Normil Hawaiians' 'What's Going On?' out today! ILM tomorrow + upcoming London shows!

Afternoon everyone! Last night we held a launch party at Café OTO with Normil Hawaiians to celebrate the re-issue of the group’s 1984 album ‘What’s Going On?’. Today sees that release hit the shops on limited LP (with hand-numbered poster), CD and digitally, accompanied by a plethora of bonus tracks and copious liner notes explaining how the malaise that afflicted early 80’s Britain resulted in a defiant cry from Normil Hawaiians that became ‘What’s Going On?’.

Normil Hawaiians communal take on post punk afforded greater emphasis on improvisation within the group by 1983 and as a result their songs embarked on longer, freer journeys towards the beaten bounds. In the wake of their ambitious double-LP debut they went back to Foel Studios in Powys to record ‘What’s Going On?’ with its radical tape collage of movements, and experiments in long-form song and modes of existence. Lucid, candid, politically engaged, rarely metronomic but always humane, Normil Hawaiians conjured vast clouds of atmosphere. Their songs became bedecked with exalted synth trails, clustering guitars, motorik beats, and spun-out raw polemics.

The Hawaiians approach to making this album was unconventional and spontaneous, reveling in chance and openness. Rehearsal tapes were played along to, and compositions were allowed to develop, with further layers of sound accreting (as can be heard on the final cut of Big Lies). Free Tibet was created by the band playing together exploratively, guitars ‘treated’ with a penny whistle and a rusty screwdriver. Rotating visitors came to the mixing desk to hear playbacks and offer their thoughts. Away from the ‘peacelessness’ of London, the space and security of both the studio and the countryside enabled the Family Hawaii to make this remarkable album!   Let’s set the scene further. 'Slaves', 'Louise Michel' and 'Big Lies' all taken from ‘What’s Going On?’ were played on BBC Radio 3's Late Junction last night. Have a listen, it’s ime to meet the ghosts!   ‘What’s Going On?’ is available now, along with Normil Hawaiians other two expansive albums in our webshop.

If you don’t want to wait in for the postman you can always visit us tomorrow in Coal Drop’s Yard (note the new location in King’s Cross) for the summer installment of the Independent Label Market.   We’ll be selling copies of all our new releases (Normil Hawaiians, Terry, Constant Mongrel, Trash Kit, Hygiene, Bamboo) and lots of rarities from our back catalogue between 11am – 6.30pm this Saturday. Upset The Rhythm are in good company as the London Brewers’ Market is taking place too, alongside record stalls from the likes of Bella Union, Clay Pipe, Domino, Fire, Heavenly and Mexican Summer! DJ sets and live performances will also pepper the event throughout the day, do drop by and say hello! It’s going to be a fun one!

OK, back in the show promotion saddle! Next week is a busy one for us, three shows coming up and then a fourth on the following Monday. Next Tuesday we have dystopian jangle punks Rays making their London debut at The Shacklewell Arms. Rays are from Oakland, CA and feature members of The World, Life Stinks & Violent Change, they’re also signed to one of our favourite labels, Trouble In Mind.   In support we have Design A Wave, now a duo with Rosie from Ravioli Me Away on board, plus an unclassifiable scramble of sound from Maedchen 84! See you there, tickets for all of these events are available in advance and on the door.

Next Wednesday we find ourselves pitching up in White City at HQI for a special concert from 100% legend Daniel Higgs. Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using his voice, guitars, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp. As the frontman of Lungfish he opened the door to a universe of meaning, now solo he continues his flight into the cosmos.   Fellow spiritual travelers of the outer-orbits Eternal Broadcast are coming down from Sheffield to play this one too!

One week today, Friday 19th July, will witness our harsh blast of a Lexington gig from Prison Religion (on Halcyon Veil, from Virginia) and Hyperstition Duo.   If you want your head to spin a full 360 with tonal traps, industrial maximalism, mic-burning vitriol and lysergic dimensions galore… then this is your perfect show! Been looking forward to this one for an age, bring on the noise.

That final show for July (bit of a change of pace here) that we mentioned on the following Monday (July 22nd) will take place at Redon in Bethnal Green and features two impressive sets of melancholic reverie from Advance Base (Owen from Casiotone For The Painfully Alone) and Alice Hubble too.   Read on for all the particulars, ticket links and event listings, here comes the weekend!

Upset The Rhythm presents…   RAYS DESIGN A WAVE MAEDCHEN 84 Tuesday 16 July Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   RAYS returned to the fray with their second album, You Can Get There From Here, their first release since their eponymous Trouble In Mind debut in 2016. Rays formed in the fertile crescent of the California Bay Area, a hotbed of musical growth in the past decade, and Rays' members pull not only from that recent miasma but also from a wealth of Bay Area musical history. You Can Get There From Here represents a turning point for the band, angling their scrappy, post-punk fury into a more refined & melodic pop sensibility, drawing inspiration from UK DIY pop & punk like Dolly Mixture, Cleaners From Venus, Television Personalities & more. Straight from the gate, songs like "Fallen Stars" & "The Garden" temper their sonic crunch ever so slightly, relying more on the harmonic wallop of a solid hook than the sheer volume of guitars & cymbal crashes. This is urgent, chiming guitar pop of the highest order that clangs with a sonorous melancholy & a ramshackle grace. Rays can still lay it down with the rest of 'em; tunes like "Subway" & "Work of Art" shuffle & stumble forward, skirting chaos in a flurry of strums, recalling recent antipodean pop groups like UV Race, Dick Diver or The Shifters who cull inspiration from idiosyncratic UK greats like Mark E. Smith or Robyn Hitchcock. With You Can Get There From Here, Rays add their voice to the chorus. The new album finds the core group of Stanley Martinez, Eva Hannan, Troy Hewitt & Alexa Pantalone augmented by new member & keyboardist Britta Leijonflycht, whose synth flourishes add melodic embellishments, sonic heft or psychedelic swirl where needed. http://www.troubleinmindrecs.com/artists/rays/ DESIGN A WAVE aka Tom Hirst is a London based artist who has recently released music on Rush Hour’s No Label, as well as contributing to Ravioli Me Away’s opera. Design A Wave also has past releases on Alien Jams, Subsubtropics and the Alter label. Tom Hirst has been making music for many moons. Initial buds featured tape collages, distangled pop music, various dictaphone experiments, and over time all this meshed and warped into his solo musical venture known as Design A Wave. Initiated in the late 90s, the project was loosely named after one of the gangs in the Troma film Surf Nazis Must Die which, alongside other similar movies and music of it’s time, informed a particular vision of an idealised weird - a trashy synth orientated 80s B-movie soundtrack, which provided an aesthetic platform on which to dive, surf and ride. https://soundcloud.com/deswav MÄDCHEN 84 put a dent in ya head! A sample square of vinyl from wickes and a tearout guardian review of minaj's latest is available to be sent in the post for anyone who needs to feel real. https://maedchen84.bandcamp.com

Upset The Rhythm presents…   DANIEL HIGGS ETERNAL BROADCAST Wednesday 17 July HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP (3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates) 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   DANIEL HIGGS is a musician and artist from Baltimore, Maryland on whose behalf superlatives are destined to fail. It’s not that his artistic output - spanning three decades, numerous albums, books of poetry and collections of drawings - simply eludes classification, it defies it. Often we hear that a true work of art is meant to speak for itself, and with the work of Daniel Higgs the maxim rings truer than ever. Higgs is known primarily for his work as the sole lyricist and frontman of the band Lungfish, a four-piece dedicated to charting, in this listener’s estimation, nothing short of the evolution of all species, known and unknown. They are enshrined as one of America’s last true folk bands, and Higgs anointed as a patron saint to artistic purity. In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band. Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using acoustic and electric guitar, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp, recorded entirely at home on cassette recorder. He pairs the music with a series of paintings that call to mind religious iconography passed through the disfiguring surrealism of Miro. His art is of the cosmos. https://danielhiggs.bandcamp.com/ ETERNAL BROADCAST are a collective from Sheffield harnesses the background noise of the Universe; the radio waves rippling into space at the speed of light; the fallout from the Big Bang. A cosmic symphony of crackled transmissions. Featuring past and present members of Boring Men, Sister Wives, Feature, Night Flowers, Acid Mass. https://soundcloud.com/eternalbroadcast/sets/notebooksoep

Upset The Rhythm presents…   PRISON RELIGION HYPERSTITION DUO Friday 19 July The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS   PRISON RELIGION are a hardcore noise project from Richmond, Virginia, comprised of Poozy and False Prpht. Though the two are solo artists in their own right, they collaborate regularly to make collages together that are indebted yet flippant to hip hop, punk, and techno. Working together since 2016, the duo have dived deep into the space between blown-out trap (2016’s Cage With Mirrored Bars) and contemporary destructive club music (2018’s O Fucc Im On The Wrong Planet). Since linking up with Texas-based experimental label Halcyon Veil, they've connected a global crewsof likeminded collaborators for a remix album including Rabit, Endgame, Swan Meat, Lee Gamble and Bonaventure. The production destroys any notion of comfort afforded in dance music, with cold industrial and glitchy hip hop textures serving as the stylistic anchor of the record. With close ties to NON Worldwide, Prison Religion are also ushering in a new wave of vocal-based club performance. https://prisonreligion.bandcamp.com/ "The barely tonal beats of tracks like "Shots Fired" have this way of making it feel like the 808s are falling apart or dissociating, like a crowd dispersing as Jones and Black spin kick in the centre… acid drenched tracks draw on the history of industrial music, metal iconography and experimental club music." (Noisey) "Prison Religion are one of the most hardcore, rap-related acts we've heard in years. Philip Best levels of mic-burning bile and vitriol shrieked and expectorated over bludgeoning beats, field recordings and charred electronics." (Boomkat) HYPERSTITION DUO plunge deep to deliver a maximalist collective immersion into their own lysergic phonosphere. Lurching, polyrhythmic pathways crumble and re-assemble; elastic dynamics snap; propulsion sparks from the nerve-centre of machine and corporeal entanglement. Featuring ex-members of Blood Sport, templexing, möbius loops and cybernetic subjectivities abound in an attempt to conjure escape vectors in a world of ubiquitous sound.

Upset The Rhythm presents…   ADVANCE BASE ALICE HUBBLE Monday 22 July Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   ADVANCE BASE is the electronic solo project of Chicago, IL singer/songwriter Owen Ashworth (formerly of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone). Using a two-handed arsenal of electric pianos, autoharps, Omnichords, loops, samples & drum machines, Ashworth builds minimalist, heavy-hearted, & nostalgia-obsessed tunes around his conversational, baritone vocals. The sound of Advance Base has been described as "lo-fi," "depressed" & "weirdly uplifting." Advance Base has supported live dates for The Postal Service, Pedro the Lion, The Mountain Goats, Dean Wareham, Alan Sparhawk, Mark Kozelek & Stephin Merritt. The debut Advance Base album, ‘A Shut-In's Prayer’ (2012), was released by Caldo Verde Records & Ashworth's own Orindal Records. ‘Nephew in the Wild’, the second album by Advance Base, was released in 2015 by Orindal Records & Tomlab Records. PopMatters named ‘Nephew in the Wild’ the number 1 Indie Album of 2015. ‘Animal Companionship’, the third & most recent album by Advance Base, was released last September. The sound of the album is soft and thick and comforting. And when we’re working with songs as sad as the ones that Ashworth writes, that level of comfort really comes in handy. He used to write sad love songs, or sad songs about love. He’s still doing that, really, except that he’s now middle-aged, with a wife and kids, living in suburban Chicago, and the songs reflect that. The songs on ‘Animal Companionship’ are full of a whole life’s worth of regrets and missed opportunities and moments of acceptance and dead friends. It’s not as bleak, either; there are moments of happiness, or at least sustenance, sprinkled all through ‘Animal Companionship’. But in its sharp and unrelenting and empathetic specificity, this is some real masterly heart-wrecker music. http://advancebasemusic.com/ ALICE HUBBLE is the new project of Alice Hubley (Mass Datura, Cosines, Arthur and Martha), the product of one lady locked at home with her collection of analogue synthesisers. Inspired by 70’s recordings by Tangerine Dream, Delia Derbyshire, Mike and Sally Oldfield, hers is a distinctly feminine take on the sometimes pompous 70’s sound. Her new album will be available on Happy Robots in Summer 2019. https://www.facebook.com/alicehubblemusic/

Thank you for everything, see you so soon! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

RAYS (Members of The World, Trouble In Mind) DESIGN A WAVE MAEDCHEN 84 Tuesday 16 July Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS DANIEL HIGGS ETERNAL BROADCAST Wednesday 17 July HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP (3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates) 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   PRISON RELIGION (Halcyon Veil) HYPERSTITION DUO Friday 19 July The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS   ADVANCE BASE ALICE HUBBLE Monday 22 July Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   MOUNT EERIE KEEL HER  Thursday 8 August EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS   J. McFARLANE’S REALITY GUEST THE PHEROMOANS BISCOTTI Wednesday 14 August The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle St, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE ROBERT SOTELO Wednesday 21 August OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, London, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £12.50 | TICKETS   MARY LATTIMORE NUMMO TWIN Thursday 29 August The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, N1 6EU 7.30pm | £10 |TICKETS   DEERHOOF TRASH KIT DOG CHOCOLATE Monday 2 September EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London, N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS   DANIEL O’SULLIVAN (octet performance) BRIGID MAE POWER Friday 13 September The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   KURWS HANDLE Saturday 14 September New River Studios 199 Eade Rd, Harringay Warehouse District, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   LANKUM Thursday 21 November Tufnell Park Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, London, NW5 1HL 7.30pm | £16.50 | TICKETS   THE GOTOBEDS Tuesday 26 November The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7.50 | TICKETS

Trash Kit - 'Horizon' out now! Plus upcoming London shows!!

Hey again! This week we released Trash Kit’s monumental third album Horizon! Available now on LP (yellow and black vinyl pressings), CD and digitally, Horizon is essential listening for these sun-soaked times, both exhilaratingly bold and rapturous in equal measure! Trash Kit are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals) and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping and Bamboo, united by a shared decade of spry musicality with Trash Kit.   Their songs once succinct, patchwork post-punk numbers of an honest diary-like nature now tussle more with long-form songwriting, expeditious polyphony and cascades of sung-spoke vocals.

Aggs' guitar playing for this album was informed by her love of guitar music from Zimbabwe, her cyclical motifs billow with lean Mbira rhythms. Horwood has similarly approached her drumkit with an untamable freedom, allowing it to breathe as a vivid lead instrument. Trash Kit's music is woven with silence and punctuation, and this is where the resonant, driving bass of Partington fits in. The bass has become now central to shaping the melody of this new collection of songs.   Horizon finds itself abrim with themes, especially the notion of looking to the future, “personally as well as to the future of the band, the future of marginalised people making music, political futures, trying to imagine and re-imagine our world, thinking about what possibility and change sound like” attests Aggs.

Pivotal to this new album, ‘Horizon’ is sleeping giant of a title track, forever reaching out and intensifying throughout its lively five-minute lesson in reinforcement. Trash Kit’s approach to life as with music is one of openness, inclusion and potential and Horizon is an album with that in dutiful abundance. It’s an album that forever listens for the next moment and will meet you once more beyond the vanishing point.   ‘Horizon’ is available now in all the best shops and from our webshop now!

Look out below full concert listings for our July events in London, including next Thursday’s exceptional release party at Café OTO with post-punk pastoralists Normil Hawaiians, the truly outstanding Rattle and Perth’s Erasers. We also focus here on July 16th’s concert for Oakland’s Rays (Trouble In Mind, members of The World too), Design A Wave and Maedchen 84 at The Shacklewell Arms! Whilst our other live plans for the month include Daniel Higgs & Eternal Broadcast (HQI, July 17th), Prison Religion & Hyperstition Duo (The Lexington, July 19th) and finally Advance Base & Alice Hubble (Redon, July 22nd), busy as ever!   We’ve also just added new shows in September for Kurws and Handle, whilst November features new shows from Lankum and The Gotobeds too! Our listings section at the end has the full scoop on those.

Upset The Rhythm presents…   NORMIL HAWAIIANS RATTLE ERASERS Thursday 11 July Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   NORMIL HAWAIIANS communal take on post punk sprouted leaves from its mouth in 1982, and began carving out a new furrow. Greater emphasis was awarded to improvisation within the group and as a result their songs embarked on longer, freer journeys towards the beaten bounds. They wanted these new songs to bear the weight of their new collective spirit so comfort zones had to be left behind. Tape loops, echo boxes, extended percussive sessions and duteous faith in the tones emanating from a particular old wah-wah pedal were all employed by Normil Hawaiians to stretch their sonic fabric into wild and redolent new dimensions. Within three years the band went on to record three astonishing records, their ambitious double-LP debut ‘More Wealth Than Money’, ‘What’s Going On?’ with its radical collage of movements and ‘Return Of The Ranters’ which teamed up their free experiments in compelling arrhythmia with a more confrontational approach. Upset The Rhythm have released ‘More Wealth’ and ‘Ranters’ recently in remastered form, and this special live manifestation at Cafe OTO celebrates the reissue of 1984’s ‘What’s Going On?’ masterstroke (out June 28th). Lucid, candid, politically engaged, rarely metronomic but always humane, Normil Hawaiians conjure vast clouds of atmosphere. Their songs are bedecked with exalted synth trails, clustering guitar rapture, motorik beats, and spun-out raw polemics. Still light years ahead of us all! http://normilhawaiians.com/ RATTLE are a Nottingham based duo, Rattle focus almost exclusively on drums and more drums, beneath a delicate overlay of vocal harmonies and percussive effects. Formed by Katharine Eira Brown (also of Kogumaza) and Theresa Wrigley (also of Fists), Rattle began as an experiment in crafting rich songs and melody using drums and voice alone. Their music weaves and intertwines post-punk, minimalism and experimental rock, through off-kilter rhythms, patterns and counter melodies. Often starting by picking out the ghost notes from the drums to develop a melody, the song then reveals itself in rounds and harmonies with layer upon layer of rhythm and vocal, lending a choral feel to some of the tracks. Rattle effortlessly blend the avant-garde with irresistible melodies and hypnotic drum beats, using rhythm and harmony to create a refreshing sound that is utterly new - a pretty rare feat these days when we're saturated with so much music. Rattle's impressive ‘Sequence’ album came out last November through Upset The Rhythm. https://rattleon.bandcamp.com/ ERASERS deliver up rhythmic and mood-driven music that sits between kosmische and post-punk. Forming as a home recording project in 2009 the Perth, West Australian based Erasers (Rebecca Orchard, Rupert Thomas) released a steady flow of cd-rs, tapes and a 7” before eventually releasing their debut full length ‘Stem Together’ in 2015. In 2017 the duo followed up with the tape release ‘Fault Lines’. In the live sphere Erasers have shared the stage with the likes of Low, Grouper, Acid Mothers Temple, Prince Rama, High Wolf and The Soft Machine as well as multiple shows with long time musical heroes My Disco, Love Of Diagrams and Pikelet. After an extensive recording and mixing process, 2019 sees Erasers with two new releases to share; a 5 track tape titled ‘Forecast’ (through Solid Melts) and the duo’s second full length ‘Pulse Points’ (through Fire Talk and Pouring Dream). https://erasers.bandcamp.com/

Upset The Rhythm presents…   RAYS DESIGN A WAVE MAEDCHEN 84 Tuesday 16 July Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   RAYS returned to the fray with their second album, You Can Get There From Here, their first release since their eponymous Trouble In Mind debut in 2016. Rays formed in the fertile crescent of the California Bay Area, a hotbed of musical growth in the past decade, and Rays' members pull not only from that recent miasma but also from a wealth of Bay Area musical history. You Can Get There From Here represents a turning point for the band, angling their scrappy, post-punk fury into a more refined & melodic pop sensibility, drawing inspiration from UK DIY pop & punk like Dolly Mixture, Cleaners From Venus, Television Personalities & more. Straight from the gate, songs like "Fallen Stars" & "The Garden" temper their sonic crunch ever so slightly, relying more on the harmonic wallop of a solid hook than the sheer volume of guitars & cymbal crashes. This is urgent, chiming guitar pop of the highest order that clangs with a sonorous melancholy & a ramshackle grace. Rays can still lay it down with the rest of 'em; tunes like "Subway" & "Work of Art" shuffle & stumble forward, skirting chaos in a flurry of strums, recalling recent antipodean pop groups like UV Race, Dick Diver or The Shifters who cull inspiration from idiosyncratic UK greats like Mark E. Smith or Robyn Hitchcock. With You Can Get There From Here, Rays add their voice to the chorus. The new album finds the core group of Stanley Martinez, Eva Hannan, Troy Hewitt & Alexa Pantalone augmented by new member & keyboardist Britta Leijonflycht, whose synth flourishes add melodic embellishments, sonic heft or psychedelic swirl where needed. http://www.troubleinmindrecs.com/artists/rays/ DESIGN A WAVE aka Tom Hirst is a London based artist who has recently released music on Rush Hour’s No Label, as well as contributing to Ravioli Me Away’s opera. Design A Wave also has past releases on Alien Jams, Subsubtropics and the Alter label. Tom Hirst has been making music for many moons. Initial buds featured tape collages, distangled pop music, various dictaphone experiments, and over time all this meshed and warped into his solo musical venture known as Design A Wave. Initiated in the late 90s, the project was loosely named after one of the gangs in the Troma film Surf Nazis Must Die which, alongside other similar movies and music of it’s time, informed a particular vision of an idealised weird - a trashy synth orientated 80s B-movie soundtrack, which provided an aesthetic platform on which to dive, surf and ride. https://soundcloud.com/deswav MÄDCHEN 84 put a dent in ya head! A sample square of vinyl from wickes and a tearout guardian review of minaj's latest is available to be sent in the post for anyone who needs to feel real. https://maedchen84.bandcamp.com

Upset The Rhythm presents…   DANIEL HIGGS ETERNAL BROADCAST Wednesday 17 July HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP (3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates) 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   DANIEL HIGGS is a musician and artist from Baltimore, Maryland on whose behalf superlatives are destined to fail. It’s not that his artistic output - spanning three decades, numerous albums, books of poetry and collections of drawings - simply eludes classification, it defies it. Often we hear that a true work of art is meant to speak for itself, and with the work of Daniel Higgs the maxim rings truer than ever. Higgs is known primarily for his work as the sole lyricist and frontman of the band Lungfish, a four-piece dedicated to charting, in this listener’s estimation, nothing short of the evolution of all species, known and unknown. They are enshrined as one of America’s last true folk bands, and Higgs anointed as a patron saint to artistic purity. In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band. Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using acoustic and electric guitar, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp, recorded entirely at home on cassette recorder. He pairs the music with a series of paintings that call to mind religious iconography passed through the disfiguring surrealism of Miro. His art is of the cosmos. https://danielhiggs.bandcamp.com/ ETERNAL BROADCAST are a collective from Sheffield harnesses the background noise of the Universe; the radio waves rippling into space at the speed of light; the fallout from the Big Bang. A cosmic symphony of crackled transmissions. Featuring past and present members of Boring Men, Sister Wives, Feature, Night Flowers, Acid Mass. https://soundcloud.com/eternalbroadcast/sets/notebooksoep

Upset The Rhythm presents…   PRISON RELIGION HYPERSTITION DUO Friday 19 July The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS   PRISON RELIGION are a hardcore noise project from Richmond, Virginia, comprised of Poozy and False Prpht. Though the two are solo artists in their own right, they collaborate regularly to make collages together that are indebted yet flippant to hip hop, punk, and techno. Working together since 2016, the duo have dived deep into the space between blown-out trap (2016’s Cage With Mirrored Bars) and contemporary destructive club music (2018’s O Fucc Im On The Wrong Planet). Since linking up with Texas-based experimental label Halcyon Veil, they've connected a global crewsof likeminded collaborators for a remix album including Rabit, Endgame, Swan Meat, Lee Gamble and Bonaventure. The production destroys any notion of comfort afforded in dance music, with cold industrial and glitchy hip hop textures serving as the stylistic anchor of the record. With close ties to NON Worldwide, Prison Religion are also ushering in a new wave of vocal-based club performance. https://prisonreligion.bandcamp.com/ "The barely tonal beats of tracks like "Shots Fired" have this way of making it feel like the 808s are falling apart or dissociating, like a crowd dispersing as Jones and Black spin kick in the centre… acid drenched tracks draw on the history of industrial music, metal iconography and experimental club music." (Noisey) "Prison Religion are one of the most hardcore, rap-related acts we've heard in years. Philip Best levels of mic-burning bile and vitriol shrieked and expectorated over bludgeoning beats, field recordings and charred electronics." (Boomkat) HYPERSTITION DUO plunge deep to deliver a maximalist collective immersion into their own lysergic phonosphere. Lurching, polyrhythmic pathways crumble and re-assemble; elastic dynamics snap; propulsion sparks from the nerve-centre of machine and corporeal entanglement. Featuring ex-members of Blood Sport, templexing, möbius loops and cybernetic subjectivities abound in an attempt to conjure escape vectors in a world of ubiquitous sound.

Upset The Rhythm presents…   ADVANCE BASE ALICE HUBBLE Monday 22 July Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   ADVANCE BASE is the electronic solo project of Chicago, IL singer/songwriter Owen Ashworth (formerly of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone). Using a two-handed arsenal of electric pianos, autoharps, Omnichords, loops, samples & drum machines, Ashworth builds minimalist, heavy-hearted, & nostalgia-obsessed tunes around his conversational, baritone vocals. The sound of Advance Base has been described as "lo-fi," "depressed" & "weirdly uplifting." Advance Base has supported live dates for The Postal Service, Pedro the Lion, The Mountain Goats, Dean Wareham, Alan Sparhawk, Mark Kozelek & Stephin Merritt. The debut Advance Base album, ‘A Shut-In's Prayer’ (2012), was released by Caldo Verde Records & Ashworth's own Orindal Records. ‘Nephew in the Wild’, the second album by Advance Base, was released in 2015 by Orindal Records & Tomlab Records. PopMatters named ‘Nephew in the Wild’ the number 1 Indie Album of 2015. ‘Animal Companionship’, the third & most recent album by Advance Base, was released last September. The sound of the album is soft and thick and comforting. And when we’re working with songs as sad as the ones that Ashworth writes, that level of comfort really comes in handy. He used to write sad love songs, or sad songs about love. He’s still doing that, really, except that he’s now middle-aged, with a wife and kids, living in suburban Chicago, and the songs reflect that. The songs on ‘Animal Companionship’ are full of a whole life’s worth of regrets and missed opportunities and moments of acceptance and dead friends. It’s not as bleak, either; there are moments of happiness, or at least sustenance, sprinkled all through ‘Animal Companionship’. But in its sharp and unrelenting and empathetic specificity, this is some real masterly heart-wrecker music. http://advancebasemusic.com/ ALICE HUBBLE is the new project of Alice Hubley (Mass Datura, Cosines, Arthur and Martha), the product of one lady locked at home with her collection of analogue synthesisers. Inspired by 70’s recordings by Tangerine Dream, Delia Derbyshire, Mike and Sally Oldfield, hers is a distinctly feminine take on the sometimes pompous 70’s sound. Her new album will be available on Happy Robots in Summer 2019. https://www.facebook.com/alicehubblemusic/

Thanks as ever for reading and for all your support! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

NORMIL HAWAIIANS RATTLE ERASERS Thursday 11 July Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS RAYS (Members of The World, Trouble In Mind) DESIGN A WAVE MAEDCHEN 84 Tuesday 16 July Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS DANIEL HIGGS ETERNAL BROADCAST Wednesday 17 July HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP (3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates) 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   PRISON RELIGION (Halcyon Veil) HYPERSTITION DUO Friday 19 July The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS   ADVANCE BASE ALICE HUBBLE Monday 22 July Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   MOUNT EERIE Thursday 8 August EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS   J. McFARLANE’S REALITY GUEST THE PHEROMOANS Wednesday 14 August The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle St, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE ROBERT SOTELO Wednesday 21 August OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, London, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £12.50 | TICKETS   MARY LATTIMORE NUMMO TWIN Thursday 29 August The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, N1 6EU 7.30pm | £10 |TICKETS   DEERHOOF TRASH KIT DOG CHOCOLATE Monday 2 September EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London, N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS   DANIEL O’SULLIVAN (octet performance) BRIGID MAE POWER Friday 13 September The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   KURWS HANDLE Saturday 14 September New River Studios 199 Eade Rd, Harringay Warehouse District, London, N4 1DN 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   LANKUM Thursday 21 November Tufnell Park Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, London, NW5 1HL 7.30pm | £16.50 | TICKETS   THE GOTOBEDS Tuesday 26 November The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7.50 | TICKETS

 

'Bizzo & Tophat'

Clash just premiered 'Bizzo & Tophat': another scorcher from Terry's forthcoming EP 'Who's Terry?' out July 19th on Upset The Rhythm! 

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LANKUM in LONDON this November!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

LANKUM
Thursday 21 November
Tufnell Park Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, London, NW5 1HL

7.30pm | £16.50 | https://link.dice.fm/ICxUcAc9SX  (tickets on sale this Friday from 10am!)

The Dublin based four-piece present a new live show ahead of their much-anticipated 3rd album which will be released on Rough Trade late Autumn.

Lankum have an alchemical ability to combine traditional folk roots with contemporary undercurrents to forge music that is dark, mysterious and transcendental. Comprising brothers Ian Lynch (uillean pipes, tin whistle, vocals), Daragh Lynch (vocals, guitar) alongside Cormac Mac Diarmada (fiddle) and Radie Peat (harmonium, accordion, vocals), Lankum channel a diverse set of influences and histories to create a beautifully rare thing: a songbook from and for the people.


Born of years criss-crossing Dublin's folk and experimental scenes, their two albums Cold Old Fire (2013, recorded under former name Lynched) and Rough Trade debut Between The Earth and Sky (2017) breath new life into ancient/modern rituals with urban punk fervour, rural psycho-geography and, underpinning it all, the eternal drone of the uilleann pipes.

'An object lesson in how to perform old songs in new ways' The Independent

'The most convincing folk band to come out of Ireland in years' The Guardian

http://lankumdublin.com/

THE GOTOBEDS make their London debut for us at the end of November!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

THE GOTOBEDS
Tuesday 26 November
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £7.50 | https://link.dice.fm/UtX89It2QX

THE GOTOBEDS are a modern rock and roll sensation that has always sounded like they have to play. The group's angular tunes and buzzy guitar-fuelled attack took the sound and vision of post-punk and indie rock and put the nervy snarl of punk back into the formula. Never maligned by having the world’s weight on their backs, The Gotobeds - Cary, TFP, Eli and Gavin - returned this May with their third full lengther, 'Debt Begins at 30' (Sub Pop). The esprit de corps and anxiety-free joy that permeates their other LPs and EPs remains intact. The octane is high-test, the engine still has knocks and pings and the battery is overcharged. The Gotobeds - as Pittsburgh as it gets, the folk music of the Steel City - have more tar for us to swallow. The Gotobeds jump between exuberant jangle, brooding romps with tribal beats and slash-and-burn guitar and wrecking ball anthems much like their partners-in-rock-crime Protomartyr.
https://thegotobeds.bandcamp.com/

NEW SHOW: KURWS & HANDLE!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

KURWS
HANDLE
Saturday 14 September

New River Studios


199 Eade Rd, Harringay Warehouse District, London, N4 1DN


7.30pm | £7 | https://link.dice.fm/XwnJrc3cYX

KURWS (from Wroclaw, Poland) formed in May 2008 as an unexpected result of a ping pong session. Since then together they pursue their own search, not as much in areas of defined genres, but within the very foundations of rock “base”, expression and sound. It is a workshop, where improvisations penetrate through composed material, which seems to be a congealed form of the creation process. Armed with repetitions, recombinations, variations and contrasts, they frolic with memory and expectations. Post punk, krautrock, rock in opposition, funk, no wave - modes of playing, motives, riffs we heard time and time again, are being here presented in a totally different context - they are dissected from their original environment, placed side by side, used in a brand new manner, deconstructed and distilled.
https://kurws.bandcamp.com/album/alarm

HANDLE are a recently formed trio featuring a few familiar faces from Manchester’s creative underground scene. On bass guitar and drums, there’s Giulio Erasmus and Nirvana Heire, former members of the much-loved punk band DUDS; while upfront on vocals and keyboards is Leo Hermitt, a genderqueer multidisciplinary artist renowned for their challenging, thought-provoking work on the city’s arts and literary scenes. The end result, in Handle, is a wonderful amalgam of each member’s respective CVs – a band which absorbs punk, poetry, politics and the avant-garde, while wearing its Manc DIY credentials proudly on its sleeve. Powered by looping, hypnotic synth lines, tribal percussion and urgent, agitated vocals, their songs – all of which clock in around the two minute mark – owe as much to performance poetry as they do to post-punk and new wave. In these times of anxiety and confusion, Handle provide a much-needed dose of musical catharsis.
https://absolutefiction.bandcamp.com/album/handle-demonstrations

Constant Mongrel's new 7" released today! Plus upcoming London shows for Current Affairs, Normil Hawaiians and Rays

Hello there!   Constant Mongrel's rollicking new 'Experts In Skin' record greets the world today! Here's the riotous aforementioned 7" trying to turn the lights on in broad daylight! Classic!   ‘Experts in Skin’ is the Melbourne bands’ little sister follow-up to 2018’s ‘Living In Excellence’ LP. The A side single holds the familiar post-post punk angst Constant Mongrel is known for, only building ever higher with a triple saxophone flurry and singer Tom Ridgewell’s mutters on the often awkward nature of mainstream consumerism.

The flip side sees the band turn to its pop sensibilities producing the tough but sweet sounding ‘Schnuki’. Bassist Amy Hill’s bouncing vocals make for a contrast to the anarcho-punk growl below. The subject matter this time occupied by ‘fake nice’ people. Can I help you darling? Honey? Sweetie? Deary? Pumpkin?...... no thanks.   Constant Mongrel’s new 7” can be purchased in all good shops now, as well as from our ‘online presence’ (sounds tech-spooky) here:   http://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/

You’ll also find below full show listings for our next three hurrahs in the capital, including next Friday’s jaunt at The Islington with Current Affairs, Powerplant and Livid, July 11th Café OTO shindig with Normil Hawaiians, Rattle and Erasers, plus July 16th’s concert for Oakland’s Rays, Design A Wave and Maedchen 84 at The Shacklewell Arms!   Other live plans for July include Daniel Higgs, Prison Religion and last but not least Advance Base, you’ll find more details on those in our listings section, enjoy…

Upset The Rhythm presents…   CURRENT AFFAIRS POWERPLANT LIVID Friday 5 July The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £6 | TICKETS   CURRENT AFFAIRS are a post punk band from Glasgow, neatly navigating the line between new wave and goth. Formed in 2016 and Comprising Joan (ex-The Royal We/Seconds/Rose McDowall's band), Seb (ex-Anxiety/Pissy), Josh (The Downs/Kaspar Hauser/ex-Rose McDowall's band) and Andrew (Shopping/As Ondas). Collectively they present a muscular unity, with a pounding post-punk rhythm section augmented by wild, effected guitar and the impressive, soulful-but-gothic vocal. A demo cassette was released along the way and In December 2018 the band’s first 7” Breeding Feeling -bw- Draw The Line was put out into the world by Not Unloved records. Another 7” is imminent via the IRRK label. https://currentaffairs.bandcamp.com/ POWERPLANT embark on an eternal crusade with sizzling synthesisers & pleading vocals. They are the true essence of synth-punk released into thin air. They truly are the last of man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcyyEqoJ2pc&feature=youtu.be LIVID are a blazing new punk group, fight or flight vocals, pummelsome drums and decidedly frenzied riffs galore. Nothing online yet, featuring ex-Nachthexen members.

Upset The Rhythm presents…   NORMIL HAWAIIANS RATTLE ERASERS Thursday 11 July Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   NORMIL HAWAIIANS communal take on post punk sprouted leaves from its mouth in 1982, and began carving out a new furrow. Greater emphasis was awarded to improvisation within the group and as a result their songs embarked on longer, freer journeys towards the beaten bounds. They wanted these new songs to bear the weight of their new collective spirit so comfort zones had to be left behind. Tape loops, echo boxes, extended percussive sessions and duteous faith in the tones emanating from a particular old wah-wah pedal were all employed by Normil Hawaiians to stretch their sonic fabric into wild and redolent new dimensions. Within three years the band went on to record three astonishing records, their ambitious double-LP debut ‘More Wealth Than Money’, ‘What’s Going On?’ with its radical collage of movements and ‘Return Of The Ranters’ which teamed up their free experiments in compelling arrhythmia with a more confrontational approach. Upset The Rhythm have released ‘More Wealth’ and ‘Ranters’ recently in remastered form, and this special live manifestation at Cafe OTO celebrates the reissue of 1984’s ‘What’s Going On?’ masterstroke (out June 28th). Lucid, candid, politically engaged, rarely metronomic but always humane, Normil Hawaiians conjure vast clouds of atmosphere. Their songs are bedecked with exalted synth trails, clustering guitar rapture, motorik beats, and spun-out raw polemics. Still light years ahead of us all! http://normilhawaiians.com/ RATTLE are a Nottingham based duo, Rattle focus almost exclusively on drums and more drums, beneath a delicate overlay of vocal harmonies and percussive effects. Formed by Katharine Eira Brown (also of Kogumaza) and Theresa Wrigley (also of Fists), Rattle began as an experiment in crafting rich songs and melody using drums and voice alone. Their music weaves and intertwines post-punk, minimalism and experimental rock, through off-kilter rhythms, patterns and counter melodies. Often starting by picking out the ghost notes from the drums to develop a melody, the song then reveals itself in rounds and harmonies with layer upon layer of rhythm and vocal, lending a choral feel to some of the tracks. Rattle effortlessly blend the avant-garde with irresistible melodies and hypnotic drum beats, using rhythm and harmony to create a refreshing sound that is utterly new - a pretty rare feat these days when we're saturated with so much music. Rattle's impressive ‘Sequence’ album came out last November through Upset The Rhythm. https://rattleon.bandcamp.com/ ERASERS deliver up rhythmic and mood-driven music that sits between kosmische and post-punk. Forming as a home recording project in 2009 the Perth, West Australian based Erasers (Rebecca Orchard, Rupert Thomas) released a steady flow of cd-rs, tapes and a 7” before eventually releasing their debut full length ‘Stem Together’ in 2015. In 2017 the duo followed up with the tape release ‘Fault Lines’. In the live sphere Erasers have shared the stage with the likes of Low, Grouper, Acid Mothers Temple, Prince Rama, High Wolf and The Soft Machine as well as multiple shows with long time musical heroes My Disco, Love Of Diagrams and Pikelet. After an extensive recording and mixing process, 2019 sees Erasers with two new releases to share; a 5 track tape titled ‘Forecast’ (through Solid Melts) and the duo’s second full length ‘Pulse Points’ (through Fire Talk and Pouring Dream). https://erasers.bandcamp.com/

Upset The Rhythm presents…   RAYS DESIGN A WAVE MAEDCHEN 84 Tuesday 16 July Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   RAYS returned to the fray with their second album, You Can Get There From Here, their first release since their eponymous Trouble In Mind debut in 2016. Rays formed in the fertile crescent of the California Bay Area, a hotbed of musical growth in the past decade, and Rays' members pull not only from that recent miasma but also from a wealth of Bay Area musical history. You Can Get There From Here represents a turning point for the band, angling their scrappy, post-punk fury into a more refined & melodic pop sensibility, drawing inspiration from UK DIY pop & punk like Dolly Mixture, Cleaners From Venus, Television Personalities & more. Straight from the gate, songs like "Fallen Stars" & "The Garden" temper their sonic crunch ever so slightly, relying more on the harmonic wallop of a solid hook than the sheer volume of guitars & cymbal crashes. This is urgent, chiming guitar pop of the highest order that clangs with a sonorous melancholy & a ramshackle grace. Rays can still lay it down with the rest of 'em; tunes like "Subway" & "Work of Art" shuffle & stumble forward, skirting chaos in a flurry of strums, recalling recent antipodean pop groups like UV Race, Dick Diver or The Shifters who cull inspiration from idiosyncratic UK greats like Mark E. Smith or Robyn Hitchcock. With You Can Get There From Here, Rays add their voice to the chorus. The new album finds the core group of Stanley Martinez, Eva Hannan, Troy Hewitt & Alexa Pantalone augmented by new member & keyboardist Britta Leijonflycht, whose synth flourishes add melodic embellishments, sonic heft or psychedelic swirl where needed. http://www.troubleinmindrecs.com/artists/rays/ DESIGN A WAVE aka Tom Hirst is a London based artist who has recently released music on Rush Hour’s No Label, as well as contributing to Ravioli Me Away’s opera. Design A Wave also has past releases on Alien Jams, Subsubtropics and the Alter label. Tom Hirst has been making music for many moons. Initial buds featured tape collages, distangled pop music, various dictaphone experiments, and over time all this meshed and warped into his solo musical venture known as Design A Wave. Initiated in the late 90s, the project was loosely named after one of the gangs in the Troma film Surf Nazis Must Die which, alongside other similar movies and music of it’s time, informed a particular vision of an idealised weird - a trashy synth orientated 80s B-movie soundtrack, which provided an aesthetic platform on which to dive, surf and ride. https://soundcloud.com/deswav MÄDCHEN 84 put a dent in ya head! A sample square of vinyl from wickes and a tearout guardian review of minaj's latest is available to be sent in the post for anyone who needs to feel real. https://maedchen84.bandcamp.com

That’s all for now! Thanks for your time and consideration. Have the best weekend imaginable! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

CURRENT AFFAIRS  POWERPLANT LIVID Friday 5 July The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £6 | TICKETS   NORMIL HAWAIIANS RATTLE ERASERS Thursday 11 July Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS RAYS (Trouble In Mind) DESIGN A WAVE MAEDCHEN 84 Tuesday 16 July Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS DANIEL HIGGS ETERNAL BROADCAST Wednesday 17 July HQI, The Rotunda, Wood Lane, White City Place, London, W12 7TP (3 min walk from White City tube directly north up Wood Lane. Venue is behind the green gates) 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   PRISON RELIGION (Halcyon Veil) HYPERSTITION DUO Friday 19 July The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8.50 | TICKETS   ADVANCE BASE ALICE HUBBLE Monday 22 July Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   MOUNT EERIE Thursday 8 August EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS   J. McFARLANE’S REALITY GUEST THE PHEROMOANS Wednesday 14 August The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle St, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE ROBERT SOTELO Wednesday 21 August OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, London, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £12.50 | TICKETS   MARY LATTIMORE NUMMO TWIN Thursday 29 August The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, N1 6EU 7.30pm | £10 |TICKETS   DEERHOOF TRASH KIT DOG CHOCOLATE Monday 2 September EartH, 11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, Dalston, London, N16 8BH 7.30pm | £15 | TICKETS   DANIEL O’SULLIVAN (octet performance) BRIGID MAE POWER Friday 13 September The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS