{"id":29839,"date":"2013-05-02T15:17:48","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T15:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejoycollective.co.uk\/blog\/?p=29839"},"modified":"2014-09-04T11:42:44","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T11:42:44","slug":"may-preview-live-highlights-this-month-for-cardiff-and-bristol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/preview\/may-preview-live-highlights-this-month-for-cardiff-and-bristol\/","title":{"rendered":"May preview: live highlights this month for Cardiff and Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEON NEON & NATIONAL THEATRE WALES: Praxis Makes Perfect, <\/em>secret Cardiff location, 2nd-5th and Motion, 23rd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Never one to approach a new release without a degree of conceptual \u00e9lan<\/i>, Gruff Rhys has excelled himself here.\u00a0 Neon Neon\u2019s debut Stainless Style <\/i>revelled in its exquisite chrome elegance and romantic Don Johnson musk, a meticulously drawn study of the unreal real-life tale of John DeLorean.\u00a0 Launched with a showroom-style gig at the WMC, the more theatrically staged elements of the project presaged Rhys\u2019 trips to Brazil (The Terror Of Cosmic Loneliness<\/i>) and Patagonia (Separado<\/i>); for his second collaboration with Boom Bip, the setting is Italy, the concept grander still and its unveiling a full-blown interactive gig-cum-theatre experience.\u00a0 Praxis Makes Perfect<\/i> fixes its gaze on radical publisher and left-wing activist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, reimagining his remarkable life as a hyper-connected playboy Communist with a Zelig<\/i>-like presence in mid-century drama.\u00a0 The whole thing plays out in a secret location across four nights, with a Bristol event taking place as part of the Mayfest arts festival later in the month.\u00a0 The album\u2019s out to coincide, early listens suggesting the duo\u2019s gleaming electro-pop acuity remains strong; there won\u2019t be many launch gigs like this, though, so don\u2019t miss out.<\/p>\n

HEY COLOSSUS \/ HOGSLAYER \/ THE DEATH OF HER MONEY, Undertone, 3rd<\/strong><\/p>\n

NEXT JOY PRESENTATION! \u00a0Somewhere between Harvey Milk\u2019s grim riffmonsters and Butthole Surfers\u2019 acid-crazed heart-of-darkness murk lie London goons Hey Colossus, an amp-torturing live unit akin to pals Part Chimp\u2019s splendidly gonzo sonic attack (indeed, Chimp vocalist\/guitarist Tim Cedar is HC’s new drummer).\u00a0\u00a0Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>their eighth full-length, sucks on the ominous, leery drones, masked incantations and limping psychedelic grimoire of immediate precursor\u00a0RRR\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Happy Birthday<\/em>‘s deliciously gonzo wall of gleeful white-noise howling but is a more refined, dynamic beast marshalling loops and synths in the attack. \u00a0Monstrous, gnashing gonzo sludge riffs with Melvins-esque determination and absurd volume, and the vocal mutterings of a paint-huffing bus station madman.\u00a0 The dense ur-mantras of Oneida’s\u00a0Each One Teach One<\/em>, but clammier, messier and uglier.\u00a0 Bleeding amp torture and calm, heavyweight precision. \u00a0Their initial ultimate aim: “Fudge Tunnel v Can”. \u00a0Right on. \u00a0Support comes from the hulking doom heft of ex-Zonderhoof and Shaped By Fate\u00a0types Hogslayer and sludgegaze titans TDOHM. \u00a0Perfect bedfellows for a night of leery noise.<\/p>\n

HAIKU SALUT \/ MY TWO TOMS, Cafe Kino, 3rd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haiku Salut are one of the more unlikely candidates for one-to-watch status, being as they are ex-members of empirically terrible sixth-form twee shower The Deirdres, but they’ve as little in common with their early youthful stumblings as you could possibly imagine. \u00a0Delivering impeccably on their published influences of\u00a0m\u00fam and Yann Tiersen,\u00a0Tricolore<\/em>\u00a0flits between waltz-time accordian and keyboard vignettes recalling Tiersen or Beirut and twinkling folktronica employing pianos, glockenspiels, harpsichords, burbling synths and stuttering laptop beats. \u00a0The effect is as breezy and playful as their indiepop roots but its sleepy charm is fully-formed, stirring and warmly romantic.<\/p>\n

KID CANAVERAL \/ PICTISH TRAIL, Undertone, 4th<\/strong><\/p>\n

An excellent late addition to the month\u2019s schedules care of Liz from Loose\/Fullfat, this Saturday night treat is a handy stop-off for two of the Fence Records turns adding a little musical colour to the lovely Machynlleth Comedy Festival over the weekend. Kid Canaveral were a highlight of Wales Goes Pop for me, rollicking, hook-filled indie pop with a lyrical eye recalling Gordon McIntyre out of Ballboy; pointed dissections of the social mores of the drinking male, pithy humour and reflective, sometimes lacerating analysis of twentysomething relationships.\u00a0 Messy, jubilant air-punching music for dancing.\u00a0 Fence\u2019s cheery impresario Jonny Lynch, as pointed out in this over-wordy and slapdash column just last month, is a one-man jukebox of fidgety electronic pop whose recent Secret Soundz Vol 2<\/i> sees his warm, intimate songwriting shine through endless layers of twinkling synth, hand-cranked effects and oddball interstitial sound cues.<\/p>\n

KATIE & KIM’S ‘SLAP UP’: MICHAEL HURLEY \/ AVARUS \/ DAN HAYWOOD \/ THE MOONS OF MULAGI \/ TIMBERWOLF, secret Bristol location, 6th<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good number of unique one-off variations on your standard live music event happening this month, but trust Qu Junktions and ShieldShaped to go the extra mile; witness a bank holiday Monday shindig in a to-be-revealed secret location in which, across two separate afternoon and late-night sessions, you may enjoy a menu of intimate and out-there music served up with complimentary home-cooked food care of Katie & Kim, two Scottish cooks whose pop-up kitchen has tempted Bristolian taste buds for the last few years.\u00a0 Musical treats across the day include the highly recommended Avarus, whose wide-eyed prog-folk jams will go down a treat with anyone into the Finnish improv\/psych\u00a0of Kemialliset Yst\u00e4v\u00e4t; Dan Haywood, just your standard poet\/singer\/ornithologist with a triple-album debut of countrified folk crooning recorded on a Scottish odyssey; mysterious late additions Timberwolf, likened to FSA and Third Eye Foundation in the blurb and thus to be watched; and headlining, personable walking compendium of outsider folk song Michael Hurley, returning to Bristol a year after his first tour in a decade with two sets drawn from a daunting catalogue of politicised, humourous, world-weary gems.\u00a0 Ticket details and info here<\/a>, and I would not recommend hanging around if you fancy this one.<\/p>\n

THEE OH SEES \/ THREATMANTICS \/ THE MILK RACE, Clwb, 8th<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Dwyer\u2019s first and only previous appearance in Cardiff lives long in the memory, a genuinely thrilling and palpably dangerous Dempseys show with his old trio Coachwhips back in 2005.\u00a0 Lesson Number One, as usual, ahead of the curve with that one. \u00a0Back then, Oh Sees or OCS or The Oh Sees or whatever acted primarily as a breather from the demented garage-punk racket of his other bands, coughing out several albums of smudged lo-fi murk and fractured folk jams.\u00a0 After Coachwhips and Pink & Brown\u2019s demise Thee Oh Sees became Dwyer\u2019s prime focus, with renewed intent; Floating Coffin<\/i>, their seventh album of new material since 2008, retains the phenomenal quality control and eager delving into innumerable genres that has characterised his work since then. \u00a0Garage, frazzled psychedelia, campy schlockabilly, rough-arsed punk and humming Krautrock are splattered across their albums, but on Coffin <\/i>it\u2019s coalesced and refined into a brighter, tighter set of psych-pop nuggets that beat out pretty much anything else I\u2019ve heard so far this year.\u00a0 This is a storming bit of business by Shape and Balderdash and it\u2019s cheering to see people stoked about it \u2013 get tickets upfront is my tip.\u00a0 Also, be kind to the DJ mooks because they are your Joy Collective pals, and because it will be my birthday.\u00a0 Party!<\/p>\n

WILLIAM TYLER \/ HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER, 10 Feet Tall, 9th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Few things in music are more transcendentally glorious when done well than instrumental 12-string guitar. \u00a0There\u2019s a fairly clear lineage for this stuff to all but the most knowledgable; Fahey, Basho, Rose, Chasny, James Blackshaw, all expert players but with their own takes on the style.\u00a0 Add to that William Tyler,\u00a0known chiefly as a member of Lambchop but, as it happened, a prodigious collaborator with Silver Jews, Bonnie \u2018Prince\u2019 Billy and Wooden Wand and performer on Tompkins Square\u2019s latter-day albums by country original Charlie Louvin.\u00a0 Tyler\u2019s 2010 debut album\u00a0Behold The Spirit<\/em>\u00a0worked in joyous fingerpicked solo pieces with dronier sections and more expansive arrangements, and it was bloody magnificent. \u00a0Now signed to Merge and with an appropriately broader profile, follow-up\u00a0Impossible Truth<\/em> sees Tyler’s skills as an arranger more to the fore than ever, the glorious head-rush of his songs’ central melodies embellished by subtle Nashville twang, smudged horns and bowed basses. \u00a0Hats off to Gathered In Song for bringing him to Cardiff and for pairing him with Hiss Golden Messenger, who we put on last time he was in town. \u00a0HGM is basically M.C. Taylor, who some (ok, just me) might recall from stately country-soul outfit The Court & Spark and who deals in classic troubled country blues, Southern soul and gospel-inflected Americana. \u00a0We’re talking Gene Clark circa\u00a0No Other<\/em>, basically, and we’re suggesting you should probably go to this gig.<\/p>\n

THE HAXAN CLOAK \/ ERAAS \/ NECRO DEATHMORT \/ BLAKK METAL, Exchange, 10th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bobby Krlic’s second album as The Haxan Cloak, the universally acclaimed Excavation<\/em>, is a remarkable thing; a hermetic, malevolent beast whose every ominous rumble and click sounds like distilled paranoia.\u00a0 It’s not without parallel, sharing a bleak, dread-terror corner with Raime’s Quarter Turns On A Living Line. <\/i>Roly Porter’s stricken, static-howl monolith Aftertime<\/i> and the exquisitely turned electroacoustic horrorcore of Kreng among other recent offerings. The metronomic thud of percussion, ominous treated strings and often absurdly claustrophobic prickly-heat bass weight might evoke a more pared-down, monochrome version of fellow witchcraft enthusiasts Demdike Stare too, though the crushing dynamics and funereal drones of Krlic’s work bear equal kinship with Sunn 0))) or Earth. Connecticut-via-Brooklyn duo ERAAS, meanwhile, boil down the atmospheric post-rock of their former band Apse into darker, more rhythmic shapes with a suitably queasy ambience and unlikely detours into juddering, off-centre electro-pop. There’s also icy, Scorn\/Techno Animal influenced laptop doom excellence from Necro Deathmort, whose album The Colonial Script <\/i>I have just been listening to and which is utterly ace, while Blakk Metal is \u2013 really \u2013 a mash-up of endless black metal samples constructed by Invada founder Fat Paul.\u00a0 Cracking line-up and a headliner whose live set is purportedly aloof and confrontational in equal measure; be afraid.<\/p>\n

SWEET BABOO \/ R.SEILIOG \/ JOHN MOUSE, Clwb, 11th<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already written more about Sweet Baboo than anyone who knows him and has helped release his records probably should, but impartiality be damned; the response to \u2018Let\u2019s Go Swimming Wild\u2019 was a genuinely wonderful thing to behold, just rewards not just for the tireless work Steve Black has put in over years of unrewarding provincial solo gigs but as recognition of a talent whose gradual steps to a higher profile have been backed up by ever-more impressive songwriting and justifiable self-confidence.\u00a0 Ships<\/i> is his best album to date, seeing him more at ease than ever even while there\u2019s more going on under the surface; for such accessible songs there\u2019s a phenomenal amount happening.\u00a0\u00a0 The arrangements on the album are fantastically well-chosen, giving his most consistent set of songs a plush, warm and \u2013 importantly \u2013 inventive setting.\u00a0 Black and Rob Jones show an uncanny knack for choosing exactly the right instrument for the right spot, and by no means the obvious ones; clarinet peeks out from the sunburst horns of \u2018C\u2019mon Let\u2019s Mosh\u2019, and elsewhere the expected solos arrive not on guitar but fairground organ or the excellent Speak & Spell keyboard in \u2018If I Die\u2019.\u00a0 The album\u2019s long-mooted nautical concept \u2013 a device to stop writing songs about girls, supposedly \u2013 takes over its second half, where his enduring taste for fanciful storytelling comes to the fore, until the giddy, ecstatic Neutral Milk Hotel rush of \u2018Build You A Butterfly\u2019 careers past underpinned by clarion horns.\u00a0 Love, sex, friendship and gulper eels; the archetypal Baboo topics.\u00a0 This date ends his first full-band headline tour, with sold-out gigs all over, and it\u2019s recommended in the strongest terms.<\/p>\n

WOLF PEOPLE, Exchange, 11th<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of stuff on this month that borrows tastefully, even successfully from disparate sources (Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s tuneful\u00a0AM pop retreads, lost in formless whitewashed chugging) or, in some cases, very specific ones (Suuns, who replicate Clinic so closely it\u2019s frankly unnatural) but bring little of their own to bear.\u00a0 In light of this, instead doff the cap to a band like Wolf People; so immersed in the minutiae of obscure early-70s folk-rock that accusations of pastiche become immaterial, it\u2019s disarming to find they\u2019re four twentysomethings from exotic modern-day Bedford.\u00a0 Immersed in a murky record-collector void for a decade or so, their dedication to the form keeps them somehow sounding alive and relevant, even though their spacey, clinically tight rock could slip in unnoticed on a lost nuggets compilation alongside the likes of Mighty Baby. \u00a0‘Tiny Circle’ off Steeple<\/em> is their double-take-inducing shot at greatness, a sample-worthy drum track of absurd funkiness with Tull flute and spacey Hendrix vocals, yet so, SO much better than that suggests. \u00a0It’s so clearly walked off a Finders Keepers compilation that to find it’s a 2010 original is remarkable. \u00a0Elsewhere Black Water (off Tidings<\/em>) is all drawled vocals and backwards guitar wash.\u00a0 Their whipcrack tautness has an almost post-rock metronomic skill though, and they\u2019re open-minded enough to pick up other subtle shades from pre- and post-punk eras.\u00a0 Their label Jagjaguwar released Black Mountain, too; see Wolf People as their spiritual UK equivalent.<\/p>\n

MOUNT EERIE \/ WINTER VILLAINS \/ ANDREW PAUL REGAN, Buffalo, 19th<\/strong><\/p>\n

More fantastic booking from Shape here!\u00a0 Mount Eerie is one man, Phil Elverum of Anacortes, Washington, and Mt. Erie is the dominating focal point of his hometown\u2019s landscape.\u00a0 Elverum released a string of hushed, troubled and beautiful albums of lo-fi folk, noise-rock and drone as The Microphones before adopting the Mount Eerie name in 2003, since when he\u2019s released a prolific series of records reaching deeper into his surroundings and relation to them.\u00a0 Sometimes sparse and ruminative, with just an acoustic guitar, a sticky, static hum and Elverum\u2019s fragile vocals, the Mount Eerie sound-world has also been dark and enveloping, the complex sounds and narratives inhabiting a world within a world.\u00a0 His latest pair of albums, Clear Moon<\/em> and Ocean Roar<\/em>, explore both sides of Mount Eerie; brooding, elemental laments delivered with dread and wonder.\u00a0 Live, he has tended towards his more sparse, folky work; humble, friendly but intense,\u00a0with a little of the claustrophobic lo-fi dank of his black metal-influenced Wind\u2019s Poem<\/em> album.\u00a0 This is a rare UK tour (through he visited Bristol with Earth last year, he doesn’t tour solo often) and his intimate, awestruck and personal music should not be missed.<\/p>\n

PURLING HISS \/ CHAIN OF FLOWERS \/ ROUGH MUSIC, Undertone, 20th<\/strong><\/p>\n

FUTURE JOY PRESENTATION!\u00a0 We spoil you.\u00a0 Our second show of the month, again impossible without the FYB and Lesson No. 1 heroes, this is a splendidly opportune time to acquaint yourself with the fuzzed-up psych-blues-grunge swagger of Philly mainstay Mike Polizze and friends. \u00a0Previously Purling Hiss acted as the bracingly no-fi, static-stricken side-project Polizze started while in thumping scorched-earth garage fuzzballs Birds Of Maya.\u00a0 Fourth album Water On Mars<\/em>, though, refines their style with cleaner production, Dinosaur\/Kurt Vile hooks and gnarled Comets on Fire soloing.\u00a0 It\u2019s disarmingly direct and catchy in places, tackling the same jangle-friendly, country-leaning indie rock that Pavement, Silver Jews or Meat Puppets turned their hands to, credentials you might rightly expect given their releases on the likes of Woodsist and Mexican Summer before WOM<\/em> appeared this year on Drag City.\u00a0 Lyrically running the whole gamut from A to B – drug songs, party songs, slacker philosophising \u2013 they do the classic Dinosaur trick of verse\/solo\/verse songs still being perversely catchy.\u00a0 Great stuff.\u00a0 We\u2019ve excellent support for this one, too; Chain Of Flowers\u2019 moody, reverbed Joy Division\/Cure influenced noise and the ripping math-pop zingers of Rough Music.\u00a0 Come join us!<\/p>\n

Mayfest closing party: HEATSICK, Cube, 26th<\/strong><\/p>\n

A stunning-sounding closer for the sprawling festival of contemporary theatre that brings bold, interactive arts and theatre productions out of the theatres and into smaller, more unique spaces.\u00a0 Heatsick (Berlin-based producer Steven Warwick) was notably absent from the recent PAN showcase at Arnolfini but his Extended Play<\/i> A\/V project could hardly have shared a bill with anyone else.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty much a natural conclusion for his sumptuous, slow-build casio-disco, a hypnotic minimalist grind that refracts Li’l Louis and Todd Terry grooves through the modern day cosmic jams of Hieroglyphic Being, Not Not Fun-style reliance on lo-fi synth patterns and even the insistent, chaotic rush of Omar Souleyman.\u00a0 It\u2019s a teasing, repetitive and ultimately ecstatic form of house music built from modest components and best enjoyed on the\u00a0ace D\u00e9viation<\/i> EP.\u00a0 The live show stretches a single, unrelenting piece out for hours on end, with Warwick using and inhabiting the whole building as part of the work; part club set, part installation, encouraging interactivity from the surroundings and the audience.<\/p>\n

THE JEFFREY LEWIS & PETER STAMPFEL BAND \/ QUIET MARAUDER \/ MY NAME IS IAN, Moon Club, 27th<\/strong><\/p>\n

A generation or two apart but the most natural friends and collaborators.\u00a0 Jeff Lewis\u2019 itinerant, guitar-sketchbook-rucksack troubadour nature always seemed of another time, and not entirely suited to the big-room headline status his growing popularity afforded him a couple of years back.\u00a0 Funny, wordy, thoughtful and reflective, his verbose, scrappy antifolk keeps its charm even with superficially enhanced production and bolder arrangements but there\u2019s a glee to the early stuff, or the Crass covers LP, that\u2019s hard to beat.\u00a0 The same goes for Come On Board<\/i>, the 2011 album he recorded with ex-Holy Modal Rounder Stampfel, lifelong psych-folk doyen, chum of Michael Hurley and one-time Fugs sideman.\u00a0 Stampfel\u2019s fiddle, mandolin and enthusiastic vocals tumble all over that record and inspire an obvious delight in Lewis too.\u00a0 They\u2019re touring as a five-piece band including Franic out of the Wave Pictures on mandolin, and there\u2019s a second volume of collaborations out to coincide.\u00a0 Probably the smallest venue Lewis has played in Cardiff since the pre-refurb Buffalo in 2005, it\u2019ll be a packed out, joyous occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEON NEON & NATIONAL THEATRE WALES: Praxis Makes Perfect, secret Cardiff location, 2nd-5th and Motion, 23rd Never one to approach a new release without a degree of conceptual \u00e9lan, Gruff Rhys has excelled himself here.\u00a0 Neon Neon\u2019s debut Stainless Style revelled in its exquisite chrome elegance and romantic Don Johnson musk, a meticulously drawn study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,458],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlights","category-preview"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}