EUROS CHILDS / THE WELLGREEN, Clwb Ifor Bach, 1st
Leaving your label isn’t such a bad thing; for Euros Childs, parting ways with Wichita to go it alone in after 2008’s introspective Nashville-recorded beauty Cheer Gone and relocating to West Wales seems to have given him free rein to indulge pretty much every creative whim he fancies. And there are a lot. In the four years since he’s turned out fantastic clearing-house collections of jumble-sale krautrock, beatific Wilson harmonies and genuinely hilarious lyrical declarations (Son Of Euro Child and the Meilyr Jones collaboration as Cousins), downtempo piano balladry by turns deeply beautiful and wryly funny (Ends), the lovable moptop/glam/west coast pop hybrids of the Jonny album and some deeply unsettling mutterings from the darkness (Face Dripping‘s bad-acid keyboard curios and gumby chantalongs). He’s never released a bad record, and is never likely to; funny, touching, affecting and life-affirming by turn, his ear for melody undiminished, he remains a joy to listen to and a fantastically self-effacing, restless presence live. He’s just released his big summer pop album, backed by Steve Baboo, Meilyr Racehorses and the drummer from Scotpop support turn the Wellgreen. It’s glorious, and in the single ‘That’s Better’ includes the most resilient and welcome earworm of the year. He’s at Clwb on September 1st. Do pop along.
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM: SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS / JAMES MURPHY Q&A, Chapter, 4th
BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO / STACKING CHAIRS (Live), Chapter, 9th
DARK STAR with soundtrack by ANIMAT, Chapter, 30th
A fantastic programme of music-related cinematic treats at Chapter this month, in addition to the Alasdair Roberts gig below. The biggest coup may well be the UK-premiere simulcast screening of Shut Up And Play The Hits, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s film of LCD Soundsystem’s farewell concert at Madison Square Garden in April 2011. Euphoric, contemplative and emotionally draining, it’s drawn inevitable comparisons with Scorsese’s The Last Waltz and Chapter will be an amazing place to be on the night it reaches the UK. There’ll be a broadcast of a live interview with James Murphy as part of the package. Cinephiles are drooling over Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio, in which Toby Jones’ British sound recordist takes a job with a notorious Italian giallo horror studio; it’s a claustrophobic and disquieting piece of work and I can’t bloody wait to see it. Soundtracked by Broadcast’s James Cargill and released by Warp, it’s on for a week at Chapter and the screening on the 9th is preceded by a live sound art set by Casey Raymond which should dovetail absolutely perfectly with the film. Later in the month there’s an actual live soundtrack care of Animat, returning to Chapter to accompany John Carpenter’s offbeat and humourous early sci-fi feature Dark Star. It’s a 5.30 showing, so you can all see it and head down to Undertone to catch our Chains Of Love gig. Right? RIGHT.
WOODS, Fleece, 5th
Woods are the side-project that ate the day job. Started as an outlet for Jeremy Earl during downtime from Meneguar, he was quickly joined by a couple of his bandmates in creating rustic, home-recorded collections of muted, sun-warped folk songs, tape experiments and more expansive, psych-tinged jams. Seven years later, it’s clear where their hearts lie now; Earl has relocated to his rural upstate New York home, Woods have racked up half a dozen albums and Meneguar have been on ice since 2008. Gradually navigating a course away from trebly, scrappy noise, they’ve retained a propensity for wigged-out Krautrock-inspired jams alongside tighter, cleaner-sounding folk-rock that leans towards Mascis and Malkmus as much as CSNY and the Grateful Dead. Both sides of Woods are explored live, where twinkling two-minute nuggets that sound transported from 1971 are interrupted by rickety ten-minute epics. Sunshine fuzz and welcoming darkness, consistently excellent and wallet-sappingly prolific.
LOS CRIPIS / BIG JOAN / PERSONAL BEST / DJ CASEY RAYMOND, Undertone, 6th
LOS CRIPIS / BELLIES!, Café Kino, 7th
Utterly adorable lo-fi clamour and second-language pop from Buenos Aires, valuing a sense of fun and emotional investment over mere fripperies such as musical proficiency. They’re all the better for it. Musically their cues are taken from the early 80s – Swell Maps, Fall, a healthy debt to the Raincoats – with a skeletal grooviness reminiscent of their kinfolk Las Kellies, or Erase Errata, or Linus. By turns defiant, celebratory and bruised, they specialise in 90-second bursts of nervous energy that would have been all over Plan B magazine or a Peppermint Patti bill in more enlightened times. We’ve added a suitably energetic and vital supporting bill, with the whip-smart poise and controlled explosions of Bristolian bruisers Big Joan and the disarmingly great Personal Best, whose gorgeous, keening slacker-pop sounds like a mixtape of all the great lost US bands of the mid-90s that only dolts like me remember with any fondness, with a bit of Riot Grrrl attitude for good measure. Hopefully they’ll have some songs online soon too. We’re putting this line-up of energised, vital, life-affirming music on in Cardiff because it needs to be heard. How about it, eh?
RM HUBBERT / EMMA POLLOCK, Louisiana, 8th
Without the back-story, RM Hubbert’s recordings are a compelling listen. Acoustic sketches based around self-taught flamenco structures, with melody and bass parts – and percussive taps and thwacks – layered on top, they’re deceptively complex pieces making much of a seemingly limited palette. Thirteen Lost & Found saw the ex-El Hombre Trajeado guitarist compose studio duets on the fly with old friends Alasdair Roberts, Aidan Moffat and Delgados alumnus Emma Pollock, and here’s where the story becomes more emotionally complex; suffering a lengthy depression after the illness and death of his father and finding himself hermitted away from friends and loved ones, Hubbert saw the album sessions as a way of rekindling dormant friendships. The results are gorgeous and cathartic, and tours with Moffat and now Pollock have followed. Pollock’s own solo journey has been stop-start, a slightly overcooked 4AD debut slipping by, but her The Law Of Large Numbers is a gem. The stop-you-dead voice that graced some of the Delgados’ greatest songs still resonates, all guileful and intimate, and the first-person narratives still essay relationship tension and stasis with a beautifully intricate turn of phrase. This is billed as an acoustic show, with further collaborations with Hubbert planned, and should be a low-key treat.
MEMORY DRAWINGS / TEN / MANY FINGERS / HEADFALL, Café Kino, 14th
Utterly beautiful chamber-folk from erstwhile Hood member Richard Adams, who continues to mine his West Yorkshire surroundings for inspiration in creating melancholic, beguiling pieces for guitar, violin and dulcimer which recall in mood both a barer, more reflective version of Hood and his other guise The Declining Winter, the delicate poise of Rachel’s or the swooping miserablism of Rothko. The trio recently released Music For Another Loss, inspired by a collection of Ted Hughes photo-essays of the Yorkshire countryside, and while its beautifully-presented physical edition is already sold out it’s well worth tracking down; stunningly pretty minimalist pieces for foreboding autumn skies. Leeds counterparts Ten work similar magic with mournful electro-acoustic sketches, field recordings and spare drum machine chatter. Local interest comes in the form of Manyfingers, who has form in collaborating with the Remote Viewer (another Hood offshoot, of course) and Matt Elliott, and whose gently processed multi-instrument pieces form a bed for delicate piano pieces, and the splendid DIY folk-jazz-noise wonder of the lesser-spotted and always wonderful Headfall. Few better places to be this month than in Cafe Kino’s cosy basement for a pretty peerless line-up like this.
PULL THE STRINGS FEST: NLF3 / THE LIFTMEN / DON NINO / THE HORSELOOM / KOGUMAZA / THE BALKY MULE / COWTOWN / THE JELAS / LOADS MORE, County Sports Club & Cafe Kino, 15th & 16th
Pull The Strings have a pretty stellar track record of promoting excellent gigs in the Bristol area, many of which I’ve rattled on about on this site (RM Hubbert, Enablers and Felix in recent months), and herein stretch out to an ambitious and totally laudable weekender comprised of two all-day shows. The County Sports Club on Colston Street hosts brilliant Parisien experimental trio NLF3, whose Krautrock, psych and tribal-influenced instrumental pop dynamics are seriously recommended. Bristol’s own Liftmen’s mutated, breezy post-punk, the epic, slo-mo psychedelic drone-shapes of Nottingham’s Kogumaza, Cowtown’s trebly, rollercoaster electro/noise-pop hybrids and the mighty Jelas all appear on the Saturday bill too, while Sunday’s offerings at Kino temper the minimalist herky-jerky shapes of Motes and Beginnings with more intimate and folky interludes from The Balky Mule and headliners Don Nino. The solo project of NLF3’s Nicolas Laureau, Don Nino’s beauftifully layered, eddying constructions offer electro-acoustic folk, dusty balladry like a Francophone Calexico and stirring, tense string-driven odd-pop worthy of dEUS. £7 for one day, £12 for the pair. A total bargain, and something very much worthy of your support.
EL-P, Fleece, 16th
Responsible for some of the most staggeringly intense hip-hop of the last decade and a half, both in terms of lyrical density and thunderous, suffocating production, El-P has still managed to court controversy, criticism and circumstance enough to keep him in conspiracy theory and end-of-days us-and-them paranoia for years to come. What impresses itself upon you as you listen to this year’s Cancer For Cure is how he manages to harness the same primal, hard-headed attitude and metallic, grimy beats that flattened cities on Company Flow’s Funcrusher Plus back in ’97 (and his own staggering solo debut Fantastic Damage, which I just re-listened to, agape, for the first time in ages) while still sounding energised and relevant fifteen years down the line. Def Jux may have been put on ice, victim to changing fashions and the demise of its roster’s leading lights, but El-P’s voice is still vital, clamorous and intense in spitting out defiant and complex lyrical spiderwebs alongside some of 2012’s newest and brightest. The beats are still absurdly heavy, carpet-bombing nuanced dubstep tweaks and bleeps with the same brutish dexterity of old. This one will be huge.
EVANGELISTA / BELLIES! / I AM HORSE, Cube, 20th
(UPDATE: This show is now cancelled)
There’s plenty of darkness in this month’s selections, demons both implied and explicitly addressed, and while some wrestle beauty from their catharsis there’ll always be those who revel in the murk. Evangelista, Carla Bozulich’s project since taking on the title of her 2005 Constellation solo album, is positively bathed in it; a coal-black sea of Waitsian industrial clamour, the churning, seasick strings of PJ Harvey and Kristin Hersh’s bleakest moments and a stately, gravelly voice as unmistakable as Patti Smith or Thalia Zedek. I’d not been familiar with her previous work, but the evolution of Evangelista has been fascinating, with their most recent album In Animal Tongue an un-rock stew of haunted samples, curdled strings and bleak, treated vocals somewhere between Waits’ most arcane bluesy abstractions, devotional music and Xiu Xiu. Not for the faint-hearted, but pretty amazing and doubtless even more so witnessed live. Bellies! are, quite magnificently, supporting at this gig, and should be seen by everyone. We love them, and may have said so previously.
WITHERED HAND, Dempseys, 21st
It can be startling when your first encounter with a band is in front of a large, partisan home crowd. There’s a moment when you can’t process it without an unfair suspicion clouding your thoughts, and a more rational judgement can take a while to form. Last summer I saw Withered Hand play an Edinburgh Fringe gig at the Queen’s Hall, backed by friends from Meursault and Eagleowl, and it was an incredible sight to see scores of people exultant and yelling Dan Willson’s words back at him. Spend some time alone with the records and this response becomes understandable; Withered Hand’s rollicking indie-folk is confessional, winningly anecdotal and endlessly quotable, and pinned to memorable, singalong tunes. Willson has a charmingly imperfect upper register somewhere between Neil Young and Daniel Johnston, and his lyrics ponder his religious upbringing and an uneasy social education with a conspiratorial glee and a well-chosen lewdness worthy of peak Darren Hayman or Stuart Murdoch. Swn’s appropriation of Dempseys for smaller-scale gigs will work perfectly here; boozy good times for all.
ALASDAIR ROBERTS, Chapter, 22nd
Scotland’s finest living troubadour returns to Cardiff for a gig in, for once, the perfect setting. Blessed with an ability to appropriate and recontextualise Scottish (and English) folk traditions without ever presenting them as a grey archival project, it’s always worth remembering that Roberts’ own compositions are often far more striking and effective than the traditionals he revisits. Playful exercises in minstrelsy and whimsy like ‘I Had A Kiss Of The King’s Hand’ and rollicking calls to arms like Spoils‘ ‘Ned Ludd’s Rant’ or ‘The Flyting Of Grief And Joy’ sit perfectly alongside traditionals and lovers’ laments long since thought lost. Roberts’ skills as an arranger and prodigious guitarist, unrivalled grasp of centuries-old linguistic tropes and glorious upper-register brogue elevate him beyond the often-compared Will Oldham to these ears, and I would strongly suggest, with all due respect to Race Horses and Y Niwl, that Chapter is the only place to be on the 22nd.
MV & EE WITH THE HOME COMFORT SOUND SYSTEM / OTTERSGEAR / GEORGE MCKENZIE’S SOUND TRAP, Polish Club, 23rd
True forgers within the US psychedelic underground, Matt Valentine and Erika Elder plough their own furrow like no other. Their hazy, psychotropic Appalachian folk can sound like Royal Trux on more agreeable drugs or Sunburned Hand Of The Man with more acute songwriting chops. Across dozens of albums they’ve worked with a rotating cast of like minds – J Mascis, Mick Flower, Samara Lubelski – and labels crafting heavy acoustic jams, raga-inspired workouts and developing a singular vision drawing on Eastern mysticism and the great American songbook. Their Home Comfort Sound System sounds like it has to be seen to be believed – a hand-built PA and “A/V enviroment” for 16mm film, slides, oil projections and customised lighting. It’s the real counterculture deal. Qu Junktions excel themselves once again here, supplanting the main event with an intriguing sound installation project from Headfall/Balky Mule/every other Bristol band dude George McKenzie and beautifully constructed English folk tales of restlessness and redemption in the Lancastrian hills care of Ottersgear.
EXPO ’70 / ANCIENT OCEAN / FINGLEBONE, Cube, 24th
Promoters Burial Chamber bill this one as “an evening of deep sonic exploration”, and they’re not for kidding about. Glacial drones, ominous synth tones and dense, trippy ambient guitar improvisations are Justin Wright’s thing, and as Expo ’70 he’s recorded a dozen or so albums of subtly shifting moods and textures. Stuff like this year’s Hovering Resonance 12”, underpinned by head-nodding kosmiche bass patterns, and the harsher doom-influenced tones and fuzzed-out guitar peals of Animism are good places to start. He’s got a tasty-looking split EP with Ancient Ocean out as well, and John Bohannon’s more classical, Eno-esque ambient bliss-outs will be a nice counterpoint. Stars Of The Lid’s And Their Refinement… and Labradford are fair touchstones too, while the title track of his Green Rituals EP sees him get the fuzz guitar out. Salisbury’s Finglebone rounds off a highly, er, mellow bill, deeper into Flying Saucer Attack territory with a hypnotic mesh of drone, ambient soundscapes and field recordings. Highly recommended, and he’s got loads of free stuff on bandcamp. Nice.
CHAINS OF LOVE / TOTEM TERRORS / TENDER PREY / JET BLACK MACHINE DJs, Undertone, 30th
TWO JOY COLLECTIVE GIGS IN ONE MONTH! We really do spoil you. Thanks to Liz from Loose for co-hosting this one with us. Here we present Vancouver garage pop dreamboats Chains Of Love. Their early singles swoon with huge pop hooks straight out of One Kiss Can Lead To Another delivered with a trembling, soaring vocal from Nathalia Pizarro that slips into a slight rasp like a nervous, lovelorn cousin of Detroit Cobras’ Rachel Nagy. The lyrical concerns are, naturally, good boys, bad boys, good-bad-not-evil boys and boys who really shouldn’t have crossed me when they did. Nothing wrong whatsoever in sounding transported from another time and place, of course, but there’s more to COL than mere sixties pastiche, with scuffed-up arrangements and some intriguingly experimental touches around the edges that mark them out from any number of competent-but-identikit peers. You’ll love ’em. Very pleased to have Totem Terrors support; they don’t get to gig much lately what with Rosie being exiled to the South coast, and their stark, sardonic art-punk clatter gets better every time. Spare drum machine thumps, splinters of guitar and rubbery basslines propel their spindly two-minute call and response vignettes like an unselfconscious, fun version of Prinzhorn Dance School or the early 90s bands who gleefully borrowed early Fall and bent it out of shape – Elastica, Pavement even. See how long they go without giggling. Two songs tops. Laura Bryon is playing this too! Another giggler. Now going by Tender Prey, her songs are lusty, adventurous and persuasive beasts, possibly performed solo, possibly with a newly-minted live band. You’ll just have to turn up to see, right? RIGHT.
