{"id":30559,"date":"2013-05-31T16:21:52","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T16:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejoycollective.co.uk\/blog\/?p=30559"},"modified":"2014-09-04T11:41:28","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T11:41:28","slug":"june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/preview\/june\/","title":{"rendered":"June preview: live highlights this month in Cardiff and Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joy Collective & FYB present GUARDIAN ALIEN \/ MxLx \/ HIS NAKED TORSO, Undertone, 2nd<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a man much given to unedifying displays of pleading, nor (unhelpfully, for someone who occasionally \u2018promotes\u2019 gigs) one for making insistent, cast-iron recommendations.\u00a0 HOWEVER.\u00a0 If you have any capacity for enjoying the music of Boredoms, Oneida, Ponytail, Om, Foot Village, Can or Olivia Tremor Control; if you recall with any fondness Mercury Rev side-project Harmony Rockets\u2019 Paralyzed Mind Of The Archangel Void<\/i>; or if you just enjoy the spectacle of a full-blown technicolour psych-noise freakout anchored by blistering, exultant drumming that rains down rippling, transcendent crescendos of lightning-fast speed and unbelievable dexterity, then, um, you are going to love<\/i> this Guardian Alien gig.\u00a0 The drummer is Greg Fox, previously of Liturgy, which should give you a pointer, and the swirling mass of guitars, drones, shaahi baja (it\u2019s an electric zither, innit) and shuddering electronics in front of him on GA\u2019s 37-minute opus See The World Given To A One Love Entity <\/i>hits similar heights of pulverising ecstacy as his old band while also delving into dense, sweat-drenched psychedelia and passages of tripped-out meditative bliss.\u00a0 Exemplary supports too, if we say so ourselves; Matt Loveridge aka MxLx returns to Undertone pledging what he calls \u2018black metal saz action\u2019 and schizo skronk dudes HNT serve up their appealing mess of queasy, staticky noise, abrasive Wolf Eyes clatter and creeped-out Residents playfulness.\u00a0 You will love this.\u00a0 COME.<\/p>\n

MARNIE STERN \/ SKY LARKIN\u00a0\/ HYSTERICAL INJURY, Louisiana, 4th<\/strong><\/p>\n

The closest thing to a simultaneous aural representation of a high five, bear hug and double thumbs-up happening simultaneously, the music of Marnie Stern is total nutso enthusiastic joy.\u00a0 The pattern established on In Advance Of The Broken Arm <\/i>\u2013 hypnotic fret-tapping wizardry, cooing, clarion-call vocals and the thunderous freeform drumming \u2013 has stayed remarkably fresh across the three albums since, and gets a shot in the arm on this year\u2019s awesomely titled The Chronicles of Marnia<\/i> where Oneida megadude Kid Millions takes over from Zach Hill on drums.\u00a0 The effect of the switch is clear without being jarring, as the biggest, brightest hooks (the swooning, stuttering melodies of \u2018Year Of The Glad\u2019, say) become danceable and anthemic with Millions\u2019 input.\u00a0 If the effect is less like a whole box of fireworks going off at once than on her early records, the admissions of doubt and forceful, imploring messages of hope are even more skyscraping and primary-coloured now.\u00a0 Fantastic supports here too; the still-underrated Sky Larkin will have a third album this year, and their intimate, personal pop and Sleater-Kinney grit will work just fine here.<\/p>\n

F.C. JUDD REMIX ALBUM LAUNCH: PERC \/ EKOPLEKZ & BARON MORDANT \/ KAREN GWYER, Cube, 7th<\/strong><\/p>\n

A kind of unsung one-man Radiophonic Workshop, Fred Judd was a true pioneer; an ex-RAF radio operator with a deep interest in musique concrete and tape manipulation who documented his experiments on library records, scored for film and TV and wrote extensively on both electronic music and the machinery used in its construction.\u00a0 Decades on, Public Information compiled his experiments in rhythm, effects and tape on 2012\u2019s beautifully annotated Electronics Without Tears <\/i>compilation, and now biographer and instrument builder Ian Helliwell has helmed an album of \u2018Interpretations\u2019 where the likes of Peter Rehberg, Leyland Kirby, Pye Corner Audio and The Boats are given free rein to explore Judd\u2019s sound archive and use it to compose pieces in tribute.\u00a0 This launch event sees live sets from three (well, four) other contributors; brutalist industrial techno bruiser Perc, Karen Gwyer’s undulating psychedelia (a pixellated cosmic hum recalling Oneohtrix and Throbbing Gristle in equal measure), and a one-off collaboration between Ekoplekz’s dank, dubbed-out horror ambience and Mordant Music’s complex knot of cobwebbed drones and hissing post-punk experimentation.<\/p>\n

ISLET \/ CHAIN OF FLOWERS \/ LITTLE ARROW, Chapter, 8th and ISLET, Exchange, 7th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seems a bit lame to reduce this to a footnote, but even though you don\u2019t need telling how good they are it should be considered a highlight of any month to see Islet do their thing.\u00a0 So here we are.\u00a0 Their second full-length LP, Released By The Movement<\/i>, will be with us later this year, and as a taster we have \u2018Triangulation Station\u2019, a typically heady blast of manic kinetic energy crammed with ideas and giddy with the sheer joy of sound.\u00a0 The Chapter event is to celebrate its release and should be mandatory viewing, not least for the addition of Chain of Flowers whose fantastic and bracingly loud set of muffled, glowering Joy Division noise and flailing Spacemen 3 psych moments was a total blast at our Purling Hiss show the other week.\u00a0 They rip through a storming version of Spectrum\u2019s \u2018How You Satisfy Me\u2019 which will leave you grinning like a chump.\u00a0 Yes!<\/p>\n

CARDIFF PSYCH FEST: THE COSMIC DEAD \/ SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE \/ LOS TENTAKILLS \/ THE COSMIC NOD \/ MUM’S BRAIN \/ BEE TO THE ITCH, Moon Club, 8th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Huge alldayer bringing the spirit of the highly impressive Liverpool weekender to Cardiff for the first time.\u00a0 The Cosmic Dead, monumental longform space-rock quartet from Glasgow, are your headliners; over three albums and a bunch of live recordings to date they bring stretched-out, slow, rumbling grooves, bubbling prog, scorched-earth guitar burn and kosmische fx, the latter cheekily alluded to by the title ‘Mother Earth, Father Sky’.\u00a0 Recent cassette-only release Inner Sanctum <\/em>continues to mine Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, spacey contemporaries like White Hills and the windier end of krautrock.\u00a0 S&TFD favour the old classic drums+synths+processed cassettes approach, offering up epic slabs of dark improv rhythmic chaos like the bits where Shit & Shine really disappear down the rabbit hole.\u00a0 “There is no place for guitars in this band”, they declare, which is pretty radical thinking at a psych festival.\u00a0 Also Glaswegian, though clearly longing to be in west Texas in 1966, Los Tentakills’ psychedelic voodoo surf stomp is so perfectly realised you’d swear it’d walked straight off an obscuro garage compilation; twangy, leering excursions beyond the third eye that Roky Erickson would have dug, they’re the most out-and-out fun here by some distance.\u00a0 Elsewhere on the bill there’s a Witches Drum sideproject, Swansea space-rock and at least one band who take the inevitable sweaty blokeishness of this stuff beyond a joke with the shittest band name of the month.\u00a0 You might want a shower after this, but you’ll have got your money’s worth.<\/p>\n

MUDHONEY \/ METZ, o2 Academy, 9th<\/strong><\/p>\n

After some middling reviews for a couple of actually pretty damn solid mid-period albums that dabbled in longer, hairier psych arrangements and typically pithy political sloganeering, Mudhoney might be forgiven for retreating into middle age with the occasional retread of past glories.\u00a0 Not so; Vanishing Point<\/i> revels in a middle-aged grouchy juvenilia that sees Mark Arm flip a greasy middle digit to, well, just about everyone, in a manner not matched since Iggy Pop\u2019s splendid Moby-dissing rant \u2018New York Is Beating Its Chest Again\u2019.\u00a0 Look that one up, it\u2019s great.\u00a0 Anyway, everyone\u2019s fair game in Arm\u2019s current mood; people who expect him to party too hard, jerks hanging out backstage, people who are over-famililar in the supermarket.\u00a0 This gleeful churlishness and Arm\u2019s familiar paint-stripping yowl are alloyed to classic Mudhoney garage nuggets and it all sounds like it\u2019s still the most fun in the world to play.\u00a0 Pretty much the most fun you can have this month after a couple of cans on the post-work train to Bristol, it could stand to be somewhere more compact and loud (Thekla? Fiddlers? Fleece?) but this\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n

SCOUT NIBLETT, Buffalo, 19th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mild hyperbole warning: Scout Niblett is among the most amazingly powerful and elemental live performers I\u2019ve ever seen.\u00a0 First time was downstairs in Clwb, hemmed in on all sides by neck-craning fanboys; most of whom, embarrassingly for them, were there to leer at her then drummer Todd Trainer\u2019s sinewy carcass.\u00a0 It was a mesmerising gig, anyway, as was the last time I saw her, again just her voice, bleeding, bluesy, her guitar and an occasional drummer, marooned on a huge seafront stage at Primavera.\u00a0 Same result, a genuinely elevating experience that made you want to take a rare pause to recover during an endless festival day.\u00a0 Her raw, alchemical songwriting, often performed in bare-bones arrangements of skeletal drums, guitar and her utterly captivating voice, has flickered and flared like burning copper across six albums now, all brilliant.\u00a0 The songs are very often intensely personal, heartbroken, as if wrenched from some pit of desperation.\u00a0 It\u2019s Up To Emma<\/i> the new one, refers (like numerous other song and album titles) to her by name, albeit \u2013 notably \u2013 her real name for once.\u00a0 Scout sounds like she\u2019s working steadily through the five stages of grief on this one, nakedly personal almost to a fault \u2013 it\u2019s a hard listen lyrically at times, if her least musically stark since Sweet Heart Fever<\/i> \u2013 though she\u2019ll still throw in a disarmingly funny lyrical curveball or cover TLC\u2019s \u2018No Scrubs\u2019 as if to deflate any half-baked psychoanalysis.\u00a0 Only PJ Harvey has ever harnessed the power to flash from loud to quiet with the emphasis Scout does, and it\u2019s really something to see.<\/p>\n

BOBBY CONN \/ JEMMA ROPER, Clwb Ifor Bach, 20th<\/strong><\/p>\n

What the hell is going on in Cardiff this month?\u00a0 Three excellent, ordinarily must-see gigs on one night, it\u2019ll be a wrench to miss any of them.\u00a0 Fanfares should rightly herald the return to these parts of Bobby Conn; chameleon, comedian, Corinthian, caricature, the pocket-sized showman takes the red velour tracksuit out of the walk-in wardrobe one more time, steps on a moving treadmill to apply his make-up and returns to meet his public.\u00a0 An unapologetically jumbled grab-bag of 70s and early 80s styles both musically and visually (his Glass Gypsies decked out like a third-tier brickies-in-eyeliner glam outfit), since the relatively pared-down, taut John McEntire-produced funk of career high The Golden Age<\/i> he\u2019s veered between windmilling concept-album prog, straight-faced Todd Rundgren (hey!) balladry, overstretched Prince falsetto and a string-driven take on Parliament funk and Philly soul.\u00a0 Usually on the same record.\u00a0 Visually heavy on the mock-theatrics of the down-at-heel cabaret singer, Conn\u2019s meticulously practiced shtick hides an often lacerating socio-political lyrical content, the flaws and strained desperation in the whole often making it all the more satisfying.\u00a0 If you were at any of his previous Clwb gigs \u2013 stacking it over the monitors at Swn, posing for camera phone photos mid-song while weaving through the crowd \u2013 you\u2019ll want to see him again.<\/p>\n

MELT YOURSELF DOWN, 10 Feet Tall, 20th and MELT YOURSELF DOWN \/ COMDODO \/ FAT WHITE FAMILY, Exchange, 21st<\/strong><\/p>\n

A whirling mess of taut post-punk basslines, dense rhythmic clatter, pressurised funk and blaring, shuddering sax, MYD variously recall Congotronics, the Ethio jazz of Mulatu Astatke or Salah Ragab, the tumultuous neo-jazz noise of The Thing and an aggressive, breathless funk with clear lineage back to the Pop Group and Tackhead.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very fine racket indeed, displaying all the frantic eclecticism you might expect from a loose agglomeration of Zun Zun Egui, Acoustic Ladyland and Heliocentrics members, and if it\u2019s hard to imagine 10 Feet Tall as a natural venue for them (they\u2019d destroy<\/i> on Clwb\u2019s upstairs soundsystem) it\u2019s still excellent to see their first tour make it across the bridge.\u00a0 They seem pretty well placed in a climate where unashamed jazz, funk and afrobeat influences are seeping into all kinds of much-lauded music (Goat, for example) rather than treated with clueless suspicion, and the brace of singles for the Leaf label suggest their soon-come debut will be killer.\u00a0 Bristol heads get a proper bonus as disgracefully unkempt squat-rock nasties Fat White Family support; their Champagne Holocaust<\/i> LP is a greasy treat that delivers far beyond the expectations their lurid press might leave you with.<\/p>\n

MARIA MINERVA \/ DAU CEFN \/ GWENNO, Jacobs Market, 20th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exclusive!\u00a0 Peski\u2019s increasingly regular multi-disciplinary nights up in the rafters at Jacobs are a great idea brilliantly executed and the sort of thing Cardiff needs to see more of; there\u2019s a feeling you\u2019ve stumbled upon a secret club, but one that\u2019s totally inclusive and fun to hang out in.\u00a0 Weird and interesting film curios, showcases of local art, great DJs and some eclectic and excellent music have made these nights to look out for, and after stepping it up a notch or ten with R. Stevie Moore\u2019s second command performance the other week they\u2019ve really landed a bit of a coup here.\u00a0 Estonian producer and synth-pop chanteuse Minerva\u2019s early recordings for 100% Silk and Not Not Fun showcased an unusual and exotic approach, filtering modernist disco and classic house through 90s euro-dance, brittle Baltic electronica and quasi-Eastern samples. Her releases have been gradually less rough and ready, while still favouring the Not Not Fun house style; think a taped-over VHS of MTV Europe overlaid with fidgety digital beats, Minerva\u2019s intoxicating and personal blend of slo-mo pop seduction and defiant DIY individualism lifting it head and shoulders above her peers.\u00a0 Typically well-chosen support too, with Gwenno\u2019s first-language pop-experimental hybrids a perfect mirror to Minerva, while Abergele duo Dau Cefn offer a well-practiced blend of electronic pranksterism, akward pop and unexpectedly poignant songwriting that fans of Nectarine No. 9 or Datblygu would get on board with.<\/p>\n

NANCY ELIZABETH \/ ISNAJ DUI, Porters, 23rd and NANCY ELIZABETH \/ DIRECTORSOUND \/ MARTIN CALLINGHAM, Cube, 21st<\/strong><\/p>\n

First fruits of Harriet out of Them Squirrels\u2019 new promotions outing Golden Horseshoe (in tandem with Shape), this promises much; an underused venue with a lovely natural theatre cosiness, and some quietly revelatory, experimental music of a type little seen since the Rusty Trombone boys left town.\u00a0 Nancy Elizabeth\u2019s third album, Dancing<\/i>, uses the solitary nature of its recording as a virtue, her multi-tracked vocals rippling like The Power Out<\/i>-era Electrelane over an expanded palette of sound that adds stuttering electronics to her folk\/country songs. \u00a0There\u2019s a Laura Marling clarity and depth to her voice, though the use of more traditional instrumentation and arrangements recall Mary Hampton or, inevitably, the likes of Anne Briggs or Kath Bloom.\u00a0 Beautiful, mysterious stuff.\u00a0 In Bristol she\u2019s supported by the creaking, rustic Dorset folk of Directorsound, while in Cardiff she\u2019s joined by Isnaj Dui, aka Katie English, who also plays as part of Directorsound.\u00a0 Do keep up.\u00a0 Her pieces for flute, dulcimer and electronics are subtle, intricate things, hypnotic and beautifully constructed thickets of sound. \u00a0It might remind you of Colleen or the subtler side of Mira Calix, if you need a reference point; better, pick up a ticket and explore it for yourself.<\/p>\n

THE MUSIC TAPES \/ LOCAL SPORTS TEAM\u00a0\/ Y PENCADLYS, Clwb Ifor Bach, 29th<\/strong><\/p>\n

For those lucky enough to attend the Jeff Mangum-curated ATP event last March, few if any people epitomised its spirit more than Julian Koster.\u00a0 The Music Tapes played their own set, but Koster\u2019s ubiquitous presence, clad in daft pixie hat and with musical saw close at hand, embellished sets from Mangum himself, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, Olivia Tremor Control and countless others.\u00a0 It\u2019s this giddy, almost spiritual enthusiasm that effervesces throughout Koster\u2019s own music, and it\u2019s as a live band that Music Tapes become truly, unmissably brilliant.\u00a0 Not that their sporadic releases \u2013 last year\u2019s Mary\u2019s Voice <\/i>was only the third album of a near two-decade career \u2013 isn\u2019t worth losing yourself in.\u00a0 Never knowingly holding back in terms of instrumentation, arrangement or emotional investment, Koster\u2019s meticulously spun psych-folk symphonies revel in a lushly cinematic, swooning take on friends Neutral Milk Hotel or Olivia Tremor Control\u2019s Elephant 6 house style.\u00a0 The occasionally teetering concepts come off charming, secondary to the sweet, timeless century-old sound.\u00a0 As for that live set-up, expect a circus tent backdrop, a \u2018talking television\u2019, and an organ with mechanical hands attached.\u00a0 You may well grin your face off.\u00a0 We\u2019ve booked a couple of nicely diverse supports; Haydon Hughes\u2019 oddball electro torch songs as Y Pencadlys are compelling and madly insidious, and LST\u2019s spiky indie-rock and prickly humour highly enjoyable.\u00a0 COME!<\/p>\n

DANIEL BACHMAN \/ THE HORSE LOOM, Cafe Kino, 29th<\/strong><\/p>\n

A mere two of the many superb turns playing the tiny yet excellent-looking Sin-Eater Festival<\/a> this month (at a country pub in Shropshire, essentially, and also featuring Trembling Bells, Alexander Tucker, Richard Dawson, Kogumaza, RM Hubbert\u2026), these two gentlemen interpret traditional acoustic folk guitar styles in different but equally effective ways.\u00a0 Upsettingly young Virginian Bachman captures the familiar spirit of American Primitivists like Fahey and Jack Rose, with a rolling, faintly psychedelic sound neatly and confidently evoking a sense of unrest and displacement appropriate to his move to the city during recordings.\u00a0 He\u2019s a little more traditional and less wildly lyrical than some contemporaries \u2013 Cian Nugent, in particular, has a more elemental, stirring take on the form \u2013 but Seven Pines<\/i>, his recent album for Tompkins Square, is still pretty neat.\u00a0 Steve Malley, who goes by The Horse Loom, was formerly in The Unit Ama, who released a single self-titled album of fierce, compact, Shellac-informed rock for Gringo a few years back.\u00a0 His solo work is no less intense, applying the same strictures to a long-standing love of classic British folk in the lineage of Bert Jansch and Davy Graham.\u00a0 UPDATE!<\/strong> It also looks like he’s been replaced on the listings by My Two Toms.\u00a0 So, um, call ahead or something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joy Collective & FYB present GUARDIAN ALIEN \/ MxLx \/ HIS NAKED TORSO, Undertone, 2nd I\u2019m not a man much given to unedifying displays of pleading, nor (unhelpfully, for someone who occasionally \u2018promotes\u2019 gigs) one for making insistent, cast-iron recommendations.\u00a0 HOWEVER.\u00a0 If you have any capacity for enjoying the music of Boredoms, Oneida, Ponytail, Om, […]<\/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-30559","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\/30559","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=30559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}