London 23 November 2017 “Dunkel. Dunkel ist die Nacht“.i It is most certainly dark tonight, the evenings now well and truly drawn. The winter solstice approaches. And, as is customary for such astronomical phenomena, we are gathering together tonight to celebrate by watching the rise of the strange, intense sun that is Laibach.
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Bristol 23 November 2017 Drastically redefining notions of jazz, Bristol-based Calcine Quartet were a textural pleasure. Dominic Lash‘s double bass shovelling, Matthew Grigg‘s crumbled fret skutters sending the speakers into spasms. A gravelly diesel chug, breaking ranks in a ping of overspilling metal melded to the rusty hinged squeal from Rebecca Sneddon‘s sax.
Bristol 30 October 2017 Motion in Bristol was home to two giants of the alternative music scene on the day before Halloween this year. The weather was clement, the venue opened on time and the mighty Godspeed You! Black Emperor had brought along friends and fellow sonic travellers Bardo Pond, so we knew we were in for a full on evening’s treat.
London 21 October 2017 On 21 October 2017, I was lucky enough to go see Frank Iero And The Patience at Omeara in south London. I did not arrive in time for the opening band, Paceshifters, unfortunately, but I did make it for the second half of the The Homeless Gospel Choir.
London 9 October 2017 It’s been a few months since I last went to see a band at The Borderline, so I was somewhat shocked as I entered the venue as it seems like a totally different place. The one little bar has now been replaced by a massive long bar and an elevated standing area has been removed.
Apollo Victoria Theatre, London 1 October 2017 For the last five years, a growing audience of podcast listeners have been being amused, entertained and just plain weirded out by the small-town cosmic absurdism of the mighty Welcome To Night Vale – community radio from a little town somewhere in the desert
London 11 September 2017 Dark clouds were brooding all day before Coven’s first ever show in the UK. AS I left the tube station the heavens opened and a monsoon like shower sent everyone on the street running for cover. I braved the downpour and ran to the entrance of the venue where a few other soaked individuals were also huddled trying to get in. A large clap […]
London 27 July 2017 Our Black Heart, on a dingy sidestreet in the middle of Camden, is rapidly becoming one of the capital’s finest purveyors of underground heavy music. Not only does it once a year double as the command centre for Desertfest‘s weekend-long celebration of all that is doomy and stoned
London 27 July 2017 Growing up in North Carolina with a fair amount of Baptist and other mountain church influence, I have been no stranger to shape note, or square hymn singing. It’s a strange old thing which the London Sacred Harp group has perfected for the here and now.
London 22 June 2017 Hindsight can be a famously cruel opponent. On the freezing New Year’s Eve of 1961, The Beatles drove all the way down to London from their native Liverpool amidst swirling snowstorms and treacherous roads. The following day, whilst the nation sipped delicately at some Alka-Seltzer and nursed its collective sore head, The Fab Four fired up their Vox amplifiers
London 14 June 2017 ‘Are you going to see Kings X?’, the guy in the pub says to me. ‘No, I’m going to see a band called Blood Ceremony at The Garage’, I reply. ‘They sound a bit weird to me, mate’; and with that he shuffles off, pint in hand.
Bristol 26 May 2017 The stage may have dwarfed her stature, but Little Annie‘s cabaret queen antics were larger than life, completely over-spilling the place. Cloaked in Eastern silk, her waist a blaze of African bracelets, Annie’s hoarse vocal was something to be treasured – both warm and vibrant, bursting with wit
London 11 May 2017 There’s a scene towards the end of John Carpenter’s turbo-charged 1982 creature feature The Thing when the titular metamorph – just before being blown to shit by Kurt Russell’s vengeful sticks of dynamite – writhes and transmutes in all its slimy, gory glory.
Bristol 12 May 2017 French violinist Agathe Max warmed things up with a stunning set of looped riches, her bow floating with the gymnastic gait of a trapeze artist as she filled the canvas with different textures and tonal depths.
London 4 May 2017 Einstürzende Neubauten are a band very close to my heart — indeed, they reside in tattoo form on my left arm, so it’s literally a matter of inches. So I am delighted when, having given up on seeing what’s billed as a Greatest Hits set due to lack of funds, I find out at the last minute that I’ve been assigned to cover it for […]
London 2 May 2017 What makes the difference between just another gig and a profoundly uplifting experience? This is the question that I am left pondering in the wake of Thor Harris‘s (erstwhile Swans) percussion and noise collective Thor & Friends show at The Lexington last night.
Bristol 28 April 2017 Stereocilia‘s haunted ambience has been hooking me in for some time now, the cinematic scope of his recent LP was blinding, but tonight’s show just blew me clean away.
London 12 April 2017 Belinda Carlisle was right when she said “Heaven is a place on Earth”. David Byrne, however, despite the superiority of his recorded output, was wrong when he said “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens”. Although he was KIND of closer to the money when he said “the band in Heaven play my favourite song, play it one more time, play it all […]