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Good morning!
Upset The Rhythm are gearing up for a busy shift in April, so today
we're sharing all the London events we have coming up on the horizon.
On Monday evening we're heading to Bush Hall for some back to back solo guitar heroics from experimental luminaries Bill Orcutt and Alexander Tucker. This one looks primed to push the limits! Tickets available in advance and on the door from 7.30pm.
Then next Friday we kick off EarthBall's UK tour at Cafe OTO. The Canadian noise-rock ensemble will be joined by Stewart Lee on vocals for part of their set. CIA Debutante will also be celebrating the release of their new album, alongside the excellent Split Apex too. Worth buying tickets in advance for this one FYI.
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Also next week, on Sunday evening (April 19th) we're delighted to welcome back exquisite underground songwriter Lande Hekt
back to London, hot on the heels of the winning new album 'Lucky Now'.
Lande is bringing along a full live band for this show, plus Brighton
indie legends The Popguns and bedroom pop duo Mumble Tide will support. We will have some tickets on the door from 7pm, live music from 7.30pm, think... early show.
On April 22nd we're very pleased to have the perfect pairing of Dear Nora and Tai Haf Heb Drigolyn both performing at The Lexington too - what a revelation!
Finally, you'll also find below a full write-up of our 100 Club concert with Orcutt Shelley Miller on Thursday 23 April. The power-trio will be joined by David Yow (I know) on vocals for a few songs at this event, so will be memorable to say the least. Plus, The Cooperati will make their London debut of cracked electronics and cassette tape wheeze.
Read on for all and more!
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Upset The Rhythm presents… BILL ORCUTT
ALEXANDER TUCKERMonday 13 April Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherds Bush, London W12 7LJ 7.30pm | £18 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/U67bfce667c6BILL ORCUTT
is a guitarist and composer. He has been described as “thrillingly
original” (Will Ainsley, Bandcamp Daily) as "a go-for-broke guitar
improviser," (Ben Ratliff, New York Times) “creating a new language”
(Marc Masters, Pitchfork) whose playing would "make Derek Bailey do a
double-take" (Lars Gotrich, NPR). Orcutt tours actively, appearing at
festivals worldwide, including Rewire (The Hague), Presences
Electronique (Paris), Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Goner Fest (Memphis),
Musique Actuelle (Victoriaville), Big Ears (Knoxville), Music Unlimited
(Wels), Le Guess Who? (Utrecht), Nouveau Festival du Centre Pompidou
(Paris), Unsound (Krakow), a Maida Vale session for BBC 3 (London) and a
Tiny Desk concert for NPR. 2025 saw Orcutt release ‘Another
Perfect Day’, his first solo electric guitar record since 2017’s
eponymous Bill Orcutt. While that eight-year gap might not seem like a
ton of time on the cosmic scale, it nonetheless represents a busy
half-decade plus for Orcutt projects: a raft of improv collaborations,
an acclaimed run of chopped and looped albums on Fake Estates, and the
collision of Orcutt’s computer and guitar music on Music For Four
Guitars and last year’s How to Rescue Things, both on Palilalia. The
undeniable alchemy of those latter mashups inspired not only a wider
appreciation of Orcutt-as-composer, but also the resurrection of
Orcutt-as-bandleader, as the Bill Orcutt Quartet hit the road in support
of Four Guitars, Orcutt’s first work with a proper score. ‘Another
Perfect Day’ sees Orcutt building tension with short phrases, repeated
with slight variability until it seems like they’ll never stop, finally
slamming into a fresh line like the dawning valley at the crest of the
mountain pass. It’s an affirmation that Orcutt is above all a lead
player - angular runs scaling the heavens, ricocheting back to ground
zero before climbing again. https://billorcutt.bandcamp.com/ALEXANDER TUCKER
returns to the guitar, after spending the last few years focusing on
his modular experimental techno guise MICROCORPS. Since the early 2000s
Tucker has released solo guitar and cello based albums on Thrill Jockey
Records, Subtext, and ATP Recordings, blending songs, electronics,
strings, vocals and extended techniques. Creating music that sits
between structured song writing, composition, drone and noise, Tucker is
also a prolific collaborator, with projects that include tape-loop duo
Imbogodom, and electronic pop with Grumbling Fur and Charlemagne
Palestine. More recent live collaborations include work with Lasse
Marhaug, Kenichi Iwasa, and Elvin Brandhi. 2026 sees Tucker
melding his past work with acoustic guitar, and his present explorations
with modular synth systems and electronics, processing minimal steel
string guitar into unrecognisable sonic forms through improvisation,
synthesis and electronic manipulation. Tucker’s investigations into
electroacoustic and music concrete composition has led him to seek out
ways to warp, stretch and mangle this own guitar playing beyond its
original form, revelling in the sheer pleasure of transforming sound and
creating imaginary and unspoken spaces. https://alexandertucker.bandcamp.com/music |
Upset The Rhythm presents… EARTHBALL
CIA DEBUTANTE
SPLIT APEXFriday 17 April Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/u7705d1dcd32EARTHBALL
are a wild ensemble from Canada, mainly based on Vancouver Island.
EarthBall's live shows epitomise their commitment to spontaneous
composition, offering audiences a unique experience with each
performance. The last two years have seen EarthBall release their debut
LP 'It's Yours' and a live album entitled 'Actual Earth Music - Volume 1
& 2' featuring Chris Corsano and Steve Beresford on Upset The
Rhythm. This winter they returned with their best effort to date
'Outside Over There’ - a gathering of sound at the forest's edge; where
feedback, saxophone screams, and ecstatic vocals dissolve the boundary
between chaos and clarity. Perhaps John Olson of Wolf Eyes sums up the
album best: “Outside Over There is an eight-track odyssey that
unfolds like a dreamscape, where whispered incantations brush against
the shadowy fringes of the cosmos, and wild, Cézanne-inspired rock
anthems erupt like geysers of color in the midst of a western warm and
wet rain storm… culminating in the sprawling eleven-minute masterpiece,
‘And The Music Shall Untune The Sky,’ aptly dubbed the Earth Crusher. A
creation so utterly deconstructed and intertwined with the pulse of
nature itself that if AI was called upon to conceive ‘Outside Over
There’ anew, it would just spit back, “F.U. in Tree Font”. An enchanting
invitation for even the flat-earthers to join the circle, if only just a
little.” For this show EarthBall will welcome Stewart Lee to the vocal
mic for part of their set. https://upsettherhythm.bandcamp.com/album/outside-over-thereCIA DEBUTANTE
have reworked the post-punk/experimental kingdoms left behind only to
haunt and refurnish them to their own abstract design. Dive deep into
the soundtrack of a floating toxic airborne apparition. Lo-fi spirit,
spoken word, deconstructed guitar, adventure synths. The duo’s oddly
unique vortex of sound and improvisation has led them to play alongside
like-minds like The Dead C, Roy Montgomery, The Rebel, Sister Iodine,
The Haŕd Quartet, Protomartyr and Exek. CIA Debutante have released
their four LPs on acclaimed and long running underground treasure trove
Siltbreeze Records and toured across Europe several times over, Japan
and China. https://ciadebutante.bandcamp.com/ SPLIT APEX
are London-based duo of Jussi Palmusaari and Peter Blundell, who've
previously played in groups such as Preseens (Finland) and Mosquitoes
(UK), together they trade weirdo song-shaped vistas that caress the
curvature of some barren zone inside your head. Their debut album
'Thoughts in 3D' was released at the tail-end of last year on Ever/Never
Records and has been described by Matt Korvette (Yellow Green Red) as
'exquisitely reduced, with only the strangest and most potent elements
given full reign'. https://splitapexband.bandcamp.com/album/split-apex |
Upset The Rhythm presents…..
LANDE HEKT
THE POPGUNS
MUMBLE TIDESunday 19 April MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, London, E9 6NU 7pm | £13.50 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/f4d01f8d742eLANDE HEKT
has quietly become one of the UK’s best underground songwriters. On her
2021 debut full-length Going To Hell and 2022’s House Without a View,
she explored her queer identity, sobriety, and childhood trauma through
the lens of heartfelt, conversational indie-pop, which led to spots
opening for the likes of Alvvays, Throwing Muses and The Beths. Her 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. “I’m not as concerned about how I’m presenting myself,” Hekt
says. “I’ve tried to think less about how things are coming across, and
just write songs that make me feel connected to myself and what I
value.” Hekt’s musical touchstones - The
Wedding Present, The Sundays, The Replacements - remain the same, but at
the same time she’s delved deeper into other influences. Lucky Now is
indebted to 1980s twee-pop and jangle-pop like The Pastels, Tallulah
Gosh and The Bats, plus more modern iterations of the sound such as
Autocamper and Jeanines, in its ecstatic, soaring melodies and gorgeous,
tactile guitars. The sound is fitting for Hekt’s new lyrical outlook,
where, though despair and anxiety rear their heads, she digs deep to
find the gratitude. During the process of making the album, Hekt also
moved from Bristol back to her hometown of Exeter. In a lot of ways,
Lucky Now is about return - return to joy, return to places and parts of
the self once left behind. Who you once were can seem unreachable, but
sometimes you can build a bridge. https://landehekt.bandcamp.comTHE POPGUNS
are an indie pop band formed in Brighton in 1986, known for their
melodic sound, chiming guitars, and the vocals of Wendy Morgan (now
Pickles). Often associated with the late 80s/early 90s indie scene, they
achieved success with singles like "Landslide" and quintessential
albums ‘Eugenie’ and ‘Snog’ before a hiatus. 2012 saw the band resume
live performances with six gigs in that year. A three-track 7″ single,
"Lovejunky", was released in late 2014, followed by a new album, ‘Pop
Fiction’, on Matinée Recordings. Soundblab ranked the album at Number 2
on their Top 10 Releases of the year. The band have continued to tour
and record new material, and released the single "So Long" in May 2017,
followed quickly by the album ‘Sugar Kisses’. https://thepopguns.bandcamp.com/MUMBLE TIDE
is a Bristol-based DIY indie-pop duo formed by vocalist/lyricist Gina
Leonard and multi-instrumentalist/producer Ryan Rogers. Known for their
"scrappy" bedroom pop sound, the former couple creates music blending
grunge, folk, and electronic music. Inspired by the free flowing rhythms
of 60’s American folk, the aim was to find a balance between Roger’s
vivid arrangements and Leonard’s evocative lyrics, one that truly
captured the bittersweet depths of their songwriting. The group’s debut
album, ‘Might As Well Play Another One’, was released last year on
Breakfast Records. https://mumbletide.bandcamp.com/music
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Upset The Rhythm presents… DEAR NORA (DUO)
TAI HAF HEB DRIGOLYNWednesday 22 April The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/lb182e237508 DEAR NORA
is an ever-evolving indie-pop band fronted by songwriter/producer Katy
Davidson, and features a rotating cast of collaborators. Davidson was
born in Arizona and has also lived in Oregon and California. The energy,
intensity, and vastness of the western United States landscape imbue
the songwriting and recordings. Dear Nora has existed in two
distinct eras – 1999-2008 and 2017-present – with roughly a decade break
in the middle (the “Lost Years”) in which Davidson fronted various side
projects, and played session guitar/keyboards in the bands YACHT and
Gossip. Dear Nora’s early music leans more pop-punk, DIY, confessional,
youthful. The contemporary music leans more poetic, expansive,
genre-bending, wise. The through-lines between Dear Nora’s two eras are:
melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, and lyrics about time, space,
capitalism, the internet, daily life vérité, ancient things, real vs.
unreal or surreal, and all kinds of relationships. Partially
because Dear Nora’s early years happened before the rise of smartphones
and social media (prior to hyper digital documentation), and because
very little content survives this era aside from the analog recordings,
the group is often described as “legendary" (as in, "legend/myth").
Rediscovered via streaming platforms and word of mouth, Dear Nora’s
music has influenced many young songwriters. https://dearnora.bandcamp.com/ TAI HAF HEB DRIGOLYN
are a band from Wales. Built atop of a DIY Ethos, THHD have a fantastic
ability to merge their musical brain with real life surroundings,
perfectly represented by “Ein Albwm Cyntaf Ni” recorded straight onto
tape directly sampling the sounds that they recorded over. It’s rare
that music so genuine and human arrives with this quality and quantity;
this is a special act that has to be seen to be believed. THHD are
obsessed with the elephant 6 collective, and as such has members spread
across the country, they also stumble after the footsteps of R. Pollard
and D. R. Edwards. https://taihafhebdrigolyn.bandcamp.com/
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Upset The Rhythm presents…
ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER
THE COOPERATI
Thursday 23 April
100 Club, 100 Oxford St, London, W1D 1LL
7.30pm | £22 | Tickets: https://link.dice.fm/pbd6198d8d18ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER
are a guitar, bass, drums power trio. Featuring incendiary guitarist
Bill Orcutt, psych-seer Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire, Howlin’ Rain), and
dynamic powerhouse Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth). Despite rhythmic nods
to the SoCal '60s, the overall vibe of Orcutt Shelley Miller is angular,
atonal slash piled on a mid-'80s SST punk-fusionoid substrate, with
Orcutt's bristling chords anchored by Miller's ebbing/ flowing bass. In
the engine room, Shelley, the most beat-anchored of the trio, never
quite abandons the two-and-four pocket but scrabbles around it, skitters
over it, burrows under it, ultimately tapping a sort of Michael
Hurley-gone-motorik vibe on the longer tracks. "Four-Door Charger,"
easily the most tranced-out of their tracks, passes through kraut-funk
on the way to a solid Klaus Dinger-meets-Lothar Meid churn. Orcutt
Shelley Miller’s self-titled debut album is out now on Silver Current,
and sounds like a fully formed beast, rather than a mere sum of its
distinctive parts. For the improv shy listener, I can gladly inform you
that it sounds like Orcutt sketched out a few of the heads beforehand,
so there's plenty to clutch onto amidst the slashing Ginn-esque
tritones, and plenty of the right-angle bursting-clockwork solos that
define Orcutt's hypnotic phrasing. ‘Orcutt Shelley Miller’ reads like a
"big rock statement" by its constituents that treads the line between
good times and blown minds, and as such, it's a top-shelf repeat
spinner. For this show OSM will also be joined by David Yow
(Scratch Acid, The Jesus Lizard) on vocals for a few tracks to
celebrate their forthcoming EP together! https://orcuttshelleymiller.bandcamp.com/album/orcutt-shelley-millerTHE COOPERATI
is the first time collaboration between Zheng Hao, Dylan Nyoukis and
Duncan Harrison. It is likely the only abstract sound group boasting
members from Wuhan, West Lothian and High Wycombe. Three generations of
subterranean efforts in experimental sound culture, one single morass of
cracked electronics, cassette tape wheeze and turntable abuse. https://chocolatemonk.co.uk/Index.html |
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