Morning everyone!
Our next two shows take us back to the early 80’s post
punk milieu. Both events are taking place at The Lexington and our first
involves the remarkable NORMIL HAWAIIANS
this Saturday. After having released a slew of singles and two classic
outsider-punk albums by the mid-80s, the South London collective went their
separate ways, leaving behind a final album that was never properly released.
With a penchant for drone, poetic vocal ambience and motoric cadence, Normil
Hawaiians are ‘such stuff as dreams are
made on’ to us at Upset The Rhythm and so we tracked down the band with the
aim of releasing their swansong ‘Return Of The Ranters’. To our huge
delight they agreed and this month finally sees the record released. This Saturday’s
show at The Lexington, their first in three decades, will act as the album’s
release party! If you’re partial you can stream the record right now via The WIRE here: http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/listen_normil-hawaiians-return-of-the-ranters
In lieu of this special occasion, we’re giving away five
pairs of tickets to Saturday’s event, all you have to do is to answer the
following question correctly by replying to upset_the_rhythm@yahoo.com, we’ll
randomly select the five winners tomorrow morning and get back to you.
NORMIL
HAWAIIANS COMPETITION
Q. How many years have elapsed since ‘Return Of The Ranters’ was
recorded?
For Saturday’s show, the band have been working with
other performers to engender a carnival atmosphere, intriguing? And have also
recruited Nick Hudson and Bertie Marshall (of punk infamy as part of the
Bromley Contingent) to present their new NOWHERE
SLOW project too.
Remember we mentioned a second show show too? Well that
takes place next Tuesday and sees an equally amazing newly regrouped band take
to The Lexington stage, this time dance-punk pioneers MAXIMUM JOY. Formed in the wake of the break-up of two of Bristol’s
most revered bands, The Pop Group and Glaxo Babies, Maximum Joy are one of the
most interesting and influential bands the city has ever produced. They split
after their first album but their legacy has lasted to this day. Maximum Joy
have gained a cult following with the likes of Andrew Weatherall and Optimo
singing their praises, and their angular sound has gone on to inform legions of
bands and producers. Having reuinted for Bristol’s Simple Things festival this
weekend it’s a total honour to host them in London next week in more of a club
setting with both BULLION and JD TWITCH providing DJ sets. We’re seriously
excited for both these events and hope you can join us, read on further for
everything you need to know…
\\\\\ SATURDAY /////
NORMIL
HAWAIIANS
NOWHERE SLOW
Saturday 24 October
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, N1 9JB
In the austere years of the post-punk permafrost, and under the grip of another ruthless despot, freedom was in part personified by the widely vilified and brutally attacked people’s Peace Convoy - a manifestation of idealism that was grotesquely smashed near Stonehenge on 1st June 1985; 537 arrested, children terrorised, idealism and hope stamped on with fear and violence. What was essentially a class war had been joined in the previous year with horse charges and gloved fists against miners and their families across Yorkshire. This was clearly intended to force home the point - ‘You are nothing. We own you and your labour. You work for us.’ It was during these dark times that NORMIL HAWAIIANS third album, ‘Return Of The Ranters’ was written, recorded and shelved.
Normil Hawaiians have always operated as a collective of musicians rather than a band per se and for this third album, the group comprised of Guy Smith, Simon Marchant, Alun 'Wilf' Williams, Noel Blanden and Jimmy Miller. Recorded at Dave Anderson’s Foel studio in Wales (sonic home of Amon Düül II and Hawkwind) in the Winter of 1985, a time and a place triangulated from political, social and geographical aspects, ‘Return Of The Ranters’ extended their free experiments in compelling arrhythmia and seemingly organised sound, taking a loose trajectory from their previous albums and earlier, more confrontational approach.
The album opens amidst vast clouds of atmosphere before the tape looped violin of ‘Sianne Don’t Work In A Factory’ starts to drag the song out of itself and into a sparse yet tender love song, full of hope, exalted synths and mechanised drum patterns. Acoustic guitars and walls of keyboard drone provide a fitting acre of space for the raw polemics of ‘Slums Still Stand’, whilst ‘The Search For Um Gris’ follows in full head-down, motorik mode with a miraculously hypnotic drum beat and whirling mood. “What’s the colour of your heart?” sings Guy as the song spools out and grows onwards into the distance. ‘Battle Of Stonehenge’ is a powerful and emotive recording detailing the band’s personal experience of the aforementioned Police ransack of the Peace Convoy from the same year, and as a result provides the rallying point of album. Beginning bravely as a solitary spun-out voice, the song eventually becomes awash with choruses of guitar and reverberating synth, joined finally by adornments of violin and an entrancingly agile beat. ‘Mouldwarp’s Journey’ concludes the album with 10 minutes of epic improv, drawing on field recordings, murmured vocals, slowly-phasing tonal clusters, a miasma of percussion and wordless rapture.
Lucid, candid, politically engaged, rarely metronomic but always humane, tired but still fighting, Normil Hawaiians’ third album has waited patiently for thirty years. 'Return of The Ranters' was not released back in 1985 as with Guy, Jimmy and Wilf living in squatting communities in South London, and Simon and Noel re-locating their families to rural Kent - the Family Hawaii splintered and went its separate ways. In the intervening years, the band’s reputation has grown considerably, far beyond the UK. Now the causes and conditions have finally come right, the Family Hawaii are very excited to announce that Upset The Rhythm will finally release ‘Return Of The Ranters’ on October 23rd, 2015 and that Hawaiians old and new will be supporting and celebrating with a live manifestation at The Lexington in London on 24th October. Come rejoice with us. All that falls, now falls into place...and all that was air now becomes solid.
NOWHERE SLOW is a new collaboration between writer Bertie Marshall and
musician/ composer Nick Hudson. Taking texts from
Marshall’s collection of writings ‘NOWHERE SLOW (1994-2014)’ the duo comb them
into word and soundscapes, making for a performance of psychotic love
poems / fragmented prose pieces and declamations of love, devotion, loss and
obsession.
\\\\\ NEXT
TUESDAY /////
MAXIMUM JOY
JD TWITCH (OPTIMO / DJ Set)
BULLION (DJ Set)
Tuesday
27 October
The
Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, N1 9JB
Formed in 1980 in
Bristol from members of Glaxo Babies and The Pop Group – along with the then
17-year-old singer/clarinetist Janine Rainforth – Maximum Joy represented a
break from the dour frown of post-punk. They were a dance band first and
foremost, with a raucous disco pulse, blasts of brass and yelping, chanted
vocals that lived up to the band’s name. Maximum Joy combined myriad influences
from the city's storied music scene to inform a sound that reflected the
political and social climate of Thatcher-era Britain; funk, dub, disco, reggae
and jazz all informed their particular strain of post-punk. Their output was by
turns moody and exuberant but always highly danceable, carried by the ethereal
strains of lead singer Janine Rainforth.
The band's output was
confined to just a handful of releases: four singles preceded an LP entitled 'Station M.X.J.Y', which was produced in part by legendary producer and dub
trailblazer Adrian Sherwood. In spite of this, the band helped lay the
foundations for the explosion of creativity and musical cross-pollination that
characterised Bristol during the eighties and nineties, and they have amassed a
cult following amongst clued-up producers and DJs that endures to this day.
Whereas they were once a firm favourite of John Peel's in their heyday, today
Maximum Joy are championed by the likes of Andrew Weatherall and Optimo. This
year the band have reunited to play at Bristol’s excellently curated Simple
Things festival and we’re extremely pleased to have them visit London to play
their first show here in 25 years around that date.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQbOKO8Mmck
JD TWITCH (OPTIMO / DJ Set)
BULLION (DJ Set)
Thanks for reading
and for all your support at our recent Space Lady and Aaron Dilloway shows too!
See you so soon,
UPSET THE RHYTHM
x
\\\\\
UPSET THE RHYTHM /////
/////
UPCOMING SHOWS \\\\\
NORMIL
HAWAIIANS
NOWHERE SLOW
Saturday 24 October
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, N1 9JB
MAXIMUM JOY
JD TWITCH (OPTIMO / DJ Set)
BULLION (DJ Set)
Tuesday
27 October
The
Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, N1 9JB
PROTOMARTYR
WITCHING WAVES
TENSE MEN
Monday 2 November
The Victoria, 451 Queensbridge Rd, Dalston, E8 3AS
7.30pm | £8 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/331014
WITCHING WAVES
TENSE MEN
Monday 2 November
The Victoria, 451 Queensbridge Rd, Dalston, E8 3AS
7.30pm | £8 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/331014
SHANNON AND THE CLAMS
THE CREEPING IVIES
Wednesday
11 November
OSLO, 1a Amhurst
Road, Hackney Central, E8 1LL
MIKAL CRONIN
J FERNANDEZ
THEO VERNEY
Tuesday
17 November
Scala,
275 Pentonville Road, King´s Cross, London, N1 9NL
7.30pm
| £13 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/325344
CALVIN JOHNSON
INVISIBLE FOXX
Wednesday 18 November
The Tin Tabernacle, 12-16 Cambridge Avenue, Kilburn, NW6 5BA
7pm | £10 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/330306
Wednesday 18 November
The Tin Tabernacle, 12-16 Cambridge Avenue, Kilburn, NW6 5BA
7pm | £10 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/330306
SLIM TWIG
TARZANA (Spencer Clark, Jan Anderzen, Floris Vanhoof)
Wednesday 2 December
The Victoria, 451
Queensbridge Rd, Dalston, E8 3AS
7.30pm | £6 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/334563
MOSS
LIME
Monday 7 December
Old Blue Last, 38 Great Eastern St,
Shoreditch, EC2A 3ES
IAN SVENONIUS (Escapism)
OLIVIA NEUTRON JOHN
Tuesday 15 December
Power Lunches Arts Cafe, 446 Kingsland Road, Dalston, E8
8pm | 7.00 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/336321
OLIVIA NEUTRON JOHN
Tuesday 15 December
Power Lunches Arts Cafe, 446 Kingsland Road, Dalston, E8
8pm | 7.00 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/336321
