Dog Chocolate's stunning new album, Moody Balloon Baby, is released today in all its fervour! 180 grams of black plastic serving up all the rabble-rousing energy & eye-watering absurdity of the human condition in 2018, plus its got a big, green, scowling balloon baby on the cover, bonus!
Available in all the best shops worldwide and directly from us here now: http://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/
Have a listen to the very first song kicking off this cavalcade of thought & song:
Here's the band's poster for the album launch later this month too!
SHANNON AND THE CLAMS are from Oakland, California and comprise of Shannon Shaw (vocals, bass), Cody Blanchard (vocals, guitar), and Ian Amberson (drums, vocals). Sounding like a prom band from 1964 getting dosed with acid and having the sweetest lovelorn freak out, Shannon And The Clams defy expectations. Imagine a brawling Etta James, backed up by the 13th Floor Elevators singing Shangri La's tunes. Shannon has a voice that can go from a sweet girl group croon to a bluesy ballsy growl before you realize you're headed for the (dance) floor. It's total punk rock bop, brimming with doo-wop glory delivered to your door by the Homecoming Queen and Kings of weirdo rock 'n' roll. What started as an open mic project for a shy, young Shannon to try out some tunes ended with the Clams meeting and forming a band. Many have said to have been possessed by thee (eerily similar at times) haunted howls and beautiful growls of their two lead vocalists, hypnotized by their heavy heartbeats, and mesmerized by their magical music.
Your ears may become infested with a real Buddy Holly jolly kinda joy (oh boy) while you stutter along to a hiccupy song. Take a scratch and a sniff at these stickers and get bit by their bad-brained snarls. It's always Christmas (if you want it). It's your party time, and it's excellent. Cry-yi-yi if you want to, but be sure to surf a splish-splash with a laugh later. New album, ‘Onion’ (Easy Eye Sound) is monumental; immense, magnificent, and unforgettable. Shannon and the Clams have pioneered their way into a lonesome land where the past still lives in the long shadows of a hot afternoon, where whispering spirits follow high along canyon walls, and if you sink your fingers into the dusty hard-packed earth you pull out hands smeared with blood. http://shannonandtheclams.com/
We’ve got a potent week planned for you over the next seven days so
wanted to share the details. On bank holiday Monday at Moth Club we’re
very lucky to have a trio of our favourite bands performing including Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Dog Chocolate and Charismatic Megafauna. Collectively
they all strive towards perfecting the surreal humour that unlocks the
power of pop. It’s been an age since Ed & Devlin were last over here
with Future Islands, so we can’t wait to see them again in majestic
form with their opulent new record.
Then next Tuesday Nap Eyes will
bring their peerless indie rock narratives to OSLO, also in Hackney.
They just get better with every step taken and their new album has been
glued to our turntable in UTR headquarters, so it’s fantastic to have
them back in London so soon. Support comes from the resplendent Haley Heynderickx too, so that can’t any more vital!
Wednesday sees us go south of the river and pitch up in Peckham at
Ghost Notes in the Peckham Levels. For this special show we welcome
saxophonist and experimentalist Matana Roberts in an all-encompassing collaboration with British sound artist Kelly-Jayne Jones (prepared tapes, rocks, text, flute).
We also have some oblique, cranky textured ambience from Coby Sey planned too.
Protomartyr are in town at The Scala on Thursday night and they’ve chosen Ana Da Silva (of The Raincoats) and Rattle to perform alongside them on the bill. What a formidable way to round off this run of four shows in a row!
Tickets for all four of these are still available but advisably bought in advance from the links below.
Since we last caught up we’ve also announced a special new live concert from Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses and 50FOOTWAVE. This will take place at Cecil Sharp House on June 18th,
with tickets on sale now. Anyone who’s seen Kristin’s incredible show
before can attest to how inspiring the whole performance proves.
Our live programme that concludes this message includes full details and ticket links for this exciting prospect.
We’d also like to mention that Upset The Rhythm will be taking part in next Saturday’s Independent Label Market
at Spitalfields too, where we’ll be selling lots of new wares
(including Dog Chocolate's brand new album) and most of our back
catalogue at some great prices too, so please pop down (from 10am til
6pm) and say hello if you’re in the neighbourhood, so many other great
labels involved with us, not to mention breweries too, here’s the
poster:
ED SCHRADER’S MUSIC BEAT are Ed
Schrader and Devlin Rice - a minimalist punk duo from the fair city of
Baltimore, Maryland. In the beginning there was only Ed: a man unhinged,
channeling to the world a sacred message in the form of song. His only
divining instruments: a single floor tom, one light, and a commanding
baritone. He's a master songsmith who has reduced pop and punk to their
most basic building blocks. Ed was soon joined by Devlin on bass, who
proved to be an acute match for encapsulating the space-time from whence
they came. Their union quickly brought about the release of their 2012
debut album 'Jazz Mind' and 2014's 'Party Jail' through Upset The Rhythm
which The Wire said recalled "the percussion-heavy chants of Liars",
with Ed "affecting a mournful Arthur Russell tone on the a cappella
songs" whilst "roaring like Rollins" on the album's faster numbers.
Since then, Ed Schrader's Music Beat have toured frequently in North
America and Europe, notably alongside their friends Future Islands.
New album, 'Riddles' begins their new
life. In search of a fresh direction, Ed and Devlin invited their close
friend, electronic-pop maestro Dan Deacon, to expand their sound and
experiment with them as the album's producer, arranger, and co-writer.
Working steadily in Dan's studio for two years in total collaboration,
three evolving musicians pushed through an intense period of personal
tumult and found purpose in the sounds they were committing to record.
The result: a polished and passionate masterpiece of nuanced alt-rock.
From driving opening track 'Dunce' and the soaring single 'Riddles' to
the disarmingly gorgeous closer 'Culebra', Ed and Devlin
unapologetically channel a personal pantheon of pop and rock gods while
growing into the band and people they'd previously kept caged inside.
'Riddles' is out now through Carpark Records.
DOG CHOCOLATE sound like a
crowded room but are actually four individuals from London. Abandoning
notions of elegance, cred and professionalism they embrace the
ramshackle, instant and fun, capturing a vivid spontaneity with their
music. Their sound is a shabby, fast, over-excited ball of wet fur
falling down the stairs, knocking over plant pots along the way and
staining the carpet. With an average song time of 2 minutes, Dog
Chocolate are on to the next treat before fully digesting the last.
Chewing up bits of punk, post-punk, noise and pop, Matthew and Robert's
guitars race around each other like wasps, pitch-shifting and phasing
all over the place while Jono's rolled-up-newspaper drums chase them
round the room. The band's new album ‘Moody Balloon Baby’ (out May 15th)
is readying for release through Upset The Rhythm, who also released
their debut 'Snack Fans' in 2016.
CHARISMATIC MEGAFAUNA are a
trio from London making party punk for the politically minded. They are a
thunderous tribe on the brink of total collapse, intelligent, shouty,
the whole she-bang. Check out their debut album ‘Semi-Regular’ out now,
you won’t regret it!
NAP EYES hail from Nova Scotia
and Montreal and make crooked, literate guitar pop refracted through the
gray Halifax rain. Recorded live to tape with no overdubs, their songs
are equal parts shambling and sophisticated, with one eye on the dirt
and one trained on the starry firmament, inhabiting a skewed world where
odes to NASA and the Earth's magnetic field coexist easily with lyrics
about insomnia and drinking too much. In the world of Nap Eyes, workaday
details punctuate (and puncture) cosmic concerns, as songwriter,
singer, and rhythm guitarist Nigel Chapman wrestles with air and angels,
struggling (and often failing) to reconcile the Romantic rifts, both
real and imagined, that define our lives: between chaos and order;
solipsism and fellowship; the anxiety of social (dis)orders both big and
small; and the various intersections and oppositions of religion, art,
and science. It's the sound of being young and alive in the city, a
tenuous and impermanent counterpoise of recklessness and anxiety,
archness and earnestness. Following on from their 2014 debut 'Whine of
the Mystic' and last year's 'Thought Rock Fish Scale' on Paradise of
Bachelors, Nap Eyes will release their third album 'I'm Bad Now' on
Jagjaguwar. 'Im Bad Now' achieves a new sonic clarity, depth, and range
to match the group's effortless melodies and extraordinary writing. It's
the band's most transparent and personal set of songs to date, in which
singer Nigel Chapman interrogates social, psychological, and spiritual
milieus for clues about the elusive nature of knowledge.
HALEY HEYNDERICKX is an
emphatic singer/songwriter from Portland. Through soft acoustic guitar
picking and deftly accented trombone sighs, Heynderickx's music
immediately recalls folk music of the '60s and '70s mixed with a love of
jazz radio. But Heynderickx's singing, her vocals that range from
sultry to operatic, belie a tenacity in her soul. Her debut album, named
'I Need to Start a Garden' is due out March 2nd via Mama Bird Recording
Co.
Internationally renowned US composer,
saxophonist, mixed-media practitioner, and sonic voyager Matana Roberts
(perhaps best known for her acclaimed Coin Coin project, ongoing and
unfolding via Constellation Records) and British sound artist/improviser
Kelly Jayne Jones. Roberts and Jones will weave their own approaches
into live collaborative works informed by deeply expressive playing,
tactile electro-acoustic interplay and a broader shared politics of
resistance/defiance. This Upset The Rhythm show is part of the first in a
series of special live shows commissioned by OUTLANDS, a new national
experimental music touring network.
MATANA ROBERTS is an
internationally renowned composer, band leader, saxophonist, sound
experimentalist and mixed-media practitioner. Roberts works in many
contexts and mediums, including improvisation, dance, poetry, and
theatre, and has released a diverse body of solo and ensemble work under
her own name on Constellation Records and Central Control over the past
decade. She is perhaps best known for her acclaimed Coin Coin project, a
multi-chapter work of "panoramic sound quilting" that aims to expose
the mystical roots and channel the intuitive spirit-raising traditions
of American creative expression while maintaining a deep and substantive
engagement with narrativity, history, community and political
expression within improvisatory musical structures. Constellation began
documenting the Coin Coin project in 2011 and has released the first
three of a projected twelve album-length chapters to date.
KELLY-JAYNE JONES makes use of
varying combinations of prepared recordings, text, rocks, found sounds
and flute. Her work beckons a tussle with uncertainty, inviting exposure
and vulnerability in performance, chasing experiences that open our
chasms within, without restraint. Searching for humble principles of
growth; physics; sound, connecting with others in the same space/moment,
customary experimental play, with threads and beads of improvisation
and interactivity. KJJ has had residencies at Arnolfini in Bristol UK
and Kunstalle Bergen, Norway, and has produced commissioned works for
Haris Epaminonda at dOCUMENTA13, Tate Modern, ICA London, Schirn
Frankfurt, Point Centre Nicosia. She has performed, solo and with part
wild horses mane on both sides, at CCA Glasgow, Trieze Gallery Paris,
Borealis Festival, Tectonics Reykjavik, Hangar Bicocca in Milan and at
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
COBY SEY is a vocalist,
musician and DJ, who, after years spent buzzing around the DIY artist
circuitry of South East London, has developed a distinctive presence as a
performer and producer offering a shifting, disorienting vision of club
music. A long-time collaborator with Mica Levi, Tirzah, Babyfather,
Klein and Kwes, Coby's recorded work - as best evidenced on the 'Whities
010: Transport for Lewisham' 10" - spans the realms of live
instrumentation, sample-based productions and experimental music,
melding recognisable motifs of hip hop, drone, jazz, grime and more into
a dubbed-out anaesthesia. Live, these dreamlike compositions are imbued
with a heavy, uneasy dancefloor energy, often abetted by live vocals as
well as saxophone interjections c/o regular cohorts Ben Vince and
Calderwood. Coby's open-door approach to sharing and making music
stretches to his work with London collective Curl, who release records
and host events with a collaborative, improvisatory approach, as well as
a regular slot on NTS which offers a portal into his appealingly murky
musical world.
PROTOMARTYR return to London
next May for their biggest show yet! Protomartyr play a taut, austere
rock that's been incubated in a freezing Detroit warehouse littered with
beer cans and cigarette butts and warmed occasionally by space heaters.
Short songs made for short practices, and the band learned quickly not
to waste time. Despite the cold, Protomartyr emerged with a sound that
is idiosyncratic but relatable, hooky but off-kilter. With respect to
the local predecessors, this isn't the primitive stomp of The Dirtbombs
or The Stooges' greasy roar. Punk works, kind of, even if it leaves the
hardcore kids confused. Post-punk suggests something too retro; indie
rock, something too precious. What Protomartyr is, is "stuck between the
cracks." If that's the case, though, they aren't alone. Protomartyr's
economical rock elicits comparisons to possible antecedents like Pere
Ubu or The Fall as well as local contemporaries like Frustrations or
Tyvek (whose frontman Kevin Boyer played bass in an early iteration of
Protomartyr). Singer Joe Casey's dry declarative snarl serves as a
reliable anchor, granting his bandmates (guitarist Greg Ahee, drummer
Alex Leonard and bassist Scott Davidson) the opportunity to explore
textures and reinforce the rhythm section. This is never more apparent
than on the band's brand new album entitled 'Relatives In Descent', out
now through Domino. This show follows on from the band's long sold out
Tufnell Park Dome show planned for next month.
ANA DA SILVA is a founding
member of the pioneering female punk band The Raincoats. Ana has
continually worked on music, in some shape or form, since the group
disbanded in 1984. Soon after the release of The Raincoats' final album
album, 'Moving', Da Silva collaborated with This Heat drummer Charles
Hayward on a project called Roseland; they recorded a few demos
together, but the duo faltered after that. She also wrote music for
choreographer Gaby Agis' productions, but spent much of the '80s and
early '90s painting and working in an antique shop. The Raincoats'
reunion spurred Da Silva and the rest of the group to write new songs,
resulting in the band's fifth album, 1996's 'Looking in the Shadows'. Da
Silva resurfaced in 2005 with her solo record 'Lighthouse', a largely
electronic collection of songs that she wrote, recorded, and produced
herself for Chicks On Speed records.
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 debut self-titled album will be released on Upset The
Rhythm and I Own You, look out this Summer for it's follow up.
We’ve got a potent week planned for you over the next seven days so
wanted to share the details. On bank holiday Monday at Moth Club we’re
very lucky to have a trio of our favourite bands performing including Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Dog Chocolate and Charismatic Megafauna. Collectively
they all strive towards perfecting the surreal humour that unlocks the
power of pop. It’s been an age since Ed & Devlin were last over here
with Future Islands, so we can’t wait to see them again in majestic
form with their opulent new record.
KRISTIN HERSH, most recognised as the front person for the influential art-punk band Throwing Muses and power trio 50FOOTWAVE, will kick off a short visit to the UK this summer with her sold-out performance at Robert Smith’s Meltdown Festival on June 21st, followed by this special solo date at Cecil Sharp House.
Throwing Muses first gained traction in the early ‘80s, playing with similarly singular artists, such as The Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. They continue to release groundbreaking music, most recently with 2013’s double CD masterpiece ‘Purgatory/Paradise’. Kristin’s solo career spun off in 1994 with the release of ‘Hips and Makers’, a widely acclaimed album that included ‘Your Ghost’, a duet with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. Since then, Kristin has released a steady stream of distinctly individual solo albums, including 2010’s ‘Crooked’, released as her first in the inventive book/CD format for which she is now known.
2016’s ‘Wyatt at the Coyote Palace’, on which Kristin played all of the instruments, received rave reviews; an explosive defined by blistering guitars, powerful drumming and her signature visceral vocal technique. Her poignant true stories bring the listener into what the BBC calls Hersh's "dark and dizzy world". In 2004, Kristin formed the noise rock power trio 50FOOTWAVE, releasing a series of frighteningly intense mini-albums, all available for download free of charge. Their most recent 'Bath White' EP was described as “a series of loud explosions, of velvet like dreams all intermingled at the same time. Bath White takes no prisoners.” Kristin’s writing career has flourished with the highly acclaimed ‘Paradoxical Undressing’ (released as ‘Rat Girl’ in the USA) and the award winning ‘Don’t Suck, Don’t Die’, a personal account of her long friendship with the late Vic Chesnutt, as well as the enchanting books which now accompany each of her record releases. https://www.kristinhersh.com/
What a week of giant bumblebees in flight and baking sunshine, it feels
like we’ve skipped spring and ended up slap in the middle of summer
with bbq smoke in our hair.
We’ve got no shows on next week so we’ve taken the opportunity to
outline below all our London concerts coming up in early May, including
performances from Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Dog Chocolate, Charismatic Megafauna, Nap Eyes, Haley Heynderickx, Matana Roberts & Kelly-Jayne Jones, Coby Sey, Protomartyr, Ana Da Silva (of The Raincoats) and Rattle! That’s a real busy spell for Upset The Rhythm as we’ll be taking part in the Spitalfields Independent Label Market on May 12th too. Read on for all of those show details and for our complete live programme featuring a newly announced Screaming Females show at the 100 Club for September 11th, looking forward to see them twice this year now!
Donning our record label overalls now, we’re very pleased to call your attention to May 25th as the upcoming Friday on which UTR will release a new 7” EP from Australia’s School Damage.
School Damage write songs that demand the dizzy head bop, they make
jangle punk of genuine charm, spontaneous errant pop! Featuring members
of Ausmuteants, Parsnip and Chook Race, School
Damage have put together an EP which follows it’s no nonsense title
steadfastly, it’s ‘Four Songs About One Cat’, and that cat is called
Lumpy and sometimes Scump. ‘Scump Damage 1’ is the first track to escape
the EP, have a listen now!
Two weeks earlier on May 11th we’re helping Dog Chocolate’s
excellent ‘Moody Balloon Baby’ album fly out to the far-flung reaches
too. Here’s a taste of what to expect, this is their video for ‘Tesco
Flag’, set in Epping Forest and featuring the band dressed up as a gang
of headlice. The quasi-future-medieval look of their costume ties in
with references made later in the song to the book Riddley Walker. It
was filmed in the freezing cold whilst the band learned that dogs will
eat beans straight out of liquid mud if they get the opportunity. That
gives you enough to chew on right?
School Damage’s new EP and Dog Chocolate’s second album are available to pre-order now, along with our other forthcoming Vital Idles and Apostille titles too, check that out!
ED SCHRADER’S MUSIC BEAT are Ed
Schrader and Devlin Rice - a minimalist punk duo from the fair city of
Baltimore, Maryland. In the beginning there was only Ed: a man unhinged,
channeling to the world a sacred message in the form of song. His only
divining instruments: a single floor tom, one light, and a commanding
baritone. He's a master songsmith who has reduced pop and punk to their
most basic building blocks. Ed was soon joined by Devlin on bass, who
proved to be an acute match for encapsulating the space-time from whence
they came. Their union quickly brought about the release of their 2012
debut album 'Jazz Mind' and 2014's 'Party Jail' through Upset The Rhythm
which The Wire said recalled "the percussion-heavy chants of Liars",
with Ed "affecting a mournful Arthur Russell tone on the a cappella
songs" whilst "roaring like Rollins" on the album's faster numbers.
Since then, Ed Schrader's Music Beat have toured frequently in North
America and Europe, notably alongside their friends Future Islands.
New album, 'Riddles' begins their new
life. In search of a fresh direction, Ed and Devlin invited their close
friend, electronic-pop maestro Dan Deacon, to expand their sound and
experiment with them as the album's producer, arranger, and co-writer.
Working steadily in Dan's studio for two years in total collaboration,
three evolving musicians pushed through an intense period of personal
tumult and found purpose in the sounds they were committing to record.
The result: a polished and passionate masterpiece of nuanced alt-rock.
From driving opening track 'Dunce' and the soaring single 'Riddles' to
the disarmingly gorgeous closer 'Culebra', Ed and Devlin
unapologetically channel a personal pantheon of pop and rock gods while
growing into the band and people they'd previously kept caged inside.
'Riddles' is out now through Carpark Records.
DOG CHOCOLATE sound like a
crowded room but are actually four individuals from London. Abandoning
notions of elegance, cred and professionalism they embrace the
ramshackle, instant and fun, capturing a vivid spontaneity with their
music. Their sound is a shabby, fast, over-excited ball of wet fur
falling down the stairs, knocking over plant pots along the way and
staining the carpet. With an average song time of 2 minutes, Dog
Chocolate are on to the next treat before fully digesting the last.
Chewing up bits of punk, post-punk, noise and pop, Matthew and Robert's
guitars race around each other like wasps, pitch-shifting and phasing
all over the place while Jono's rolled-up-newspaper drums chase them
round the room. The band's new album ‘Moody Balloon Baby’ (out May 15th)
is readying for release through Upset The Rhythm, who also released
their debut 'Snack Fans' in 2016.
CHARISMATIC MEGAFAUNA are a
trio from London making party punk for the politically minded. They are a
thunderous tribe on the brink of total collapse, intelligent, shouty,
the whole she-bang. Check out their debut album ‘Semi-Regular’ out now,
you won’t regret it!
NAP EYES hail from Nova Scotia
and Montreal and make crooked, literate guitar pop refracted through the
gray Halifax rain. Recorded live to tape with no overdubs, their songs
are equal parts shambling and sophisticated, with one eye on the dirt
and one trained on the starry firmament, inhabiting a skewed world where
odes to NASA and the Earth's magnetic field coexist easily with lyrics
about insomnia and drinking too much. In the world of Nap Eyes, workaday
details punctuate (and puncture) cosmic concerns, as songwriter,
singer, and rhythm guitarist Nigel Chapman wrestles with air and angels,
struggling (and often failing) to reconcile the Romantic rifts, both
real and imagined, that define our lives: between chaos and order;
solipsism and fellowship; the anxiety of social (dis)orders both big and
small; and the various intersections and oppositions of religion, art,
and science. It's the sound of being young and alive in the city, a
tenuous and impermanent counterpoise of recklessness and anxiety,
archness and earnestness. Following on from their 2014 debut 'Whine of
the Mystic' and last year's 'Thought Rock Fish Scale' on Paradise of
Bachelors, Nap Eyes will release their third album 'I'm Bad Now' on
Jagjaguwar. 'Im Bad Now' achieves a new sonic clarity, depth, and range
to match the group's effortless melodies and extraordinary writing. It's
the band's most transparent and personal set of songs to date, in which
singer Nigel Chapman interrogates social, psychological, and spiritual
milieus for clues about the elusive nature of knowledge.
HALEY HEYNDERICKX is an
emphatic singer/songwriter from Portland. Through soft acoustic guitar
picking and deftly accented trombone sighs, Heynderickx's music
immediately recalls folk music of the '60s and '70s mixed with a love of
jazz radio. But Heynderickx's singing, her vocals that range from
sultry to operatic, belie a tenacity in her soul. Her debut album, named
'I Need to Start a Garden' is due out March 2nd via Mama Bird Recording
Co.
Internationally renowned US composer,
saxophonist, mixed-media practitioner, and sonic voyager Matana Roberts
(perhaps best known for her acclaimed Coin Coin project, ongoing and
unfolding via Constellation Records) and British sound artist/improviser
Kelly Jayne Jones. Roberts and Jones will weave their own approaches
into live collaborative works informed by deeply expressive playing,
tactile electro-acoustic interplay and a broader shared politics of
resistance/defiance. This Upset The Rhythm show is part of the first in a
series of special live shows commissioned by OUTLANDS, a new national
experimental music touring network.
MATANA ROBERTS is an
internationally renowned composer, band leader, saxophonist, sound
experimentalist and mixed-media practitioner. Roberts works in many
contexts and mediums, including improvisation, dance, poetry, and
theatre, and has released a diverse body of solo and ensemble work under
her own name on Constellation Records and Central Control over the past
decade. She is perhaps best known for her acclaimed Coin Coin project, a
multi-chapter work of "panoramic sound quilting" that aims to expose
the mystical roots and channel the intuitive spirit-raising traditions
of American creative expression while maintaining a deep and substantive
engagement with narrativity, history, community and political
expression within improvisatory musical structures. Constellation began
documenting the Coin Coin project in 2011 and has released the first
three of a projected twelve album-length chapters to date.
KELLY-JAYNE JONES makes use of
varying combinations of prepared recordings, text, rocks, found sounds
and flute. Her work beckons a tussle with uncertainty, inviting exposure
and vulnerability in performance, chasing experiences that open our
chasms within, without restraint. Searching for humble principles of
growth; physics; sound, connecting with others in the same space/moment,
customary experimental play, with threads and beads of improvisation
and interactivity. KJJ has had residencies at Arnolfini in Bristol UK
and Kunstalle Bergen, Norway, and has produced commissioned works for
Haris Epaminonda at dOCUMENTA13, Tate Modern, ICA London, Schirn
Frankfurt, Point Centre Nicosia. She has performed, solo and with part
wild horses mane on both sides, at CCA Glasgow, Trieze Gallery Paris,
Borealis Festival, Tectonics Reykjavik, Hangar Bicocca in Milan and at
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
COBY SEY is a vocalist,
musician and DJ, who, after years spent buzzing around the DIY artist
circuitry of South East London, has developed a distinctive presence as a
performer and producer offering a shifting, disorienting vision of club
music. A long-time collaborator with Mica Levi, Tirzah, Babyfather,
Klein and Kwes, Coby's recorded work - as best evidenced on the 'Whities
010: Transport for Lewisham' 10" - spans the realms of live
instrumentation, sample-based productions and experimental music,
melding recognisable motifs of hip hop, drone, jazz, grime and more into
a dubbed-out anaesthesia. Live, these dreamlike compositions are imbued
with a heavy, uneasy dancefloor energy, often abetted by live vocals as
well as saxophone interjections c/o regular cohorts Ben Vince and
Calderwood. Coby's open-door approach to sharing and making music
stretches to his work with London collective Curl, who release records
and host events with a collaborative, improvisatory approach, as well as
a regular slot on NTS which offers a portal into his appealingly murky
musical world.
PROTOMARTYR return to London
next May for their biggest show yet! Protomartyr play a taut, austere
rock that's been incubated in a freezing Detroit warehouse littered with
beer cans and cigarette butts and warmed occasionally by space heaters.
Short songs made for short practices, and the band learned quickly not
to waste time. Despite the cold, Protomartyr emerged with a sound that
is idiosyncratic but relatable, hooky but off-kilter. With respect to
the local predecessors, this isn't the primitive stomp of The Dirtbombs
or The Stooges' greasy roar. Punk works, kind of, even if it leaves the
hardcore kids confused. Post-punk suggests something too retro; indie
rock, something too precious. What Protomartyr is, is "stuck between the
cracks." If that's the case, though, they aren't alone. Protomartyr's
economical rock elicits comparisons to possible antecedents like Pere
Ubu or The Fall as well as local contemporaries like Frustrations or
Tyvek (whose frontman Kevin Boyer played bass in an early iteration of
Protomartyr). Singer Joe Casey's dry declarative snarl serves as a
reliable anchor, granting his bandmates (guitarist Greg Ahee, drummer
Alex Leonard and bassist Scott Davidson) the opportunity to explore
textures and reinforce the rhythm section. This is never more apparent
than on the band's brand new album entitled 'Relatives In Descent', out
now through Domino. This show follows on from the band's long sold out
Tufnell Park Dome show planned for next month.
ANA DA SILVA is a founding
member of the pioneering female punk band The Raincoats. Ana has
continually worked on music, in some shape or form, since the group
disbanded in 1984. Soon after the release of The Raincoats' final album
album, 'Moving', Da Silva collaborated with This Heat drummer Charles
Hayward on a project called Roseland; they recorded a few demos
together, but the duo faltered after that. She also wrote music for
choreographer Gaby Agis' productions, but spent much of the '80s and
early '90s painting and working in an antique shop. The Raincoats'
reunion spurred Da Silva and the rest of the group to write new songs,
resulting in the band's fifth album, 1996's 'Looking in the Shadows'. Da
Silva resurfaced in 2005 with her solo record 'Lighthouse', a largely
electronic collection of songs that she wrote, recorded, and produced
herself for Chicks On Speed records.
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 debut self-titled album will be released on Upset The
Rhythm and I Own You, look out this Summer for it's follow up.
This is the new video from Dog Chocolate, it's called 'Tesco Flag' and is set in Epping Forest and features a lot of anti-Brexit rhetoric, beans and the band dressed up as headlice. A quasi-future-medieval look to their costume ties in with references made later in the song to the book Riddley Walker.
The lyrics deal with the knotty and unpleasant issue of English national identity. Filmed in the freezing cold, the band learned that dogs will eat beans straight out of liquid mud if they have to.
Dog Chocolate's new album 'Moody Balloon Baby' will be released on May 11th through Upset The Rhythm, the album is available to pre-order here now.
SCREAMING
FEMALES are one of those force-of-nature bands that only comes around
once in a blue moon. Their story starts in New Brunswick in 2005, with
Marissa on guitar and vocals, Jarrett on drums and Michael on bass.
'Power Move' was the band's first full-length with any label (or any
outside help) and was released by their hometown label, Don Giovanni
Records, in 2008. They've gradually sneaked into a wider mainstream
consciousness, gaining attention for their punk rock sensibilities and
their raucous live shows driven by Marissa's famed guitar heroics. Now
Screaming Females are DIY-punk luminaries, on the cusp of celebrating 13
years as a band by releasing this February's new album, entitled 'All
At Once' on Don Giovanni Records. The band collaborated with producer
Matt Bayles, setting out to make an album in the spirit of a salon-style
gallery show, where larger pieces provide an eye-level focal point to a
galaxy of smaller works. Concision took a back seat to experimentation,
with arrangements meant to evoke the energy and spontaneity of their
live performances. 'All At Once' is a reminder there's a hopeful and
joyful energy to underground music-making. Patience, perseverance, and
long term dedication still work. http://screamingfemales.com/
