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Upset The Rhythm have a jam-packed
October for you. We thought we'd outline all of our live shows taking
place in London throughout the month.
Our next concert takes place this Saturday night at Chat's Palace with the incomparable Sir Richard Bishop.
Known as a member of Sun City Girls, Rangda and the Clandestine Trio,
Bishop has primarily been a solo performer for the last 27 years.
Bursting forth with a thunderous eruption of roiling acoustic guitar, Bishop’s
latest release 'Hillbilly Ragas' is an unapologetically original
collection of nine instrumental pieces. Characterised by its
stripped-back production of solely guitar, the album brims with a wild,
enchanting energy drawing heavily on American primitivism. It hasn't
left our turntable since it came out on Drag City last month and we're
beyond excited to hear it played live.
We're very pleased that improv-guitar / folk music magpie C Joynes will be performing on Saturday night too, expect live music to commence from 8pm, tickets available on the door and in advance.
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Then next Wednesday (Oct 15th), Upset The Rhythm are also hosting a Lande Hekt concert at The Lexington, accompanied by Sassyhiya and Perfect Binding too.
This show is overloaded with
conversational jangle and DIY pop moves, plus it'll be special to hear
Lande perform some of the tracks off her new album coming out in January
called 'Lucky Now'.
Keep reading for full write-ups of both these excellent events and our other forthcoming October dates for Steve Gunn, James Elkington, 100 Flowers, The Yummy Fur, Lung Leg, Unmarry Me! and The Plan.
I told you we were busy!
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Upset The Rhythm presents… SIR RICHARD BISHOP
C JOYNESSaturday 11 October Chats Palace, 42-44 Brooksby's Walk, London, E9 6DF 7.30pm | £14 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/V7e42376f168 SIR RICHARD BISHOP
is renowned for his mercurial guitar-playing for 26 years with Seattle
ethno-delic legends Sun City Girls, but he has wrought a distinguished
solo canon as well. He combines soulfulness and advanced technique with a
panache that’s nearly unrivalled among today’s guitarists. Bishop
strums spiritual with incantatory ragas, free-folk excursions,
crystalline flamenco flourishes, ruddy Appalachian folk, Middle
Eastern-tinged fantasias and gypsy arabesques. This is eclecticism done
with respect and third-eye-dilating filigree; his compositions attain a
sepia-toned wistfulness and a psychedelic complexity. Bishop’s
first solo record, Salvador Kali, was released by John Fahey’s esteemed
Revenant Records label in 1998. Locust Music issued his second record,
Improvika (2004), which consisted of nine extemporaneous pieces for solo
acoustic guitar. More recently Tangier Sessions, was released by Drag
City in 2015. It consists of a series of improvisations recorded in
Tangier, Morocco in 2014 using a 19th century parlour guitar of
mysterious origin. Bishop's latest album, Oneiric Formulary, was
released by Drag City in 2020, whilst a new LP called Hillbilly Ragas
will be released this September. https://sirrichardbishop.com/ C JOYNES
has ploughed a singular furrow through solo guitar over the last
decade, with a body of work incorporating English folk-tunes alongside
North & West African music, and lifting proto-minimalist and
improvised techniques from the European classical and avant-garde
traditions. Joynes has released 10 albums to date, including ‘Poor Boy
On The Wire’ (2021), his first solo album dedicated wholly to the
electric guitar; ‘The Borametz Tree’ (2019), recorded with long-term
fellow travellers Dead Rat Orchestra; and ‘The Wild Wild Berry’, a
collaboration with singer Stephanie Hladowski. He has recorded a number
of sessions for BBC Radio 3. He has also played extensively across the
UK, Europe and the USA, sharing bills with a broad range of performers
including Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy, Marc Ribot, Richard Dawson,
Alasdair Roberts, Jack Rose, Josephine Foster, Six Organs Of Admittance
and 75 Dollar Bill. Shifting away from the electric guitar of
his most recent solo activities, Joynes is currently exploring the uses
of an amplified archtop guitar, exploiting the instrument’s potential by
placing intricate parlour music alongside overdriven garage blues
throw-downs and the brittle ringing tones of free improvisation. http://cjoynes.bandcamp.com/ |
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Upset The Rhythm presents… LANDE HEKT
SASSYHIYA
PERFECT BINDINGWednesday 15 October The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12.50 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/fbcab145bcceLANDE HEKT’s
music is born out of self-reflection, social and political awareness,
and her capacity for evocative storytelling. Having explored this
personal song-writing approach with her former band, Muncie Girls, with
their punchy yet tender punk-flecked songs, Lande released her debut
solo record Going To Hell in 2021 via queer and trans run independent
label Get Better Records. Going To Hell presents its raw honesty amongst
understatedly luminous melodies and candid, unpretentious lyrics which
contemplate, among other things, her experience coming out as gay.
Lande’s music sits beautifully alongside such essential artists as The
Wedding Present, The Sundays, The Replacements, Sleeper and Sharon Van
Etten. With her debut album barely a year old, 2022 saw Lande
armed with a whole new collection of song-form vignettes and musings on
her life and experiences with second album House Without a View
(partnering again with Get Better Records and Prize Sunflower Records in
the UK). Kicking off where the last record left off, House Without a
View continues to explore ideas of queer identity, as well as her
changing relationship with gender, dealing with childhood trauma, and
confronting the isolation and period of adjustment brought by the
pandemic. Lead single ‘Gay Space Cadets’ daydreams about a life of
excitement and adventure instead of being “forced to buy into capitalism
and become a pathetic, losing player in a game that you hate.” Although
there’s darkness and sadness within the record, there’s also some
shining beacons of positivity and a lighthearted side, albeit with a
side of frustration. Lande has toured in the UK, Europe, Canada
and Australia supporting the likes of Alvvays, Laura Jane Grace, The
Beths, Throwing Muses and the legend that is Tricky. She has also played
at Glastonbury festival, as well as events for The Big Issue and
Corbyn’s Labour Party. Lande's new album 'Lucky Now ', written and
recorded with producer Matthew Simms (Wire, It Hugs Back), reflects
the most mature and confident version of Lande Hekt yet. 'Lucky Now' is
due out in January. https://landehekt.bandcamp.com/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.comPERFECT BINDING
is the recording project of London-based songwriter and composer Sam
Bedford. Based around nylon-string guitar, voice, cello and fragments of
tape music, Bedford creates songs that feel gently detached and
intimate and yet still rich in atmosphere. Recorded with Benjamin Woods
at the Joy of Life Studio in South East London, Perfect Binding’s
self-titled EP offers a compelling introduction to a songwriter focused
on tone, tension, and emotional undercurrent. https://perfectbinding.bandcamp.com/album/perfect-binding-2 |
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Upset The Rhythm presents…
STEVE GUNN
JAMES ELKINGTON
Thursday 23 October
St Matthias Church, Wordsworth Rd, Dalston, London, N16 8DD
7.30pm | £14 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Kbeb8bca6565
STEVE GUNN
is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning
nearly fifteen years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed
solo, duo, and ensemble recordings on labels such as Matador Records,
Three Lobed Recordings, Paradise of Bachelors, and RVNG. His albums
represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven material, and forward
thinking songwriting. Steve has steadily processed his inspirations
into a singular, virtuosic stream. Close listening reveals the influence
of blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz, and psych in his continually
unfolding output.
'Music for Writers', the first
Gunn album under only his name since 2021, takes those influences to a
new level. It is an instrumental album (released this August by Three
Lobed Recordings), based around guitar, synths and more, it leads the
listener to tightly and deeply focus on minute changes and variations in
style. It is a masterpiece in fragile, small-scale world-building that
occupies a unique space within Gunn's wider discography.
https://stevegunn.bandcamp.com/musicJAMES ELKINGTON
moved to the United States in the late ’90s from his native England
with the intention of making himself absolutely essential to the Chicago
music scene. Twenty years later he’s contributed to a staggering volume
of records and shows and projects both in Chicagoland (see Jeff Tweedy;
Tortoise; Eleventh Dream Day; Brokeback) and far from it (see Richard
Thompson; Laetitia Sadier; Michael Chapman, Steve Gunn, Nap Eyes). The
2017 release of the wonderful ‘Wintres Woma’, his first so-called solo
album, seemed to be a logical, healthy respite from assisting with the
creative needs of others that would allow him to serve his own. The
record certainly sounded as though James found in it every reason to be
satisfied - among much else, it effectively reconciled his personal and
musical mongreltude as a child of Britain and a man of America, and thus
could return his focus to bettering other folks’ records. James has
since released several albums on Paradise of Bachelors and No Quarter,
including last year’s triumphant collab with Nathan Salsburg entitled
‘All Gist’.
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Upset The Rhythm presents… LUNG LEG
UNMARRY ME
THE PLANSaturday 25 October MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, London, E9 6NU 7pm-10pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/Uf5bde2d3be1LUNG LEG
formed in Glasgow in 1994 and were part of the city’s vibrant DIY
underground scene. They blended elements of post-punk, C86, and riot
grrrl, creating a sound described as indie rock, pop-punk, and garage
rock. The original lineup included Jane McKeown ("Jane Egypt"), Annie
Spandex, Amanda "Jade Green" Doorbar, and Maureen "MoMo" Quinn. They
released two EPs in the mid-1990s: ‘The Negative Delinquent Autopsy’ and
‘Shagg the Tiger’. The band's debut album, "Maid to Minx," was released
in 1997. Lung Leg’s songs are soaked in hedonistic tales of Glasgow
nights out, living life on the central Scottish edge between the dole
and the pub, the music pumped full of adrenalin. Seriously, if you tune
your mind into just the guitars you’ll be doing mental somersaults. But
you’d also be missing the vocal interplay, call-and-response work,
lyrics that read like surrealist, grimy narratives. At the turn of the
century Lung Leg imploded, scattering their component members to
different parts of the country or to other groups. After a reissue of
the singular ‘Maid To Minx’ album in 2022, the band reformed with new
members Paul Thompson, Simone Antigone and Hando Morice, playing a
reunion gig in Glasgow that December. They have since featured in the
documentary ‘Since Yesterday: The Untold Story’. Lung Leg will be
releasing their first new record in October. A limited edition split 7"
with Unmarry Me! is also coming out soon on Second City Static. https://lungleg.bandcamp.com UNMARRY ME!
is a triangular shaped group, comprising of Lise Frances, Jon Slade and
Chris Rowley. London to Brighton and back again. Unmarry Me! are a
group that have been together for about 6 months in a world at war and
in trouble. Unmarry me! are therefore a group trying to carve out some
joy and light as form of resistance, no small feat, and maybe grandiose
but worth the stating. Unmarry me! Is comprised of personnel who have
all had time or continue to have time in other groups who did not take
easy routes or money and didn't make many friends, so it goes. These
groups respectively or chronologically were and are Huggy Bear, Comet
Gain, I’m Being Good, Help She Can’t Swim, Snoozers and Adulkt Life.
Bands that time will record as being on the right sides of history and
her story. Unmarry Me! are of a completely different stripe or ilk but
comprise the antagonist and peculiar DNA that honour this. Unmarry Me!
play and record and create and make do in a DIY syncretism that's useful
to themselves, distinct and not worth talking about. Unmarry Me! are
about bending, queering, breaking and resetting rules, smudging
boundaries and in the main having a lot of excellent fun!! THE PLAN
breeze in from Southend, keeping the flame burning for the kind of
askew provincial pop captured on all those Messthetics compilations.
Featuring folks formerly of Wetdog, The Ghosts and Vic Godard & The
Subway Sect, the group ply a combination clattering beats, clanging
guitars and conversational tunes. Their songs often move in unexpected
directions and are pinned together by Rebecca Gillieron's sometimes
defiant/sometimes soft vocal melodies. New album, ‘Mountain View’, to be
released on Divine Schism in September. https://theplan1.bandcamp.com/ |
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Upset The Rhythm presents… 100 FLOWERS
THE YUMMY FURFriday 31 October New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £10 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/teff2cfdc2f2 100 FLOWERS
are a post-punk band from Los Angeles, California, active primarily in
the early 1980s. The group evolved from the politically charged punk
outfit The Urinals, who were known for their raw, minimalist sound and
radical brevity, many of their songs clocked in under a minute. As their
musical interests expanded and matured, the trio mutated into 100
Flowers in 1981, taking their name from Mao Zedong’s “Hundred Flowers
Campaign,” a brief period in Chinese history encouraging open
expression. The new moniker reflected their increasingly sophisticated
and experimental approach to music, while maintaining a subversive,
critical edge. The band consisted of the same core lineup from
the Urinals: John Talley-Jones (vocals, bass), Kjehl Johansen (guitar,
vocals), and Kevin Barrett (drums). Under the 100 Flowers name, they
moved beyond the stark minimalism of their previous incarnation,
embracing more complex song structures, abstract lyrics, and an eclectic
mix of influences ranging from Wire and Gang of Four to Captain
Beefheart and Pere Ubu. Their sound retained punk’s urgency and DIY
ethos but integrated funk, avant-garde noise, and jarring time
signatures, all hallmarks of the emerging post-punk genre. In 1983, 100
Flowers released their self-titled LP on the independent label Happy
Squid Records, which they co-founded. The album was critically
well-regarded within underground circles, praised for its angular guitar
work, sharp lyrical content, and inventive rhythms. Songs like
“Sensible Virgins” and “Motorboat to Hell” showcased their unique fusion
of intelligence, irony, and punk rebellion. The group disbanded in
1983, but their influence endured. Both 100 Flowers and the Urinals
became cult favorites, especially among later generations of punk, indie
rock, and lo-fi musicians. Their music was rediscovered and reissued
over the years, including a retrospective compilation, 100 Years of
Pulchritude, which brought renewed attention to their groundbreaking
work. https://100flowers.bandcamp.com/album/100-flowersTHE YUMMY FUR
are Glaswegian DIY pop legends with their energetic mix of angular
riffs, super-short songs and biting social commentary. Consisting of
lead singer and guitarist John McKeown and an interesting line-up of
other musicians, the band were favourites of John Peel and recorded two
Peel Sessions, as well three totemic albums: ‘Night Club’ (Slampt /
Guided Missile, 1996), ‘Male Shadow at Three O’Clock’ (Vesuvius, 1998)
and ‘Sexy World’ (Guided Missile, 1998). All three are essential. The
group disbanded in 1999, and ten years later ‘Rock Action’ released
‘Piggy Wings’, a compilation of their best 7” and album tracks. The band
have since reformed to play with a line up featuring original members
John McKeown, Paul Thomson and Brian McDougall. |
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