JAMES HARRAR’S ‘CINEMA SOLORIENS’ featuring DAEVID ALLEN & MARSHALL ALLEN, Cube, 1st
Cinema Soloriens is film-maker and musician Harrar’s now 18-year creative partnership with the remarkable alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, now 88 years young and still leading Sun Ra Arkestra over 50 years since joining Ra’s endlessly exploratory space-jazz ensemble. Together, Harrar and Allen compose live soundtracks to the former’s personal and experimental films exploring the cosmic, spiritual and meditative. Not entirely surprising, given the brief, that this touring incarnation sees Gong founder Daevid Allen augment the duo, adding his inimitable psychedelic shades to the jazz/electronic/ethnographic melting pot. Caution: may contain hippies.
HOOKWORMS / JOANNA GRUESOME / BRANDYMAN, Undertone, 2nd
Speaker-rattling psych-rock and drawn-out, spacey drones whose illicit charms draw heavily on generations of forebears, the staggering debut from Leeds’ Hookworms expertly distils the intensity and thrill of psychedelic music; Velvets/Spacemen 3 narcotic dreams, the insistent motorik grooves and washing machine guitar churn of Loop or Wooden Shjips and vocals that eschew zoned-out mumblings for an adrenalised Sky Saxon/Roky Erickson garage-punk yelp. Low-key presentation, anti-image attitude and DIY fervour (Pearl Mystic comes out on Nottingham’s excellent Gringo label) sets them further apart from poseur also-rans. They’re also fearsomely loud, drenched in reverb and walls of fuzz that ought to make for a visceral and damaging live experience. Excellent support from two of Cardiff’s finest complete a bill that’s complementary rather than samey, Shape once again nailing one of the month’s finest gigs. Don’t be late.
RICHARD JAMES / NO THEE NO ESS, Sherman, 4th
Hats off to Adam Jones and the Sherman’s team, making excellent use of the lovely foyer space afforded by the building’s revamp with a series of semi-acoustic showcases of excellent local bands. Free entry and a bar selling Celt ales, too. Ratatosk, Gentle Good, Sweet Baboo, Threatmantics and R.Seiliog have already appeared, and this time frequent collaborators Richard James and No Thee No Ess are there. No reason to miss this, unless you’re planning on talking through it in which case you can do one.
SWANS / XIU XIU, o2 Academy, 6th
As a statement of intent, Swans’ remarkable magnum opus The Seer would be laudable at any point in any band’s career. Coming two years into a reformation following a 15-year hiatus, and a full 30 years after their formation, it’s nothing short of astounding. Michael Gira described it as being “the culmination of every previous Swans album, as well as any other music I’ve ever made, been involved in or imagined”, and its unrivalled scope and all-consuming energy bears all the hallmarks of a life’s work. It has coal-black Gothic incantations, walls of pummelling rhythm and noise and passages of extreme beauty. It’s visceral and apocalyptic, challenging and questing, reflective and forward-looking, and it’s remarkably fun, gripping and intense, and demands attention across two hours like the most vital art should do. Bringing this work to the stage will be no mean feat, yet you suspect that someone of Gira’s resilience and vision will relish it. They’re joined in a weighty double-header by Xiu Xiu, Jamie Stewart himself celebrating a decade of making intensely personal, provocative pop music. Just a shame the Arnolfini won’t be hosting this as originally planned.
ADAM GREEN & BINKI SHAPIRO, Thekla, 10th
In which erratic, occasionally inspired singer-songwriter, noted bon vivant and budding artist/film-maker Green teams up with Shapiro, member of Strokes drummer Fab Moretti’s sideline band Little Joy. More Lee & Nancy than the scatological, gleefully potty-mouthed and occasionally touching Moldy Peaches a decade and more ago, their self-titled LP is a breezy, knowing pleasure which puts the warm, romantic siren call of Shapiro’s voice at the forefront and builds subtly effective, chiming arrangements of sighing Brill Building pop and Gram Parsons country-soul around it. Dialling down the irony and shock-value non-sequiturs prevalent in even Green’s best work, it carries the appeal of similar duet projects – She & Him, most obviously – but bests them at every turn. Well worth investigating.
COMANECHI / JEMMA ROPER, Buffalo, 10th
A second home run of the month from Shape, wherein the now three-piece Comanechi make their first visit to Cardiff since a shit-kicking double bill with Divorce back in 2010. If you saw that, or their monumental gig with Ponytail at Tommy’s Bar the previous year, you’ll recall bare-wires grunge-punk with hardcore attitude and grimy Evol-era Sonic Youth dynamic range delivered by a rail-thin seven-foot guitarist and an unhinged force of nature on drums and vicious, hilarious vocals. New album You Owe Me Nothing But Love, their first as a trio, is not unexpectedly a fuller-sounding, more diverse listen, but the clenched-teeth, restrained Akiko is no less captivating and fun than before. Visceral and lean, fun with gleaming fangs bared. Jemma Roper’s brittle, luminous and thrilling electro-pop and epic art-rock swoon is the irresistable bait before the trap springs.
DEVILMAN / WALTER GROSS / BOOZE, Buffalo, 12th
NEXT JOY COLLECTIVE PRESENTATION! This time we team up with excellent dudes FYB to bring you this multi-headed noise beast. Praise be to London/Berlin label Small But Hard and its co-founder Shige aka DJ Scotch Egg for the double hit of foundation-troubling bass and bewildering noise at the top of this bill; the tripartate dub-terror monster that is Devilman is comprised of Shige himself, vocalist Taigen of Bo Ningen and Gorgonn of Dokkebi Q on live mixing. Their self-titled album hums with claustrophobic, static-wreathed bass throbs, warped stabs of melody and crunching, metallic beats. Spooky, disorientating and masses of fun. Walter Gross is a crazily prolific beatmaker and sound artist out of Baltimore who’s worked extensively in hip-hop circles (with Anticon’s Sole and Pedestrian, with k-the-i??? in hyper-dense, dälek/Company Flow-style duo Youth:Kill) and whose deconstructed, sample-heavy ambient soundworld has been captured on dozens of CDRs and cassettes. Think Clouddead, Odd Nosdam, Tobacco etc except way messier. Speaking of which, Booze are the horrific result of three men drinking a bottle of whiskey each before attempting to play rock music. They don’t try it often, for reasons which will become clear. Impossible to look away from. It’s an early gig too (7pm till 10pm): get yourself along!
CUBE FUNDRAISER ‘DUST UP THE PLOUGH’: ZUN ZUN EGUI / BUGBRAND / OLANZA / DJ BASS CLEF, The Plough, Easton, 13th
If you’ve been to the Cube Microplex you’ll know how unique it is, even within the teeming DIY culture of Stokes Croft and Bristol as a whole. A volunteer-run arthouse cinema, gig venue and cultural and artistic hub with a vital and all-inclusive community spirit, its downhome charms make it a wonderful place to hang out. They’ve leased their building privately for fifteen years, and they’d now like to see that all their hard work is invested directly back into Cube facilities and projects; as a result, they’ve negotiated a price to buy the building freehold, and they’re appealing for donations of help. If I haven’t sold this enough, read more on the whys and wherefores here; meantime, this fundraiser across town at the Plough on Easton Road provides plenty of reasons to dig deep aside from the cause itself. Zun Zun Egui’s genre-smashing, cross-continental punk-funk-prog-Afrobeat bricolage is always a joy to behold, punching through any last vestiges of audience aloofness bearing a massive, life-affirming heart and fizzing danceability. Bristol’s melting pot musical and cultural history made flesh, he observed pompously. Eclectic support comes from Bugbrand (home-built synths and vintage drum machines creating wonky Detroit-flavoured electronica), hefty post-hardcore instrumental dudes Olanza and a fine DJ line-up headed by Bass Clef. A neat summation of the kind of thing the Cube fosters so well, and a cracking night out.
VERONICA FALLS / BRILLIANT COLORS, Fleece, 16th
An inability to pin Veronica Falls down is one of their most likeable assets; far too many have tried to usher them into easy c86/indiepop or girl-group revival pigeonholes, as if their co-ed lineup and penchant for scuffed-edged, 60s-tinged pop were enough to lump them in with this or that six month fad. They’re a trickier, far more pleasing proposition; a cursory look beyond the scuffed, hurried early singles – lo-fi by necessity, not intention – reveals swooping, dolorous guitar pop with a stack of huge choruses, wonderfully mordant lyricisim and a knack for recalling variously the bookish jangle-pop of early REM or the Chills, the crystalline gloom of Camera Obscura and the scuffed-up 60s nuggets of the Aislers Set. A second album that casually ups the ante on the first without either replicating it in higher fidelity or self-consciously ‘growing up’ doesn’t hurt either. Brilliant Colors, Slumberland labelmates of VF in America, do a pleasingly smudged, breakneck version of the Shop Assistants-indebted stylings the label specialises in, with blink-and-it’s-over debut Introducing one of the better overlooked gems of its kind in recent years.
JESSICA BAILIFF / BODUF SONGS / ROBIN ALLENDER, Cube, 18th
Blurry, fuzzed-out slowcore a la Flying Saucer Attack or Windy & Carl shot through with gorgeous, dreamy Slowdive / Mazzy Star melodies and Grouper’s otherworldliness. Ohioan Bailiff’s 2012 album At The Down-Turned Jagged Rim Of The Sky refines her writing and aligns the folk and drone elements of her music more sharply than ever, a place where Broadcast and Bardo Pond meet. Fellow Kranky artist Mat Sweet, aka Boduf Songs deals, in mordant, claustrophobic unease and delicate, glacial art-folk arrangements for piano, electronics and guitar capable of recalling Aphex, Broderick or Hebden in their quieter moments but building to ominous, fuzzy rock crescendos. Like Gravenhurst swallowing cloudy salt water. Opening is ex-Azalea City Penis Club er, member Allender, whose fingerpicked guitar and low-key, thoughtful songcraft fits in here very nicely.
PAN SHOWCASE: LEE GAMBLE / NHK’ KOXYEN / RENE HELL / HELM / BILL KOULIGAS, Arnolfini, 18th
Stellar line-up representing PAN, one of 2012’s most written-about labels whose singular visual aesthetic and roster of often uncategorisable electronic music has delivered a clutch of essential releases. Chief among these are Lee Gamble’s brilliant deconstructions of / tributes to the music of his youth, the jungle tape collage Diversions 1994-1996 and the otherworldly, submerged post-techno of Dutch Tvashar Plumes. These have maybe represented a swerve towards more accessible territory for Gamble and PAN alike, both making their names with more challenging sound art, concrete and noise but seeking closer alignment with the dancefloor in the manner of, say Actress or the Modern Love label. The same could be said of Helm, whose dense sound explorations on Impossible Symmetry work Demdike Stare’s ethnographic bass heft into the oblique industrial post-punk of Cabaret Voltaire, while NHK’Koyxen (seen here last year with DJ Scotch Bonnet) sculpts and chops hip-hop, techno and blissed-out drone n’ crackle into new shapes. Oneohtrix collaborator Rene Hell and label boss Kouligas complete a storming bill, with the Arnolfini site noting an afterparty too.
JAMES YORKSTON / PICTISH TRAIL / SEAMUS FOGARTY, Louisiana, 19th
Nice cosy get-together for Fence Records gentlemen past and present. Six albums in it’s the subtle differences that stand out and keep you coming back, and while his familiar brogue and boozy, woozy acoustic spirituals show no sign of dimming Yorkston’s latest I Was A Cat From A Book takes a gorgeously languid full-band tumble through the Canterbury folk of Ayers and Wyatt, a pinch of Bryter Layter and even, well, a bit of Van Morrison. Jonny Lynch’s scattered works as The Pictish Trail represent the other side of Fence, that of Lone Pigeon, where lo-fi experimentation, DIY beats and rusty, rickety synth-driven concoctions coalesce into something odd, personal and moving. His Secret Soundz Vol 2, produced by Sweet Baboo, takes the homemade electronica and insistent pop showcased on tour with Malcolm Middleton a couple of years back and shines it up while encouraging Lynch’s magpie curiosity to flourish. Ireland’s Seamus Fogarty could be a carefully drawn-up mid-point of the two, his kitchen-sink arrangements and menagerie of found sounds dressing up twinkling folk songs in strange new duds. If you recall Mull Historical Society or UNPOC with fondness from a decade or so back, you should probably already have a ticket for this.
PERE UBU / VARIETY LIGHTS, Thekla, 19th
Coming up on four decades in music and David Thomas is as unique and mercurial a presence as ever. Pere Ubu’s 15th album, Lady From Shanghai is thrillingly of the now, leaving only quizzical, arch lyrical clues as to its provenance (‘Mandy”s refrain of “I could sleep for a thousand years” is shared with ‘Venus In Furs’, and ‘Thanks’ is a brilliant, blank-faced appropriation of Anita Ward’s disco classic ‘Ring My Bell’). It’s a fascinatingly knotty, complex record, as alive with the possibilities of sound and the chaos at its boundaries as anything in their storied 37 years as a band. Comparisons with the Fall are as inevitable now as ever, but Thomas’ and the band’s focus is sharper than the Fall have been in years; Thomas’ fevered lyricism and that inimitable, sour falsetto are in fine shape, and the mix of driving art-garage, needling synth chatter and outré sound-art is, at this stage in their career, perhaps matched only by Wire. Two songs into Variety Lights’ debut Central Flow and you’ll spot the unmistakable voice of David Baker, frontman of Mercury Rev’s tripped-out masterpieces Yerself Is Steam and Boces; this is his first widespread release in around 18 years, centring largely around chunky MIDI synths, treated guitars and Baker’s familiar giddy incantations and off-kilter warble. A mixed bag but a decent, appropriate supporting choice.
MELVINS LITE / BIG BUSINESS, Exchange, 22nd
Revisiting 2011’s ‘Endless Residency’ US tour, they’ll play two further Exchange shows in May with mammoth sets comprised of five classic Melvins albums. Here they appear as Melvins Lite, with the core duo of Buzz and Dale augmented by Mr. Bungle / Fantomas / Tomahawk virtuoso Trevor Dunn on bass, although just to be even more bloody-minded they’re supported by Big Business, the other half of the current Melvins line-up. Got that? Good. As Melvins Lite they released 2012’s Freak Puke album, which while as head-spinningly diverse as their usual fare is (for the most part) airier and less suffocatingly heavy. Their signature treacly sludge-rock is tempered with grizzled but hugely fun excursions into desert boogie, and Dunn’s presence on upright and even bowed basses allows them to stretch out into semi-acoustic, freeform jams. The hardy will go for all three nights, but if that’s a bit of a stretch then this will be a neat one-off diversion.
…AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD / TURBOWOLF, Great Hall 2, 22nd
Probably unfair to react to news of this one with surprise that they’re still going, but long after Trail Of Dead’s sometimes awkward evolution from untethered Daydream Nation thrash with Who-scale ambition into more florid arena rock complexity they play a rare Cardiff show (their first? Other than the infamously curtailed non-appearance at John Peel’s Coal Exchange gig in 2000 when the Texas authorities threw them in chokey, I can’t recall one). On record they’ve largely been subject to diminishing returns since three or four albums in, although the schizophrenic musical peaks and troughs and multiple line-up shuffles are less the mark of creative stasis and more the inevitable result of unrealistic, slavish press expectations and subsequent puffed-cheeked confusion when their more grandiose attempts at meeting them fell short. Frankly their crash-and-burn bullheadedness has always been one of TOD’s most endearing qualities, and it’s the same attitude that’s seen them pull off storming, inclusive live shows in the midst of spotty musical output, 2007’s massively enjoyable, fat-free greatest hits-in-waiting at the Thekla a memorable example. Whether the crowds are still there is a moot point, but I doubt the band’s attitude has lessened.
PHYSICS HOUSE BAND / RIGHT HAND LEFT HAND / WICKET, Buffalo, 27th
Chiefly of interest in heralding the live return of the mighty RHLH, for whom this will be the first gig since June by my reckoning, and who will headline our alldayer in Dempseys on June 15th *NEPOTISM KLAXON*. They’re writing and recording a follow up to Power Grab, which is excellent news, and will be utilising the twin drumkit approach with which they slew Swn festival in 2011. Don’t stand at the front unless you want a pair of drumsticks thrust into your hand. My glib introduction does Physics House Band quite the disservice, though; labelmates of Gallops and Three Trapped Tigers, they crunch similar post-rock and electronica influences together with nutso Italo soundtrack vibes and breakneck prog tempo changes. Gallingly good for ones so young. Arrive early for Wicket, too; classically tricksy math-rock recalling the much-missed Zail where the core elements (chiming and/or winding guitars, airtight drumming) are nailed down early and augmented carefully with keys, electronics and pleasing Thrill Jockey minimalism. Very promising stuff.
ANTHONY REYNOLDS: A SMALL SPIT OF LAND, East Moors Community Centre, 27th
Anthony Reynolds’ band Jack cut such a swathe through late-night mid-90s radio broadcasts that it seemed genuinely impossible that they could have come from Cardiff. Classic Beats imagery, crooned, string-drenched Walker/Brel symphonies to bad alcohol and worse women and the same gutter-dwelling, star-gazing rumpled cool practiced by Gallon Drunk, Flaming Stars and the nascent Tindersticks made them appear such an archetypally London band. Latterly back in Wales, Reynolds’ musical work since their demise – with frequent collabortor Kirk Lake, with Martin Carr and author Colin Wilson, with Charlotte Greig – has been parallel to his collected poetry and prose, well-received biographies and theatrical pieces. A veteran of Laugharne and frequent visitor to Chapter, where A Small Spit Of Land – his song-cycle account of his Splott childhood – had an early run-out last year, he returns to perform the work in full with an impressive cast including Richard James, pianist/composer Paul Jones and the Adamsdown Community Choir. East Moors Community Centre is on Sanquhar Street, in a Splott/Adamsdown no-mans-land itself rich in history, and you can expect Reynolds’ evocative snapshots of Cardiff past and personal to be intriguing and rewarding.
