Loads of great stuff to check out this month. I’ve not included Calexico, The Bronx or Dinosaur Jr’s gigs because you don’t need me to tell you who they are (plus, DJ’s Fiddlers gig sold out aaaaages ago). Have a browse of the gig guide page for all the other stuff I’ve missed…
BEAK> / THE DEATH OF HER MONEY, Buffalo, 1st
The sort of booking that elicits a spontaneous round of applause, this is a hell of a way to start the month. FYB are sorting out some excellent and nicely eclectic line-ups of late, and if coaxing Beak> across the Severn bridge seems so obvious that it’s a wonder no-one else thought of it then all the more credit to them. The untethered, improvisational Krautrock jams of Beak>’s debut saw Geoff Barrow lock into hypnotic Can-like drum patterns and allow his bandmates to veer off at will into buzzing, synth-heavy acid rock and clammy proto-metal. The loose, unrehearsed approach means album two arrives with a broader range, leaning heavier on the frazzled Silver Apples psych, huge looming stoner riffs and stentorian synth drones while keeping the motorik pulse ticking away. It’s brilliantly gonzo, try-anything fun as you’d expect from a Portishead/Team Brick/Fuzz Against Junk team-up, and comes with bonus Death Of Her Money action – which is pretty fair enough given they put the gig on. Don’t miss it.
KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN / BUGBRAND, Arnolfini, 2nd
Play the hits! Or not, y’know. Another visionary electronic composer visits the Arnolfini, following recent performances from Vicki Bennett, Russell Haswell and Pete Swanson. An electro-acoustic composer and experimentor since college, he made his name as Hrvatski with the playful, manic Rephlex/Kid606 breakcore of Swarm & Dither, but it was the occasional forays into heavily processed, distorted soundscapes built from acoustic guitar, piano and synth that took precedence under Whitman’s own name. The glacial minimalist guitar on Playthroughs, the intricately layered one-man ‘ensembles’ of analogue instrumentation created for Antithesis and the cataloguing of Harvard University’s collection of vintage synths for Mutliples set him squarely at the top table, besting everything from Stars Of The Lid drone to Books/Fennesz glitch-pop to the most minimal, abstract techno at its own game. He’s kept up the workrate and quality; the recent double-whammy of Generators’ hypnotic modulations and Occlusions’ ADD rhythmic clusters are unlike much else I heard last year. A top-drawer double bill of electronic improvisation (Bugbrand’s daunting army of hand-built, supermodified devices is a thing to behold too), this should be an education.
HIGH WOLF / WRONGS / THE CICATAS / SHAPE DJs, 10 Feet Tall, 5th
Ace tripped-out psych-electronic mantras from a shadowy French dude, this should be way up on anyone’s list of things to investigate this month. Dense forests of loops, meandering keyboard fuzz and tribal percussion coalesce into vast, dub-heavy mantras that recall Forest Swords, Sun Araw or James Ferraro. It typifies a kind of DIY ethnography which seems to chew up both the cross-continental, indigenous psychedelia uncovered by Sublime Frequencies and the Western music that influenced it, filtered through the lo-fi electronica and deliberately anachronistic 80s technology – cheap keyboards, VHS-quality sound – of his Not Not Fun or Digitalis labelmates. Heady, intoxicating stuff. Nice to see Wrongs back in action! They really should play more. Hypnotic, spacey takes on post-rock, all insistent minimalist rhythms and warped, humming keyboard freakiness. The Cicatas are a Cardiff-via-Conwy husband and wife duo who make like High Places or an extremely relaxed Melys, burbling keys and dubby melodica backing sunny melodies. Some excellent things happening here.
ADRIAN UTLEY GUITAR ORCHESTRA: TERRY RILEY’s IN C, St George’s, 6th
This one sells itself. In C, for the uninitiated, is Terry Riley’s masterpiece, often considered the first minimalist composition and a gloriously free example of ‘chance’ music; each musician plays a repetitive phrase but where they fit in is flexible, and there’s no limit to the piece’s length. Whether arranged for strings, percussion, brass, woodwind or whatever, it’s magnificent to behold; a restless, bold, celebratory thing with a ceaseless metronomic heart. Despite Riley’s egalitarian intentions, his 1968 arrangement remains the definitive one, though Bang On A Can (strings) and Acid Mothers Temple (guitars, fuzz bass, electronics, drums) have performed memorable alternative takes. It’s been arranged for laptops, for pianos and for traditional instrumentation on every continent, and the subject of a fascinating remix project helmed by WNYC’s Radiolab. Here, Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley marshals a 20-strong band of electric guitarists at the head of a special live recording, with Riley’s blessing, for future release on Invada. Should be mesmeric, wildly enjoyable stuff.
DAN DEACON, Fleece, 8th
It’s still really all about ‘Wham City’. The 12-minute centrepiece of 2007’s Spiderman Of The Rings is one of the greatest spectacles I’ve ever seen live, genuine shivers, real chest-bursting euphoria with every layered, overdriven moment of Reich-meets-Fuck-Buttons synth pulse, every line of the chanted, hypnotic chorus line, every build, dropout and blissful rebuild. That it’s performed/conducted by a chubby little dude with an Open University beard and glasses, seemingly permanently balanced at the exact midpoint between scholarly avant-garde composer and hyperactive party dude, just makes it all the more adorable. The gonzo electro-punk minimal/maximal onslaught of Spiderman has been heightened, perfected, since then – Bromst upped the volume, refined the pop hooks and added a little emotional depth with the shiny, symphonic crescendoes of ‘Get Older’, and last year’s song suite America pushed his compositional chops a little more to the fore. He’s remained a force for fun, for community and for big-canvas ambition though, and that’ll be brilliantly evident in the setting of Bristol’s leading party barge.
PICTISH TRAIL / EAGLEOWL, Start The Bus, 10th
Fence records co-owner and lovely chap Jonny Lynch often seems to give his own work as The Pictish Trail a back seat. The release of the Sweet Baboo-produced Secret Soundz Vol 2 should by rights put a stop to that. Insistently catchy pop hooks, open-hearted lyrics and a home-brewed, kitchen sink Eels/Folk Implosion approach mean Lynch’s musings on loss, insecurity and enduring hope retain clarity while the DIY beatmaking and lo-fi synthpop experiments ricochet around him. It shares much with the wry doldrums humour of former touring partner Malcolm Middleton circa A Brighter Beat, a very good thing. Edinburgh quartet Eagleowl’s take on folk forms is gossamer-thin, hushed, almost painfully shy; the vocals eschew portentous stabs at ‘meaning’, mumbled, bruised, almost an afterthought. Arrangements are quiet, tense, building slowly from curls of violin and gentle strums to something nicely effective. Plenty going on here, taking post-rock and slowcore elements and working the songs around them.
RICHARD YOUNGS & LUKE FOWLER plus films, Cube, 15th & 16th
A fantastic-looking multi-disciplinary collaboration, kicking off an occasional series of residencies under the banner Play The Cube (Grouper curates over Easter weekend). This brings together Glasgow-based filmmaker and musician Luke Fowler, renowned and for his complex layering of archive, 16mm film, music, text and collage, with dizzyingly prolific avant-garde folk composer Richard Youngs. Night one hosts Fowler’s 2012 study of Marxist historian and social educator/activist E.P. Thompson alongside a musical collaboration between the two performers. Night two sees the Turner Prize-nominated Fowler film All Divided Selves, centring on Scottish psychiatry reformer, iconoclast and poet R.D. Laing, a solo performance from Youngs and a Q&A with the artists. Richard Youngs’ astonishing back catalogue is a daunting thing to approach – take any of the Jagjaguwar releases as a good starting point, like the desert blues of Amplifying Host, the loop-heavy English plainsong and choral chants of The Naïve Shaman or the weirdly accessible ‘pop’ experiments on Beyond The Valley of Ultrahits. Then keep going. He’s self-released dozens of CDRs and LPs on his own No Fans label, collaborated widely with Alex Neilson, Astral Social Club and Simon Wickham-Smith over a 20-year period, and retains an inspiring, questing spirit which leads to fascinating stuff like this. £10 gets you a two-night ticket, and that would seem to be a very strong recommendation indeed.
GALLOPS / PORTASOUND, Start The Bus, 15th and Buffalo, 16th
When Gallops supported Truckers Of Husk a few months after the triumphant release of Accelerated Learning I suggested that their own great evolutionary stride wasn’t far behind, and after some highly impressive EPs their debut full-length Yours Sincerely, Doctor Hardcore has delivered superbly. It’s a subtle but still impressive evolution, retaining the undeniable Battles influence (‘Lasers’ lollops magnificently like a snake-hipped ‘Atlas’ before detouring into icy electro and whirring feedback within the same song) but taking in nimble techno, muscular, proggy riffs and a battalion of vintage Vangelis/Carpenter soundtracks. Intricate, subtle and multi-layered but also crushingly heavy and sweatily immersive when they need to be, they’re becoming the sort of band their bruising live incarnation promised. This album launch tour sees them in Buffalo, the sort of venue they should slay in given the right volume and crowd, with labelmates Portasound – driving, ecstatic retro-futurist technopop like Justice soundtracking a kids’ sci-fi adventure – more than suitable support. Yes please.
AIDAN BAKER / A-SUN AMISSA, Exchange, 20th
Best known (to me, anyway) as half of epic, somnambulent drone/sadcore beauties Nadja, Aidan Baker’s impossibly prolific multi-platform output leaves you with an almost impossible task in guessing where his solo performances might take you. An accomplished modern-classical composer and multi-instrumentalist, Baker’s solo output ranges from meditative, delay-soaked improv guitar to gamelan drone to chattering electronics. Tim Hecker (a collaborator), Brian Eno or Steve Reich might be decent reference points, depending on where he lands. Support A-Sun Amissa are from Leeds, and have variously contributed to the glacial piano-led soundscapes of Glissando and the stately ambience and warm analogue post-rock of Ten. In this guise they’re more pared-back and deliberate than ever, all eddying drones, rustling atmospherics and solemn, wintry modern-classical arrangements. Their album Desperate In Her Heavy Sleep is pretty beautiful stuff, a handful of miniature suites that burrow into your consciousness with a Zen-like subtlety.
BARBEROS / ULTRA ZOOK / MXLX / SVNTREADER, Undertone, 20th
Barberos are a new one on me, so praise be once again to FYB for bringing them here. Awesome percussive battery, shuddering synth noise and frantic jazz/prog tempo-switches. Like Trans Am crossed with Magma, wearing skintight full-body spandex leotards. Absurdist electro-noise theatre. From Liverpool. Truly the world is a lot smaller these days. Ultra Zook: tight, spidery prog-math guitar lines, gatling gun percussion, yawning chorales and oppressive atmospheres, suddenly flipping back into beatific synth-rock or rubbery, helium-voiced Residents interludes. From Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne. Truly the world etc. MxLx you will know, if you saw Matt out of Beak/Team Brick/Fairhorns/Klad Hest/Knife Liibrary’s exaltant rave-drone bliss-out for us at this very venue last May. Symphonic sweeps mesh into guttural Merzbow scree with euphoric results. ‘Fuckup rush, harsh noise, harsh bliss’, he says, as well he might. SVNTREADER, all caps when you spell the man name. Herein is Kaskie from TDOHM’s solo excursion, promising/threatening industrial drones, minimalist synthwave and witch house vibes. I do hope I’m selling this, because I’ve just listened to three of the four bands on this bill and they’re all brilliant. This is exactly the sort of thing Cardiff needs but so rarely gets. YES.
FOUR TET / LUKE ABBOTT, Exchange, 22nd
Complex, restless music that engages mind and body in equal measure, Kieran Hebden’s output over 13 years as Four Tet has evolved constantly and seamlessly to a point where you can almost use his sound as a reference point in describing others. He’s famously absorbed several lifetimes’ worth of music, with a voracious appetite for cosmic jazz, first-wave post-rock and long-lost UK folk sirens, and consistently weaved elements of all that into his music while taking cues from garage, dubstep and anything else that piques his interest. Of late he’s reconnected a little with the dancefloor, particularly in the clutch of singles compiled on the excellent Pink collection, another faultless set that’s unmistakable and fresh at once. You know all this already though, so JUST GO. Especially given the presence here of Luke Abbott, whose pastoral, krautrock-inspired electronica retains hints of the warm, retro stylings of Boards of Canada or Border Community labelmates Nathan Fake and James Holden, with a little Mille Plateaux glitchy ambience. Insistent, welcoming and quietly progressive but never excessively any of those things, it’s got a foot in the chiming machine-funk of the 90s but with a clear-minded sight on the future. Holkham Drones was an utter gem of a debut, and the slightly funkier snap to last year’s Modern Driveway EP for Gold Panda’s Notown label points to further evolutionary strides.
PESKI NACHT 002: PLYCI / BAMBI WOODS / HMS MORRIS / LLION SWYD / DJ FFRANCON / BOF!, Jacobs Market, 23rd
A second Saturday night takeover of the fourth floor gallery space at Cardiff’s splendid tower of bric-a-brac by the good people at Peski, this is an object lesson in how to put together a night out. Headlining this one is the fluid neon electro of Plyci, melding hiphop abstraction with gleaming, beatific melodies. Think Hudson Mohawke or Lone, for starters, and get hold of the Flump EP because it’s an absolute belter. Working as HMS Morris,the skeletal, bluesy songs of Heledd Watkins come on coiled and lean like King Alexander but with pleasingly sinister keyboard lines slicing through them. Bambi Woods (google at your peril), if the Youtube snippets Peski provide is anything to go by, deals in witchy atmospherics, warped slo-mo vocals and narcotic beats. It might also be a member of Vvolves. Or not. Llion Swyd, meanwhile, offers spectacularly damaged metallic clatter, detuned bad-acid giallo soundtracks and howling processed vocals. Invigorating stuff, which you’d swear was the work of at least one person affiliated with Klaus Kinski. Or not. Elsewhere in the building there’s a cinema, an art exhibition courtesy of Broadway-based B I T Studios and Gwenno’s Bof! DJ night on the rooftop terrace. Come for the intriguing and eclectic music, stay for everything else.
RICHARD DAWSON / RATATOSK / MARS TO STAY / DJ CHRIS EYNON, Undertone, 27th
It’s that time again, that wonderful time when I entreat you to attend a gig the Joy Collective are promoting. Richard Dawson is a Newcastle-based folk musician who also dabbles in wild kosmische psych as Eyeballs and who’s worked closely with North East arts collective Tusk on archival story-song projects. Here, though, he’ll do what he does best, namely wonderfully freeform takes on English folk traditionals and his own electro-acoustic originals, showcasing cracked, imperfect and captivating vocals reminiscent of John Martyn, Richard Youngs or Tim Buckley and a bluesy intimacy and untethered beauty recalling anything from Jandek to Sir Richard Bishop to Beefheart. By turns tender and cathartic, bitter and hilarious, he’s got a grasp of bleak but utterly deliberate humour in his songwriting; the imagery and conversational sing-song delivery are oddly akin to Ivor Cutler, but in its setting it’s most redolent of our own Rhodri Viney’s work as Ratatosk. Pretty much the most perfect meeting of minds we’ve been responsible for in our occasional promotional capacity, and I’m looking forward to it so much. Likewise I’m chuffed to get to put Mars To Stay on; gorgeous, transcendent slowcore that’s either deliberately remote and reverbed to fuck, or as cheaply recorded as possible, or both. Recommended if you’re into Galaxie 500, Codeine, Flying Saucer Attack and all that noise. We love doing this. Come and listen with us.
