KAPUTT are a recently hatched post punk act from Glasgow, Scotland. Racing away from the playful torn edge of no-wave song, Kaputt blurt out tracks with twitchy charisma, their catchy riffs circle with relish, allowing timely sax stonks and stop-start rhythms to drive things on. Vocals leap, guitars bluster and always the saxophone snakes, hypnotically drawn through the erratic beat. There’s a riot of fun at play in their febrile racket, but there’s also some deeply cerebral grooves and choice lyrical concerns evident too.
The songs on ‘Carnage Hall’, Kaputt’s debut album released by Upset The Rhythm this September, were influenced by the maelstrom of political hypocrisy and confusion in the air, the offbeat happenchance of life in 2019, notions of surveillance, identity (personal as well as the biscuit-tin styled persona of the Scottish Highlands), industrialisation and family. In short a total corkscrew of an energetic album! ‘Carnage Hall’ is available to pre-order in our webshop now!
This week we’re announcing an album for September with quiet revelation close at hand throughout. Cosmic pop melodist Robert Sotelo
returns this autumn with his most expansive album yet! 'Infinite
Sprawling' is Sotelo's first record since relocating from London to
Glasgow and partly inspired by his new city's inclusive and
collaborative musicverse. Recorded with Ruari MacLean (of Vital Idles,
Golden Grrrls) and Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep, Yerba Mansa) at their home
studio Namaste Sound, 'Infinite Sprawling' grew out of Sotelo's
sketchbook of skeletal songs, with MacLean and Stevens developing their
own drum, guitar and keyboard parts.
These songs pulled together like a wakeful stretch on a Sunday
morning, flowering with a lightness of touch, sounding both carefree and
brisk. Check out 'Message Of Beauty', the video for the first single
from the album! A relaxed ballad of drowsy farewells, swoons of violin
and swirled clouds of organ drone, take a listen.
'Infinite Sprawling' is available to pre-order on dark-green 180g vinyl now at in our webshop.
We have four Upset The Rhythm shows coming up in August for you, you can find full write-ups on all of those below! August 8th sees up ruck up at EartH in Dalston for a one-off concert from Phil Elverum’s vastly temporal Mount Eerie project. Very pleased Keel Her can play this one too! Then we have some naïf Aussie synth pop from J. McFarlane’s Reality Guest planned for August 14th at The Islington, with suitable scrambles of sound from The Pheromoans and Biscotti booked in. We’re at Oslo, Hackney on August 21st with some essential rumble from Tim Presley’s White Fence, Robert Sotelo (him again!) and Martin Frawley. Whilst finally we close out the month in style with Mary Lattimore and Nummo Twin at The Courtyard Theatre, experimental multiples of string ring out! Read on for the full scoop!
You’ll also find our upcoming programme includes two new shows this September for Kaputt and Trash Kit, while November 12th now boasts a headline show from Carla dal Forno in support of her forthcoming ‘Look Up Sharp’ album too!
Upset The Rhythm presents…
MOUNT EERIE
KEEL HER Thursday 8 August EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS
MOUNT EERIE is still the
name of the songs that come from Phil Elverum, a 41 year old
artist/writer from rural maritime Washington state, USA. Over the past
couple decades these songs have sprawled across sounds and atmospheres,
sometimes cacophonies, sometimes gentle questions. In 2019, in the
shadow of death and love and always head-on direct, there will be a
performance in London. http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/
KEEL HER’s
musical output can rightfully be called prolific. Originally from
Winchester, Rose Keeler Schaefler has been writing and recording her own
songs from the age of 14 on instruments found in charity shops and at
car boot sales, culminating in a cassette release back in 2011 on
Maximum Violence Records. Since then Keel Her has made an album with
lo-fi legend R Stevie Moore and has released a single on O Genesis
Recordings, alongside multiple releases on Critical Heights. Brand new
album ‘With Kindness’ is a collection of Keel Her’s experiences over the
past few challenging years. Her introverted, thoughtful nature is
obvious within the lyrics of tracks such as ‘self-sabotage’ and her deep
running empathy effects all aspects of her life, be it others’
feelings, nature or the planet. https://keelher.bandcamp.com/
Upset The Rhythm presents…
J. McFARLANE’S REALITY GUEST
THE PHEROMOANS
BISCOTTI Wednesday 14 August The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle St, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS
J. McFARLANE’S REALITY GUEST is
the new project of Australian artist Julia McFarlane. As a member of
the group Twerps, McFarlane has traversed guitar-centric, melodic pop
music for some years while honing a highly unique, personal musical
language. ‘Ta Da’ is the first recorded unveiling of McFarlane’s
affecting, oblique songwriting panache. Originally released in her
native Australia on Hobbies Galore, ‘Ta Da’ will be released worldwide
by Night School in June 2019. ’Ta Da’ showcases McFarlane’s songwriting
immersed in psychedelic music and synths. It’s a brilliant, deft
concoction swimming in Young Marble Giants-type minimalism washed with
bare pop and harmony similar to Kevin Ayers making sense of a Melbourne
suburb full of faces half-recognised in the blanching sun. McFarlane’s
vocal is straight forward, lyrically conversational but still not
completely in focus, a surreal kitchen sink drama filtered through a
dream where everything is in an unusual place. Reality Guest similarly
draws on BBC Radiophonic Workshop-style noise synths, flute solos,
palm-muted guitar and a sleepy, psychedelic tone that drifts away into
the sunset, simple and direct. https://hobbiesgalore.bandcamp.com/album/ta-da
THE PHEROMOANS
have occupied their own peculiar niche in the UK's DIY music scene for
the last 12 years. Initially known for primitive garage-esque repetition
on their early releases, two LPs for Upset! The Rhythm saw the group
develop a more pastoral sound before being mutated by electronics on
2016's ‘I’m On Nights’. New record ‘County Lines’ (Alter) is their fifth
full-length and takes in each aspect of their past sonically, providing
a wry tonic for today’s heady exhaustion. More of life's banalities and
stale daydreams are given a good airing in Russel Walker's lyrics.
Delivered with the usual droll lethargy, he's a septic entertainer par
excellence who teases out just enough of the very real horror of the
UK's current predicament to keep his aggrievements charming. http://thepheromoans.blogspot.com/
BISCOTTI
is a project lead by multi-instrumentalist and producer Carla Ori, who
lives in Melbourne. Through a cinematic lens she adds evocative sounds
which create other worldly landscapes and guide the listener through
different scenes. Elements of synth pop, disco, hip-hop and funk come
together to create her colourful avant pop sound. https://www.biscottimondo.com/
TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE,
informed by the extreme polarities of punk rock and psych, brings forth
songs like no others. Two years on from his solo missive, the sense that
something has cratered and someone has walked away, somehow alive, is
heavy in the air. With his new album ‘I Have to Feed Larry’s Hawk’, Tim
Presley meets White Fence again, and together, they move on. He started
writing songs for this album in a small rural town in the UK called
Staveley. Tim was staying with Cate Le Bon there during winter. While
she was there going to school learning how to build & design
furniture out of wood, he started writing on her piano. Tim came back to
San Francisco to record, but first he had a fervent dream that Johnny
Thunders asked him to be honest & simple with this album, and also
why dolphins were not given arms. He booked studio time with a very
talented fellow named Jeremy Harris and they worked together out of a
studio in the Dogpatch district of SF (owned and run by Paul from the UK
band The Bees. Jeremy was able to learn the songs on piano, keys and
finesse the parts, including most drums and also record/engineer the
whole album. Also playing on the album, is S.F. Mission district native
Dylan Hadley who plays drums on two songs: ‘Until You Walk’ &
‘Forever Chained’ and H. Hawkline adding guitar and vocals on ‘Phone.’
With this new record Tim re-learned how to walk. The poppy stomp. He’d
been tethered to a hawk, that he must feed on the dot. While ‘I Have To
Feed Larry’s Hawk’ has tinges of both sides in its ’60s guitars and
whimsical, pastoral folk, however, what dominates is Tim’s ability to
pen strange, warm tracks like ‘Lorelei’ that are totally out of step yet
tug on familiar melodic heartstrings. Like Syd Barrett or, more
recently, Euros Childs before him, White Fence continues to make the
peripheries seem oddly accessible. Things really soar when Presley
privileges space and simplicity and with this album he’s created a
bare-bones, diary like project that bounces between optimism and
melancholy. ‘I Have To Feed Larry’s Hawk’ came out on Drag City this
January. https://timpresley.bandcamp.com/
ROBERT SOTELO
is a cosmic pop melodist; a heartfelt multi-instrumentalist whose
direct songs are curiously affecting. His debut album ‘Cusp’ from 2017
was packed with miniature psych overtures and earnest musings, he then
followed this up in 2018 with an album called ‘Botanical’, more
keyboard-minded and playful with its near-absurdist palette of sound and
reflective mood. This September Upset The Rhythm will release Sotelo’s
third album ‘Infinite Sprawling’, his first record since relocating from
London to Glasgow and partly inspired by his new city’s inclusive and
collaborative musical world. Recorded with Ruari MacLean (of Vital
Idles, Golden Grrrls) and Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep, Yerba Mansa) at their
home studio Namaste Sound, ‘Infinite Sprawling’ grew out of Sotelo’s
sketchbook of skeletal songs, with MacLean and Stevens developing their
own drum, guitar and keyboard parts. These songs pulled together like a
wakeful stretch on a Sunday morning, flowering with a lightness of
touch, sounding both carefree and brisk. https://robertsotelo.bandcamp.com/
MARTIN FRAWLEY,
known to many as a principal member of Melbourne’s Twerps, recently
struck out on his own to record an album with Stewart Bronaugh (Angel
Olsen, Lionlimb), and the results are just as melodic and touching as
his former band’s material, if not more so. ‘Undone at 31’ is available
now on Merge Records. https://www.mergerecords.com/martin-frawley
Upset The Rhythm presents…
MARY LATTIMORE
NUMMO TWIN Thursday 29 August The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, N1 6EU 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS
MARY LATTIMORE is a Los
Angeles-based musician who uses her Lyon and Healy concert grand harp to
conjure up beautifully abstracted forms that evoke a host of memories,
landscapes and allusions. Across a breadth of recordings, collaborations
and art commissions her music explores a realm of wordless narratives
and indefinite travelogues, where – with the help of effects and
occasional vocals - extended harp improvisations morph into spectral
songforms. In live performance she reveals the impressionist magic of
her chosen instrument, blurring classical technique and ambient
electronics to beguiling effect.
In 2018 Mary released Hundreds
of Days, her second LP on Ghostly International, as well as a
collaborative album with Meg Baird entitled Ghost Forests (Three Lobed).
She has moved a long way since her classical studies at Eastman School
of Music, via days in Philadelphia with the likes of Espers and Fursaxa
and sound-making time with Steve Gunn, Sharon van Etten and Kurt Vile.
She has also collaborated with guitarist/synth player Jeff Zeigler on
their 2014 album Slant of Light (Thrill Jockey) as well as composing a
live score for Philippe Garrels' 1968 experimental silent film Le
Revelateur which they subsequently toured together. https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/
NUMMO TWIN
plays ethereal, dream-like folk songs and noise soundscapes with an
instrument she carved herself from an old christmas tree, an array of
delay and reverb pedals, and feedback. She sings a lament to a forgotten
place. https://nummotwin.com/
Thank you for reading, enjoy the weekend wherever/whatever!
Upset The Rhythm
UPSET THE RHYTHM
UPCOMING SHOWS
MOUNT EERIE KEEL HER
Thursday 8 August EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS
J. McFARLANE’S REALITY GUEST
THE PHEROMOANS BISCOTTI
Wednesday 14 August The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle St, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS
KAPUTT Tuesday 10 September The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £6 | TICKETS
DANIEL O’SULLIVAN (octet performance) BRIGID MAE POWER Friday 13 September The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS
KURWS HANDLE Saturday 14 September New River Studios 199 Eade Rd, Harringay Warehouse District, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS
KAPUTT Tuesday 10 September The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £6 | https://link.dice.fm/MXEDHsqFDY
KAPUTT are a recently hatched post punk act from Glasgow, Scotland. Numbering six, Kaputt feature Simone Wilson and Cal Donnelly on guitars and vocals, Chrissy Barnacle also sings and plays saxophone. Tobias Carmichael is responsible for bass, whilst Rikki Will and Emma Smith cover drums and percussion respectively. Racing away from the playful torn edge of no-wave song, Kaputt blurt out tracks with twitchy charisma, their catchy riffs circle with relish, allowing timely sax stonks and stop-start rhythms to drive things on. Vocals leap, guitars bluster and always the saxophone snakes, hypnotically drawn through the erratic beat. There’s a riot of fun at play in their febrile racket, but there’s also some deeply cerebral grooves and choice lyrical concerns evident too. Kaputt’s debut album ‘Carnage Hall’ will be released this September on Upset The Rhythm, this show appears as part of their tour in support of this stunner of an LP. https://kaputt1.bandcamp.com/
Cosmic pop melodist Robert Sotelo returns this September with his most expansive album yet! ‘Infinite Sprawling’ is Sotelo’s first record since relocating from London to Glasgow and partly inspired by his new city’s inclusive and collaborative musicverse. Recorded with Ruari MacLean (of Vital Idles, Golden Grrrls) and Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep, Yerba Mansa) at their home studio Namaste Sound, ‘Infinite Sprawling’ grew out of Sotelo’s sketchbook of skeletal songs, with MacLean and Stevens developing their own drum, guitar and keyboard parts. These songs pulled together like a wakeful stretch on a Sunday morning, flowering with a lightness of touch, sounding both carefree and brisk.
New Commute, just premiered ‘Message Of Beauty’, the video for the first single from the album! A relaxed ballad of drowsy farewells, swoons of violin and swirled clouds of organ drone, take a listen.
CARLA DAL FORNO Tuesday 12 November Electrowerkz, 1st Floor, 7 Torrens St, The Angel, London, EC1V 1NQ 7.30pm | £12.50 | https://link.dice.fm/YxvzslltyY
CARLA DAL FORNO has entered a new era with her forthcoming album ‘Look Up Sharp’, pushing her dub-damaged DIY dispatches to the limits of flawless dream-pop. In a transformative move towards crystal clear vocals and sharpened production, ‘Look Up Sharp’ is an evolutionary leap from the thick fog and pastoral stillness of her Blackest Ever Black missives, You Know What It’s Like (2016) and The Garden EP (2017). Three years since her plain-speaking debut album, the Melbourne-via-Berlin artist finds herself absorbed in London’s sprawling mess. The small-town dreams and inertia that preoccupied dal Forno’s first album have dissolved into the chaotic city, its shifting identities, far-flung surroundings and blank faces. ‘Look Up Sharp’ is the story of this life in flux, longing for intimacy, falling short and embracing the unfamiliar. Dal Forno connects with kindred spirits and finds refuge in darkened alleys, secret gardens and wherever else she dares to look. In her own territory between plaintive folk, pop and post-punk, dal Forno conjures the ghosts of AC Marias, Virginia Astley and Broadcast through her brushwork of art-damaged fx and spectral atmospheres. ‘Look Up Sharp’ is a singular prism in which sound and concept bend at all angles. A deeply personal but infinitely relatable album its many surfaces are complex but authentic, enduring but imperfect, hard-edged but delicate. A diamond. Released on dal Forno’s own imprint Kallista Records this October. https://www.facebook.com/carladalfornoyes/
Thanks so much for coming to see us at last weekend’s label market
and this week’s shows for Daniel Higgs and Rays, it’s been brilliant to
see you! Tonight we’re very fortunate to have Richmond, Virginia’s Prison Religion
make their London debut. Their music is a chaotic slap of noise, punk
and glitchy hiphop marking them out as Halcyon Veil’s most innovative
artists. Tonight’s show at The Lexington is a must if you want your head
to spin a full 360 with tonal traps, industrial maximalism, mic-burning
vitriol and lysergic dimensions. Hyperstition Duo, who feature members of Blood Sport, will open the show too, tickets £8 on the door from 8pm. Prepare to be floored!
Our final show of July takes place next Monday at Redon in Bethnal
Green and will include two impressive sets of reflective reverie from Advance Base (Owen from Casiotone For The Painfully Alone) and Alice Hubble
too. Clicky drum machines, loops of omnichord, walls of heart-breaking
keyboard swoon and lyrics that tug at your empathy for dear life, it’ll
really be something!
Full write-ups follow below, along with our overview for Mount Eerie and Keel Her’s London concert on August 8th at EartH, and news of our just-announced show for EXEK and The Rebel in September too.
OK, let’s talk record label! Today, Melbourne post-punk wags Terry
return with their new EP ‘Who’s Terry?’ on Upset The Rhythm. Following
on from last year’s huge-sounding ‘I’m Terry’ album, this third 7” EP
from the band brings you right up to date with their wobbly
politico-pop.
‘Spud’ is a class A toe-tapper that sees the band don fatigues and
set their sights on the enemy. The rough and the tough, wrestled wrists
and fools with crooked smiles all make an appearance as Terry sing as
one over snare snaps and keyboard croaks. ‘Bizzo and Tophat’ follows
with a stride across the underbelly, a thick slice of bop-heavy
observation that gives way to one of Terry’s most elegiac refrains…
“holding on and going forth”!
‘Who’s Terry’ encapsulates what Terry
does best, the queasy marriage of the upbeat and traumatic, the catchy
instant and the nagging distance. Their alliterative lyrics always sharp
as tacks, their sense of melody and beat sunk deep in the heart of now.
‘Who’s Terry?’ is available now on black vinyl in our webshop, it’s also possible to pre-order Lunch Lady’s newly announced debut album ‘Angel’ on CD and LP too.
We're over the moon to inform you that we'll be releasing Lunch Lady's
debut album on August 23rd! Lunch Lady are a sparky group from Los
Angeles redolent of the desert heat, pining hearts and that
chorus-soaked cloak of sound held dear by followers of British early 80s
post-punk. Numbering four, Lunch Lady consist of Rachel Birke (vocals),
Juan Velasquez (guitar), Victor Herrera (bass) and Robert Wolfe
(drums).
The band began in 2017 when Velasquez asked Birke if she'd like to
start a new music project with him, their respective other groups Abe
Vigoda and Heller Keller having co-existed in LA's DIY orbit. Birke
explains that they "immediately decided upon making the new band a kind
of love letter to Kitsch." Lunch Lady's dreamy punk forays into country
ballad territory certainly swoop into sentiment, but its the melancholy
of artifice that defines their outlook. Here’s their first video
‘Window’!
Upset The Rhythm presents…
PRISON RELIGION HYPERSTITION DUO
Friday 19 July
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS
PRISON RELIGION are a hardcore
noise project from Richmond, Virginia, comprised of Poozy and False
Prpht. Though the two are solo artists in their own right, they
collaborate regularly to make collages together that are indebted yet
flippant to hip hop, punk, and techno. Working together since 2016, the
duo have dived deep into the space between blown-out trap (2016’s Cage
With Mirrored Bars) and contemporary destructive club music (2018’s O
Fucc Im On The Wrong Planet). Since linking up with Texas-based
experimental label Halcyon Veil, they've connected a global crewsof
likeminded collaborators for a remix album including Rabit, Endgame,
Swan Meat, Lee Gamble and Bonaventure. The production destroys any
notion of comfort afforded in dance music, with cold industrial and
glitchy hip hop textures serving as the stylistic anchor of the record.
With close ties to NON Worldwide, Prison Religion are also ushering in a
new wave of vocal-based club performance. https://prisonreligion.bandcamp.com/
"The barely tonal beats of tracks like "Shots Fired" have this way of
making it feel like the 808s are falling apart or dissociating, like a
crowd dispersing as Jones and Black spin kick in the centre… acid
drenched tracks draw on the history of industrial music, metal
iconography and experimental club music." (Noisey)
"Prison
Religion are one of the most hardcore, rap-related acts we've heard in
years. Philip Best levels of mic-burning bile and vitriol shrieked and
expectorated over bludgeoning beats, field recordings and charred
electronics." (Boomkat)
HYPERSTITION DUO plunge deep to
deliver a maximalist collective immersion into their own lysergic
phonosphere. Lurching, polyrhythmic pathways crumble and re-assemble;
elastic dynamics snap; propulsion sparks from the nerve-centre of
machine and corporeal entanglement. Featuring ex-members of Blood Sport,
templexing, möbius loops and cybernetic subjectivities abound in an
attempt to conjure escape vectors in a world of ubiquitous sound.
Upset The Rhythm presents…
ADVANCE BASE
ALICE HUBBLE
Monday 22 July
Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA
7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS
ADVANCE BASE is the electronic
solo project of Chicago, IL singer/songwriter Owen Ashworth (formerly of
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone). Using a two-handed arsenal of
electric pianos, autoharps, Omnichords, loops, samples & drum
machines, Ashworth builds minimalist, heavy-hearted, &
nostalgia-obsessed tunes around his conversational, baritone vocals. The
sound of Advance Base has been described as "lo-fi," "depressed" &
"weirdly uplifting." Advance Base has supported live dates for The
Postal Service, Pedro the Lion, The Mountain Goats, Dean Wareham, Alan
Sparhawk, Mark Kozelek & Stephin Merritt. The debut Advance Base
album, ‘A Shut-In's Prayer’ (2012), was released by Caldo Verde Records
& Ashworth's own Orindal Records. ‘Nephew in the Wild’, the second
album by Advance Base, was released in 2015 by Orindal Records &
Tomlab Records. PopMatters named ‘Nephew in the Wild’ the number 1 Indie
Album of 2015. ‘Animal Companionship’, the third & most recent
album by Advance Base, was released last September. The sound of the
album is soft and thick and comforting. And when we’re working with
songs as sad as the ones that Ashworth writes, that level of comfort
really comes in handy. He used to write sad love songs, or sad songs
about love. He’s still doing that, really, except that he’s now
middle-aged, with a wife and kids, living in suburban Chicago, and the
songs reflect that. The songs on ‘Animal Companionship’ are full of a
whole life’s worth of regrets and missed opportunities and moments of
acceptance and dead friends. It’s not as bleak, either; there are
moments of happiness, or at least sustenance, sprinkled all through
‘Animal Companionship’. But in its sharp and unrelenting and empathetic
specificity, this is some real masterly heart-wrecker music. http://advancebasemusic.com/
ALICE HUBBLE
is the new project of Alice Hubley (Mass Datura, Cosines, Arthur and
Martha), the product of one lady locked at home with her collection of
analogue synthesisers. Inspired by 70’s recordings by Tangerine Dream,
Delia Derbyshire, Mike and Sally Oldfield, hers is a distinctly feminine
take on the sometimes pompous 70’s sound. Her new album will be
available on Happy Robots in Summer 2019. https://www.facebook.com/alicehubblemusic/
Upset The Rhythm presents…
MOUNT EERIE
KEEL HER Thursday 8 August
EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London N16 8BH
7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS
MOUNT EERIE is still the
name of the songs that come from Phil Elverum, a 41 year old
artist/writer from rural maritime Washington state, USA. Over the past
couple decades these songs have sprawled across sounds and atmospheres,
sometimes cacophonies, sometimes gentle questions. In 2019, in the
shadow of death and love and always head-on direct, there will be a
performance in London. http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/
KEEL HER’s
musical output can rightfully be called prolific. Originally from
Winchester, Rose Keeler Schaefler has been writing and recording her own
songs from the age of 14 on instruments found in charity shops and at
car boot sales, culminating in a cassette release back in 2011 on
Maximum Violence Records. Since then Keel Her has made an album with
lo-fi legend R Stevie Moore and has released a single on O Genesis
Recordings, alongside multiple releases on Critical Heights. Brand new
album ‘With Kindness’ is a collection of Keel Her’s experiences over the
past few challenging years. Her introverted, thoughtful nature is
obvious within the lyrics of tracks such as ‘self-sabotage’ and her deep
running empathy effects all aspects of her life, be it others’
feelings, nature or the planet. https://keelher.bandcamp.com/
Thanks as always for your time, see you tonight!
Upset The Rhythm
UPSET THE RHYTHM
UPCOMING SHOWS
PRISON RELIGION (Halcyon Veil) HYPERSTITION DUO
Friday 19 July
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS
DANIEL O’SULLIVAN (octet performance) BRIGID MAE POWER
Friday 13 September
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS
KURWS HANDLE
Saturday 14 September
New River Studios
199 Eade Rd, Harringay Warehouse District, London, N4 1DN
7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS
EXEK THE REBEL
Friday 27 September
Moth Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, Hackney Central, E9 6NU
7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS
LANKUM
Thursday 21 November
Tufnell Park Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, London, NW5 1HL
7.30pm | £16.50 | TICKETS
THE GOTOBEDS
Tuesday 26 November
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £7.50 | TICKETS
EXEK THE REBEL Friday 27 September Moth Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, Hackney Central, E9 6NU
7.30pm | £7 | https://link.dice.fm/FkXSVvA3pY
EXEK thrive amidst noirish, dub-dilated post-punk, with lyrics skirting the sardonic, mired in disdain. Situated in a reservoir of space echo and assisted by the heavyweight bass-and-drum brunt of Henry Wilson and Sam Dixon, vocalist Albert Wolski conveys an oblique, literate nihilism that resembles both a sneer and a smirk. Wicked turns of phrase are spiked with black humour and surrealism as the rest of the band summon sparse, reverb-drenched runs of percussion and a thickset low end prone to detour and dysfunction. Exek recently followed up their ‘Ahead Of Two Thoughts’ LP released last year on W.25TH (Superior Viaduct) with their astonishing ‘A Casual Assembly’ EP. This new record from Melbourne's audio-wranglers coalesces around a stirring theme for synthesizer, trumpet and bass, bringing together reference points to Laurie Spiegel, Jah Wobble and The Velvet Underground's ‘The Gift.’ Frontman Albert Wolski's disembodied narration – at times reminiscent of Samuel Beckett or Robert Ashley – unfolds over a series of dark vignettes set in a dystopian near-future. Autotune has been banned, secret police patrol the redoubts of the wealthy, and world beaches have been cleared of their sand for the construction of enormous urban prisons. As these events turn more fraught and absurd, Wolski reveals just how much is gained through EXEK's stripped-down arrangements and dreamlike tones. https://exek.bandcamp.com/
THE REBEL is prolific London outsider Ben Wallers; a charismatic lone wolf in a cowboy hat or trilby and a tie whose electrified howls are too idiosyncratic to be broken down into market-oriented terms. It is difficult to sketch a thumbnail summary of a musician who has amassed a vast and unwieldy discography under a variety of names and genres: the most widely acclaimed is probably the Country Teasers, but he also moonlights as, or in, the Rebel, the Company, the Male Nurse, the Beale, the Stallion, the Black Poodle and Skills on Ampex, across folk, country, garage, post-punk, no wave and electronic pop. In the main part The Rebel is centred around twisted Casio drones, clanging guitar and some defiantly deadpan vocals, all thrown in the pan and pressure-cooked in Wallers' mind. Wallers has amassed a near-unquantifiable discography over the past 20 years, from scores of more or less "official" LPs, EPs and 7"s to seemingly endless self-released cassettes. https://therebelband.bandcamp.com/
We’re over the blood moon to announce that we’ll be releasing Lunch Lady’s debut album on August 23rd!
Lunch Lady are a sparky group from Los Angeles redolent of the desert
heat, pining hearts and that chorus-soaked cloak of sound held dear by
followers of British early 80s post-punk. Numbering four, Lunch Lady
consist of Rachel Birke (vocals), Juan Velasquez (guitar), Victor
Herrera (bass) and Robert Wolfe (drums). The band began in 2017 when
Velasquez asked Birke if she’d like to
start a new music project with him, their respective other groups Abe
Vigoda and Heller Keller having co-existed in LA’s DIY orbit. Birke
explains that they “immediately decided upon making the new band a kind
of love letter to Kitsch.” Lunch Lady’s dreamy punk forays into country
ballad territory certainly swoop into sentiment, but its the melancholy
of artifice that defines their outlook.
Lunch Lady’s debut album ‘Angel’ is available to pre-order in our
webshop now! Our friends at Danger Collective are releasing a cassette
version of Angel too!
Last night we held a launch party at Café OTO with Normil Hawaiians
to celebrate the re-issue of the group’s 1984 album ‘What’s Going On?’.
Today sees that release hit the shops on limited LP (with
hand-numbered poster), CD and digitally, accompanied by a plethora of
bonus tracks and copious liner notes explaining how the malaise that
afflicted early 80’s Britain resulted in a defiant cry from Normil
Hawaiians that became ‘What’s Going On?’.
Normil Hawaiians communal take on post
punk afforded greater emphasis on improvisation within the group by
1983 and as a result their songs embarked on longer, freer journeys
towards the beaten bounds. In the wake of their ambitious double-LP
debut they went back to Foel Studios in Powys to record ‘What’s Going
On?’ with its radical tape collage of movements, and experiments in
long-form song and modes of existence. Lucid, candid, politically
engaged, rarely metronomic but always humane, Normil Hawaiians conjured
vast clouds of atmosphere. Their songs became bedecked with exalted
synth trails, clustering guitars, motorik beats, and spun-out raw
polemics.
The Hawaiians approach to making this album was unconventional and
spontaneous, reveling in chance and openness. Rehearsal tapes were
played along to, and compositions were allowed to develop, with further
layers of sound accreting (as can be heard on the final cut of Big
Lies). Free Tibet was created by the band playing together
exploratively, guitars ‘treated’ with a penny whistle and a rusty
screwdriver. Rotating visitors came to the mixing desk to hear playbacks
and offer their thoughts. Away from the ‘peacelessness’ of London, the
space and security of both the studio and the countryside enabled the
Family Hawaii to make this remarkable album!
Let’s set the scene further. 'Slaves', 'Louise Michel' and 'Big Lies' all taken from ‘What’s Going On?’ were played on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction last night. Have a listen, it’s ime to meet the ghosts!
If you don’t want to wait in for the postman you can always visit us tomorrow in Coal Drop’s Yard (note the new location in King’s Cross) for the summer installment of the Independent Label Market.
We’ll be selling copies of all our new releases (Normil Hawaiians,
Terry, Constant Mongrel, Trash Kit, Hygiene, Bamboo) and lots of
rarities from our back catalogue between 11am – 6.30pm this Saturday.
Upset The Rhythm are in good company as the London Brewers’ Market is
taking place too, alongside record stalls from the likes of Bella Union,
Clay Pipe, Domino, Fire, Heavenly and Mexican Summer! DJ sets and live
performances will also pepper the event throughout the day, do drop by
and say hello! It’s going to be a fun one!
OK, back in the show promotion saddle! Next week is a busy one for
us, three shows coming up and then a fourth on the following Monday.
Next Tuesday we have dystopian jangle punks Rays making their
London debut at The Shacklewell Arms. Rays are from Oakland, CA and
feature members of The World, Life Stinks & Violent Change, they’re
also signed to one of our favourite labels, Trouble In Mind.
In support we have Design A Wave, now a duo with Rosie from Ravioli Me Away on board, plus an unclassifiable scramble of sound from Maedchen 84! See you there, tickets for all of these events are available in advance and on the door.
Next Wednesday we find ourselves pitching up in White City at HQI for a special concert from 100% legend Daniel Higgs.
Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using his voice,
guitars, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp. As the frontman of
Lungfish he opened the door to a universe of meaning, now solo he
continues his flight into the cosmos.
Fellow spiritual travelers of the outer-orbits Eternal Broadcast are coming down from Sheffield to play this one too!
One week today, Friday 19th July, will witness our harsh blast of a Lexington gig from Prison Religion (on Halcyon Veil, from Virginia) and Hyperstition Duo.
If you want your head to spin a full 360 with tonal traps,
industrial maximalism, mic-burning vitriol and lysergic dimensions
galore… then this is your perfect show! Been looking forward to this one
for an age, bring on the noise.
That final show for July (bit of a change of pace here) that we mentioned on the following Monday (July 22nd) will take place at Redon in Bethnal Green and features two impressive sets of melancholic reverie from Advance Base (Owen from Casiotone For The Painfully Alone) and Alice Hubble too.
Read on for all the particulars, ticket links and event listings, here comes the weekend!
RAYS returned to the fray with
their second album, You Can Get There From Here, their first release
since their eponymous Trouble In Mind debut in 2016. Rays formed in the
fertile crescent of the California Bay Area, a hotbed of musical growth
in the past decade, and Rays' members pull not only from that recent
miasma but also from a wealth of Bay Area musical history. You Can Get
There From Here represents a turning point for the band, angling their
scrappy, post-punk fury into a more refined & melodic pop
sensibility, drawing inspiration from UK DIY pop & punk like Dolly
Mixture, Cleaners From Venus, Television Personalities & more.
Straight from the gate, songs like "Fallen Stars" & "The Garden"
temper their sonic crunch ever so slightly, relying more on the harmonic
wallop of a solid hook than the sheer volume of guitars & cymbal
crashes. This is urgent, chiming guitar pop of the highest order that
clangs with a sonorous melancholy & a ramshackle grace. Rays can
still lay it down with the rest of 'em; tunes like "Subway" & "Work
of Art" shuffle & stumble forward, skirting chaos in a flurry of
strums, recalling recent antipodean pop groups like UV Race, Dick Diver
or The Shifters who cull inspiration from idiosyncratic UK greats like
Mark E. Smith or Robyn Hitchcock. With You Can Get There From Here, Rays
add their voice to the chorus. The new album finds the core group of
Stanley Martinez, Eva Hannan, Troy Hewitt & Alexa Pantalone
augmented by new member & keyboardist Britta Leijonflycht, whose
synth flourishes add melodic embellishments, sonic heft or psychedelic
swirl where needed. http://www.troubleinmindrecs.com/artists/rays/
DESIGN A WAVE
aka Tom Hirst is a London based artist who has recently released music
on Rush Hour’s No Label, as well as contributing to Ravioli Me Away’s
opera. Design A Wave also has past releases on Alien Jams, Subsubtropics
and the Alter label. Tom Hirst has been making music for many moons.
Initial buds featured tape collages, distangled pop music, various
dictaphone experiments, and over time all this meshed and warped into
his solo musical venture known as Design A Wave. Initiated in the late
90s, the project was loosely named after one of the gangs in the Troma
film Surf Nazis Must Die which, alongside other similar movies and music
of it’s time, informed a particular vision of an idealised weird - a
trashy synth orientated 80s B-movie soundtrack, which provided an
aesthetic platform on which to dive, surf and ride. https://soundcloud.com/deswav MÄDCHEN 84
put a dent in ya head! A sample square of vinyl from wickes and a
tearout guardian review of minaj's latest is available to be sent in the
post for anyone who needs to feel real. https://maedchen84.bandcamp.com
Upset The Rhythm presents…
DANIEL HIGGS
ETERNAL BROADCAST Wednesday 17 July HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP (3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates) 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS
DANIEL HIGGS is a musician and
artist from Baltimore, Maryland on whose behalf superlatives are
destined to fail. It’s not that his artistic output - spanning three
decades, numerous albums, books of poetry and collections of drawings -
simply eludes classification, it defies it. Often we hear that a true
work of art is meant to speak for itself, and with the work of Daniel
Higgs the maxim rings truer than ever. Higgs is known primarily for his
work as the sole lyricist and frontman of the band Lungfish, a
four-piece dedicated to charting, in this listener’s estimation, nothing
short of the evolution of all species, known and unknown. They are
enshrined as one of America’s last true folk bands, and Higgs anointed
as a patron saint to artistic purity. In recent years, Higgs has
released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the
ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of
his band. Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using
acoustic and electric guitar, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp,
recorded entirely at home on cassette recorder. He pairs the music with a
series of paintings that call to mind religious iconography passed
through the disfiguring surrealism of Miro. His art is of the cosmos. https://danielhiggs.bandcamp.com/
ETERNAL BROADCAST
are a collective from Sheffield harnesses the background noise of the
Universe; the radio waves rippling into space at the speed of light; the
fallout from the Big Bang. A cosmic symphony of crackled transmissions.
Featuring past and present members of Boring Men, Sister Wives,
Feature, Night Flowers, Acid Mass. https://soundcloud.com/eternalbroadcast/sets/notebooksoep
Upset The Rhythm presents…
PRISON RELIGION HYPERSTITION DUO Friday 19 July The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS
PRISON RELIGION are a hardcore
noise project from Richmond, Virginia, comprised of Poozy and False
Prpht. Though the two are solo artists in their own right, they
collaborate regularly to make collages together that are indebted yet
flippant to hip hop, punk, and techno. Working together since 2016, the
duo have dived deep into the space between blown-out trap (2016’s Cage
With Mirrored Bars) and contemporary destructive club music (2018’s O
Fucc Im On The Wrong Planet). Since linking up with Texas-based
experimental label Halcyon Veil, they've connected a global crewsof
likeminded collaborators for a remix album including Rabit, Endgame,
Swan Meat, Lee Gamble and Bonaventure. The production destroys any
notion of comfort afforded in dance music, with cold industrial and
glitchy hip hop textures serving as the stylistic anchor of the record.
With close ties to NON Worldwide, Prison Religion are also ushering in a
new wave of vocal-based club performance. https://prisonreligion.bandcamp.com/
"The barely tonal beats of tracks like "Shots Fired" have this way of
making it feel like the 808s are falling apart or dissociating, like a
crowd dispersing as Jones and Black spin kick in the centre… acid
drenched tracks draw on the history of industrial music, metal
iconography and experimental club music." (Noisey)
"Prison
Religion are one of the most hardcore, rap-related acts we've heard in
years. Philip Best levels of mic-burning bile and vitriol shrieked and
expectorated over bludgeoning beats, field recordings and charred
electronics." (Boomkat)
HYPERSTITION DUO plunge deep to
deliver a maximalist collective immersion into their own lysergic
phonosphere. Lurching, polyrhythmic pathways crumble and re-assemble;
elastic dynamics snap; propulsion sparks from the nerve-centre of
machine and corporeal entanglement. Featuring ex-members of Blood Sport,
templexing, möbius loops and cybernetic subjectivities abound in an
attempt to conjure escape vectors in a world of ubiquitous sound.
Upset The Rhythm presents…
ADVANCE BASE
ALICE HUBBLE Monday 22 July Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS
ADVANCE BASE is the electronic
solo project of Chicago, IL singer/songwriter Owen Ashworth (formerly of
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone). Using a two-handed arsenal of
electric pianos, autoharps, Omnichords, loops, samples & drum
machines, Ashworth builds minimalist, heavy-hearted, &
nostalgia-obsessed tunes around his conversational, baritone vocals. The
sound of Advance Base has been described as "lo-fi," "depressed" &
"weirdly uplifting." Advance Base has supported live dates for The
Postal Service, Pedro the Lion, The Mountain Goats, Dean Wareham, Alan
Sparhawk, Mark Kozelek & Stephin Merritt. The debut Advance Base
album, ‘A Shut-In's Prayer’ (2012), was released by Caldo Verde Records
& Ashworth's own Orindal Records. ‘Nephew in the Wild’, the second
album by Advance Base, was released in 2015 by Orindal Records &
Tomlab Records. PopMatters named ‘Nephew in the Wild’ the number 1 Indie
Album of 2015. ‘Animal Companionship’, the third & most recent
album by Advance Base, was released last September. The sound of the
album is soft and thick and comforting. And when we’re working with
songs as sad as the ones that Ashworth writes, that level of comfort
really comes in handy. He used to write sad love songs, or sad songs
about love. He’s still doing that, really, except that he’s now
middle-aged, with a wife and kids, living in suburban Chicago, and the
songs reflect that. The songs on ‘Animal Companionship’ are full of a
whole life’s worth of regrets and missed opportunities and moments of
acceptance and dead friends. It’s not as bleak, either; there are
moments of happiness, or at least sustenance, sprinkled all through
‘Animal Companionship’. But in its sharp and unrelenting and empathetic
specificity, this is some real masterly heart-wrecker music. http://advancebasemusic.com/
ALICE HUBBLE
is the new project of Alice Hubley (Mass Datura, Cosines, Arthur and
Martha), the product of one lady locked at home with her collection of
analogue synthesisers. Inspired by 70’s recordings by Tangerine Dream,
Delia Derbyshire, Mike and Sally Oldfield, hers is a distinctly feminine
take on the sometimes pompous 70’s sound. Her new album will be
available on Happy Robots in Summer 2019. https://www.facebook.com/alicehubblemusic/
ETERNAL BROADCAST Wednesday 17 July HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP (3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates) 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS
PRISON RELIGION (Halcyon Veil) HYPERSTITION DUO Friday 19 July The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS
DANIEL O’SULLIVAN (octet performance) BRIGID MAE POWER Friday 13 September The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS
KURWS HANDLE Saturday 14 September New River Studios 199 Eade Rd, Harringay Warehouse District, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS
LANKUM Thursday 21 November Tufnell Park Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, London, NW5 1HL 7.30pm | £16.50 | TICKETS
THE GOTOBEDS Tuesday 26 November The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7.50 | TICKETS
