UPSET THE RHYTHM: Heather Leigh & Asiq Nargile this Thursday in London, plus Rattle album launch next week!

Hello there!

This Thursday we’re overjoyed to have both Asiq Nargile and Heather Leigh performing hypnotic sets for us. Taking place at the fantastic arts space called The Forge in Camden the show promises to be exceptional indeed.

Asiq Nargile is based in the Borcali region of Southern Georgia, and has been singing and playing the saz since she was 15 years old. Her effortlessly entrancing and exquisite music is a continuation of the legacy of the aşıq bards, who would travel through the region serving as conduits for news, ideas, music and culture. Her recent live session at Womad can give you some idea of how incredible she is as a performer, check this out!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p043015y

Heather Leigh shares a mesmeric depth of focus with Nargile, entwining her sweeping vocal hushes through layers of lapsteel lamentation. Heather Leigh explores themes of instinct, vulnerability, memory, shadow, fantasy, cruelty and projection in her music. Recent album ‘I Abused Animal’ is a personal, idiosyncratic and deeply psychedelic work, ranging from almost Kousokuya-scale black blues through the kind of ethereal electro-ritual of Solstice-era Coil. At times the intimacy of the music makes you feel like she’s singing directly into your ear, her performances always enthrall and pull you under the waves. This short Unseen Recordings clip gives a good insight into her intensity of vision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJHoqk_QTFM

There’s plenty more to read about this Thursday’s show to follow, tickets will be £10 on the door from 7.30pm too. Below, you can also read more about next week’s album launch for Rattle. Accompanied by Charles Hayward and Benjamin Duvall, Rattle will be celebrating their debut release on Upset The Rhythm / I Own You by performing at the numinous St Pancras Old Church. If that wasn’t already enough to process we also announced a concert today for lurching post-punk cyclone Negative Scanner too, November 12^th is not ready for what’s coming! Check out our listings for details and ticket links.

\\\\\ THURSDAY /////

HEATHER LEIGH

ASIQ NARGILE
Thursday 4 August
The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden, NW1 7NL
7pm | £10 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/358631

HEATHER LEIGH is the daughter of a coal miner, weaving a trail from West Virginia to Texas and now residing in Scotland. Heather travels the vast unexplored reaches of pedal steel guitar. Her playing is as physical as it is phantom, combining spontaneous compositions with a feel for the full interaction of flesh with hallucinatory power sources. With a rare combination of sensitivity and strength, Leigh’s steel mainlines sanctified slide guitar and deforms it using hypnotic tone-implosions, juggling walls of bleeding amp tone with choral vocal constructs and wrenching single note ascensions.

In late 2015, Heather Leigh released her first proper studio album, I Abused Animal on Stephen O’Malley & Peter Rehberg’s Ideologic Organ/Editions Mego labels to widespread acclaim. Renowned as a fearless free improviser, I Abused Animal is a breakthrough work showcasing Leigh’s songwriting prowess, foregrounding her stunning voice and her innovations for the pedal steel guitar. Warmly recorded in a secret location in the English countryside, the album transmutes the power of her captivating live performances to a studio setting, capturing her tactile playing in full clarity while making devastating use of volume and space. Heather Leigh explores themes of abuse, sexual instinct, vulnerability, memory, shadow, fantasy, cruelty and projection across the album’s psychedelic hymnals. At times the intimacy of the recordings makes you feel like she’s singing directly into your ear, playing just for you.

http://wishimage.com/

ASIQ NARGILE aka Nargile Mehtiyeva was born in Tbilisi and is now based in the Borcali region of Southern Georgia. She has been playing saz (long-neck lute) and singing since the age of 15. Fluent in Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Russian, Nargile represents the cosmopolitan heritage of old Tbilisi, a city once known as a meeting point for multilingual aşıq bards who would travel through the region serving as conduits for news, ideas, music and culture. A powerful solo performer, her vocal recital of epic folk poetry is by turns ecstatic and deeply expressive, and is interspersed with bursts of virtuosic, highly ornamented saz.

Equally comfortable performing moving laments or upbeat folk dances, Nargile is currently the only female aşıq living and performing in the ethnic Azeri region of Georgia, and has been teaching the art to new generations. Thanks to the efforts of The Sayat Nova Project, a non-profit group aiming to help preserve and promote the diverse musical dialects of the Caucasus, European audiences can now experience the elusive, hypnotic beauty of Nargile’s music for themselves. A recording of her live performance at Cafe OTO will be released soon, following on from a successful UK tour with kindred folk channeller Richard Dawson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgAb87RFgpk

\\\\\ THURSDAY 11 AUGUST /////

RATTLE - Album launch!

CHARLES HAYWARD (Performing 30 Minute Snare Roll / Bell Agency)

EX-EASTER ISLAND HEAD (SOLO)

Thursday 11 August

St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, NW1 1UL

7.30pm | £6 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/367858

RATTLE are a Nottingham based duo, Rattle focus almost exclusively on drums and more drums, beneath a delicate overlay of vocal harmonies and percussive effects. Formed by Katharine Eira Brown (also of Kogumaza) and Theresa Wrigley (also of Fists), Rattle began as an experiment in crafting rich songs and melody using drums and voice alone. Their music weaves and intertwines post-punk, minimalism and experimental rock, through off-kilter rhythms, patterns and counter melodies. Often starting by picking out the ghost notes from the drums to develop a melody, the song then reveals itself in rounds and harmonies with layer upon layer of rhythm and vocal, lending a choral feel to some of the tracks. Rattle effortlessly blend the avant-garde with irresistible melodies and hypnotic drum beats, using rhythm and harmony to create a refreshing sound that is utterly new - a pretty rare feat these days when we’re saturated with so much music. Their live performances are at once hypnotic, monastic and danceable, having entranced audiences at Supersonic Festival, Dot to Dot, throughout the UK during a recent tour with Witching Waves and in Europe with Zea (Arnold de Boer from The Ex). Rattle’s debut self-titled album will be released on Upset The Rhythm and I Own You on August 5^th, this show celebrates their London record launch!

https://www.facebook.com/Rattle-196974100379051/

CHARLES HAYWARD is an English drummer and songwriting singer, known primarily as a founding member of the experimental rock group This Heat and avant-pop unit Camberwell Now. He also played with Mal Dean's Amazing Band, Radar Favourites, Dolphin Logic, and gigged and recorded with old schoolfriend and "Pooh and the Ostrich Feather" member Phil Manzanera in the group Quiet Sun project as well as a short stint with Gong. He was a session musician on The Raincoats' second album, Odyshape, and on one occasion played drums for the anarchist punk band Crass. For this show Charles will be performing two pieces for percussion including ‘Bell Agency’ and ‘30 Minute Snare Drum Roll’.

https://www.facebook.com/charleshayward.official/

EX-EASTER ISLAND HEAD will also perform in solo mode with Benjamin D. Duvall presenting a mesmeric new work for prepared guitars and FM radios, tuning into the furthermost territories of the groups' unique vocabulary in pursuit of resonances sympathetic or otherwise. Ex-Easter Island Head's new LP, ‘Twenty-Two Strings’ is released August 5th by Low Point records.

https://lowpoint.bandcamp.com/

Thank you for reading this, and for coming out last week to support our Oblivians show too. You make all this possible, we are indebted!

UPSET THE RHYTHM

http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk

http://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/

http://www.upsettherhythm.blogspot.com

\\\\\ UPSET THE RHYTHM /////

///// UPCOMING SHOWS \\\\\

HEATHER LEIGH
ASIQ NARGILE
Thursday 4 August
The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, Camden, NW1 7NL
7pm | £10 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/358631

RATTLE - Album launch!

CHARLES HAYWARD (Performing 30 Minute Snare Roll / Bell Agency)

EX-EASTER ISLAND HEAD (SOLO)