Bill Nace & James Twig Harper & Glands Of External Secretion: April 29th confirmed!

Upset The Rhythm presents…


BILL NACE & JAMES TWIG HARPER
GLANDS OF EXTERNAL SECRETION
Monday 29 April
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 

7.30pm | £8 | https://link.dice.fm/KVZoJayfTU

BILL NACE is an artist and musician based in Western Massachusetts. He has collaborated with an extraordinary range of musicians, including Michael Morley, Mats Gustafsson, Joe McPhee, Chris Corsano, Jooklo Duo, Chris Cooper, Samara Lubelski, Thurston Moore, Jake Meginsky, Jessica Rylan, Paul Flaherty, Wally Shoup, and Kim Gordon, with whom he regularly plays as one half of the duo Body/Head. Their critically acclaimed LP “The Switch” was released on Matador last year. He has been a featured musician in festivals such as ATP (curated by Jim Jarmusch and held in Monticello, NY), Colour Out of Space (Brighton, UK), Supersonic Festival (Birmingham, UK), International Festival Musique Actuelle (Victoriaville, QC), and Homegrown (Boston, MA). Nace’s range of guitar playing has been described as “veering from sculptural, almost Remko-Scha-esque chime to Loren Connors-style elegance in only a few short moves.” Recordings found on Ecstatic Peace (Northampton, MA), Ultra Eczema (Belgium), Holidays (Italy), 8mm (Italy), Throne Heap (VA), HP Cycle (Toronto, ON), as well as on Nace’s own label Open Mouth.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/610465-Bill-Nace

JAMES TWIG HARPER really pulls out real time-and-space bending tracks. Harper, perhaps best known for his collaborations with Nate Young in Nautical Almanac and alongside Daniel Higgs for Thrill Jockey, holds some genuine weirdness within. He has a distinctly unique fidelity and gyroscopic dynamic that makes for a deliciously disorienting experience all of his own conception. There's an animalistic or perhaps even plant-like bio-logic to its devolved, dubbed-out arcana, a grunting, scraping, grubbing ecological complexity of sounds that grows, twists and bifurcates at seemingly haphazard junctions to catalyse chain reactions of constant change and multiple layers of surreality. Sometimes Harper’s music can enters passages which sound almost like a primitive take on Florian Hecker's plonging, rubbery computer music or Rashad Becker's perplexing notional folk music. Check out his releases on Open Mouth, Planam, Thrill Jockey and Heresee for the full tangle.
https://hansonrecords.bandcamp.com/album/twig-harper

GLANDS OF EXTERNAL SECRETION began when Seymour Glass, inspired by J.D. Salinger's short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", starts publishing the legendary Bananafish Zine in 1987, which for eighteen issues and up until 2004, constitutes a huge and ambitious attempt of presenting underground culture in its every form. Completely unknown experimental branchings, with a preference for the lo-fi, collage aesthetics, Glass's paranoid and absurd manner of writing and the whole structuring of the noise scene, with San Francisco as a starting point and every "tweaked" corner of the globe as a destination, found their home in Bananafish and their main representative in Seymour Glass. Glands of External Secretion began as Glass wanted to testify further via weird monuments of experimental and far-out studio improv, using a surreal collage of songs, sounds, Barbara Manning’s vocals, voice samples, loops, out-of-context rhythms, field recordings, electronics, cut-up manipulated noises and anything else which is not considered music. The result is a twisted riot of sound bordering on audacity which the term "extremely psychedelic" fails to completely encapsulate.
https://glandsofexternalsecretion.bandcamp.com/

NOTS and album number 3!

Another day, another fantastic team-up with Goner Records! We’re very pleased to announce that May 10th will see Upset The Rhythm release NOTS’ third album entitled, wait for it… ‘3’. The Memphis trio have unearthed every writhing guitar squall, every raucous barrage and every piercing vocal melody at hand. Melting buzzing, swirling waves of sound menace and hypnotise throughout too, making for a dark, liberating, and bold tour de force of a third record, infused with a rampant intensity and improvisational energy. ’3’ will be released on limited coloured vinyl, black vinyl and digipak CD, check out our pre-order page in our webshop here: http://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/

Tim Presley's White Fence: August show revealed in London!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE
Wednesday 21 August
OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney Central, E8 1LL
7.30pm | £12.50 | https://link.dice.fm/sGQ8FSbgQU

TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE, informed by the extreme polarities of punk rock and psych, brings forth songs like no others. Two years on from his solo missive, the sense that something has cratered and someone has walked away, somehow alive, is heavy in the air. With his new album ‘I Have to Feed Larry’s Hawk’, Tim Presley meets White Fence again, and together, they move on. He started writing songs for this album in a small rural town in the UK called Staveley. Tim was staying with Cate Le Bon there during winter. While she was there going to school learning how to build & design furniture out of wood, he started writing on her piano. Tim came back to San Francisco to record, but first he had a fervent dream that Johnny Thunders asked him to be honest & simple with this album, and also why dolphins were not given arms. He booked studio time with a very talented fellow named Jeremy Harris and they worked together out of a studio in the Dogpatch district of SF (owned and run by Paul from the UK band The Bees. Jeremy was able to learn the songs on piano, keys and finesse the parts, including most drums and also record/engineer the whole album. Also playing on the album, is S.F. Mission district native Dylan Hadley who plays drums on two songs: ‘Until You Walk’ & ‘Forever Chained’ and H. Hawkline adding guitar and vocals on ‘Phone.’

With this new record Tim re-learned how to walk. The poppy stomp. He’d been tethered to a hawk, that he must feed on the dot. While ‘I Have To Feed Larry’s Hawk’ has tinges of both sides in its ’60s guitars and whimsical, pastoral folk, however, what dominates is Tim’s ability to pen strange, warm tracks like ‘Lorelei’ that are totally out of step yet tug on familiar melodic heartstrings. Like Syd Barrett or, more recently, Euros Childs before him, White Fence continues to make the peripheries seem oddly accessible. Things really soar when Presley privileges space and simplicity and with this album he’s created a bare-bones, diary like project that bounces between optimism and melancholy. ‘I Have To Feed Larry’s Hawk’ came out on Drag City this January.
https://timpresley.bandcamp.com/

Hash Redactor debut album announced!

Triumphant news! We’re teaming up with Goner to release Hash Redactor’s debut album on April 26th, who they? Hash Redactor are fronted by guitarist Alec McIntyre of Ex-Cult, with NOTS rhythm warriors Meredith Lones on bass and Charlotte Watson on drums, plus George Williford on second guitar. ‘Drecksound’, is their debut LP, diving into territory that feels distinctly untethered from their era.  It’s a clattering, shambolic oasis in the sleek digital desert. A flailing, nihilistic quake of buckled, cathartic punk. Available to pre-order now, including a limited mint green vinyl version with bonus poster.

Listen to ‘Good Sense’ now, it just premiered on Clash!

The Essex Green in London this May 10th!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

THE ESSEX GREEN
Friday 10 May
Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA
7.30pm | £10 | https://link.dice.fm/the-essex-green-redon

THE ESSEX GREEN are a neo-psychedelic pop outfit from Brooklyn, NY, via Burlington, VT. The band is primarily composed of songwriters Jeff Baron, Sasha Bell, and Chris Ziter and specialises in a classic sound inspired by 1960s–1970s pop and folk in the tradition of bands like The Left Banke and Fairport Convention. The group’s new album ‘Hardly Electronic’ was released through Merge last summer and is stacked with harmonies, upbeat melodies telling melancholy tales, layers of keys, and sparkling Telecasters. Their time-honored custom of fusing obsession with spontaneity has been refined through experience and wisdom. ‘Hardly Electronic’ explores the evolution of old friendships, the sadness of losing touch, the inadequacies of technology, and finally, the desire for reconnection with songs like “Bye Bye Crow” and “Slanted by Six.” Themes of connectivity are on display in the war cry chorus of “Don’t Leave It in Our Hands,” while songs like “Bristol Sky” and “January Says” hint at how the same technology-connected culture can create division and distance, even in the most personal of relationships. On the flip side, the wonders of technology (and jumbo jets) made the recording possible. With Chris and Jeff in Vermont and Sasha living in Montana, finding ways to work together was challenging. The result is classic Essex Green sonic diversity.
http://www.essexgreen.com/

New VITAL IDLES 7" EP + London shows for Kristin Hersh, The Shifters and Wolf Eyes (solo sets)

Hello there!   Glasgow’s Vital Idles return next week with an epic 7" extended player for Upset The Rhythm. ‘EP’ collects four astonishing new tracks of intensity, momentum and minimal pop practice. With this next step, Vital Idles have sharpened their observational approach and grown into their stripped-down sound, they are truly on a mission. Don’t take our word for it though, have a good listen yourself to lead single Break A.   March 8th sees this crucial spiral of music hit record shops, you can also pre-order the 7” from our very own web-shop here.

To coincide with this momentous release, Vital Idles have also announced the following tour dates too! Such places!   20/03 - Brighton, UK @ East Street Tap 21/03 - Paris, FR @ Le Zorba 22/03 - Brussels, BE @ Super Fourchette 23/03 - Rotterdam, NL @ Roodkapje 24/03 - Amsterdam, NL @ Butcher's Tears 25/03 - Antwerp, BE @ Cabron 26/03 - Lille, FR @ DIY Cafe 27/03 - London, UK @ The Dome 28/03 - Glasgow, UK @ CCA 30/03 - Manchester, UK @ White Hotel

Those last three dates are part of our Upset The Rhythm 15th anniversary label celebrationsth anniversary label celebrations across the UK too.   Quick reminder of those bountiful concerts for you here, not long to wait now for the fireworks:   27/03 - London, UK @ The Dome 28/03 - Glasgow, UK @ CCA   29/03 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club   30/03 - Manchester, UK @ White Hotel   31/03 - Cardiff, UK @ Clwb Ifor Bach

We’ve some select London shows coming up this month for you. See below for in-depth write-ups of next week’s Kristin Hersh electric trio shows at Bush Hall. We’ve also detailed March 14th’s outing to The Lexington with Melbourne quintet The Shifters and March 22nd’s Wolf Eyes solo concert at Iklectik with Nate Young and John R. Spykes Olson.   Alongside those and the UTR label tour, we also have March shows the David Nance Group and Xiu Xiu too! Now don’t say we don’t spoil you rotten! ha

Since we last spoke, Upset The Rhythm has also lined up a host of future live performances from the likes of Brigid Mae Power, Irma Vep and Es for April, Chris Cohen, Hen Ogledd, Lankum, Ana da Silva & Phew for May and Advance Base (Owen Ashworth) this July.   Tickets for all of these can be found in our programme of events that concludes this missive, enjoy!

Upset The Rhythm presents…   KRISTIN HERSH (Electric Trio) With ROB AHLERS (drums) & FRED ABONG (bass) FRED ABONG (support set) Sunday 10 March & Tuesday 12 March Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ 7.30pm | £25 | TICKETS FOR MARCH 10 /  TICKETS FOR MARCH 12   KRISTIN HERSH, most recognised as the front person for the influential art-punk band Throwing Muses and power trio 50FOOTWAVE, will be touring the UK in Spring 2019 with Rob Ahlers (50 Foot Wave) on drums and Fred Abong (Throwing Muses, Belly) on bass. 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 ground-breaking 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. Kristin's tenth studio album, 'Possible Dust Clouds' (out this October on Fire Records) is a highly personalised sociopathic gem delivered as a futuristic rewriting of how music works, a melodious breeze with a tail wind of venomous din. Enveloping the juxtaposition of the concept of 'dark sunshine', a brooding solo record created with friends to expand her off-kilter sonic vision; a squally, squeaky mix of discordant beauty. 'Possible Dust Clouds' is a glorious return to form for one of alternative rock's true innovators. https://www.kristinhersh.com/   FRED ABONG will be supporting Kristin on her current UK tour dates. Fred is a friend of Kristin’s and former Throwing Muses and Belly bass player. Fred will be touring his new solo acoustic EP, described by himself as sounding like a “ragged Replacements”. http://www.fredabong.com/music/

Upset The Rhythm presents…   THE SHIFTERS DRY CLEANING THE COOL GREENHOUSE Thursday 14 March The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS THE SHIFTERS are a quintet from Melbourne, who after two 7” singles and demo tape, just unveiled their first proper full-length album entitled ‘Have a Cunning Plan’ (Trouble In Mind). Recorded at Al Montfort of Total Control/Terry’s home studio, ‘Have A Cunning Plan’ ups the fidelity a bit, tempering the up-front crunch of their previous demo. The sonic space suits the band, allowing the unpretentious complexity of the songs & lyrics to generate the “oomph” rather than bludgeoning the listener with treble and feedback. The album showcases ten new tracks by the band at their best; scrappy, self-destructive, stumbling and brilliant pop music that seems tossed off or nonchalant on the surface but is rife with rewards upon further listening. Early album bangers like “Molasses” and the first single “Work/Life, Gym Etc” are instant earworms, (as are “Straight Lines” & “Pyramid Scheme”, the latter reworked from a recent 7-inch) but it’s the simple-yet-sophisticated songcraft of tunes like “How Long?” or the languid strum of “Andrew Bolt” that are heavy on mood and are vehicles for vocalist/guitarist Miles Jansen’s erudite lyrics that simultaneously celebrate and decry the banality of life, while also tackling larger issues of colonialism conservatism’s effects on society at large. On the surface, there’s no denying the band owe a heavy debt to The Fall, but whatever seeds were planted by the late, great Mark E. Smith, have gestated into an animal all their own. ‘Have A Cunning Plan’ aims to take them towards a greater plane. https://theshiftersofmelbourne.bandcamp.com/ DRY CLEANING are a south London quartet who carve out vast post punk canyons with a dry, narrative-driven vocal. You can hear the everyday collide with the profound in their songs, which are as insightful and acutely honest as they are highly catchy. Check out their ‘Sweet Princess’ tape right now! https://drycleaning.bandcamp.com/releases THE COOL GREENHOUSE make lo-fi, repetitive post-punk with a social conscience. Their debut 7” on Market Square is a treat of elusive DIY moves and sarcastic wit. Very reminiscent of the early 80s post-punk cassette scene and messthetics compilation groups. https://thecoolgreenhouse.bandcamp.com/releases

Upset The Rhythm presents… NATE YOUNG JOHN R. SPYKES Friday 22 March IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG 7.30pm | £11 | TICKETS  NATE YOUNG is a founding member of seminal Detroit noise band Wolf Eyes. More recently he's been honing an equally distinctive solo sound that blends myriad sources from musique concrète, vintage film atmospherics, layered synths and archive library recordings into something thrillingly intense. Summoning up crushingly ominous crepuscular soundscapes and synth-washed phantasmagoria, Young undercuts the brutalism of Wolf Eyes with the kind of ambient dread that conjures images of lost horror soundtracks from the 70's. Minimal analogue synth violence is punctuated by thunder cracks of metal percussion ala the early Akita/Null Merzbow duets, massively doomy beat hypnotics and an atmosphere that's somewhere between the most apocalyptic Throbbing Gristle recordings. This February sees the release of ‘Dilemmas of Identity’, volume one in a new multi-part series of solo releases from Young for Lower Floor Music. These songs were commonly made as a distraction from grief, seasonal depression and isolation. Sometimes severely ridiculous and unrelenting, other times slow, sparse and strange. https://soundcloud.com/nate-young        JOHN R. SPYKES aka Inzane Johnny Olson of Wolf Eyes and American Tapes will be treating us to a solo slice from his mind platter, featuring damaged rippers and modulations galore. As a part of Wolf Eyes, John Olson is responsible for augmenting the USA's longest-running homemade, primitive, electronic, poetry & radical vibes trio. They don't just release albums they launch scotched, taped nuclear audio fronts on humanity. Spykes is a project Olson has visited many times since its inception in 1999, constantly unearthing new sounds from the same old grey feelings of Midwestern winters inside. Absolute free jams promised, firing on all cylinders, a warped madness of atomised sonics. https://soundcloud.com/john-olson-14/john-r-spykes-january-hangs-onto-nothing-one

Thanks for your time, have a brilliant weekend! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

KRISTIN HERSH (Electric trio)

With ROB AHLERS (drums) & FRED ABONG (bass)

FRED ABONG Sunday 10 March & Tuesday 12 March
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ
7.30pm | £25 | TICKETS MARCH 10 /  TICKETS MARCH 12

 

THE SHIFTERS
DRY CLEANING

COOL GREENHOUSE
Thursday 14 March
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS

 

NATE YOUNG
JOHN R. SPYKES

 (Solo sets from members of WOLF EYES)
Friday 22 March
IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG
7.30pm | £11 | TICKETS

 

DAVID NANCE GROUP
YERBA MANSA

MÄDCHEN 84

Monday 25 March
The Shacklewell Arms, 71 Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London, E8 2EB
8pm | £7 | TICKETS

 

XIU XIU

(Jamie Stewart, Thor Harris & Jordan Gieger)

JOHN BENCE
Tuesday 26 March
Islington Assembly Hall, Upper St, Islington, London, N1 2UD
7pm | £13.50 | TICKETS

 

Upset The Rhythm 15th anniversary label party!
SAUNA YOUTH
TRASH KIT
GUTTERSNIPE
VITAL IDLES
RATTLE
DOG CHOCOLATE Wednesday 27 March
Tufnell Park Dome, 2A Dartmouth Park Hill, London, NW5 1HL
5.30pm - 11pm | £10 | TICKETS  

 

JANDEK
Tuesday 2 April
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ
7.30pm | £18 | TICKETS

 

THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS
MOSQUITOES
Friday 5 April
Moth Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, Hackney Central, London, E9 6NU
7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS

 

COOLIES
THE RENDERERS

FUN FUN FUNERAL
Saturday 6 April
The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB
7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS

 

ALEX REX

MYLES MANLEY

Wednesday 10 April

SET Space, 27A Dalston Ln, London, E8 3DF

7.30pm | £6 | TICKETS

 

IRMA VEP
ES
POWERPLANT
Thursday 11 April
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle St, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £6 | TICKETS

 

LEA BERTUCCI: Projection/Reflection

Tuesday 16 April

IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London, SE1 7LG

7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS

 

BRIGID MAE POWER
AOIFE NESSA FRANCES
Tuesday 23rd April
Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL
7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS

 

HEN OGLEDD
Tuesday 14 May
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ
7.30pm | £14 | TICKETS

 

PRIESTS

Thursday 16 May

100 Club, Oxford Street, London, W1D 1LL

7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS

 

ANA DA SILVA & PHEW
Monday 27 May
St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, London, NW1 1UL
7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS

 

LANKUM

Tuesday 28 May & Wednesday 29 May

In association with Cafe OTO, 18-22 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL

7.30pm | £16.50 each day, £30 two-day pass | TICKETS

 

CHRIS COHEN
Wednesday 29 May
MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette Street, London, E8 1EL
7.30pm | £9 | TICKETS

 

ADVANCE BASE
Monday 22 July
Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA
7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS

 

 

Hen Ogledd prepare to land in London this May!

Upset The Rhythm presents….

HEN OGLEDD
Tuesday 14 May
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ
7.30pm | £14 |  https://link.dice.fm/vrtzWaeVCU

HEN OGLEDD is a project founded by Richard Dawson and harpist, Rhodri Davies, with the addition of Dawn Bothwell and Sally Pilkington. The name of the group is a reference from the Welsh for The Old North. Each hailing from historically different tribal regions of the Old North, the musicians in Hen Ogledd challenge the idea that the ancient world was rife with magic, while the new is infiltrated by cold logic. This has led to the band’s new album for Weird World, ‘Mogic’, being created. This third record from the group is a phantasmal blend of images and ideas that draw upon the mystical and technological. ‘Mogic’ is a discombobulating pop prayer exploring artificial intelligence, witches, nanotechnology, pre-medieval history, robots, romance, computer games and waterfalls. This dynamic album of eddies and swirls, ravishing melodies, hallucinatory textures and rapid rhythms is pinned down by some deft performances: Pilkington’s picture-perfect pop and earthy singing, Davies’ blazing harp splutterations and guitar moans, Bothwell's twisted telephone techno and bamboozling lyric-bombs and Dawson's utter bass. No small mention must go to special guest Will Guthrie, one of the finest and classiest drummers there is, who's all over this record like long grass on dunes. ‘Mogic’ was released last November and supported by a short tour of the UK, this new date follows on from their sold out Courtyard Theatre extravangaza and Late Junction festival appearance..
https://www.henogledd.com/

Chris Cohen - London date announced!

 Upset The Rhythm presents…

CHRIS COHEN
Wednesday 29 May
MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette Street, London, E8 1EL
7.30pm | £9 | https://dice.fm/chris-cohen-29th-may-moth-club-london-tickets

CHRIS COHEN’s songs initially sound easy. They’re each tiny jewels that unfurl at a leisurely pace, but dig a little deeper and you’ll reach a melancholy core. His previous two albums, 2012’s ‘Overgrown Path’, and 2016’s ‘As If Apart’, were built from lush, blurry tracks that embedded themselves in your subconscious, like they’d always been there. ‘Chris Cohen’, his new solo album on Captured Tracks, was written and recorded in his Lincoln Heights studio and at Tropico Beauties in Glendale, California over the course of the last two years. Cohen would sing melodies into his phone, fleshing them out on piano, then constructing songs around the melodies, and later, adding lyrics and other instrumentation with the help of Katy Davidson (Dear Nora), Luke Csehak (Happy Jawbone Family Band), Zach Phillips, and saxophonist Kasey Knudsen, among others. It is his most straightforward album yet, but it is also the conclusion of an unofficial cycle that began with ‘Overgrown Path’. ‘Chris Cohen’ is an album about pain and loss but it’s also about accepting loss. Of the song “Green Eyes,” Cohen says “[It’s about] the men in my family and how they passed their worldview along to each other from great emotional distances. My father and grandfather were full of secrets and longing, which were communicated through everyday actions like driving a car or cooking a meal. We all wanted closeness, but never found it in each other.” This is a statement about a specific song, but it is also a statement about the album as a whole: it’s a beautiful sound, but it’s also unflinching in its depiction of emotional turmoil.
https://chriscohen.bandcamp.com/

NEW SHOW: Advance Base in London this July!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

ADVANCE BASE
Monday 22 July
Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA
7.30pm | £12 | https://link.dice.fm/advance-base-redon

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/

Ana da Silva & Phew - London concert announced today!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

ANA DA SILVA & PHEW
Monday 27 May
St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, NW1 1UL

7.30pm | £10 | https://link.dice.fm/ana-da-silva-st-pancras-old-church


ANA DA SILVA & PHEW have a new collaborative album entitled Island, full of absorbing textures, tactile beats, and a masterfully dynamic compositional style. Each cavernous track feels like a conversation, and out of the ominous dark comes a generative hope. Ana and Phew contribute pointillist bits of spoken word in each other’s native tongues of Portuguese and Japanese, reflecting on isolation, friendship, and nature. The quotidian is made profound. A gripping mood is set by the shared stoicism and subtle playfulness of these two cult punk icons. Island’s logic is one of wise minimalism. There is a feeling of discovery that will be familiar to Raincoats fans—a sense of poetry and inquisitiveness, of intuition and invention, of new languages taking shape.

Ana da Silva is a founding member and songwriter of the pioneering post-punk band The Raincoats. Across four daring full-length records, The Raincoats helped shape the timeless notion that punk is what you make it - an act of raw expression, not any one sound. The Raincoats have offered creative and spiritual inspiration for several generations of artists. They set a crucial precedent for feminist work within a DIY punk context, marked all the while by Ana’s poetic lyrical style and innovative noise guitar playing.

After The Raincoats’ hiatus in 1984, Ana collaborated with The Go-Betweens, This Heat’s Charles Hayward and choreographer/dancer Gaby Agis. Ana returned to song writing and performing with The Raincoats after Kurt Cobain invited them to tour with Nirvana shortly before his untimely death in 1994, and they released an album ‘Looking in the Shadows’ in 1995 on DGC and Rough Trade. In 2005, Ana released her solo debut, ‘The Lighthouse’ - a self-recorded collection of spare, elegant experiments in electronic indie-pop. Ana’s recent appearances with The Raincoats include a 2016 collaboration with Angel Olsen for Rough Trade’s 40th anniversary, as well as a 2017 presentation at The Kitchen, New York of The Raincoats and Friends, a celebration of Jenn Pelly’s book The Raincoats.
http://www.anadasilva.net/

Phew consolidated her binary interests as a vocal performer and analogue electronics improviser with the 2017 release of her album ‘Voice Hardcore’. Indeed, since her 2013 conversion to analogue electronics Phew has continued evolving her live solo project around the world. In 2015 she released her first almost entirely solo-driven album, aptly titled ‘A New World’, on the Japanese label Felicity featuring nine songs backed by herself on electronics and drum machine, with contributions from Deerhoof guitarist John Dieterich, and synthesizer / electronics player Hiroyuki Nagashima.

In 1978 Phew started out as the singer in Aunt Sally, the Osaka punk group who released just one outstanding album on Vanity Records. A year later Phew released her debut solo single, produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto. In 1981 she made her debut solo album ‘Phew’ at legendary producer Conny Plank’s studio near Cologne, accompanied by Plank, and Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit. She returned to Conny’s studio to make ‘Our Likeness’ (Mute, 1992) with Jaki Liebezeit, former DAF/Liaisons Dangereuses member Chrislo Haas and Einstürzende Neubauten’s Alexander Hacke. And in 2011, she and Erika Kobayashi formed Project UNDARK to record the texts of ‘Radium Girls’ with music by the late Dieter Moebius, of Cluster. In Japan she has made a series of acclaimed records under her own name and with leading bands such as Novo Tono and her contemporary punk group Most too.
https://phewjapan.bandcamp.com/