ACTUAL EARTH MUSIC

7 March 2025

Earth Ball just cracked the planet! ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ (out today on Upset The Rhythm) presents two caustic, zoned-out live sets from Canadian noise-rock entropy hunters Earth Ball.

Side A features Earth Ball live at The Fox Cabaret in Vancouver, supporting Wolf Eyes in 2023. Here Earth Ball whip up a vortex of thrashing wild energy, and the ecstatic release is off the charts. Volume 2 occupies Side B, showcasing a collaborative summit at London’s Café OTO last year. This recording features pivotal UK improv luminary Steve Beresford on piano and free-jazz phenomenon Chris Corsano on drums.

This is ‘Actual Earth Music’, sharing Earth Ball in their element as they conjure sound from the unknowing ether. ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ is out now digitally and as a limited 180g black vinyl pressing.

QUINIE - 'FOREFOWK, MIND ME'

4 March 2025

We’re so excited for you to hear Quinie's wondrous new album ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ (out May 23rd on Upset The Rhythm)! The first song from the album, ‘Macaphee Turn the Cattle’ escaped into the wild this morning, thanks to Klof magazine for premiering the video.

A singer working from the Scots song tradition, Quinie brings an approach that is both reverent and radical—exploring authenticity not as an exercise in preservation, but as something lived, questioned, and continually reshaped.

'Forefowk, Mind Me' can be pre-ordered as a 180g black vinyl LP w/ risograph lyric print. There’s also an option to order the LP with a stunning accompanying art book too!

Also… for those of you in London, we’re hosting a special launch party on May 30th at St Pancras Old Church.

RATTLE RELEASED

28 February 2025

Rattle’s entrancing new album ‘Encircle’ is released today!

With this hypnotic third album, Rattle have emerged from the chrysalis with four mutable songs of drum and vocal patterns. They build-up and disintegrate, existing in two places at once, tracing the circle’s edge. What a stunning achievement!

‘Encircle’ can be streamed on all digital platforms now, it is also available on vinyl (pink, black versions) and CD from all the best shops, as well as our Bandcamp and webshop here.

PERFECT HIT

25 February 2025

Buffet Lunch’s new single ‘Perfect Hit!’ is released today! It’s a snappy anthem of clunky guitar, casio wobble and percussive clatter. Teaming up themes like relationships, limbs and an actual swordfish sighting off the Scottish coastline (yes really), Buffet Lunch pack a wonky punch and are not afraid to modulate through multiple key changes.

The accompanying video was filmed on location in Portobello Town Hall where the band also shot the album cover for ‘Perfect Hit!’ - the album (out April 4th on Upset The Rhythm). Is this the birth of Nu-Music Hall? Glimpsed between long Edwardian red curtains? Quite possibly so! Now let’s learn the dance moves.

GET TECTONIC!

4 February 2025

UTR172 has just erupted! ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ presents two caustic, yet alluringly unreal live sets from Canadian noise-rock entropy hunters Earth Ball. Following on from the group’s head-turn of an album ‘It’s Yours’ (Upset The Rhythm, 2024) this new LP captures the band at the peak of their powers, playing live, composing spontaneously.

These two live sets demonstrate how intuitive and inventive the group are when they keep cresting the moment. This is ‘Actual Earth Music’, sharing Earth Ball in their element as they conjure sound from the unknowing ether. ‘Actual Earth Music - Volume 1 & 2’ will be released on Upset The Rhythm on March 7th digitally and as a limited 180g black vinyl pressing.

BUFFET LUNCH'S 'PERFECT HIT!'

29 January 2025

Well, I never! Art-pop amblers Buffet Lunch have embarked on their blue period. Released today, new single ‘Blue Chairs, Blue Floors, Blue Folders’ is the first track to sally forth from their forthcoming album ‘Perfect Hit!’, out on April 4th through Upset The Rhythm.

‘Perfect Hit!' is built from bricks, ideas and plots, melodies and hooks, each stacked upon the other. It is available to pre-order now on 180g yellow vinyl from all the best shops and our very own website here.

RATTLE'S RITUAL!

22 January 2025

Rattle return today with their hypnotic cascade of a new single 'Ritual'! 'Ritual' is a song of summoning, a waltz pulled out of the earth, a swirling mist and a spell spoken into a mirror.

Available now digitally and featuring on the duo's forthcoming album 'Encircle', out Feb 28th on Upset The Rhythm. Pink vinyl, black vinyl and CDs all available to pre-order from UTR and all the best shops.

2024 THANKS!

27 December 2024

Upset The Rhythm had a bumper year! We released eight diverting new records by The Pheromoans, Marcel Wave, Earth Ball, Parsnip, Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, Normil Hawaiians, Robert Sotelo & Mary Currie and The Green Child. We also organised a tremendous 44 concerts, which we hope you found absorbing.

Giant thanks to all the artists involved and to all of YOU for supporting us through our many endeavours in music both live and recorded. Let’s make 2025 our best year yet!

UTR x

RATTLE RETURN!

25 November 2024

A band like Rattle know a lot about time, so the fact they’ve made the world wait six years for new music must simply be an exercise in delayed expectation, build-up and ecstatic release! True monarchs of the beat.

Upset The Rhythm are overjoyed to unveil today the band’s new single ‘Your Move’, a 15-minute hypnotic opus of boundless drum patterns and oft-wordless articulation. Minimal and magical in equal metre and measure.

‘Your Move’ features on the duo’s colossal third album entitled ‘Encircle’, out on Feb 28th through yours truly. ‘Encircle’ is available to pre-order now digitally, on CD, on 180g black vinyl and as a limited 180g hot-pink LP through all the best shops and our bandcamp & webshop here.

'LOOK FAMILIAR' OUT NOW!

15 November 2024

Today we released this stunningly elegant album by The Green Child! ‘Look Familiar’ draws heavily on a refined psychedelic pop, with Raven's scenically measured vocal often shadowing the ebb and flow, but the energy of having four people in the room resulted in making the songs more upbeat and multi-dimensional!

There are many standout moments across the album's ten tracks. 'Wow Factor' is a reverie of chiming guitar lines, dizzy, scurried melodies and floating centres. 'Arrows and Microtones' and 'Look Familiar' showcase The Green Child in a more reflective, expansive mode whilst ‘Private Laugh' comes alive with its crushed fuzz-guitar accompaniment and swirling synth eddies. This album sounds like constant renewal, never seeking comfort, its the sound of four musicians pushing each other to new heights.

‘Look Familiar’ is available now from all the best shops and our online store here.

A LONG BEAUTIFUL FLOWING CAPE

16 October 2024

The Green Child return today with the mesmeric, second track taken from their forthcoming album ‘Look Familiar’. Is there a better name for a single than ‘A Long Beautiful Flowing Cape’? Inspired by the media and online posturing this song unfurls with an infectious shuffling beat backed-up with a spry bassline. Shimmers of synth and twirling guitar tone provide a redolent vista for Raven’s vocal about distorted social contracts to flit through.

Available to stream everywhere now, ‘A Long Beautiful Flowing Cape’ is also accompanied by a visual treat of a video made by Wu Li Leung using early editing technology for newscasts. Too much!

‘Look Familiar’ (out Nov 15th) is available to pre-order now!

DREAM SONGS INDEED

04 October 2024

The sun is out! And so is this debut 7” EP from cosmic pop duo Robert Sotelo & Mary Currie!

‘Dream Songs’ is an archetypal meeting of minds, at once musing and magical. Robert Sotelo is a bedroom pop songsmith who lives in Glasgow. Sotelo has released six albums since 2017, three of which came out on Upset The Rhythm. He also performs in Order of the Toad, Dancer and Nightshift. Mary Currie is best known as half of touchstone DIY experimentalists Flaming Tunes, alongside Gareth Williams (of This Heat). Currie also performed in Officer!

‘Dream Songs’ is available now from all the best shops and our very own humble webstore here.

OUT TODAY - ORCHESTRA HITS!

20 September 2024

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat have knocked it out of the park with new album ‘Orchestra Hits’. These stunning nine new songs are packed with a ton of climbing bass grooves, percolating synth arpeggios and soaring vocals.

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat hover blissfully out their comfort zone here, writing songs that erupt with raw energy and cavernous emotional poetics. There’s is a Trojan horse style of pop music, what a joy to share this with the world! ‘Orchestra Hits’ is out now digitally and is also available on CD and transparent blue 180g vinyl too.

Order now

THE RETURN OF THE GREEN CHILD

5 September 2024

The Green Child re-emerge today with news of their sublime new album ‘Look Familiar’. Released by Upset The Rhythm & Hobbies Galore on November 15th, ‘Look Familiar’ documents the Australian band now that its grown into four people. Raven Mahon & Mikey Young are joined by Alex Macfarlane and Shaun Gionis on synth/guitar and drums respectively.

The Green Child still draw heavily on a refined psychedelic pop, with Raven’s hypnotic vocal often shadowing the ebb and flow, but the energy of having four people involved has made the songs more alive and mercurial.

Take a listen to first single ‘Wow Factor’ (out now), a reverie of chiming guitar lines, dizzy, scurried melodies and floating centres. ‘Look Familiar’ is available to pre-order now as a 140g, black bio-vinyl LP with obi-strip.

DREAMS SONGS & EXPECTATIONS

20 August 2024

Well this is a very special record to unveil! On October 4th Upset The Rhythm will be releasing a 7” EP from cosmic pop duo Robert Sotelo & Mary Currie! ‘Dream Songs’ is an archetypal meeting of minds, at once musing and magical. This 7” is the first pensive fruit to fall from the tree of their collaboration and today we’re sharing brooding single ‘Expectations’.

‘Dream Songs’ is available to pre-order from all the best shops and from our very own webstore here!

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE have built a prolific and diverse body of work over the last 20+ years. Ben Chasny's project is an experimental amalgam of new folk, drone music, percussion and strange textures, with Chasny delivering an outpouring of eclectic releases in the early 2000s for various small labels before finding a longstanding home on Drag City. In 2003, Chasny began an association with Comets on Fire, which led to him becoming a full-time touring and recording member of the band. After recording and touring extensively with Comets on Fire in 2004, Chasny returned to the studio and issued the moving and beautiful School of the Flower on Drag City in January of 2005. Sun Awakens and Shelter from the Ash arrived in 2006 and 2007. After touring and a break in 2008, Six Organs began what would become a prolific return to force, releasing a further 18 astonishing records up to the current time. First was the release of the sonically expansive - and very electric - Luminous Night, followed by the double-disc retrospective RTZ, both of which appeared on Drag City. Chasny also plays in 200 Years alongside Elisa Ambrogio (of Magik Markers), with Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards) in the project New Bums, and is also a member of tightly-wound improv unit Rangda, accompanied by Sir Richard Bishop and Chris Corsano.

Chasny more recently developed a card-based creative system called a Hexadic for making music and released several related albums before resuming his primary project with new work like 2021's The Veiled Sea and the 2024 Shackleton collaboration Jinxed by Being. This year Six Organs also released a fully solo album Time Is Glass, which consists of haunted, unsettled rural folk sounds. With Time is Glass, Six Organs of Admittance is captured once again in the intricate tangle of the fretboards, soaring in open skies above. Like lens flare cutting through the speakers; spider-webs cracking the windshield that holds back all the onrushing reality. Blowing the dust away, cutting a new path for cognition.

BILL MACKAY is a guitarist, improviser, composer, and singer based in Chicago. An accomplished collaborator with projects that include Katinka Kleijn (Stir, 2019), Nathan Bowles (Keys, 2021), and Ryley Walker (SpiderBeetleBee, 2017), MacKay is also a solo artist creating multi-dimensional works such as Esker (2017), Fountain Fire (2019) Scarf (2020), and Locust Land (2024), all released on Drag City Records. Bill’s music is a visceral crackling where it meets the air, and Locust Land can’t help but reflect its era more than any other in his discography. A restless energy and urgency is repeatedly felt in the driving momentum of “Keeping in Time,” “Glow Drift,” and “When I Was Here”, while a dogged persistence radiates from the tone colors and percussion of “Oh, Pearl.” The sense of searching, displacement and longing in vocal tracks “Keeping in Time,” “Half of You,” and “When I Was Here” speak literally to the tumult of current vibrations. Within the arrangements, there’s also departure from previous norms — in addition to the brilliant guitar work for which he is known, Bill plays a variety of keyboards, from piano to organ to synth, extending his music with the available voicings, while enriching the sound field without abandoning his signature brevity. For fans of his singing, and following in the recent tradition of Fountain Fire as well as his collaboration with Nathan Bowles, Keys, Locust Land expresses with an increased vocal presence — and heightened engagement, with Bill’s words and melodies drawing us closer.

EVIL SWORD are Kate Ferencz and Ben Furgal from Philadelphia, USA. Their chaotic live shows combine elements of noise, cryptic metal overtones, performance art, and gallows humor and feature macabre props, flashing lights, stage sets and costumes. There are hardly any instruments in this group, but they make such a racket you’d never know it. The bass and the percussion sound like they’re having a great time, telling each other jokes. Then the words come in and it all locks together in these strange, hypnotic rhythms. I just listen to the stories and laugh and cry and get scared and wonder what they were ever thinking.

Recent album ‘Basket Fever’ (Magic Pictures, 2023) features electrocuted bells, backwards parts, rusty horns; I’m pretty sure I even heard a clarinet in there somewhere. There’s this one part where it all seems to come back around, where they took some gang vocals from the very first demo they ever recorded and slowed it way down. When they first started; I thought they were some goofy kids making music about the end of the world, back when that seemed a little further away, like it was going to be fun. They were all laughing and making these funny ghost sounds, but now everyone’s older and the ghosts are real, a great whoosh of bygone spirits and cold air. It’s bone chilling. There’s plenty to be upset about, but it’s not really an Evil Sword song until that grimace has been twisted up into a smile.

SHAKE CHAIN have been busy demolishing audiences and expectations for the best part of the last five years. Vocalist Kate Mahony sets that standard by anything from crawling through the audience’s legs in a bright yellow raincoat to crying and washing her hands in a nearby toilet, as the rest of the band start the set. The four-piece from London are completed by Robert Eyres (Synth/Guitar), Chris Hopkins (Bass/Synth/Samples) and Joe Fergey (Drums). Shake Chain are built of nervy bass lines, twitchy guitars that jolt and jerk and tack sharp drums, overridden by screeching vocal slurs and sampled television. Kate’s singing is a unique embrace of flights of atonal fancy, head-first repetition and ecstatic frenzy. Opinion-dividing arguably, but singular in making Shake Chain dauntingly brilliant. The band’s debut album ’Snake Chain’ was released by Upset The Rhythm.

SPLIT APEX are Jussi Palmusaari (guitar, electronics and percussion) and Peter Blundell (voice and bass). On their self-titled cassette (out now) release they combine restless sonic textures, oddball phrasing within barely-contained song structures held together by moth-woven threads. Seemingly governed by an unknowable gravitational pull that tugs hither and yon, the duo lays out their statement of intent through a brief suite of intimate nocturnes. The release marks the first work for Palmusaari since leaving his native Finland where he played with the band, Preesens, in the late-90s/early-00s. For Blundell, this new project exists adjacent to his current work with Dominic Goodman as Komare and previous endeavours in the band, Mosquitoes.

MYRIAM GENDRON is a Montreal-based songwriter, guitarist and singer. Mayday is the third LP by Gendron, it follows her earlier, critically acclaimed albums, Not So Deep As A Well (2014) and Ma délire – Songs of love, lost & found (2021). Prior to her debut album, Myriam's primary musical focus was busking in Paris Metro stations, performing the songs of Leonard Cohen and others, accompanying herself on guitar. Through her day job, working at a Montreal bookstore, Myriam discovered the poems of American writer, Dorothy Parker, who was better known for her cutting wit than her verse. Inspired by Parker's words, Myriam wrote music to accompany a suite of them, then recorded the results in her bedroom. These recordings were issued as her debut LP, and continue to delight listeners who discover them, with their freshness, clarity and humor.

After a brief hiatus, Myriam began exploring the complex folk traditions of Quebec (and beyond), recording the 2LP, Ma délire, which combines traditional and original songs (largely in French) with arrangements that make space for avant-garde musical interludes by such folks as guitarist Bill Nace (Body/Head) and renowned jazz percussionist Chris Corsano. Mayday is an even more syncretic fusion of these elements. Most of the songs are original, in both English and French, and blend traditional and avant elements with abandon. Additional players this time include drummer Jim White (Dirty Three), guitarist Marisa Anderson, Montreal bassist Cédric Dind-Lavoie (a fellow fan of trad/avant dynamism), Bill Nace and saxophonist Zoh Amba (whose horn actually gets the final “word”). Mayday is a thoroughly thrilling effort that manages to create new vistas of sound while maintaining a feel that is both intimate and familiar. Beautiful work.

THE MEMORY BAND have been navigating its own path through the folk music landscape of the digital age since 2003. Led by producer Stephen Cracknell with a fluid cast of collaborators The Memory Band blend songs and instrumentals, the traditional with the modern and the sacred with the profane.

Their two decade adventure has produced six studio albums as well as side projects such as The Balearic Folk Orchestra and The Accidental. They have a long history of performing music from Paul Giovanni's soundtrack to The Wicker Man as well as other film and archive related projects. In 2024 The Memory Band released 'Never The Same Way Twice and 'A Common Treasury' two volumes of unreleased archive recordings on their own Hungry Hill label and in 2025 make their return to live performance.

WOLF EYES have spent 26 years fusing together DIY electronics with the avant-garde sensibilities of Fluxus and the granite of dreary Midwestern life. Their new album 'Dreams In Splattered Lines' is a surreal dreamscape of disorienting sound collages, where hit songs are transformed into terrariums of sonic flora and decimated fauna. As if pulled from a fever dream, the surrealists of the 1960s converge with alien electronic blues musicians in an underworld of mystery. The air is thick with car wash radio white noise, crackling and fizzing like a toxic elixir, spoken word poetry transmissions as absurd and cryptic phrases. Each corroded aural environment is a microcosm of chaos, honed to razor-sharp precision. Swept away in a whirlwind of thirteen perplexing narratives, each one an unpredictable journey through subterranean worlds, a sonic trip of reality folded into itself.

Wolf Eyes have released three albums recently ‘Dreams In Splattered Lines' was preceded by the compilation of collaborations 'Presents Difficult Messages', and the band followed this up with the release of 'Wolf Eyes w/ Spykes', bringing a much sought after early release to vinyl for the first time, documenting a recording session pivotal to the ongoing development of the group’s sound. Alongside this has been the usual steady stream of lathe cuts, side hustles, art and inzanity. A new LP is due out soon charting Wolf Eyes’ recent recordings with Anthony Braxton too, look out!

SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE are a primal orchestra of drum rhythms, radiophonic oscillator noise and electronically-abstracted vocals. They forge hypnotic, textural workouts in the vein of Black Dice, Shit & Shine and Crash Worship. Given their freeform nature, every set they play is fresh and different. The band prefer to play in the round, rather than onstage, transforming the audience from passive observers to active contributors, creating a dynamic and evolving soundscape. This egalitarian approach propels audience and band together into a shamanistic setting of catharsis and anarchic celebration. Originally formed by Matt Cargill as a cassette manipulation project. Since then, Sly have expanded to incorporate layers of electronics, clattering live drums and saxophones, placing them somewhere between noise music and free jazz. Imagine a Boredoms score for an experimental noir thriller and you might be getting close. The neo-jazz wreckin’ crew continue to scorch their own path, recently teaming up with UK charitable label Human Worth on the release of their new record ‘Moon is Doom Backwards’.

SOBORGNOST is sci-fi dance punk at the intersection of vaporwave, minimal wave, disco dub, industrial, EBM, proto-house, drone and noise. Using a hardware sampler to emulate dub mixing, looping post-punk style basslines with chuggy, lo-fi beats. Warped analogue textures are added with cassette tape manipulation, electro magnetic frequency transmitters, shortwave radio, harsh noise generator and dub sirens.

BUFFET LUNCH have been writing pleasingly imperfect pop songs since 2017. Comprised of musicians based in Glasgow, Edinburgh and (sometimes) Newcastle, the group craft ramshackle odysseys of observational charm. Always catchy, often profound. Buffet Lunch have been previously described as a band that create 'a hodgepodge of noises’, and who are 'lyrically ridiculous'. Both claims are strongly denied by the group.

Buffet Lunch have released 3 EPs & 2 LPs to date, and just six months after self-releasing the album 'For Display Purposes Only’ return this spring to Upset the Rhythm for their stunning third album 'Perfect Hit!' A meandering masterpiece of low-fidelity musing, ‘Perfect Hit!’ presents the group in upbeat mood, as ever casually melodic, only now with some more weighty subject matter to draw upon. ‘Perfect Hit!’ is built from ideas and plots, melodies and hooks, each stacked upon the other. It’s a puzzle, much like life, you just keep adding to what went before, hoping for order and shelter. Buffet Lunch have grown into this attitude, you must wait until the end and then stand back if you want to see what they’ve built. Now knock on the door and come on in. This event at The George Tavern is the official album launch for ‘Perfect Hit!’.

LERRYN has been a stalwart of the South East London creative scene for over a decade. The founder of cult creative space Lerryn’s Cafe and later frontwoman of post-punk band Dead Arm, her impact on a DIY scene that has defined a corner of London has been significant. Recent EP ‘As A Mother’ (Redundant Span) is the first offering from the next chapter of Lerryn’s own life, and the debut release under her own name. It is a record written during her experience of pregnancy, motherhood and a period of profound creative reckoning. This collection of songs are intimate, sweet and moving. For this show Lerryn will be performing as a stripped back duo.

SASSYHIYA want to take you somewhere. The journey starts in Kathy and Helen’s flat in South London. Sit down, close your eyes, and immerse yourself... You are on your way to a musical rainforest a long way from Camberwell. Explore your new surroundings, and you will find beautiful pop blooms like Let’s See What We Can Find, as bright and vibrant as The Sundays, thrusting their colourful faces up from the forest floor. You’ll find tangles of sharp-edged guitar, as if Swiss she-punks Kleenex had been left to evolve here in the rich fertile soil (I Had A Thought). You’ll find dark pools full of lyrical complexity, deceptively deep and immersive, with shimmering reflections of The Go-Betweens (Perennial). Sassyhiya’s debut album ‘Take You Somewhere’ is out now on Skep Wax!

CLEANERS FROM VENUS (Martin Newell joined by a live band) will be performing next spring in London on St Georges day no less. The group will be performing some classic Cleaners songs. Martin will be on guitar and piano - and talking. The band have drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, it will be special!

Martin Newell is a purveyor of ingenious pop music. His music is refracted from late 60s rock only shot through with invention from the rough-and-ready explosion of DIY tape releases in 80s Britain. As a songwriter, he’s right up there with Syd Barrett and Ray Davies, capturing a peculiar Englishness that’s very much his own.

Martin started his career in music aged 19 when he joined an Essex glam-rock band called The Mighty Plod as a singer and gigged in rough clubs, pubs and colleges for the next two years. In his early twenties he joined a hard rock/prog band from Ipswich called Gypp and gigged in the UK as well as touring northern Germany several times. In 1979, he won his first record contract and shortly afterwards his first single ‘Young Jobless / Sylvie In Toytown’ was released, first on an indie label and then with Liberty Records. In the 1980s he formed the anarchic and wonderfully offbeat Cleaners From Venus, who after much defiance of music biz convention, signed to a London record company and began making proper records which were well reviewed and well-received. He began co-writing songs with Captain Sensible in 1986, a relationship which endures to some extent to this day. In 1989 he and his friend Nelson, now of New Model Army formed The Brotherhood of Lizards, were signed to make an album and proceeded to promote it, touring the record by bicycle. This led to many TV appearances and some notoriety and amusement in the media. In 1993, with XTC's Andy Partridge in the producer's chair Martin made what was to become his most successful album ‘The Greatest Living Englishman’, hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as a rock classic. Over the last ten years Martin has continued to release exhilarating albums under his own name and as Cleaners from Venus, most recently a winsome new Cleaners album called ‘K7’ was released on CD and cassette.

A highly-entertaining live act, Martin Newell performs infrequently, refusing nowadays to tour at all. He has been the subject of a highly-praised documentary film Upstairs Planet (2019) which enjoyed premieres both in London and in New York. A second documentary The Jangling Man, the director James Sharp’s intimate portrait of Newell’s life and work, premiered in London and Los Angeles in October 2022.

THE GARDENERS are a jangle-pop inspired indie rock band hailing from London and Southend On Sea. Check out their sublime new single ‘Time to Breathe’ / ‘Sunlight’.

RICH(ARD) DAWSON has drawn so many long drafts from the whirlpools of Elemental North Eastern Archetypes, he may now be one himself. Fearless in his research and willingness to follow his inspiration, Dawson has created an impressive catalogue of music and storytelling steeped in both ancient myths and contemporary dread. A fog of sickness, trauma and mute inevitability inhabits his records and is often expressed in the havoc with which Dawson’s hands produce sounds from his long-suffering guitar, an instrument as bruised, individual and indefatigable as its owner.

Dawson’s forthcoming new album ‘End of the Middle’ (out Feb 14th through Weird World) is intricate, evocative, stripped-back, tactile and almost has the transportive ability to put you in the places and scenarios it describes. The album focuses around a family unit. “It zooms in quite close-up to try and explore a typical middle class English family home,” Dawson says. “We're listening to the stories of people from three or four generations of perhaps the same family. But really, it’s about how we break certain cycles. I think the family is a useful metaphor to examine how things are passed on generationally.”

The title of the new album End of the Middle is a suitably slippery contradiction, one that invites multiple interpretations: Middle-aging? Middle-class? The middle-point of Dawson's career? The centre of a record? Centrism in general? Polarisation? The possibility of having a balanced discussion about anything? Stuck in the middle with you? Middle England? Decide for yourself at this concert in the intimate, beautiful setting of The Clapham Grand.

RICH(ARD) DAWSON has drawn so many long drafts from the whirlpools of Elemental North Eastern Archetypes, he may now be one himself. Fearless in his research and willingness to follow his inspiration, Dawson has created an impressive catalogue of music and storytelling steeped in both ancient myths and contemporary dread. A fog of sickness, trauma and mute inevitability inhabits his records and is often expressed in the havoc with which Dawson’s hands produce sounds from his long-suffering guitar, an instrument as bruised, individual and indefatigable as its owner.

Dawson’s forthcoming new album ‘End of the Middle’ (out Feb 14th through Weird World) is intricate, evocative, stripped-back, tactile and almost has the transportive ability to put you in the places and scenarios it describes. The album focuses around a family unit. “It zooms in quite close-up to try and explore a typical middle class English family home,” Dawson says. “We're listening to the stories of people from three or four generations of perhaps the same family. But really, it’s about how we break certain cycles. I think the family is a useful metaphor to examine how things are passed on generationally.”

The title of the new album End of the Middle is a suitably slippery contradiction, one that invites multiple interpretations: Middle-aging? Middle-class? The middle-point of Dawson's career? The centre of a record? Centrism in general? Polarisation? The possibility of having a balanced discussion about anything? Stuck in the middle with you? Middle England? Decide for yourself at this concert in the intimate, beautiful setting of The Clapham Grand.

NAP EYES still bring to mind the bucolic ennui of the Silver Jews and Daniel Johnston’s jittery naïveté, but the sheen and maturity they boast lends a wide-angle appeal. Nap Eyes’ metamorphic fifth long-player collects a cache of nine fascinating songs recorded over the four years since their last album. ‘The Neon Gate’ (out now on Paradise of Bachelors) reveals classic touchstones (the uneasy interplay of physics and philosophy, perambulatory meditations, self-interrogating soliloquies, apertures of surreality, video games), but also evidence of divergent impulses toward nonlinear abstraction and longform improvisational composition (resulting in their most discursive, deconstructed, and deliquescent songs to date) and narrative and lyric formality, imparting the sense that Nap Eyes have transmuted, as has their understanding of what a song is, what it can do, where it might go.

MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN is an Irish based Kurdish/Syrian singer and Bouzouki player. Mohammad’s own brand of ecstatic music takes elements from Middle Eastern and North African music to create an atmosphere of joy, love and happiness. Since arriving in Ireland, Mohammad has used the language of music to integrate into the local community by playing at private parties and concerts. He has been playing music since the 1980’s, while living in the city of Raqqa, Syria where he began working as a professional singer and started his own band, The Al-Rabie Band which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria. His debut album ‘I Am Kurdish’ came out on Nyahh Records last year. The Quietus explains further that “Syfkhan takes his domestic influences and fuses them with music from beyond those regions, from North African folk rhythms to Turkish psychedelia. It’s a glorious alembic not bound by borders, where Mohammad himself brings a cultivated exuberance to his playing that belies his vintage.”

SACRED PAWS were founded by the Glasgow duo of Ray Aggs (Trash Kit, Shopping) and Eilidh Rodgers (Golden Grrrls) who took their roots in the punk world and wound it together with myriad influences, from Afrobeat, through pop and post-punk, to create a glorious and unique hybrid. ‘Strike A Match’, the band’s urgent and infectious first offering, was released on Mogwai’s Rock Action label in 2017 and won the prestigious Scottish Album of the Year Award that same year. ‘Jump Into Life’, is the lush and layered new album from Sacred Paws, released on March 28th through Merge and Rock Action. Formed of eleven new songs, it takes the roots of the Sacred Paws project and breathes fresh life into it, blossoming into something both abundant and more colourful than has come before; a gentle skewing of their signature sound that feels wildly thrilling. Full of endearing energy, and buoyed by new sounds, textures, and character, ‘Jump Into Life’ is unafraid to reveal its warm and heavy beating heart, even with all the anxiety such a thing entails.

QUINIE will release her her third album ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ with Upset The Rhythm on May 24th 2025. This show is the album launch. The record is largely sung in Scots language, one of Scotland’s three official languages along with Gaelic and English. “Scots gives me a way of expressing myself which is connected directly with the landscapes I love. It brings the songs alive and it is a fascinating language. The name of the record is in Scots - Forefowk means the people who came before, or ancestors. When we say ‘mind me,’ we can mean a few things- remind, remember, watch over or care for me. The record explores how tradition needs to be constantly reconnected with, built upon, looked after, and shared.”

Quinie sings with a style inspired by Scottish Traveller singers. “I began singing unaccompanied Scots Song in 2015 after hearing Scots Traveller singer Sheila Stewart on the radio. Over the years I have met Traveller friends who taught me that settled people sharing these songs could contribute to raising awareness. Scottish Travellers are marginalised and discriminated against in modern Scotland, despite being custodians of so many of our important traditions. So I started to perform them and tell this story. From there I built on my repertoire and started writing my own songs”.

To develop this record, Quinie travelled across Argyll with her Horse. They went on a pilgrimage of sorts through the ancient landscapes of the West of Scotland to explore the interconnected relationships between people, ancestors, animals, and place. The album’s vinyl release is accompanied by a book and film, documenting this unusual research process. ‘Forefowk, Mind Me’ was recorded in August 2024 at The Big Shed in Highland Perthshire with support from Creative Scotland. Quinie is accompanied by an ensemble of musicians: Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (viola), Oliver Pitt (duduk, bouzouki, percussion), Harry Górski-Brown (small pipes, violin), and Stevie Jones (double bass, recording, and mixing). Each of these artists brings their own distinctive voice, bridging contemporary experimental practice with worlds of traditional and early music.

DEERHOOF seem to thrive on collapse, so it’s simply amazing that this US/Japanese quartet is now celebrating their 31st year. Though Deerhoof long ago established itself as one of the greatest rock groups ever to stride the earth—and if you think that’s hyperbole, you haven’t seen them live—the furiously inventive quartet releases new albums on the schedule of a young band still hungry for its first break. Each one discovers some previously unknown combination of candy-coated hard-rock riffs and free-jazz percussive freakouts, sideways J-pop hooks and fearsome dissonance, trenchant social commentary and surrealist humor. Fronting it all is Satomi Matsuzaki’s inimitable alto, whose plainspoken calm can seem strangely outside of the band’s maelstrom. This music is joyful and foreboding, cybernetic and deeply human, carrying an implicit note of defiant optimism in their refusal to bow to convention or received wisdom.Deerhoof is defined by such paradoxes.

For this pair of shows in London, Deerhoof will be performing different sets each night, featuring material from ‘Noble and Godlike in Ruin’ (their 19th studio album) alongside epic tracks from their extensive back catalogue!

CHRIS COHEN was always a quiet kid. In fact, this introversion was one reason he began playing music as a toddler—to communicate without speaking to identify with others without the direct representation of words. It has worked, too, with Cohen’s terrific stint in the mighty Deerhoof and his own captivating art-rock act The Curtains, preceding production and session work for the likes of Weyes Blood, Kurt Vile, Le Ren, and Marina Allen. Somewhere along that long way, Cohen started writing lyrics. He found that, though it didn’t come naturally, the process offered a new sense of self-discovery and reckoning, a way to see himself and the world from unexpected angles. His three twilit albums of casually complicated pop during the last decade radiated these epiphanies: handling family strife, navigating advancing age, and understanding social woes.

But Cohen has never had as much to sing so directly as he does on ‘Paint a Room’, his first album in five years and his debut for Hardly Art. If Cohen’s meanings have previously lurked inside the tessellated musical layers he built alone, they are newly clear and resonant here, animated and underscored for the first time by a band playing in real time. There is the endless miasma of state violence on the subversively melodious opener “Damage,” the existential exhaustion of modernity on the horn-traced jangle “Laughing”. With ‘Paint a Room’, Cohen’s music feels like a warm spring breeze, easy to love and gentle to feel. But it’s often carrying something heavy, as if blowing in from some unseen storm cloud.

WALT McCLEMENTS is an accordionist, multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles. His solo compositions focus on processed accordion, creating patient and emotional meditations that nod to drone and ambient music. His debut record, “A Hole in the Fence” was released in 2021 on American Dreams, and utilized a minimal palette of accordions treated through guitar pedals to create glacial soundscapes and odes to hidden worlds. On his latest record and first for Western Vinyl, “On a Painted Ocean”, he expands his sonic tools to include lush synths, droning pipe organs, and spirited horns, creating a vibrant journey from solitary stillness to community exuberance. The record also follows last year’s “Rain on the Road”, a collaborative album with harpist Mary Lattimore, released on Thrill Jockey.

Prior to releasing music under his own name, McClements has been a touring member of Weyes Blood, Hurray for the Riff Raff, and Dark Dark Dark, as well as leading New Orleans art-punk brass ensemble Why Are We Building Such A Big Ship? and one man band Lonesome Leash.

JACKEN ELSWYTH is a London-based folk musician, banjo player, and instrument builder. In her music making she is focused on exploring traditional tunes, developing extrapolations on folk styles and techniques, and investigating drone, ambience, and improvisation within and beyond folk music. Her debut album At Fargrounds (Wrong Speed Records, 2024) was described as a ‘folk-thesis for our times’ by The Quietus. Jacken also organises the Betwixt & Between split tape series, and plays in Shovel Dance Collective too.