Eric Chenaux kicks off 2022's live programme for Upset The Rhythm!

 

Hello all!   Spring is coiling and Upset The Rhythm are back in the live promotion swing of things this March so we thought it opportune to give you a welcome heads up. Our first show of the year will take place on Friday 4th March at Café OTO and we’ve got a real treat for you in the shape of Eric Chenaux. Eric is a mercurial balladeer making profound, moving and airy music with buzzed-out guitar improv and yearning vocal musings. Eric’s an intrepid explorer of free music, folkways, bent jazz and sculptural sound and all of this informs his majestic new album ‘Say Laura’ for Constellation Records.   Ashley Paul will be backed by Yoni Silver in support too, exploring their sparse aesthetic of heavily deconstructed melodies and the spaces in-between. What a perfect show to wake up 2022, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Later next month (Friday 25th March) we’re exceedingly pleased to host over largest concert ever at Alexandra Palace with UTR alumni Future Islands and Dan Deacon. It’ll be a total whopper of an experience, possibly even a little overwhelming given the scale of the journey from Barden’s Boudoir. Well worth picking up tickets soon as there aren’t too many left now.   Continue reading for all the particulars on both events, winners both.

In other UTR show news we recently announced new events for Richard Dawson & Circle (July 6th, Scala), Anna fox Rochinski (formerly of Quilt, June 29th, OSLO) and a spinning headstand of a party with Savage Mansion, Romeo Taylor and The Tubs (April 22nd, New River Studios). Our Fuzz concert at the Electric Ballroom as you may already be aware is awaiting a new date due to postponement down to ill health, so watch this space on that, details forthcoming.   You can find info on all these events below in our show programme. Many more beguiling events on the cards too, all revealed in due time.

Donning our record label hat for one moment, Upset The Rhythm will have some exciting news to share with you in March about our upcoming releases for 2022, until then we wanted to share with you that Japanese punks Nicfit were spotlight artists on Steve Lamacq’s recent 'New Music Fix' for BBC 6 Music. Some crucial music from 'Fuse' was played accompanied by an enlightening interview with Hiromi from the band too! Listen again here.   ‘Fuse’ by Nicfit was released digitally and on LP by UTR last month, the last few copies of the first pressing are available in our webshop hither.   Total life-affirming trample! Live it loud!

One last thing, if you’re in Glasgow this Sunday our very own Robert Sotelo is launching his recent DIY-pop masterwork ‘Celebrant’ at The Doublet. Come celebrate the Celebrant from 7.30pm, Susannah Stark and Mary Column performing too.   Here’s the poster, enjoy!

Upset The Rhythm presents…   ERIC CHENAUX ASHLEY PAUL w/ YONI SILVER Friday 4th March Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £12 | https://link.dice.fm/V5e79467840a   ERIC CHENAUX lives in Paris but was a fixture of DIY and experimental music in Toronto throughout the 1990s and 2000s, progressing from local postpunk legends Phleg Camp and Lifelikeweeds towards a highly distinctive technical and gestural mastery of amplified acoustic guitar. Eric Chenaux operates among various musical ‘traditions’ but perhaps most broadly, his records grapple with the relationship between improvisation and structure in very particular, unique, idiosyncratic ways – and quite without irony or cynicism, through love. Because fundamentally, Chenaux writes love songs, which he sings in a voice honeyed and clear, while his guitar gently bends, frazzes, chortles, diverges and decomposes. This juxtaposition of his mellow, dexterous crooning and his highly experimental (and equally dexterous) guitar explorations, explodes even unconventional notions of singing and accompaniment, of tonal and timbral interplay between guitar and voice.   Constellation has been home to Eric's "solo" records since 2006 – a brilliant discography of adventurous, sumptuous, mostly languorous deconstructed folk, jazz and pop-influenced balladry rooted in the juxtaposition of Chenaux's fried guitar playing and his gorgeously clear and lyrical singing voice. Eric’s new album comes out this February and is his most immaculate and pristine. 'Say Laura' perfectly incarnates the counter-intuitive interplay of instrument and voice that Chenaux has been revealing and revelling in throughout the past decade: his gently unhinged juxtaposition of resplendently smooth, seductively assured singing and puckish, thoroughly destabilized guitar could come from no other musician. The five wandering, wondering ballads on 'Say Laura' bring Chenaux’s semi-improvised but keenly intentional songwriting to its fullest, clearest, warmest and coolest articulation; uncompromising and generous, hyper-specific and loose, spartan and luxurious, elemental and ornate. http://ericchenaux.com/   ASHLEY PAUL & YONI SILVER will be performing music from Paul's album 'RAY' released in late 2020 on Slip Imprint. Together they explore the fringes of song form and free improvisation, dissecting melodies and slowly piecing them back together alluding to shape but only occasionally binding together. It is as if Ashley Paul’s spaciously experimental, playfully contrasting aesthetics have been eerily anticipating our strange times, finally locking into the larger zeitgeist with her spellbinding album ‘RAY’. https://ashleypaul.bandcamp.com/album/ray-2

Upset The Rhythm & Parallel Lines present…   FUTURE ISLANDS DAN DEACON Friday 25 March 2022 Alexandra Palace, Alexandra Palace Way, London, N22 7AY 6.30pm | £30.00 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/g3KQl6bmpgb   FUTURE ISLANDS are a band whose brilliance was always hiding in plain sight. One viral moment might have catapulted them to worldwide recognition, but they were just doing what they always did – pouring their heart and soul into every moment, and channelling art's great power to spread love and hope. It was, quite simply, who they are. Long, hard years on the road, and the sense of constantly traveling away from something, have shaped the band many ways, both spiritually and physically. Always leaving, never arriving, the horizon an impossible destination to be chased but never caught. Future Islands' new album As Long As You Are is out now on 4AD, whilst the band just announced a new single ‘King of Sweden’. This show is the long-awaited return of the band back to London since their run of sold out shows at Brixton Academy back in 2017. https://future-islands.com/   DAN DEACON returned in 2020 with ‘Mystic Familiar’, his first album in five years and the stunning result of years of obsessive work, play, and self-discovery. It’s not only his most emotionally open record but also his most transcendent! Eleven kaleidoscopic tracks of majestic synth-pop that exponentially expand Deacon’s sound with unfettered imagination and newfound vulnerability. Since 2015’s ‘Gliss Riffer’, Deacon has branched out from his core body of work into a dizzying array of collaborative projects: scoring eight films, collaborating with the New York City Ballet’s resident choreographer Justin Peck on the dance piece The Times Are Racing; performing expanded arrangements of his music with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; and for the first time producing and co-writing an album with friends Ed Schrader’s Music Beat. Throughout all this Deacon was also working on a new suite of songs that wield the profundity of a philosopher and the absurdity of a jester. These songs made up his ‘Mystic Familiar’ album, painting life as a psychedelic journey brimming with bliss and disruption, darkness and light. https://dandeacon.com/

Thanks for spending this time with us! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

ERIC CHENAUX ASHLEY PAUL w/ YONI SILVER Friday 4th March Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/V5e79467840a   FUZZ (Charles Moothart, Ty Segall, Chad Ubovich) Friday 18 March 2022 * POSTPONED, new date TBC * Electric Ballroom, 184 Camden High St, Camden Town, London, NW1 8QP 6pm - 9.45pm |   FUTURE ISLANDS DAN DEACON Friday 25 March 2022 Alexandra Palace, Alexandra Palace Way, London, N22 7AY 6.30pm | £30.00 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/g3KQl6bmpgb (Promoted in collaboration with our friends Parallel Lines) BUFFET LUNCH ME LOST ME SHAKE CHAIN Friday 1 April 2022 MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, London, E9 6NU 7.30pm | £7 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/v9oNFWFE7hb (Tickets still valid from the postponed Cafe OTO, Nov 6th 2021 show)   GROUPER COBY SEY Thursday 14 April 2022 Barbican Hall, Silk St, Barbican, London, EC2Y 8DS 7.30pm | £20 | SOLD OUT (Promoted in collaboration with our friends at Barbican)   PROTOMARTYR TRAAMS RATTLE Saturday 16 April 2022 Islington Assembly Hall, Upper St, London, N1 2UD 7pm | £17 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/I78d1a3906de   KRISTIN HERSH (Electric Trio) FRED ABONG Thursday 21 April 2022 The Garage, 20-22 Highbury Corner, London, N5 1RD 7.30pm | £25 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/LbdJu2HTUjb   SAVAGE MANSION ROMEO TAYLOR THE TUBS Friday 22 April New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £7 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Ee5af990c5b9   JAKE XERXES FUSSELL Saturday 7 May 2022 OSLO Hackney, 1A Amhurst Rd, Hackney Central, London, E8 1LL 6.30pm-10pm | £9 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/fUuBdCfJD3 (This show is rescheduled from May 12th and Sep 8th 2020 & May 7th and September 1st 2021, original tickets valid, refunds available too)   ANNA FOX ROCHINSKI (formerly of QUILT) Wednesday 29 June OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £12.50 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/L0b5ba619db6   RICHARD DAWSON & CIRCLE Wednesday 6 July Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9NL 7pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/o9f9fe82d517

 

Richard Dawson & Circle to play London this July!

 

 

Upset The Rhythm presents…

RICHARD DAWSON & CIRCLE
Wednesday 6 July
Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9NL
7pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/o9f9fe82d517

RICHARD DAWSON & CIRCLE teamed up to record an epic album together recently called ‘Henki’. Richard Dawson is the Geordie troubadour whose moving songs have been described as state-of-the-nation addresses, even - or perhaps especially - when he’s singing about pre-medieval peasants. Circle are the genre-straddling pioneers of The New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, known for wearing spandex and singing in a made-up language. Together they are… Richard Dawson & Circle! Their epic joint record might seem a departure to those who are most familiar with Dawson from recent solo albums like 2017’s Peasant and 2020. In fact, ‘Henki’ fits comfortably into the bigger picture of two acts who have always strived for uninhibited originality. Inspired by Circle’s guitarist Janne Westerlund instructing the group during recording to be less straightforward and more “like a plant”, ‘Henki’s seven tracks deal with special plants throughout history. The result is a towering flora-themed hypno-folk-metal record of gargantuan proportions.

Dawson & Circle have intricately crafted their sound, with imaginative, constantly evolving arrangements that highlight Circle’s prog credentials. There are also unexpectedly euphoric choruses too: the instrumental mid-section of Silphium makes like a more dissonant take on Xanadu-era Rush, then gradually builds momentum before exploding back to life again just before the 11-minute mark. Methuselah gallops along like a flora-fixated Iron Maiden as it tells the cautionary tale of Donald Currey, a researcher trying to find the oldest tree on Earth who only realised he’d found it after he’d cut it down in 1964. Throughout, there is so much going on that it takes many listens to absorb everything. A tour de force of botanical rock!

https://richardmichaeldawson.bandcamp.com/album/henki

 

 

Anna Fox Rochinski is heading to London this June!

 

Upset The Rhythm presents…

ANNA FOX ROCHINSKI
(formerly of QUILT)
Wednesday 29 June
OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, E8 1LL
7.30pm | £12.50 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/L0b5ba619db6

ANNA FOX ROCHINSKI spent nearly a decade recording and touring with the collaborative psych rock band Quilt, now she has completed her first solo record, Cherry (Don Giovanni Records). Over the last few years, Rochinski realized pop was the most authentic vehicle for her and unites her varied musical influences under its umbrella. She sees it as a second-wave coming of age record. “It’s the most personal stuff I've ever written,” she says. “It's basically a break up album, but one that documents a time period ranging from the last few dying months of a six-year relationship and straight into the period following, when I was truly on my own for the first time in ages.” Cherry is full of propulsive guitar riffs, but Rochinski also uses synths, marimbas, and keys to send shockwaves through them, making playful, buoyant music that doesn’t take itself too seriously. You may not remember if Rochinski gets anything she yearns for, if any hurt is mended, or if any questions are answered, but you leave with her cooing voice and head-bobbing bass lines permanently etched into your skull. It’s like not knowing where to focus while watching a meteor shower — in a brief span of time, so much is dazzling.
https://annafoxrochinski.bandcamp.com/album/cherry 

 

 

Eric Chenaux in London on March 4th!

  

Our first show of the year at Cafe OTO will be with Eric Chenaux & Ashley Paul w/ Yoni Silver on March 4th! Here's a lovely poster!

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Savage Mansion + Romeo Taylor + The Tubs - London show announced!

 

Upset The Rhythm presents…

 

SAVAGE MANSION

ROMEO TAYLOR

THE TUBS

Friday 22 April

New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN

7.30pm | £7 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Ee5af990c5b9

 

SAVAGE MANSION is a vehicle for the songs of Perth-raised singer and guitarist Craig Angus, elsewhere featuring a revolving cast of musicians including Andrew Macpherson and Jamie Dubber (Catholic Action), Lewis Orr (Martha Ffion, Space Rocket Garage Band) and Beth Chalmers (Martha Ffion, Molly Linen). Quickly drawing attention for a high energy live show and Craig’s melodic and eloquent slices of guitar rock, the band were invited to open for Frightened Rabbit at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom and drew the attention of Johnny Lynch (Pictish Trail) who offered to release the ‘Do You Say Hello To Your Neighbours?’ single on Lost Map. This February Savage Mansion release thier new album ‘Golden Mountain, Here I Come’, solidifying their reputation as one of the UK’s most prolific emerging guitar bands, and as a hardworking collective drawing from a diverse palette of musical and literary influences. Re-emerging as a five-piece, they’re back with a record that’s hook-laden, poignant, and cryptic. It’s indie rock that’s both an instant feast for the senses and a rich tapestry of sounds and words to pore over and savour.

https://savagemansion.bandcamp.com/

 

ROMEO TAYLOR is a cross-platform entertainer and all round good guy, a cherished personality on the DIY Glasgow music scene, as well as a hilarious presence on the Twitch, YouTube & the Twitter-sphere. Romeo is the natural meeting point between Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Gary Rhodes and World Wrestling Entertainment’s beloved 'Attitude Era', making a mockery of the idea that in music, everything's been done before and we’re just repeating ourselves. The Coatbridge native is making quite a name for himself with an astonishing live show that demonstrates both his accomplished songcraft and comedic sensibilities. Look out for his music on Lost Map and Acid Waxa!

https://soundcloud.com/cooljinzo

 

THE TUBS were formed in 2019 by Owen Williams and George Nicholls, formerly of much-loved Welsh pop band Joanna Gruesome. The two hunkered down in rural North Wales to expand on the fuzzy, hook-laden sounds they propagated in their former outfit, this time incorporating elements of post-punk, traditional British folk, and guitar jangle seasoned by nonchalant Cleaners From Venus-influenced pop hooks & contemporary antipodean indie bands (Twerps/Goon Sax, et al). After a few lineup shuffles, they recruited Max Warren (bass), Steve Stonholdt (guitar) and Matthew Green (drums) to solidify the current lineup. Trouble In Mind co-released their newest effort worldwide, the ‘Names’ 7-inch EP, alongside Prefect Records in the UK.

https://thetubs.bandcamp.com