VISIONARY KINGDOM: KODE 9, MFO & MS. HAPTIC / AURA SATZ / BEN RUSSELL (1st) / TAI SHANI / VICKI BENNETT (2nd) / RAIME / EMPTYSET / BUGBRAND (3rd), all Arnolfini
Picking up where I left off last month, this run of gloriously eclectic, hyper-creative audio-visual shows continues into early November with an excellent line-up. Far more info at http://arnolfini.org.uk/event_seasons/index/120/, but if you want highlights? Well, Hyperdub supremo Kode9 collaborates on a re-imagining of Chris Marker’s landmark 1962 short La Jetée – itself the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys – which refocuses the story on the female character sighted in the airport. Vicki Bennett, aka maverick musician, film-maker and WFMU DJ People Like Us, presents the premiere of her feature-length debut The Zone, which edits The Wizard of Oz and Tarkovsky’s Stalker to run concurrently and reveal unlikely synchronicities. The final night showcases an A/V set from Blackest Ever Black’s flagship duo Raime, based around their long-awaited debut full-length of oppressively heavy, techno and sub-informed bass music. Read more, book tickets, open all channels of reception.
DJ SCOTCH BONNET / KOYXEN / R. SEILIOG, Clwb, 1st
If you hadn’t already mentally committed to attending this at the mention of the words ‘DJ Scotch’, then shape up; Shigeru’s back in Cardiff with a new solo project and pseudonym following excursions into whacked-out psych (Drum Eyes) and ribcage-rattling digital dub (Devil Man). This time he’s tackling hip-hop, albeit refracted through doomy industrial noise and thick, cavernous dub and coming out the other side like the offspring of Godflesh and DJ Screw. This tour, with labelmate and Japanese production veteran Koyxen, showcases Scotch’s own Small But Hard label; its first fruits are his collaboration with out-there ex-Jungle Brother Sensational, whose mush-mouthed delivery helps the tracks come off like a super lo-fi take on Cannibal Ox. It might not inspire the demented glee of the Osaka Invasion tour or his early snack-hurling exploits, but it will be immensely loud, mind-altering fun. Top booking, as always, from Lesson No. 1, and will be great to see R. Seiliog’s trippy Neu!-go-electro earworms stretch out in front of a wider audience. First essential gig of the month. Get there.
JOSEPHINE FOSTER / DAN HAYWOOD’S NEW HAWKS, Cube, 3rd
Plenty of voices have been described as ‘timeless’, but Josephine Foster’s rich, otherworldly soprano genuinely seems out of time, place and context, as if it should rightly emanate from dusty shellac. A spiritual bridge between gothic Appalachia, pristine Dalton/Bunyan/Bloom folk classicism and Romantic European traditionalism, Foster’s dabbled in impressively diverse styles with a natural confidence, from the austere German lieder of A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing (which I think was out around the time she was on an amazing Forecast bill with Six Organs and Sunburned Hand Of The Man) or the Lorca poetry and swooning flamenco of Anda Jaleo to the bustling Fairport psych-folk and (relatively) straight balladry of her own compositions. Even here, though, the storytelling is complex and immersive, the characters inhabiting a old-world America in a way that suits that voice perfectly. With full-band backing here, led by husband and Anda Jaleo collaborator Victor Herrero, this should be pretty magical.
BRISTOL JAM: REGGIE WATTS (5th) / POLAR BEAR / HAUSCHKA & SAMULI KOSMINEN / CHARLES HAZLEWOOD’S ALL STAR COLLECTIVE (10th), 5th – 11th November, all Old Vic
Another ace-looking festival, this time all taking place at Bristol’s Old Vic theatre where the improvisational spirit is celebrated by a huge cast of contributing musicians, artists, theatre groups, comedians and the public at large. Far, far too much to run through here – definitely check http://www.bristololdvic.org.uk/bristoljam.html for the things you’ll want to see – for our purposes, there are some fantastic musical treats. On a local level, the Cube’s monthly Amalgam night – like-minded musicians improvising within noise, concrete, ambient, found sound and jazz realms – drops in on the 7th with Skjølbrot’s Dan Bennett among the players. Slo-Mo, another Cube staple, relocates on the 10th with dudes from Headfall, the Liftmen and Arctic Circle re-scoring films from within the audience. There’s workshops – Hauschka’s Volker Bertelmann demonstrates the prepared piano, and a magnificent nutbar called McCloud Zicmuse will show you how to build a one-stringed instrument he calls the Iaeniaen. Top of the pile are three genuine one-offs: Hauschka teams up with Múm drummer Samuli Kosminen, revisiting collaborations on a former EP with playful deconstructions of their chosen instruments; the utterly amazing, one-of-a-kind beatboxer/vocalist/musician Reggie Watts, equally at home guesting with LCD Soundsystem at Madison Square Garden as on NPR’s Radiolab, performs his unique, hilarious and brilliant compositions; and for the finale, Charles Hazlewood and friends perform a live, improvised score/musical counterpoint to a retelling of Homer’s Iliad narrated by In The Loop actor Tom Hollander. Seriously. If you can’t find something to intrigue and inspire you here, you’re in trouble.
QUEER’D SCIENCE / ROSEANNE BARRR / GREETINGS, Buffalo, 11th
Next Joy presentation! Largely due to the excellent skills of Noel Lesson Number One, and accompanied by the year’s most striking promotional campaign care of Vern, this one is wall-to-wall screaming bloody murder. Manchester’s Queer’d Science are a splenetic collision of grinding no wave noise, unhinged vocal contortions and shuddering electronic throbs who variously recall Erase Errata, Ex Models, early Liars and a bunch of Load Records bands. Hot, violent and essential noise. Roseanne Barrr number just two but sound like more, a bass/drum ‘power duo’ featuring one of recent Joy Collective guests Woolf and pulling similar skronky DIY punk and riot grrrl shapes, albeit with a necessarily greater emphasis on rhythm, howling feedback and hefty, sexy, grinding mess. Nice! Opening this we have local urchins Greetings, formed early this year and fronted by Ian Williams who you might have heard/seen doing frenzied Daniel Johnston/Herman Dune-inspired antifolk as My Name Is Ian. There appear to be several Greetings doing the rounds, and I’ve listened to the ‘wrong’ one at least once, but this one do a spirited noise-pop holler with excellently goofy J Mascis solos dribbled over it. Celebrate these fine sounds with us, won’t you?
LAETITIA SADIER / JENS BOSTEEN / PEN PASTWN, Clwb, 12th
How do you embark on a solo career when your voice and songwriting is so indelibly linked to a single band and one inimitable sound? Stereolab may have moved through distinct musical phases – Velvets/Suicide drone-pop, Martin Denny-via-Tortoise exotica, Reich/O’Rourke jazz-funk minimalism – but always remained so inexorably Stereolab that to step out from them after the best part of two decades must have been a fairly daunting opportunity for Laetitia Sadier. After a solo debut, The Trip, which allowed her most personal and subdued lyrics to breathe within relaxed, balladic pop arrangements, she’s returned to more familiar territory; the unique socio-political theory and often witheringly ironic polemic that characterised much of Stereolab’s lyrics is recast in terms of 2012’s political landscape on Silencio, and it’s a breath of fresh Gallic air. She’s touring with a two-piece band for the first time, and the pared-down motorik rhythms and breezy cafe pop behind the re-energised calls to personal political engagement will be an irresistable match. Don’t miss the frazzled, blissful tangle of folk, desert psych-blues and beat poetry of Pen Pastwn, first up on this bill; Richard James’ collective will be seven-strong on the night, apparently, and bring a stormy, exploratory fire to traditional forms.
DESTROYER, Fleece, 14th
Abstruse, cryptic wordplay over clouds of hiss, tapedeck hum, trebly noise and fractured acoustic strumming. Stephen Malkmus, Lou Barlow, David Berman and Bill Callahan all cut their teeth in similar ways, and so did Dan Bejar; except his ambitions were clearer than most even in Destroyer’s earliest efforts. He’s got a very distinctive style – aloof and haughty, caustic and catty, bombastic and grandiose but with a kind of desperate, self-lacerating theatricality that’s as much in debt to early 70s Bowie and Scott Walker as it is to the MOR singer-songwriters he now claims to identify with. All this has long been channelled through sometimes traditional indie-rock moves – he’s continued to write and play with the New Pornographers, and contributes a lot of the best tunes to Wolf Parade/Frog Eyes supergroup Swan Lake – but it’s the embellishments, be they the deliberate ‘European pop’ sound of Your Blues and Destroyer’s Rubies or the weirdly dated, early 80s production of Kaputt, that mark him out as a brilliant, bloody-minded, endlessly quotable one-off.
SOUNDTRACK FESTIVAL including:
The Miners Hymns / The Tylorstown Band (live), Chapter, 15th
Powerplant with Joby Burgess, RWCMD, 15th
Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest @ Clwb, 16th
Vincent Moon: Petites Planetes, Chapter, 17th
Suspiria with soundtrack by Fake Blood, Chapter, 18th
Quite the month for expertly-tuned bespoke festivals stuffed to the gills with rewarding audio-visual treats. To the list, add the fourth instalment of Soundtrack, the multi-disciplinary film and music event presenting premieres, talks, workshops and A/V events in Cardiff and Newport. The crowning presentation will be a rare screening of Argento’s classic Suspiria with – controversially, perhaps – a complete rescoring, down to all sound effects and cues, by Fake Blood. A proper labour of love and definitely worth experiencing. Vincent Moon, the Parisian director whose All Tomorrow’s Parties longform doc and Take-Away Shows series established his unmistakable style in capturing scores of intimate musical sessions, spent four years on the road piecing together an Alan Lomax/Sublime Frequencies-style ethnographical record of musical and traditional cultures across the world, and his Petites Planetes film presents that. It’s also free entry! Bargain. Elsewhere, the excellent dudes behind Darkened Rooms screen actor Michael Rapaport’s story of A Tribe Called Quest at Clwb – in Darkened Rooms tradition, expect some excellent bonus content there – while a very different, but no less enthralling tale is told in The Miners’ Hymns, Bill Morrison’s study of the mining communities of North-East England and their colliery band history, scored by Johann Johannsson and presented here with live music from the Tylerstown Band. Throw in features on Bowie and Bobby Bare Jr, chat with David Arnold and all manner of other good things and your only problem would seem to be fitting it into five days.
SUPERSILENT feat. JOHN PAUL JONES / AKI ONDA, Arnolfini, 17th
This is something of a coup, being one of five UK shows that eminent Norwegian improv jazz trio Supersilent are performing augmented by ex-Led Zeppelin dude John Paul Jones. Famously founded on the principle of never rehearsing, with each of their eleven albums to date entirely improvised around a guiding theme, their eternally questing approach sees them ricochet between jazz, electronica and oblique modern composition with breathless, freewheeling creativity. Predominantly working with fierce electro-acoustic jazz, ambient minimalism and raging, complex noise workouts, their genuinely unique album sessions have heralded some diverse results; early albums made prominent use of electronics, while more recently there have been diversions both necessary (the departure of their drummer preceded an album comprised entirely of treated Hammond organs) and deliberate (Supersilent 6’s detours into free-flowing krautrock-influenced noodling, Supersilent 10’s grand piano and lyrical, expressive trumpet). John Paul Jones’s storied career – working with Diamanda Galas, Brian Eno and Sonic Youth, scoring and writing operas and playing with countless roots and country bands – is impressively eclectic, which should serve him fine in this company. Support Aki Onda, meanwhile, is a New York-based electronic composer who processes and manipulates sound and field recordings using the Walkman. Beautiful, complex pieces, they act as audio diaries of 20 years of travel and personal experience.
GRAVENHURST, Buffalo & Louisiana, 19th & 20th
Though his continued presence on Warp will always seem an anomaly, it’s really one of the least intriguing things about Nick Talbot’s work as Gravenhurst. A willowy folk-rock that can be elliptically pretty, Talbot’s music creates moods that always threaten to darken; a crackling, elemental air hangs over Gravenhurst’s music, frequently breaking out into fuzz-heavy psych and a brooding, exquisitely detailed take on MBV’s sonic world. The doleful melancholia of Flashlight Seasons and its companion piece Black Holes In The Sand reappears on this year’s The Ghost In Daylight, now sitting within layers of reverb, feedback and murk, a peculiar English folk music somewhere between Hood, Flying Saucer Attack and Alexander Tucker. Beautifully mordant stuff, with past lyrical preoccupations with violence and its perpetrators, disaffection and unpicking compulsive behaviour. It rewards closer attention several times over; let’s hope the Cardiff date, in particular, grants him it.
THREATMANTICS / RATATOSK / TOTEM TERRORS / IVAN MOULT, Gwdihw, 22nd
Last September I wrote a preview for a Threatmantics gig in Gwdihw that alluded to the forthcoming release of their second album. Over a year later, the album has a name, Kid McCoy, a label – Nottingham micro-indie/folk enterprise Folkwit, who’ve released stuff by No Thee No Ess and Joyce The Librarian among many others – and will, hopefully, be out before the year ends. It’s had a lengthy gestation, but such is the way when you’re out on your own; it’s good that it’s coming out at all. Let’s start the Welsh Music Prize 2013 nomination buzz at this gig, then, where a cracking line-up will assist them in celebrating its completion. Ratatosk was spectacularly great in the Sherman’s cavernous foyer space the other week, with brittle, beautiful Broken Leaf-style acoustic songs trialled alongside intricately layered, see-sawing post-rock epics arranged for harmonium and musical saw. Totem Terrors, equally, are consistently hitting their doubles of late; boiling down arty post-punk of a Slits/Elastica/Wire nature to the bare bones, their deliciously arch ditties are hugely persuasive. As for Threatmantics themselves, those who principally recall their clattering, windmilling folk-punk from Upbeat Love days have missed a trick. Lacing the superior grit and punch they now carry with occasional eye-of-the-storm tenderness, their knack for writing indelibly catchy songs of love and madness and tethering them to giddy, reeling noise is still one of the finest things around.
WHITE FENCE / H. HAWKLINE, Clwb, 28th
Following a slightly uninspiring recent run of stolid singer-songwriter fare Swn’s bookings are right on the money this month, following Laetitia Sadier’s show with this just-announced gem. White Fence is Tim Presley, who’s served time in hardcore bands, billowy psych-rock bands, garage pop bands and, for 2006’s Reformation Post TLC, as lead guitarist in the Fall. This is his enduring love, though; quivering, lo-fi Anglophile psychedelia drawing on Syd Barrett, 60s acid folk, a Beefheart playfulness and the freakier end of the Kinks or Small Faces. The warped, distortion-heavy nuggets on his Family Perfume double-set are an excellent intro point for the uninitiated, rolling his melodic shrapnel in the same grease and grit that the likes of Sic Alps, Fresh & Onlys and Ty Segall revel in. It was pretty much an inevitability that he’d collaborate with Segall, the resulting garage/psych jolts on Hair among either’s best work yet. It’s a dream ticket to pair Presley up with Huw Evans; their cut & paste, rustic psych jams cut with pin-sharp dark pop gems are two of a kind. What odds on a White Fence/H. Hawkline album within days of this? Yes please.
ICEAGE, Croft, 28th
Skinny wolves out of Copenhagen, Iceage emerged perfectly formed with 2011’s New Brigade, a perfect storm of hardcore’s energy and purposeful anger, post-punk’s chilly, sparse atmospherics and choppy, brittle lead guitars and a tiny bit of gothic gloom around the edges. Maybe it’s Scandinavian ennui, or maybe they just really like early Joy Division. Either way, it’s urgent without being gauche, politicised without being preachy, and sounds entirely personal but is almost ludicrously approachable. Frontman Elias Rønnenfelt is also one half of Vår, a brilliant electro-noise death cult boyband offshoot on Sacred Bones who are well worth looking into. Anyway, get into this; a short, sharp blast of oddball punk fervour from kids who grew up miles from scenes and just happened to tap into something great.
