Going with something different this month. You might have noticed that our once-bountiful preview section has undergone a change, with our pick of upcoming gigs now highlighted within the gig guide. As a result, I’ve opted to leave aside the usual 2000-word screed in favour of some pass notes on the month’s selected highlights. It’s by no means definitive, but there’s a lot on innit. Read on…
EARTH / MOUNT EERIE / Ô PAON, Arnolfini, 3rd
Another ATP preview show, with both the headliners and Phil Elverum’s dizzyingly prolific Mount Eerie joining Mangum’s cavalcade of whimsy. Earth’s steady refinement and versatility has seen their trademark treacle-slow drone-doom broaden to include blues and country influences; Dylan Carlson’s abiding love of traditional folk forms also rings clear in their recent work, still anchored in funeral-paced metal but brighter, triumphant. Last year’s Cardiff show was a treat, and the Arnolfini should suit their poise and sense of space to a tee. Live, Mount Eerie has captured the mordant folk of Elverum’s full-band records, but could just as equally reflect the claustrophobic lo-fi dank of his black metal-influenced Wind’s Poem. His wife and labelmate Genevieve Castree, aka Ô Paon, sets Godspeed drone and looping to gripping French-language folk.
TRUCKERS OF HUSK / GALLOPS / KUTOSIS, Globe, 3rd
As a celebration of the rude health of party-starting Welsh guitar music in 2012, this blinding triple-header – recorded for broadcast on Selector Radio – is pretty hard to argue with. With a few months’ perspective, Truckers’ triumphant Accelerated Learning seems less like a summation of their work and more like a jumping-off point, a hint at what they could move on to do. Still plenty of noodly math-rock dexterity, but the greater prominence of vocals and broader instrumental palette make the latest stage of their evolution the most exciting yet. Kutosis, likewise, issued a debut album full of bruising dynamics and pacy, confident, hook-filled songwriting. Gallops’ quantum jump isn’t far off; their debts to Battles are way less overt than before, and their shows at Swn 2011 showed mouth-watering potential for future greatness.
NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS / MARS TO STAY / SNEAKY EARNEST, Buffalo, 6th
Textbook out-there fare from the splendid Rusty Trombone Of God dudes, and great to see Swn co-promoting stuff like this amid the big-name gigs and more prosaic singer-songwriters on their schedule. Burgundian duo NSB trade in epic, drone-heavy experimental folk and bruised psychedelic workouts. Mars To Stay, named after the Buzz Aldrin-initiated campaign for permanent settlement by Mars missions, tease around the fringes of Galaxie 500 or Disco Inferno-style dreampop, while Sneaky Earnest is Dan ex-Fredrick Stanley Star’s outlet for Fahey/Rose style raga and longform guitar workouts. The wiggiest and most vital event in Cardiff this month.
REIGNS / DEEJ DHARIWAL, Croft, 8th
Reigns’ concept is simple and brilliantly executed. 2002’s We Lowered A Microphone Into The Ground introduced two men, Operative A and Operative B, carrying out sound experiments in rural locations in the West of England and documenting the disturbing phenomena therein with dry wit and an instinctive grasp of classic depictions of unsettling English disquiet – bottomless holes, submerged villages, freak weather conditions. Ghostly, otherworldly drone, twinkling pastoral chime, clammy acoustic laments and spoken word interludes map together on their four albums to date and should make for a nicely immersive live experience. Thought Forms guitarist Deej Dhariwal, a busy man this month, supports.
A HAWK AND A HACKSAW, Chapter Arts Centre, 8th
Whatever the reasons for the postponement to March of the Jeff Mangum-curated ATP, Cardiff reaps unexpected benefits here. Sergei Parajanov’s 1964 Ukrainian epic Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, a tale of love, loss and folkloric mysticism high in the Carpathians, earned its director a governmental blacklisting. Globalist Balkan folk duo A Hawk And A Hacksaw’s live score, performed alongside the film at Chapter on the eve of ATP, should be the perfect accompaniment; the romance, reverence and kinetic swirl of their past Green Man and Point shows make this unmissable.
SOULS OF MISCHIEF, Moon Club, 10th
TALIB KWELI, Polynesia, 22nd
Recent collaborators and current tourmates, these two play Cardiff club dates separately and reaffirm the still rude health of live hip-hop in South Wales. SOM’s star burned bright if not long in the early 90s; the Oakland crew’s 93’til Infinity holds up today with the best of contemporaries like ATCQ or the Pharcyde, experimental, funky and fun. Kweli, meanwhile, maintains a consistency and scholarly quality that may never have hit the peaks of ‘conscious’ peers Common or Mos Def but also avoided their ego-driven pitfalls; a sure bet, a classicist MC sans pareil. These are two tiny venues, by standards; the Moon Club will be a sweaty mass, and as for ‘Ibiza-style superclub’ Polynesia (occupying the old Hard Rock Café building), who knows. Get in early.
TURKSIB scored by BRONNT INDUSTRIES KAPITAL, Watershed Theatre and Chapter Arts Centre, 17th and 18th
Another live score, another Russian epic. Here, Stalin attempts to build a railway across some of earth’s least hospitable territory (modern-day Uzbekistan and Siberian Russia); this is no allegory but a true account, and this legendary documentary captures it. Bristolian composer Guy Bartell, aka Bronnt Industries Kapital, has a long-starred history of interpreting film and soundtracks through his music; his score to 1922 witchcraft flick Haxan saw release on a Tartan Films reissue DVD. Best not to second-guess the stylistic leanings he’ll bring to Turksib but the results should be suitably intense. (The Cardiff date is part of the WOW Film Festival which is also worth a gander: http://www.wowfilmfestival.com/)
WHITE HILLS / THOUGHT FORMS / DIN MARTIN, Croft, 19th
Killer space rock jams ahoy. White Hills, like Wooden Shjips before them, found a template and liked it so much they stuck to it; in this case, fuzzed-out psychedelic riff muck reminiscent of Hawkwind, Neu!, a lysergically altered Mudhoney or a supremely bad-mood Spacemen 3. Yep, that good. Churning low-end heaviness, ragged Stooges guitar solos, blissful spaciness and a bassist called Ego Sensation. If further recommendation were needed, Bristol’s own psych explorers Thought Forms support. This is one of those gigs where the merch stand will bankrupt you, so be warned.
TEETH OF THE SEA / ELLY MCCABE / E.C. DAWSON / ANTHROPROPHH, Croft, 22nd
First time I saw Teeth Of The Sea was supporting Oneida in the Croft’s none-more-black back room. Dressed like a police line-up from 1984 and skulking behind distressed vintage gear, they slowly coaxed out a foggy, hermetic and strangely English variant on Liars’ boundary-blurring art-rock. Darkly psychedelic noise, echoing proggy Euro soundtracks, Krautrock trippiness and thuggish, complex synth-rock. Highly recommended, in other words.
C JOYNES, Croft, 26th
Promoters Diogenes – bringing Reigns, Ekoplekz and Father Murphy to Bristol this month – also have genuinely excellent acoustic guitarist C Joynes on their schedule, and this unassumingly presented chap seriously requires your attention. If you like your picking inspired by the magpie tradition of Sir Richard Bishop, blending classic Indian, African and English folk styles at the drop of a hat with supreme confidence, suitable (i.e. not excessive) reverence and easy skill, get involved.
CATRIN FINCH & TOUMANI DIABATE, Royal Welsh College Of Music & Drama, 28th
Full disclosure: I’ve next to no idea of Catrin Finch’s standing as a harpist, other than her one-time holding of the remarkable and apparently genuine position of official harpist to the Prince of Wales. My head’s turned here by the presence of genius kora master Toumani Diabate. I’d expect to perform solo here rather than with a full ensemble as you might have seen him before, but given the utter beauty of 2008’s The Mande Variations – solo kora, recalling anything from John Fahey drone to Salah Rageb’s Egyptian jazz – his music will be worth the price of entry alone. A rare treat.
GROUPER: ‘VIOLET REPLACEMENT’ / DIAMOND CATALOG, Church of St John The Baptist, 29th
Qu Junktions continue to broaden their horizons yet further, with several current and recent shows in new spaces around Bristol. Here, Grouper’s Liz Harris presents Violet Replacement, a new two-part ambient tape collage leaning largely on the tape loops, field recordings and mesmerising textural manipulations that have characterised much of her eerily beautiful catalogue. These compositions are presently set for digital and tour-only release, so – in keeping with the rarefied nature of previous work – the live performance might be the best way to hear it. Expect submerged, layered keyboards, guitar wash and grainy tape-loop atmospherics, with Harris’ distinctive, ghostly vocals an intermittent presence. Holding you rapt while doing seemingly very little, Grouper’s music is an ambient fog that’s remarkably affecting.
BILL WELLS & AIDAN MOFFAT, Globe, 29th
Our greatest living bar-room philosopher returns, as tender, caustic, indiscreet and witheringly funny as ever and accompanied once again by folk jazz composer and collaborator extraordinaire Bill Wells. Everything’s Getting Older, their glorious first album together, picks up at the exact point where Arab Strap’s last left off, the aging-of-body protagonist of ‘There Is No Ending’ revisited in Moffat’s laments on relationships, sex and the uneasy passage into middle age. Wells’ arrangements are warm, inviting and beautifully sympathetic; live, as with the festival-stealing turn at 10 Feet Tall on Thursday night at Swn, they detour into spoken-word, jazz explorations and Bananarama covers. This will be a celebration; it would be churlish to pass up the invite.
