big day today, the new Dog Chocolate album, heavily trailed in person at our label showcase last week, has been officially announced!

After 7 strange years of relative silence, Dog Chocolate have now returned with ‘So Inspired, So Done In’. This fourth album is their most focused, cohesive and song-based yet. They still sound like a bin full of wasps, but now the bin has double-cream or a Viennetta at the bottom, nice! While many of the 16 songs on here barely make it past the 3-minute mark, each one is bursting with all the textures and colours you’d expect from the band.

Thematically, a lot of ground is covered, with songs tackling subject matter as diverse as overheard conversations, the Rogerian concept of the Actualising Tendency, bronze age living conditions, and human-plant relations. Work (and anti-work) is another recurring theme, as is artistic inspiration and burnout. 

Listen now to Dog Chocolate’s first single ‘Employee’, a bouncy dissonant song that trades experiences of the mid-2020s job market.

 

 

Dog Chocolate revel in the mundane and incidental to explore bigger, existential questions with this record. They continue to investigate their internal and external landscapes with playful curiosity, frustration, silliness and empathy, but this time there’s a contemplative glaze.

'So Inspired, So Done In' is available to pre-order now on black bio-vinyl, with accompanying A3 poster and lyric booklet.

UTR
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Extra London date - Orcutt Shelley Miller

Well Cafe OTO sold out in the blink of an eye, so… we’ve booked Orcutt Shelley Miller to rip it up at The 100 Club next April too!
UTR
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Upset The Rhythm presents…

ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER
Thursday 23 April
100 Club, 100 Oxford St, London, W1D 1LL 


7.30pm | £22 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Va21db65af7a

ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER are a guitar, bass, drums power trio. Featuring incendiary guitarist Bill Orcutt, psych-seer Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire, Howlin’ Rain), and dynamic powerhouse Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth). Despite rhythmic nods to the SoCal '60s, the overall vibe of Orcutt Shelley Miller is angular, atonal slash piled on a mid-'80s SST punk-fusionoid substrate, with Orcutt's bristling chords anchored by Miller's ebbing/ flowing bass. In the engine room, Shelley, the most beat-anchored of the trio, never quite abandons the two-and-four pocket but scrabbles around it, skitters over it, burrows under it, ultimately tapping a sort of Michael Hurley-gone-motorik vibe on the longer tracks. "Four-Door Charger," easily the most tranced-out of their tracks, passes through kraut-funk on the way to a solid Klaus Dinger-meets-Lothar Meid churn.

Orcutt Shelley Miller’s self-titled debut album is out now on Silver Current, and sounds like a fully formed beast, rather than a mere sum of its distinctive parts. For the improv shy listener, I can gladly inform you that it sounds like Orcutt sketched out a few of the heads beforehand, so there's plenty to clutch onto amidst the slashing Ginn-esque tritones, and plenty of the right-angle bursting-clockwork solos that define Orcutt's hypnotic phrasing. ‘Orcutt Shelley Miller’ reads like a "big rock statement" by its constituents that treads the line between good times and blown minds, and as such, it's a top-shelf repeat spinner.               
                                                                                                         
https://orcuttshelleymiller.bandcamp.com/album/orcutt-shelley-miller