UPSET THE RHYTHM: Cian Nugent & Mega Bog tomorrow, HEXA, Sacred Paws & Spinning Coin next week in London!

Hey everyone!

Thank you all for coming out to see Carla dal Forno last weekend, I hope you enjoyed those evocative dubby, songscapes as much as we did. It’s been a productive week for Upset The Rhythm, confirming new shows for OOIOO, Xiu Xiu and Rat Columns. If you like Japanese gamelan freakouts, ecstatic synth revelation or melancholic guitar pop we have you covered! We’ve also been working with Wolf Eyes on the lineup for next month’s show and can now confirm a special modular synth set from Mumdance and an explosive performance from Guttersnipe in support. All sounds great to me, let’s talk of things even more imminent.

Tomorrow we’re heading to The Islington for a concert with three incredible acts who all manage to shake new technicolour vibes out of music’s well worn raincoat. Cian Nugent will headline with his dazzling guitar fretwork and deeply resonant songwriting. Mega Bog will use her intuitive grasp of melody to traverse vast jazzy wonderlands, whilst Jess Williamson will open proceedings with her earthy, gothic folk. Tickets will cost you £7 on the door from 7.30pm, see you there!

Next week we also have two other events lining up for you! On Wednesday we’re very honoured to host HEXA; a duo made up of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and perceptive, Australian composer Lawrence English. They will be performing a specially commissioned soundtrack to David Lynch’s celebrated Factory Photographs. Taking place at The Forge in Camden the performance will be heavily immersive with projections and meticulous walls of sound. The endlessly inventive Graham Dunning will also be debuting a set of music based around his recent Aggregate composition.

Then on Friday we’re back at The Islington hosting Sacred Paws and Spinning Coin as they whirl around the UK on their joint headline tour. Expect cascading guitar pop galore with moments of afrobeat adventuring and post punk propulsion. No that’s what I call alliteration! Life Drawings will open the show too, full details on all three marvelous events can be found below. Read on for all particulars!

\ \ \ \ \ TOMORROW / / / / /

CIAN NUGENT

MEGA BOG

JESS WILLIAMSON
Saturday 11 February
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £7 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/382844

CIAN NUGENT is a mercurial guitar player and composer from Dublin, Ireland. Cian combines personal passions, such as suburban/coastal blues, traditional musics, late 1960s-'70s singer-songwriters, jazz ambitions, 20th century composition and the Takoma school into a deeply personal style. New album, 'Night Fiction' is Cian Nugent's third album but his first taking on the role of singer-songwriter. Where his previous two albums: 2013's 'Born With The Caul' and 2011's 'Doubles' saw him exploring extended guitar based instrumentals with his band, The Cosmos, here he has reigned things in and focused his songwriting skills. Guitar fans, do not fear, there is still plenty of soloing and fingerpicking here. With 7 songs both solo and with his band, this album amalgamates everything Cian has done up to this point and reveals a more broad palate of influences, including The Velvet Underground, Richard Thompson, Television, Neil Young, John Lennon, Fred Neil, etc. Cian will perform this show as a trio showcasing lots of songs from his recent album, 'Night Fiction', out now on Woodsist.

https://soundcloud.com/cian-nugent

MEGA BOG is the moniker of song-dribbler Erin Birgy, a Pacific Northwest rodeo child with an unmistakable laugh who was allegedly cursed upon conception. Over the past 8 years the band has stretched and wandered in a crescendo towards musical freedom. Now based in New York City, Birgy has adopted a band of wiggly jazz cartoons lifted from bands like Big Theif, iji, Big Eater, Causings, Hand Habits, Heatwarmer and others. Melodies always lush, erotic and free. Chords always dissonant, abstract and evolutionary. On their 2013 album Gone Banana, Bog settled into their homemade cloud of pop and jazz. Spreading the discs around the world over countless tours of dim zones. On their new bug, "Happy Together", Mega Bog leapfrogs further into the storm. Dizzying fusion of lounge, pop and bouncing rocks under poetic tantrums of love gone all the way wrong. Listen closer.

https://megabog.bandcamp.com/

JESS WILLIAMSON’s Heart Song is a brave record. It explores the strength in vulnerability, the power in silence and empty space. The recordings bristle with energy and confidence while maintaining the intense intimacy Williamson is known for. Like the visceral desert landscape that inspires her, she knows when to let her vocals drift across the song, light like a tumbleweed, and when to, like the fiercest of Texas storms, unleash thunder and lightning with her band.
http://www.jesswilliamson.com/

\ \ \ \ \ NEXT WEDNESDAY / / / / /

HEXA: FACTORY PHOTOGRAPHS

(Jamie Stewart & Lawrence English sonic response to David Lynch’s photography)

GRAHAM DUNNING (Aggregate performance)

Wednesday 15 February

The Forge, 3-7 Delancey St, Camden, London, NW1 7NL

7pm | £14 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/383554

HEXA is a project by Australian composer and artist Lawrence English and Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart exploring the physicality of sound and its abilities to infiltrate, abrade and occupy the body. Premiered at the David Lynch: Between Two Worlds retrospective at GOMA museum in Brisbane, Australia in April 2015, HEXA is a sonic response to Lynch’s Factory Photographs, a collection of images Lynch took of disused factories and the ruins of industry in the USA, Poland, Germany and the UK. Using the factory photographs as both a literal and metaphoric source, their performance draws root from the texture of Lynch’s images, the imagined and actual spaces, and the spectral histories contained within them. The effect is like “cascading low frequency pulses and tectonic plates of sound, suspended in cavernous cathedral-like spaces.” When asked recently about his decades’ long interest in photographing factories in various states of disuse, David Lynch remarked “I grew up in the north-west of America where there are no factories at all, just woods and farms. But my mother was from Brooklyn, so when I was little we used to go there and I got a taste for a certain kind of architecture and a feeling for machines and smoke and fear. To me, the ideal factory location has no real nature, except winter-dead black trees and oil-soaked earth. Time disappears when I'm shooting in a factory, it's really beautiful.” HEXA's album is out now on the Room40 label.

http://lawrenceenglish.com/

http://www.xiuxiu.org/

GRAHAM DUNNING is self-taught as an artist and musician having studied neither discipline academically. His live work explores sound as texture, timbre and something tactile, drawing on bedroom production, tinkering and recycling found objects. He also creates visual work, video and installations drawing on these themes. Graham has performed solo and in ensembles across the UK, and Europe, and exhibited installations in the UK, New Zealand and USA. He teaches Experimental Sound Art at the Mary Ward Centre in London and also gives various independent workshops. He has released through Entr’acte, Seagrave, Tombed Visions and more. For this show Graham will be performing a live set based around his recent solo composition ‘Aggregate’, based on a visual score, using the resonances of rooms within now-empty brutalist towerblock, Balfron Tower, alongside record crackle and analogue synth.

https://grahamdunning.com/

\ \ \ \ \ NEXT FRIDAY / / / / /

SPINNING COIN
SACRED PAWS

LIFE DRAWINGS
Friday 17 February
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £6 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/387070

SPINNING COIN are a fiercely independent rock group from Glasgow, something you could probably guess by listening to any of their songs. Their roots are all over the place but a simple love of playing together in their rehearsal space, and almost never turning down shows, has seen them coalesce a winning group sound in almost no time at all. Drummer Chris White is part of the Winning Sperm Party collective, who document of a world of shadowy Glasgow music running all the way from the Glasgow Music Collective to Fuzzkill Records today. Where Spinning Coin branch out from things is in their cascading melodicism topped with some amazing shredding. This connects into a slightly different Glasgow music scene more associated with Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub, and of course The Pastels, who released their debut 7” through their Geographic Music imprint. Both songs are home-recorded but show off the group’s easy flair for getting things to sound right without trying too hard, both are bittersweet, both are beautiful.

https://soundcloud.com/spinning-coin

SACRED PAWS are a fantastic, intuitive dream punk duo, comprising Eilidh of Golden Grrls and Skeleton Bob on drums, and Rachel from Trash Kit and Shopping on guitar. Raw Soweto high-life riffs and rolling Afrobeat grooves are filtered through post-punk sass and ramshackle K Records charm. It’s an utterly joyous sound, the duo trading giddy melodies and righteous chants over febrile rhythms and chunky, infectious riffage. Rock Action are releasing the band’s debut album ‘Strike A Match’ on January 27th! This record follows their wonderful EP, and was produced by Tony Doogan and Sacred Paws at Castle Doom, Glasgow before being mastered by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road Studios.

https://soundcloud.com/rock-action-records/sacredpaws-everyday

LIFE DRAWINGS are an un-googleable band of tip-top artrockers using lo-fi vocals, low key guitars, catchy bass bits, cheap keyboards, a drums and advanced admin for songs almost exclusively inspired by Country Teasers and The Fall.

https://soundcloud.com/lifedrawings

Have a terrific weekend, thank you for reading!

UPSET THE RHYTHM

http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk

http://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/

http://www.upsettherhythm.blogspot.com

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

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

CIAN NUGENT

MEGA BOG

SPECIAL GUEST
Saturday 11 February
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £7 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/382844

HEXA: FACTORY PHOTOGRAPHS

(Jamie Stewart & Lawrence English sonic response to David Lynch’s photography)

GRAHAM DUNNING (Aggregate performance)

Wednesday 15 February

The Forge, 3-7 Delancey St, Camden, London, NW1 7NL

7pm | £14 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/383554

SPINNING COIN
SACRED PAWS

LIFE DRAWINGS
Friday 17 February
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £6 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/387070

MILKY WIMPSHAKE

‘20th Anniversary Show!’

ROBERT SOTELO

THE PLAN