Daily Toll, The Spatulas and Guy Blackman in July!

 

Upset The Rhythm presents…

DAILY TOLL
THE SPATULAS
GUY BLACKMAN
Monday 21 July
Avalon Cafe, Juno Way, London, SE14 5RZ
7.15pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/h3d18b073edc

DAILY TOLL are nestled between the sonic worlds of folk song story telling and off kilter, angular rock. They are a Sydney-based band born from a curious seed, the self taught project of artist Kata Szász-Komlós alongside Jasper Craig-Adams and Tom Stephens. Seemingly coming with an unmistakable charm and yearning. Mapping the band’s existence through their recorded output is to bear witness to the flux of three people learning to respond to one another and gently ossify into a collective vision. Early recordings reflect a band imagining themselves into being whilst new release, A Profound Non-Event (Tough Love), observes a clear shift in conviction.
https://dailytoll.bandcamp.com/


THE SPATULAS share a percussive, unshadowed presence, a steady, clear-voiced clop. Every note on their debut record ‘Beehive Mind’ (out now on PPM) is a little bit sad on its own but then they're organized in a way that you don't actually notice. Credit this to the band’s skill—Jon Grothman, Lila Jarzombek, Kyle Raquipiso and Miranda Soileau-Pratt all play with no limits and they all play with profound ease. The songs breathe in warmth and patience, they are immediate and sweet. And then they start to meander. The guitar skitters with the deliberate unpredictability of a wild animal. Parts repeat and reset with the obsessiveness of an anxious mind. Miranda Solileau-Pratt wrote the first Spatulas song in 2020, while living in Oregon. Since that time, the band has released two cassettes and toured the United States. The band has shared stages with Helen, Lavender Flu, Debt Rag, Pink Reason, Blues Ambush, and Kath Bloom.
https://mirandaspatula.bandcamp.com/


GUY BLACKMAN is a songwriter’s songwriter. His deftly constructed songs deal frankly with issues of love, sexuality and commitment. If Serge Gainsbourg, Tim Hardin or Kevin Ayers wrote songs set in gay go-go bars or on adult camming websites, you might get close to an idea of Guy’s approach. ‘Out Of Sight’ is Guy’s first solo album in nearly 20 years (out June 13th), a belated follow-up to his well-loved 2008 album Adult Baby. Guy is also the co-founder of the very excellent label Chapter Music.
https://guyblackman.bandcamp.com

Quinie - 'Col My Love'

 

Today we’re sharing another soaring single from Quinie’s new album ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ (out May 23rd). ‘Col My Love’ is the very first track on the album, and it’s a powerful song to sing, accompanied by some epic pipes too. Quinie explains that the words “warn of the dangers of being close to the shoreline. I thought it would be a good fit with this footage of me and Maisie trying to navigate one of the challenges on one of our walks. Perhaps not quite as scary as being jailed on a cliff top, but nevertheless an adventure.”

Enjoy!
UTR
x

Perfect Hit - out now!

 

 

Glory be!
Buffet Lunch’s new album ‘Perfect Hit!’ is out now on Upset The Rhythm. This record positively zings in the sunlight, whilst its pleasingly imperfect pop songs dazzle to the same degree.

‘Perfect Hit!’ was recorded in the West Highlands, in the shadow of the UK’s Biggest Ben, during Leap Year week 2024. The lo-fi amblers built this album from bricks, ideas and plots, melodies and hooks, each stacked upon the other. The majority of the record was completed in the studio, with as much recorded ‘live’ as possible and the week flew by. Buffet Lunch had such a lovely time they forgot to go on a walk. They certainly make up for that with the music though, it’s a proper expedition of curious turns and dizzy dimensions taking in parenthood, face tattoos, conkers and historical consciousness as subject matter.

This meandering masterpiece of observational charm and offbeat fancy is available to listen to digitally now, the stunning yolk-coloured 180g vinyl can be found in all the best shops and our very own website here.

Buffet Lunch will be performing for us in London next Friday (April 11th) for their album launch at The George Tavern, accompanied by Lerryn and Sassyhiya too. Can’t wait to hear these songs played live! Tour dates incoming:

09/04 - Delicious Clam, Sheffield
10/04 - JT Soar, Nottingham
11/04 - The George Tavern, London
12/04 - The Holloway, Norwich
03/05 - Settlement Projects, Edinburgh
24/05 - The Glad Cafe, Glasgow


UTR
x

David Grubbs - London show - June 23rd!

Sixteen years ago we hosted the brilliant David Grubbs at The Luminaire (RIP), this summer we’ve booked David to play at St Pancras Old Church - total vibes!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

DAVID GRUBBS
Monday 23 June
St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, NW1 1UL
7.30pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/jbd4382206b5

DAVID GRUBBS has released sixteen solo albums and appeared on more than 200 releases.  In 2000, his The Spectrum Between (Drag City) was named “Album of the Year” in the London Sunday Times.  He is known for his cross-disciplinary collaborations with poet Susan Howe and visual artists Anthony McCall, Angela Bulloch, and Josiah McElheny, and his work has been presented at, among other venues, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, the Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou.  Grubbs was a member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait, and has performed with Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, Will Oldham, Loren Connors, Jan St. Werner, the Red Krayola, and many others.  He is a recipient of the Berlin Prize and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in Music/Sound, a member of the board of directors of Blank Forms, and director of the Blue Chopsticks record label.

Grubbs’ new album ‘Whistle From Above’, his first for Drag City in a decade, was released this February. It is a colorful, compulsive set of instrumental pieces in which David and his chosen collaborators interact amid the steady roll of an expansive landscape based in the hypnosis of David’s immediately recognizable guitar style.

https://davidgrubbs.bandcamp.com/music

 

 

Evil Sword this Saturday, and lots of concerts next week!

 

Great morning!   Thank you all so much for coming out in your droves for Six Organs of Admittance last week, such a wonderful night.   This Saturday we're back in the swing of things hosting Evil Sword at New River Studios.   Evil Sword are a Philadelphian duo of cryptic noise-makers combining performance art, witch-punk and crushing metallic overtones. Their shows feature macabre props, flashing lights, costumes and gallows humour galore. Joining the melee are Shake Chain and Split Apex too, so we will be well and truly entertained. Live music will spark up from 8pm, tickets are £8 in advance and we will have some available on the door too.

This terrific concert leads us into Upset The Rhythm's chock-a-block week! You'll find full write-ups below for next Monday's concert at Grand Junction with the matchless Myriam Gendron and The Memory Band. Then on April 9th we're pitching up at The Lexington for a headrush of a show with Wendy Eisenberg, Ryan Sawyer and Kiran Leonard.   The very next day, April 10th, sees us promoting a colossal event at The Underworld for Wolf Eyes, Sly & The Family Drone and Soborgnost. Wow! Before we cap off this active run with an album launch for Buffet Lunch at The George Tavern on April 11th. The most excellent Lerryn and Sassyhiya are both performing at this one too, thrilling times! Read on for all the details.

Exciting record label biz now!   Since our last chat Upset The Rhythm announced a breathtaking new album from Me Lost Me! This Material Moment, the fourth full-length from Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent, delights in songwriting, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully push the boundaries of genre.   Concerned with physicality, interpretations, and, yes, materiality, This Material Moment is an album akin to rummaging through a box of long-forgotten trinkets. With each song, Me Lost Me unearths something and asks us to consider it from every angle. "This is an album which uses words as a material, an experimental tool, full of metaphor, abstraction and analogies.” Jayne says, “it has softness and anger, humour, hope and despair, intensity of feeling in all directions expressed as textures, objects, places."

Take a listen to Compromise!, the stunning lead single, concerned with the notion of ‘performing’ a life, rather than ‘living’ one.

This Material Moment was written and arranged solo, but realised wonderfully in the recording by a core band of John Pope on electric/double bass, Faye MacCalman on clarinet, and now with the addition of Ewan Mackenzie (Dextro/Pigs x7) on drums . The album was recorded by Sam Grant at Blank Studios in Newcastle, who also worked on the exquisite previous album ‘RPG’.  This Material Moment will be released on June 27th through Upset The Rhythm, a limited 180g ‘brilliant red’ vinyl version is available to pre-order from all the best shops, and Bandcamp here.

Upset The Rhythm presents… EVIL SWORD SHAKE CHAIN SPLIT APEX Saturday 5 April New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £8 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B1970de44fb0 EVIL SWORD are Kate Ferencz and Ben Furgal from Philadelphia, USA. Their chaotic live shows combine elements of noise, cryptic metal overtones, performance art, and gallows humor and feature macabre props, flashing lights, stage sets and costumes. There are hardly any instruments in this group, but they make such a racket you’d never know it. The bass and the percussion sound like they’re having a great time, telling each other jokes. Then the words come in and it all locks together in these strange, hypnotic rhythms. I just listen to the stories and laugh and cry and get scared and wonder what they were ever thinking. Recent album ‘Basket Fever’ (Magic Pictures, 2023) features electrocuted bells, backwards parts, rusty horns; I’m pretty sure I even heard a clarinet in there somewhere. There’s this one part where it all seems to come back around, where they took some gang vocals from the very first demo they ever recorded and slowed it way down. When they first started; I thought they were some goofy kids making music about the end of the world, back when that seemed a little further away, like it was going to be fun. They were all laughing and making these funny ghost sounds, but now everyone’s older and the ghosts are real, a great whoosh of bygone spirits and cold air. It’s bone chilling. There’s plenty to be upset about, but it’s not really an Evil Sword song until that grimace has been twisted up into a smile. https://evilsword.bandcamp.com/album/basket-fever SHAKE CHAIN have been busy demolishing audiences and expectations for the best part of the last five years. Vocalist Kate Mahony sets that standard by anything from crawling through the audience’s legs in a bright yellow raincoat to crying and washing her hands in a nearby toilet, as the rest of the band start the set. The four-piece from London are completed by Robert Eyres (Synth/Guitar), Chris Hopkins (Bass/Synth/Samples) and Joe Fergey (Drums). Shake Chain are built of nervy bass lines, twitchy guitars that jolt and jerk and tack sharp drums, overridden by screeching vocal slurs and sampled television. Kate’s singing is a unique embrace of flights of atonal fancy, head-first repetition and ecstatic frenzy. Opinion-dividing arguably, but singular in making Shake Chain dauntingly brilliant. The band’s debut album ’Snake Chain’ was released by Upset The Rhythm. https://upsettherhythm.bandcamp.com/album/snake-chain                                         SPLIT APEX are Jussi Palmusaari (guitar, electronics and percussion) and Peter Blundell (voice and bass). On their self-titled cassette (out now) release they combine restless sonic textures, oddball phrasing within barely-contained song structures held together by moth-woven threads. Seemingly governed by an unknowable gravitational pull that tugs hither and yon, the duo lays out their statement of intent through a brief suite of intimate nocturnes. The release marks the first work for Palmusaari since leaving his native Finland where he played with the band, Preesens, in the late-90s/early-00s. For Blundell, this new project exists adjacent to his current work with Dominic Goodman as Komare and previous endeavours in the band, Mosquitoes. https://tinyurl.com/n8cf2jhf

Upset The Rhythm presents... MYRIAM GENDRON THE MEMORY BAND Monday 7 April Grand Junction, Rowington Cl, London W2 5TF 7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B9332cba32bb MYRIAM GENDRON is a Montreal-based songwriter, guitarist and singer. Mayday is the third LP by Gendron, it follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma délire – Songs of love, lost & found (2021). Prior to her debut album, Myriam's primary musical focus was busking in Paris Metro stations, performing the songs of Leonard Cohen and others, accompanying herself on guitar. Through her day job, working at a Montreal bookstore, Myriam discovered the poems of American writer, Dorothy Parker, who was better known for her cutting wit than her verse. Inspired by Parker's words, Myriam wrote music to accompany a suite of them, then recorded the results in her bedroom. These recordings were issued as her debut LP, and continue to delight listeners who discover them, with their freshness, clarity and humor.   After a brief hiatus, Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), recording the 2LP, Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs (largely in French) with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday is an even more syncretic fusion of these elements. Most of the songs are original, in both English and French, and blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. Additional players this time include drummer Jim White (Dirty Three), guitarist Marisa Anderson, Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lavoie (a fellow fan of trad/avant dynamism), Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba (whose horn actually gets the final “word”). Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. Beautiful work. https://myriamgendron.bandcamp.com/     THE MEMORY BAND have been navigating its own path through the folk music landscape of the digital age since 2003. Led by producer Stephen Cracknell with a fluid cast of collaborators The Memory Band blend songs and instrumentals, the traditional with the modern and the sacred with the profane. Their two decade adventure has produced six studio albums as well as side projects such as The Balearic Folk Orchestra and The Accidental. They have a long history of performing music from Paul Giovanni's soundtrack to The Wicker Man as well as other film and archive related projects. In 2024 The Memory Band released 'Never The Same Way Twice and 'A Common Treasury' two volumes of unreleased archive recordings on their own Hungry Hill label and in 2025 make their return to live performance. https://thememoryband.com/

Upset The Rhythm presents… WENDY EISENBERG & RYAN SAWYER KIRAN LEONARD Wednesday 9 April The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/G8802b91cafe WENDY EISENBERG & RYAN SAWYER came together seemingly by fate. The duo originally came together in a dream Eisenberg had, and not long after, were brought together in reality as substitutes for a show at Union Pool, where they instantly fell in step. Both artists’ work traverses genres from jazz to noise, all sorts of avant substrata and delicate songs, each placing a special emphasis on vast dynamics, textures, and moods. Their performances ebb and flow between long, improvisational pieces and composed songs from each of the artists' repertoires, setting the sonic intersection between Blaze Foley and the New York Art Quartet. The duo has previously opened for caroline at National Sawdust. Ryan also plays on Wendy’s new single ‘I Don’t Miss You’ (Joyful Noise Recordings). Wendy has previously played for us solo, and as a member of Editrix and Bill Orcutts’s guitar quartet, and their recent album ‘Viewfinder’ was described by The Guardian as “unexpected shifts in pace mix with Americana and jazz, with the singer-songwriter’s distinctive guitar sound driving a song cycle like no other”. Ryan Sawyer has played drums / percussion for Tv On The Radio, Marshall Allen, Susan Alcorn, Gang Gang Dance, At The Drive-In and collaborates a lot with John Dwyer. https://www.wendyeisenberg.com/ https://ryansawyer.bandcamp.com/music KIRAN LEONARD’s unique and ambitious body of work spans more than a decade of releases on labels such as Moshi Moshi and Hand of Glory, limited-run noisy DIY fare, and everything in between. The adolescent guitar/chamber prog of early records such as ‘Bowler Hat Soup’ (2013) and ‘Grapefruit’ (2016) earned praise from Pitchfork, the Guardian and the Quietus, and produced several BBC 6Music-playlisted singles. More recent work has seen Kiran attempt to synthesise interests in situated/home recording, collage, his live practice, and a combination of songcraft with graphic scores, as documented on the monumental (i.e. two-hour-long) and abstract ‘Trespass on Foot’ (2021) and ‘River Holds Peace, Some Live’ (2023), a collection of new and old material arranged for an ensemble of multiple electric guitars, cittern and double bass. Last year, After half a decade of songs without choruses, Kiran released ‘Real Home’ on Memorials of Distinction, which was named by the Guardian that summer among the best albums of 2024 so far. https://kleonard.bandcamp.com/

Upset The Rhythm presents... WOLF EYES SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE SOBORGNOST Thursday 10 April The Underworld, 174 Camden High St, London, NW1 9DL 7pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/qa5f170d34a7 WOLF EYES have spent 25 years fusing together DIY electronics with the avant-garde sensibilities of Fluxus and the granite of dreary Midwestern life. Their new album 'Dreams In Splattered Lines' is a surreal dreamscape of disorienting sound collages, where hit songs are transformed into terrariums of sonic flora and decimated fauna. As if pulled from a fever dream, the surrealists of the 1960s converge with alien electronic blues musicians in an underworld of mystery. The air is thick with car wash radio white noise, crackling and fizzing like a toxic elixir, spoken word poetry transmissions as absurd and cryptic phrases. Each corroded aural environment is a microcosm of chaos, honed to razor-sharp precision. Swept away in a whirlwind of thirteen perplexing narratives, each one an unpredictable journey through subterranean worlds, a sonic trip of reality folded into itself.   Wolf Eyes have released three albums recently ‘Dreams In Splattered Lines' was preceded by the compilation of collaborations 'Presents Difficult Messages', and the band followed this up with the release of 'Wolf Eyes w/ Spykes', bringing a much sought after early release to vinyl for the first time, documenting a recording session pivotal to the ongoing development of the group’s sound. Alongside this has been the usual steady stream of lathe cuts, side hustles, art and inzanity. A new LP is due out soon charting Wolf Eyes’ recent recordings with Anthony Braxton too, look out! https://wolfeyes.xyz/     SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE are a primal orchestra of drum rhythms, radiophonic oscillator noise and electronically-abstracted vocals. They forge hypnotic, textural workouts in the vein of Black Dice, Shit & Shine and Crash Worship. Given their freeform nature, every set they play is fresh and different. The band prefer to play in the round, rather than onstage, transforming the audience from passive observers to active contributors, creating a dynamic and evolving soundscape. This egalitarian approach propels audience and band together into a shamanistic setting of catharsis and anarchic celebration. Originally formed by Matt Cargill as a cassette manipulation project. Since then, Sly have expanded to incorporate layers of electronics, clattering live drums and saxophones, placing them somewhere between noise music and free jazz. Imagine a Boredoms score for an experimental noir thriller and you might be getting close. The neo-jazz wreckin’ crew continue to scorch their own path, recently teaming up with UK charitable label Human Worth on the release of their new record ‘Moon is Doom Backwards’. https://familydrone.bandcamp.com/ SOBORGNOST is sci-fi dance punk at the intersection of vaporwave, minimal wave, disco dub, industrial, EBM, proto-house, drone and noise. Using a hardware sampler to emulate dub mixing, looping post-punk style basslines with chuggy, lo-fi beats. Warped analogue textures are added with cassette tape manipulation, electro magnetic frequency transmitters, shortwave radio, harsh noise generator and dub sirens. https://soundcloud.com/spirit-data

Upset The Rhythm presents… BUFFET LUNCH - ‘Perfect Hit!’ album launch LERRYN SASSYHIYA Friday 11 April The George Tavern, 373 Commercial Rd, Stepney Green, London E1 0LA 7.30pm | £8 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ld7ea96b139b BUFFET LUNCH have been writing pleasingly imperfect pop songs since 2017. Comprised of musicians based in Glasgow, Edinburgh and (sometimes) Newcastle, the group craft ramshackle odysseys of observational charm. Always catchy, often profound. Buffet Lunch have been previously described as a band that create 'a hodgepodge of noises’, and who are 'lyrically ridiculous'. Both claims are strongly denied by the group.   Buffet Lunch have released 3 EPs & 2 LPs to date, and just six months after self-releasing the album 'For Display Purposes Only’ return this spring to Upset the Rhythm for their stunning third album 'Perfect Hit!' A meandering masterpiece of low-fidelity musing, ‘Perfect Hit!’ presents the group in upbeat mood, as ever casually melodic, only now with some more weighty subject matter to draw upon. ‘Perfect Hit!’ is built from ideas and plots, melodies and hooks, each stacked upon the other. It’s a puzzle, much like life, you just keep adding to what went before, hoping for order and shelter. Buffet Lunch have grown into this attitude, you must wait until the end and then stand back if you want to see what they’ve built. Now knock on the door and come on in. This event at The George Tavern is the official album launch for ‘Perfect Hit!’. https://buffetlunchband.bandcamp.com/ LERRYN has been a stalwart of the South East London creative scene for over a decade. The founder of cult creative space Lerryn’s Cafe and later frontwoman of post-punk band Dead Arm, her impact on a DIY scene that has defined a corner of London has been significant. Recent EP ‘As A Mother’ (Redundant Span) is the first offering from the next chapter of Lerryn’s own life, and the debut release under her own name. It is a record written during her experience of pregnancy, motherhood and a period of profound creative reckoning. This collection of songs are intimate, sweet and moving. For this show Lerryn will be performing as a stripped back duo. https://redundantspan.bandcamp.com/album/as-a-mother     SASSYHIYA want to take you somewhere. The journey starts in Kathy and Helen’s flat in South London. Sit down, close your eyes, and immerse yourself... You are on your way to a musical rainforest a long way from Camberwell. Explore your new surroundings, and you will find beautiful pop blooms like Let’s See What We Can Find, as bright and vibrant as The Sundays, thrusting their colourful faces up from the forest floor. You’ll find tangles of sharp-edged guitar, as if Swiss she-punks Kleenex had been left to evolve here in the rich fertile soil (I Had A Thought). You’ll find dark pools full of lyrical complexity, deceptively deep and immersive, with shimmering reflections of The Go-Betweens (Perennial). Sassyhiya’s debut album ‘Take You Somewhere’ is out now on Skep Wax! https://sassyhiya.bandcamp.com

Have a brilliant week and we'll see you on Saturday! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

EVIL SWORD

SHAKE CHAIN

SPLIT APEX

Saturday 5 April
New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN
7.30pm | £8 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B1970de44fb0

 

MYRIAM GENDRON
THE MEMORY BAND
Monday 7 April
Grand Junction, Rowington Cl, London W2 5TF
7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B9332cba32bb

 

WENDY EISENBERG & RYAN SAWYER
KIRAN LEONARD
Wednesday 9 April
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/G8802b91cafe

 

WOLF EYES

SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE

SOBORGNOST

Thursday 10 April

The Underworld, 174 Camden High St, London, NW1 9DL
7pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/qa5f170d34a7

 

BUFFET LUNCH - ‘Perfect Hit!’ album launch
LERRYN
SASSYHIYA
Friday 11 April
The George Tavern, 373 Commercial Rd, Stepney Green, London E1 0LA
7.30pm | £8 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ld7ea96b139b

 

CLEANERS FROM VENUS

THE GARDENERS

Wednesday 23 April & Thursday 24 April
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherds Bush, London W12 7LJ

7.30pm | SOLD OUT

 

RICH(ARD) DAWSON

QUINIE
Tuesday 29 April
The Clapham Grand, 21-25 St John's Hill, Clapham, London, SW11 1TT
7pm | £30 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/richard-dawson

 

RICH(ARD) DAWSON

GOOD SAD HAPPY BAD

Wednesday 30 April
The Clapham Grand, 21-25 St John's Hill, Clapham, London, SW11 1TT
7pm | £30 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ed6edd247a05

 

NAP EYES

ELIZA NIEMI
Wednesday 7 May
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £13 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/p590cef01f9d

 

MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
SACRED PAWS
Saturday 17 May
OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, E8 1LL
7pm-10pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ade9797f4d93

 

QUINIE - 'Forefowk, Mind Me' album launch

HARRY GORSKI-BROWN

SOUND OF YELL (solo)
Friday 30 May
St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, NW1 1UL
7.30pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/hf599383b2db

 

DEERHOOF
Monday 28 July
Tuesday 29 July
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherds Bush, London W12 7LJ
7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/u14f27627efa / https://link.dice.fm/I74bac87ba3a

 

CHRIS COHEN
Thursday 31 July
The Ivy House, 40 Stuart Rd, Nunhead, London SE15 3BE
7.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/a62fd570325d

 

WALT McCLEMENTS
JACKEN ELSWYTH
Wednesday 27 August
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL

7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Q090a15c33bd

 

April springing into May!

 

Me Lost Me - 'This Material Moment'

What a day to announce this breathtaking new album from Me Lost Me! ‘This Material Moment’, the fourth full-length from Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent, delights in songwriting, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully push the boundaries of genre. Today we’re sharing ‘Compromise!’, a stunning lead single concerned with the notion of ‘performing’ a life, rather than ‘living’ one.

Concerned with physicality, interpretations, and, yes, materiality, ‘This Material Moment’ is an album akin to rummaging through a box of long-forgotten trinkets. With each song, Me Lost Me unearths something and asks us to consider it from every angle. "This is an album which uses words as a material, an experimental tool, full of metaphor, abstraction and analogies.” Jayne says, “it has softness and anger, humour, hope and despair, intensity of feeling in all directions expressed as textures, objects, places."

‘This Material Moment’ was written and arranged solo, but realised wonderfully in the recording by a core band of John Pope on electric/double bass, Faye MacCalman on clarinet, and now with the addition of Ewan Mackenzie (Dextro/Pigs x7) on drums . The album was recorded by Sam Grant at Blank Studios in Newcastle, who also worked on the exquisite previous album ‘RPG’. 

‘This Material Moment’ will be released on June 27th through Upset The Rhythm, a limited 180g ‘brilliant red’ vinyl version is available to pre-order from all the best shops, and Bandcamp.

Six Organs of Admittance on Thursday!

Hello there!   Upset The Rhythm are back at the live music coalface this Thursday with a very special concert for Six Organs of Admittance at Metronome London (in Whitechapel). Ben Chasny is a master of the hushed folk idiom, blending in experimental noise and cascades of fingerstyle guitar with deft skill. In support we're pleased to have Lando Manning with his richly timbred dreamswept acoustica. We are counting the hours, it's going to be brilliant.   Read on for all the particulars. We also outline below our upcoming April events for Evil Sword, Myriam Gendron, Wolf Eyes and a last minute headrush of a show at The Lexington on April 9th for Wendy Eisenberg & Ryan Sawyer.   In our listings you might also spot a newly announced concert for Chris Cohen at The Ivy House on July 31st, and the exciting addition of Good Sad Happy Bad to our Rich Dawson lineup on April 30th too, woah! Exciting times indeed.             Upset The Rhythm presents... a Drag City showcase featuring: SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE LANDO MANNING Thursday 27 March Metronome London, 41 Commercial Road, London, E1 1LA 7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Gb5ecad0f987 SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE have built a prolific and diverse body of work over the last 20+ years. Ben Chasny's project is an experimental amalgam of new folk, drone music, percussion and strange textures, with Chasny delivering an outpouring of eclectic releases in the early 2000s for various small labels before finding a longstanding home on Drag City. In 2003, Chasny began an association with Comets on Fire, which led to him becoming a full-time touring and recording member of the band. After recording and touring extensively with Comets on Fire in 2004, Chasny returned to the studio and issued the moving and beautiful School of the Flower on Drag City in January of 2005. Sun Awakens and Shelter from the Ash arrived in 2006 and 2007. After touring and a break in 2008, Six Organs began what would become a prolific return to force, releasing a further 18 astonishing records up to the current time. First was the release of the sonically expansive - and very electric - Luminous Night, followed by the double-disc retrospective RTZ, both of which appeared on Drag City. Chasny also plays in 200 Years alongside Elisa Ambrogio (of Magik Markers), with Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards) in the project New Bums, and is also a member of tightly-wound improv unit Rangda, accompanied by Sir Richard Bishop and Chris Corsano. Chasny more recently developed a card-based creative system called a Hexadic for making music and released several related albums before resuming his primary project with new work like 2021's The Veiled Sea and the 2024 Shackleton collaboration Jinxed by Being. This year Six Organs also released a fully solo album Time Is Glass, which consists of haunted, unsettled rural folk sounds. With Time is Glass, Six Organs of Admittance is captured once again in the intricate tangle of the fretboards, soaring in open skies above. Like lens flare cutting through the speakers; spider-webs cracking the windshield that holds back all the onrushing reality. Blowing the dust away, cutting a new path for cognition. https://sixorgansofadmittance.bandcamp.com/     LANDO MANNING is a Peckham-based acid-dipped folk musician. Lando just released his second EP ‘Brighter Days’ (Mango Wax Records), a project he describes as “an affirmation of hope that through dark times there is light.” With a distinctly dreamy acoustic sound and a gift for subtle poetic song writing, he has continued to impress with every new song since his debut single ‘Today’. There is a real openness that comes from Manning. Without hesitation, deep and raw feelings are put in the firing line. ‘Brighter Days’ finds its inspiration as much in the soundtracks of Ennio Morricone and the ambient works of Japanese pioneer Hiroshima Yoshimura, as in the classic works of 70s folk songwriters like Towns Van Zandt. https://landomanning.bandcamp.com/   NB. Bill MacKay had to call short his European tour and will not be performing at this show now.   Upset The Rhythm presents… EVIL SWORD SHAKE CHAIN SPLIT APEX Saturday 5 April New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £8 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B1970de44fb0 EVIL SWORD are Kate Ferencz and Ben Furgal from Philadelphia, USA. Their chaotic live shows combine elements of noise, cryptic metal overtones, performance art, and gallows humor and feature macabre props, flashing lights, stage sets and costumes. There are hardly any instruments in this group, but they make such a racket you’d never know it. The bass and the percussion sound like they’re having a great time, telling each other jokes. Then the words come in and it all locks together in these strange, hypnotic rhythms. I just listen to the stories and laugh and cry and get scared and wonder what they were ever thinking. Recent album ‘Basket Fever’ (Magic Pictures, 2023) features electrocuted bells, backwards parts, rusty horns; I’m pretty sure I even heard a clarinet in there somewhere. There’s this one part where it all seems to come back around, where they took some gang vocals from the very first demo they ever recorded and slowed it way down. When they first started; I thought they were some goofy kids making music about the end of the world, back when that seemed a little further away, like it was going to be fun. They were all laughing and making these funny ghost sounds, but now everyone’s older and the ghosts are real, a great whoosh of bygone spirits and cold air. It’s bone chilling. There’s plenty to be upset about, but it’s not really an Evil Sword song until that grimace has been twisted up into a smile. https://evilsword.bandcamp.com/album/basket-fever SHAKE CHAIN have been busy demolishing audiences and expectations for the best part of the last five years. Vocalist Kate Mahony sets that standard by anything from crawling through the audience’s legs in a bright yellow raincoat to crying and washing her hands in a nearby toilet, as the rest of the band start the set. The four-piece from London are completed by Robert Eyres (Synth/Guitar), Chris Hopkins (Bass/Synth/Samples) and Joe Fergey (Drums). Shake Chain are built of nervy bass lines, twitchy guitars that jolt and jerk and tack sharp drums, overridden by screeching vocal slurs and sampled television. Kate’s singing is a unique embrace of flights of atonal fancy, head-first repetition and ecstatic frenzy. Opinion-dividing arguably, but singular in making Shake Chain dauntingly brilliant. The band’s debut album ’Snake Chain’ was released by Upset The Rhythm. https://upsettherhythm.bandcamp.com/album/snake-chain                                         SPLIT APEX are Jussi Palmusaari (guitar, electronics and percussion) and Peter Blundell (voice and bass). On their self-titled cassette (out now) release they combine restless sonic textures, oddball phrasing within barely-contained song structures held together by moth-woven threads. Seemingly governed by an unknowable gravitational pull that tugs hither and yon, the duo lays out their statement of intent through a brief suite of intimate nocturnes. The release marks the first work for Palmusaari since leaving his native Finland where he played with the band, Preesens, in the late-90s/early-00s. For Blundell, this new project exists adjacent to his current work with Dominic Goodman as Komare and previous endeavours in the band, Mosquitoes. https://tinyurl.com/n8cf2jhf   Upset The Rhythm presents... MYRIAM GENDRON THE MEMORY BAND Monday 7 April Grand Junction, Rowington Cl, London W2 5TF 7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B9332cba32bb MYRIAM GENDRON is a Montreal-based songwriter, guitarist and singer. Mayday is the third LP by Gendron, it follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma délire – Songs of love, lost & found (2021). Prior to her debut album, Myriam's primary musical focus was busking in Paris Metro stations, performing the songs of Leonard Cohen and others, accompanying herself on guitar. Through her day job, working at a Montreal bookstore, Myriam discovered the poems of American writer, Dorothy Parker, who was better known for her cutting wit than her verse. Inspired by Parker's words, Myriam wrote music to accompany a suite of them, then recorded the results in her bedroom. These recordings were issued as her debut LP, and continue to delight listeners who discover them, with their freshness, clarity and humor.   After a brief hiatus, Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), recording the 2LP, Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs (largely in French) with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday is an even more syncretic fusion of these elements. Most of the songs are original, in both English and French, and blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. Additional players this time include drummer Jim White (Dirty Three), guitarist Marisa Anderson, Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lavoie (a fellow fan of trad/avant dynamism), Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba (whose horn actually gets the final “word”). Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. Beautiful work. https://myriamgendron.bandcamp.com/     THE MEMORY BAND have been navigating its own path through the folk music landscape of the digital age since 2003. Led by producer Stephen Cracknell with a fluid cast of collaborators The Memory Band blend songs and instrumentals, the traditional with the modern and the sacred with the profane. Their two decade adventure has produced six studio albums as well as side projects such as The Balearic Folk Orchestra and The Accidental. They have a long history of performing music from Paul Giovanni's soundtrack to The Wicker Man as well as other film and archive related projects. In 2024 The Memory Band released 'Never The Same Way Twice and 'A Common Treasury' two volumes of unreleased archive recordings on their own Hungry Hill label and in 2025 make their return to live performance. https://thememoryband.com/     Upset The Rhythm presents… WENDY EISENBERG & RYAN SAWYER KIRAN LEONARD Wednesday 9 April The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/G8802b91cafe WENDY EISENBERG & RYAN SAWYER came together seemingly by fate. The duo originally came together in a dream Eisenberg had, and not long after, were brought together in reality as substitutes for a show at Union Pool, where they instantly fell in step. Both artists’ work traverses genres from jazz to noise, all sorts of avant substrata and delicate songs, each placing a special emphasis on vast dynamics, textures, and moods. Their performances ebb and flow between long, improvisational pieces and composed songs from each of the artists' repertoires, setting the sonic intersection between Blaze Foley and the New York Art Quartet. The duo has previously opened for caroline at National Sawdust. Ryan also plays on Wendy’s new single ‘I Don’t Miss You’ (Joyful Noise Recordings). Wendy has previously played for us solo, and as a member of Editrix and Bill Orcutts’s guitar quartet, and their recent album ‘Viewfinder’ was described by The Guardian as “unexpected shifts in pace mix with Americana and jazz, with the singer-songwriter’s distinctive guitar sound driving a song cycle like no other”. Ryan Sawyer has played drums / percussion for Tv On The Radio, Marshall Allen, Susan Alcorn, Gang Gang Dance, At The Drive-In and collaborates a lot with John Dwyer. https://www.wendyeisenberg.com/ https://ryansawyer.bandcamp.com/music KIRAN LEONARD’s unique and ambitious body of work spans more than a decade of releases on labels such as Moshi Moshi and Hand of Glory, limited-run noisy DIY fare, and everything in between. The adolescent guitar/chamber prog of early records such as ‘Bowler Hat Soup’ (2013) and ‘Grapefruit’ (2016) earned praise from Pitchfork, the Guardian and the Quietus, and produced several BBC 6Music-playlisted singles. More recent work has seen Kiran attempt to synthesise interests in situated/home recording, collage, his live practice, and a combination of songcraft with graphic scores, as documented on the monumental (i.e. two-hour-long) and abstract ‘Trespass on Foot’ (2021) and ‘River Holds Peace, Some Live’ (2023), a collection of new and old material arranged for an ensemble of multiple electric guitars, cittern and double bass. Last year, After half a decade of songs without choruses, Kiran released ‘Real Home’ on Memorials of Distinction, which was named by the Guardian that summer among the best albums of 2024 so far. https://kleonard.bandcamp.com/   Upset The Rhythm presents... WOLF EYES SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE SOBORGNOST Thursday 10 April The Underworld, 174 Camden High St, London, NW1 9DL 7pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/qa5f170d34a7 WOLF EYES have spent 25 years fusing together DIY electronics with the avant-garde sensibilities of Fluxus and the granite of dreary Midwestern life. Their new album 'Dreams In Splattered Lines' is a surreal dreamscape of disorienting sound collages, where hit songs are transformed into terrariums of sonic flora and decimated fauna. As if pulled from a fever dream, the surrealists of the 1960s converge with alien electronic blues musicians in an underworld of mystery. The air is thick with car wash radio white noise, crackling and fizzing like a toxic elixir, spoken word poetry transmissions as absurd and cryptic phrases. Each corroded aural environment is a microcosm of chaos, honed to razor-sharp precision. Swept away in a whirlwind of thirteen perplexing narratives, each one an unpredictable journey through subterranean worlds, a sonic trip of reality folded into itself.   Wolf Eyes have released three albums recently ‘Dreams In Splattered Lines' was preceded by the compilation of collaborations 'Presents Difficult Messages', and the band followed this up with the release of 'Wolf Eyes w/ Spykes', bringing a much sought after early release to vinyl for the first time, documenting a recording session pivotal to the ongoing development of the group’s sound. Alongside this has been the usual steady stream of lathe cuts, side hustles, art and inzanity. A new LP is due out soon charting Wolf Eyes’ recent recordings with Anthony Braxton too, look out! https://wolfeyes.xyz/     SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE are a primal orchestra of drum rhythms, radiophonic oscillator noise and electronically-abstracted vocals. They forge hypnotic, textural workouts in the vein of Black Dice, Shit & Shine and Crash Worship. Given their freeform nature, every set they play is fresh and different. The band prefer to play in the round, rather than onstage, transforming the audience from passive observers to active contributors, creating a dynamic and evolving soundscape. This egalitarian approach propels audience and band together into a shamanistic setting of catharsis and anarchic celebration. Originally formed by Matt Cargill as a cassette manipulation project. Since then, Sly have expanded to incorporate layers of electronics, clattering live drums and saxophones, placing them somewhere between noise music and free jazz. Imagine a Boredoms score for an experimental noir thriller and you might be getting close. The neo-jazz wreckin’ crew continue to scorch their own path, recently teaming up with UK charitable label Human Worth on the release of their new record ‘Moon is Doom Backwards’. https://familydrone.bandcamp.com/ SOBORGNOST is sci-fi dance punk at the intersection of vaporwave, minimal wave, disco dub, industrial, EBM, proto-house, drone and noise. Using a hardware sampler to emulate dub mixing, looping post-punk style basslines with chuggy, lo-fi beats. Warped analogue textures are added with cassette tape manipulation, electro magnetic frequency transmitters, shortwave radio, harsh noise generator and dub sirens. https://soundcloud.com/spirit-data Thanks for reading, see you on Thursday! Upset The Rhythm                             UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS  SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE LANDO MANNING Thursday 27 March Metronome London, 41 Commercial Road, Whitechapel, London, E1 1LA 7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Gb5ecad0f987   EVIL SWORD SHAKE CHAIN SPLIT APEX Saturday 5 April New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £8 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B1970de44fb0   MYRIAM GENDRON THE MEMORY BAND Monday 7 April Grand Junction, Rowington Cl, London W2 5TF 7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/B9332cba32bb   WENDY EISENBERG & RYAN SAWYER KIRAN LEONARD Wednesday 9 April The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/G8802b91cafe   WOLF EYES SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE SOBORGNOST Thursday 10 April The Underworld, 174 Camden High St, London, NW1 9DL 7pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/qa5f170d34a7   CLEANERS FROM VENUS THE GARDENERS Wednesday 23 April & Thursday 24 April Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherds Bush, London W12 7LJ 7.30pm | SOLD OUT   RICH(ARD) DAWSON Tuesday 29 April The Clapham Grand, 21-25 St John's Hill, Clapham, London, SW11 1TT 7pm | £30 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/richard-dawson   RICH(ARD) DAWSON GOOD SAD HAPPY BAD Wednesday 30 April The Clapham Grand, 21-25 St John's Hill, Clapham, London, SW11 1TT 7pm | £30 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ed6edd247a05   NAP EYES ELIZA NIEMI Wednesday 7 May The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £13 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/p590cef01f9d   MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN SACRED PAWS Saturday 17 May OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, E8 1LL 7pm-10pm | £15 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ade9797f4d93   QUINIE - 'Forefowk, Mind Me' album launch HARRY GORSKI-BROWN SOUND OF YELL (solo) Friday 30 May St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, NW1 1UL 7.30pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/hf599383b2db   DEERHOOF Monday 28 July Tuesday 29 July Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherds Bush, London W12 7LJ 7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/u14f27627efa / https://link.dice.fm/I74bac87ba3a   CHRIS COHEN Thursday 31 July The Ivy House, 40 Stuart Rd, Nunhead, London SE15 3BE 7.30pm | £16 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/a62fd570325d   WALT McCLEMENTS JACKEN ELSWYTH Wednesday 27 August Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Q090a15c33bd

Good Sad Happy Bad to support Rich Dawson on April 30th!

Have we got some very special guests to announce for Rich Dawson’s April 30th concert at The Clapham Grand? We sure do! Overjoyed to welcome Good Sad Happy Bad to the lineup. Excited to see Rich play with drummer Andrew Cheetham at this show too, it’s going to be incredible.

Upset The Rhythm presents…

RICH(ARD) DAWSON
GOOD SAD HAPPY BAD
Wednesday 30 April
The Clapham Grand, 21-25 St John's Hill, Clapham, London, SW11 1TT
7pm | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/ed6edd247a05

GOOD SAD HAPPY BAD is a band composed of CJ Calderwood, Marc Pell, Mica Levi, and Raisa Khan. Their whimsical kraut punk and art rock experiments, brimming with mantras and cycles and nervous lullabies, bring the listener into wobbly landscapes and toward spiraling epiphanies.

Their second album, All Kinds of Days (2024), a follow up to their 2020 debut, Shades, deepens the band’s collaborative approach, building on instrumental improvisations that each member reworks with vocal contributions, creating a dynamic, shared storytelling experience. Throughout the album, the four musicians frequently unite in lush, layered choruses, and meandering guitars that add a communal resonance.

All Kinds of Days delves into themes of loss, grief, recovery, healing, keeping a house together, and the challenges of parenthood, all set against a moody, intricate soundscape. Listeners are pulled through eerie guitar lines, spoken word, ghostly woodwinds, and gritty electronic textures, all disguised within a framework of an unconventional “band” sound. Beneath these atmospheric layers lies a rhythmic foundation of drums and nuanced melodies that lend drive and an unsettling beauty to the album’s sound.

https://good-sad-happy-bad.bandcamp.com/