Labels: bristol, cooler, dirty whites, jay reatard, kevin eldon, lovvers

So I was supposed to be to see support act Retribution Gospel Choir, a super group (well, ‘super’ to the likes of me that is) made up of Eric Pollard, Alan Sparhawk and fellow Low member Matt Livingston. They also happen to have made one of my favourite records of this year (thanks to Mark Kozelek’s production skills) So you’d think I’d be pretty pissed off at arriving at the Thekla to catch the last 90 seconds of the last song, ‘Breaker’. Thing is, it was such a blisteringly kick ass, conviction filled 90 seconds that I was able to take it on the chin.

Pragmatism prevailed and we stuck around for Micah P Hinson. Having heard his set at Greenman a few years ago I knew Hinson’s sound and that I liked it. His recent album is so sensitive and gut wrenching that it seemed a bit weird that the audience sniggered and laughed during some of his songs which had a lot of false endings in a “I’m gonna see if you bunch of twerps are really listening to me” kind of way. His albums go in for a stripped down sound and he stuck to that with the live interpretations and songs didn't really end, they seemed to just crumble away into a poignant and heavy silence. I guess the crowd were a bit on edge maybe feeling the air of tension emulating from Hinson but he eased himself (and the audience) in to the set with a few inter-tuning tour tales and seemed genuinely delighted to be playing to a pretty rammed Thekla. I was genuinely glad we made the trip too but what was annoying was that the supposed ‘disco’ after the band finished didn’t seem to draw in any of the ‘Bristol Massive’ leaving me wondering why the gig had to start so bloody early.

(Review by Ashli from Spillers Records. Photo by Lou_natik)

Labels: ashli, bristol, micah p hinson, retribution gospel choir, thekla

Support came from fellow Icelandic band For a Minor Reflection whose music was an ‘organic’ take on the Icelandic post rock sound. They didn’t say very much and came across as being rather overwhelmed by the size of the crowed which was very polite in its response. This was my 3rd Sigur Ros gig in 8 years. The 1st was after their debut EP came out and they supported Radiohead in Tredegar and the polar reactions that the band evoked from the audience was a testament to how unique their music is on first listening. On that evening the band were mesmerizing and shrouded in mystery as they crouched over their instruments leaving you only glimpsing and speculating as to the methods they used to get those eerie whale calls from their instruments.

4 years ago I saw them perform with Amiina, their female friends who are responsible for the string and electronic arrangements which are now synonymous with the Sigur Ros sound. That gig had a force and energy that was absent for me tonight. Though their set was utterly faultless and meticulous in its execution there was no sense of the heady wildness that I had previously experienced when watching this band. I kept expecting (wanting) them to veer off on an unpredictable tangent and take me out of myself. It’s not fair of me to criticize a band for being too well rehearsed, but that is what it amounted to. Given their recent rise in notoriety I did feel privileged to see them in a venue as modest (in size) as the Colston Hall but fear that they’ve lost some of the manic energy that created the mammoth sonic experience I had previously experienced. Saying that I am impressed with how their recorded output has evolved over the years and I can appreciate that this was reflected in the live set I saw which was stripped down and controlled. Still, despite the critique, listening to Sigur Ros perform within their comfort zone is more exciting than a lot of stuff you could subject your ears to

(Review by Ashli from Spillers Records. Pic by Lou_Natik. More from her tomorrow.)

Labels: ashli, bristol, for a minor reflection, sigur ros, spillers

Where I work, there's a toilet. And some days, Radio 1 gets piped in. Lately, inbetween the usual wishes for holy fire to rain down on London and destroy Scott Mills and Fearne Cotton, being hammered through the cubicle door has been 'Five Years' by Noah And The Whale. You've probably heard it: wan, irritating, super-catchy and impossible to describe without using the word 'twee'. It's a bit argh. But hey, my brother's a fan, so LET'S GO AND GET SOME PRECONCEPTIONS BROKEN.

Into the Thekla's lovely spaces then, so spacious you can see almost all the crowd, ignoring Planet Earth. Dolts: this is a weirdly phlegmatic performance, sparse amounts of guitar and vocals only, revolving around the eerily assured face of singer Sam. He looks like Lou Reed as drawn by Robert Crumb, but his songs have that brittle narrative thread that characterizes the Mountain Goats or Jeffrey Lewis's quieter stuff. Completely huggable I reckon, an outcome only briefly achieved by Sleeping States, and their schizophrenic set. If they start with 10 minutes of weak shoegaze, and end with a cutesy keyboard number, the bits inbetween jump to all points on that gradient, with a Throwing Muses cover thrown in for good measure. Seemingly an attempt to bend waves of guitar into a variety of pop shapes, Sleeping States take flight a few times tonight, and misfire an equal amount. They do have the coolest drummer in the world though, she should totally chuck those other three.

Hard to be cool when you've got a fleet of roadies carrying piles of fluffy towels onto the stage, but really, we're in another universe here: Noah And The Whale are instead the most blitheringly fucking nice band in the world. Every song features the words 'heart' or 'love'. Between song banter about the uplifting message of the film 'Together'. Attempts to get the crowd to sing as one so cloying you want to firebomb orphanages. And yet... beneath the antiseptic veneer lurks undeniable chops. Live brass always gives me a boner, and mixed in with NATW's handful of more heftier numbers, pushes pop buttons only churls would refute. Even 'Five Years' loses its spindly nature, fired into the crowd of sickeningly loved up couples. So keep it a secret like, but tonight Noah And The Whale painted my black heart a shade of grey at least, damn their eyes.

Labels: bristol, noah and the whale, planet earth thekla, sleeping states, twee

QU Junktions presents 'Kept Impulses' with...

Anni Rossi + James Blackshaw + Duane Pitre 'Ensemble Drones'

Often it is an impulsive thing, the way we react to music. Music can make you jerk wild, hot flush, grow fins, bear gifts or just close eyes and dream. Tonight we have put together an awfully good evening of acts who all harness their impulses (all three acts rely on a deep well of emotions and freeform sensibilities) and keep them in a beautifully controlled condition that allows their music to touch wonderful places. This includes a favourite adoptive daughter of Bristol, Ms Anni Rossi who still travels the world to great delight, the gracious guitar playing of Mr James Blackshaw and a VERY special assembled drone orchestra led by Duane Pitre featuring some of Bristol and London's ancient and new outer-fringe musicians. Early arrival is pretty much demanded for a night of 'Kept Impulses'.

So it will be evening of strings plucked and bowed, heavenly art song, intermingled drones, and resonant acoustics from a trinity of acts who know how to create a special atmosphere. Taking place in the brick and wood setting of Redland Park Church with tea and cakes, this will be a night to savour.

Anni Rossi sings songs that delight in being half wild, half controlled. A performer who wows audiences with her unique blend of classical virtuosity,a beautifully tamed viola and her vocal acrobatics. Hailing from Illinois, USA, she is blessed with a distinctive voice that leaps effortlessly across registers, while simultaneously playing the viola as she sings. Her songs are alive with possibility and she has that Greenwich Village class via East European barn dance mixed with a artful singer/songwriter allure all in bundles. Like Beirut or Kate Bush she has hit upon a sound that is idiosyncratic, un-contrived and wholly adorable. Where ever she plays audiences go crazy for her coffee hit songs.

Anni has been caterwauling and foot stomping her way into audiences' hearts across Europe ever since Kieran Hebden spotted her and invited to perform at London's Homefires Festival in 2005. She caused a stir at Venn '07 and returned to Bristol back in January for a sell out Cube show. Now she's signed to 4AD and has a debut EP called 'Afton' out this October, fleshing out her unique sound with clarinet, hand percussion, double bass and lush string arrangements. Somehow her songs manage to capture the vitality and abandon of her live shows as she pushes her voice and viola to the limit. Uplifting, joyous and totally unique.

James Blackshaw plays straight for the heart, 12-string guitar music. Magic, spirit-lifting compositions for the agnostic age from one of England's finest young guitarists. Meditative in quality, like a twig in a river, this music gracefully moves and spirals into different patterns, motifs and harmonics. Open tunings, fine ears and an ability to drift into extended emotional pieces make his work resonate as much with minimalist composers like Terry Riley as exemplary contemporary finger-pickers like Jack Rose. He has released prolifically and Michael Gira is the latest to be entranced by his unique guitar style and has signed him to Young God records (Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family). A man who can coax out overtones and harmonics to send tingles down your spine. Lushness extended forever.

Ensemble Drones really plans to be something special, to set the tone for the evening and quash the raucous capitalist Saturday night melange occurring outside the doors. It will reconfigure your inner ear and make time elastic. Duane Pitre is a Brooklyn-based composer and performer who is going to collaborate with a large ensemble of Bristol and London based musicians to fill the church with transcendental drones. 'Ensemble Drones' is a composition for 12 or more acoustic/electro-acoustic instruments (strings, wind, brass, sine-tone generator). Reading from a score that provides a basic structure around which they can improvise, each player contributes towards a composition that is focused yet fluid, minimal yet dense. An exercise in discipline and freedom, in the refinement of music, and in communal focus. The results should make for ethereal, slow-motion chamber music that will be amplified by the church's natural reverb.

at Redland Park United Reformed Church, Bristol
Sat 18th Oct 2008 / 7pm til 10.30pm / £7 adv

TICKET OUTLETS:
Bristol Ticket Shop / Here Shop (Stokes Croft) / 20th Century Flicks (Clifton) / Ticketweb

CREDIT CARD BOOKINGS:
0870 4444 400 / http://www.bristolticketshop.co.uk
http://www.ticketweb.co.uk

Labels: Anni Rossi, bristol, Duane Pitre, James Blackshaw, QU Junktions

A Qu Junktions Triple Shot presents...

Wildbirds & Peacedrums

Here come one of the bands of the summer WILDBIRDS AND PEACEDRUMS, even the name brings to mind spiritually uplifting, erotic and exotic imagery, sounds and feelings. They certainly generate that in their performances. They are simmering in fine fine fashion at the moment, so catch them close and intimate at The Cube with fine fine support acts and DJs. After a summer break this is the first Qu Junktions show of the late summer season.

Wildbirds and Peacedrums...such a lot from the bare essentials. These two are the forbidden fruit laid bare for us to admire....too good to believe. Wildbirds & Peacedrums create hot, exotic songs with a haunting sense of the blues, freeform soul and a loose-limbed percussive edge that seers them way clear of the bland. The pair's stripped down, tantalising primal show left audience agog at Venn 08 and are on real roll. They are duo from Sweden, who got signed to Leaf and now traverse the world singing sweet and raw. The songs are imbued with a sense of scatter-jazz, Scandinavian pop and widescreen dynamics. Nina Simone certianly gets channelled, as does the energy of jazz gospel, some one man marching band dynamics and some good tunes + they look good in technicolour.

support from Peter Broderick + Silver Pyre

Peter Broderick is a young and gifted multi-instrumentalist from Portland who plays in the Dutch ensemble Efterklang. Solo he captivates with hush hush instrumentals and cinematic lushness. He releases on Type and comes highly reccomended.

Recently relocating to Bristol, Silver Pyre forges a sound from the depths of his native rural Somerset. Blending richly crackling textures with yearning vocals, his music echoes its rugged coastline, legendary free parties and the oppressive pulse of the nuclear power
station.

At The Cube Microplex, Bristol
Sat 13th Sep 2008 / 8pm / £6 adv

Labels: bristol, cube, Wildbirds and Peacedrums

An Arnolfini / Qu Junktions Presentation...

HAUSCHKA + MAPSTATION
plus Chipper

Cinematic piano recitals, fourth world electronics, ripped atmospherics all have their place tonight as three very distinct performers move the sounds of their beloved instruments (piano / laptop / cello) to new places by their highly imaginative and captivating methods and styles. A night of musical adventure.

Hauschka is the captivating Düsseldorf-based pianist Volker Bertelmann. Channelling minimalism and the spirit of John Cage, he opens up his instrument and performs public operations on its innards using guitar strings, gaffer tape and other bits of junk. Hauschka's live shows have great appeal and receive a rapturous reception where ever he goes. Whether playing grand piano or upright, he sets himself up so that the audience can see his preparations and the movement of the hammers as he hits each key, creating a hypnotic visual analogue to his music. He mixes up his own pre-determined compositions with totally improvised pieces, prizing out the one-off potential of new operations and instruments. He has toured the world where ever there are pianos, including a sold-out London show with Max Richter, a US tour with Múm and Japanese dates with Colleen. Eric Satie's mischievous miniatures, Indonesian gamelan and The Books all get a look in. He also is a engaging raconteur and his beautifully measured and his relaxed and endearing performance style made him a star of Venn 08.

Also from Düsseldorf, Mapstation (aka Stefan Schneider of To Rococo Rot) is an integrated fourth world/electronics project in the pioneering tradition of Can's Jaki Liebezeit or Brian Eno. A bold and evocative reimagining of African rhythms and textures by a electronic whizz kid. Stefan has also co-produced the St Etienne album 'The Sound Of Water', and has collaborated with The Pastels, I-Sound and Alexander Balanescu. Distinctly a one of a kind type of musician with a very signature sound and style.

Chipper is a solo cellist who envelops her playing in a shroud of electronics. Distortion, hiss and digital effects become parts of her instrument's vocabulary in extended compositions that are unique, moving and absorbing. A Bristol based musician and artist who is also a member of Crippled Black Phoenix and has played with Oxbow, North Sea Navigator among many.

Further reading:

Hauschka is the captivating Düsseldorf-based pianist Volker Bertelmann, who records on Fat Cat. His music can be microscopic in detail and quietly entrancing, or widescreen and cinematic in scope and feel. A suite of songs can take you on a journey into the world of the piano and all it can conjure for the listener. Hauschka performs beautiful post-classical chamber works drawing on minimalism and laced with the spirit of Fluxus. The results are startlingly original and vivid yet immediately accessible - Eric Satie's mischievous miniatures, Indonesian gamelan and The Books all get a look in. But what Hauschka does so eloquently is he also manages to channel the spirit of John Cage's prepared piano, opening up his instrument and playfully performing public operations on its innards using guitar strings, gaffer tape and other bits of junk in search of new colours and textures. The melodic and harmonic properties of the piano, so often dominant in piano music, are set against the homespun clicks, scrapes and rattles of the internal mechanisms when certain keys are played. Harnessing the percussive potential of the instrument and wrapping this around his keen melodic ear makes Hauschka an auteur of the ebonies, as well as an alchemist of the wood, string and metal.

A measured and engaging raconteur, Hauschka's live shows have great appeal and receive a rapturous reception where ever he goes. Whether playing grand piano or upright, he sets himself up so that the audience can see his preparations and the movement of the hammers as he hits each key, creating a hypnotic visual analogue to his music. He mixes up his own pre-determined compositions with totally improvised pieces, prizing out the one-off potential of new operations and instruments. He has toured the world where ever there are pianos, including a sold-out London show with Max Richter, a US tour with Múm and Japanese dates with Colleen. Check his myspace to see him perform, where there are a number of videos - www.myspace.com/hauschka

Hauschka's second album on Fat Cat 'Ferndorf' is out in early September and coincides with this tour, alongside a digital single and a video triptych by Japanese animators Overture (responsible for Múm's 'Rhubarbidoo' video). The new record retains the shivers and tics of his modified piano but now expands the texture to integrate lush string arrangements and some sweet, understated electronic touches.

Mapstation is the musical project of Düsseldorf-based polymath Stefan Schneider, a founding member of both Kreidler and To Rococo Rot. As part of To Rococo Rot, he co-produced the St Etienne album 'The Sound Of Water', and has collaborated with The Pastels, I-Sound and Alexander Balanescu. With mapstation he has recently moved towards an integrated fourth world/electronics project, invigorating his music with African textures and rhythms. Stefan is doing what pioneers like Can's Jaki Liebezeit or Brian Eno did in the 70's but in his own original way. He likes to move in all directions, making desperate elements one. His ear for sound composition and audio integration is formidable.

Stefan's work has long provided a bridge between the worlds of rock and electronica, now he has forged a sound involving former Fela Kuti percussionist Nicholas Addo Nette. Their record 'The Africa Chamber' is a collaboration and a distinctively German remapping of African rhythms and vocal patterns. The repetitive pulse of 303's and digital software create a deliberately unauthentic map of Africa, a kind of hallucination of the continent's world of sounds. A bold and evocative reimagining of tribal rhythms, like Shackleton or Asa Chang and Junray.

Recently Stefan released an album entitled 'Forest full of drums' on Staubgold, a collaboration with drummer Paul Wirkus recorded entirely in a forest nearby Düsseldorf. The two set up a drumkit and started playing between the beeches, admidst the birds, accompanied just by an occasional roar of an airplane above or the steps of some curious joggers. You can view a video of the making of the album here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAI7Rec7OCQ


A delightful evening takes place at Arnolfini, Bristol
Thu 18th Sept 2008 / 7.30pm / £8 adv

Tickets on sale at Arnolfini Box Office. In person or phone

Labels: bristol, CHIPPER, HAUSCHKA, MAPSTATION, QU Junktions