The Bullingdon, the Cellar, the of Sylvia Summers and Ady Cox

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[email protected] @NightshiftMag nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 232 November Oxford’s Music Magazine 2014 MAIIANS

“We enjoy the chaos” Double drummer action from Oxford’s new electronic music stars

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Six pages of local gigs! Recommended by Matchbox Recordings Ltd, Poplar Jake, Undersmile, Desert Storm, Turan Audio Ltd, Nick Cope, Prospeckt, Paul Jeffries, Alvin Roy, Pete The Temp, Evolution, Coozes, Blue Moon and many more... NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 UK blues acts. It is hoped the club O2 Academy, The Wheatsheaf, with continue under the stewardship The Bullingdon, The Cellar, The of Sylvia Summers and Ady Cox. Jericho Tavern, The Corridor, Talking to Nightshift after his The Marsh Harrier, James Street retirement show, Phil said, “I’m Tavern and The Bear. This year’s NEWSbeing forcibly retired I’m afraid; festival is dedicated to the late Dave Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU I’ve not been well and it’s all come Norland. Tickets for all gigs on Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] to an abrupt halt. It’s terribly sad during the week are available from but they put on a lovely party from Wegottickets.com. See this month’s Online: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net me and I’ve had so many good gig guide for a full list of every gig wishes from around the world. in the festival line-up. “If I had to pick one single coincidentally marked his 50th highlight from all that time running PADDOX launch their debut album anniversary working in music and the Monday Blues it would be with a show at The Old Fire Station 30 years running the renowned when Chaka Khan came and played this month. The band, formed by blues club. Guests for the night were for our Christmas Party at the former Trophy Wife drummer Kit Never The Bride, regular visitors Bullingdon. I was told if I got her Monteith, release ` Aphrodisiaque’ to the FMB over the years and who a decent bottle of champagne – a on Bear On A Bicycle Records on played at the club’s 20th anniversary really decent bottle – she would the 1st December. The album will party in 2004. come and sing but they wouldn’t come in a special concrete sleeve. Having started out running clubs in say for how long. In the end she just The launch gig takes place on the Cheltenham and London, working kept on going. It was lovely, a great 29th November. More details at with the likes of Kenny Ball, Tommy Christmas present.” bearonabicycle.co.uk. Steel and Alexis Korner, Philip – Phil was presented with a Lifetime nicknamed Silver Phil on account Achievement Award at the 2014 TRUCK FESTIVAL has been of his long, white hair – moved to British Blues Awards (pictured). nominated for three awards at the Oxford in the 1980s and, with his Nightshift wishes him all the very UK Festival Awards. Truck, widely American contacts, helped book best of health in his retirement. regarded as a pioneer of small bands for the blues nights at The festivals in the UK, is up for Best PHILIP GUY DAVIS has Red Lion in Gloucester Green with THE OXFORD CITY FESTIVAL Small Festival, Best Toilets and announced his retirement from Bob Foley. Over the years the FMB, returns to take over venues The Grassroots Festival Award. running the Famous Monday Blues, run by Phil along with the late Tony across Oxford in the last week of Festival Director James Goodall bringing to an end a career spanning Jezzard until a few years ago, has November. Featuring over 100 acts said, “With the history that Truck 50 years in the music business. moved around town, including stints across nine venues from the 24th- has as a groundbreaking small Philip, 78, has suffered ill health at The Bullingdon, before finding 29th November, the event covers festival it means the world to us to for a while now, and bowed out its most recent home at the Jericho, pretty much every genre of music, continue this tradition into 2014, with a final Famous Monday Blues over the decades bringing acts from rock, indie, metal, hip hop by being nominated for The Best show at The Jericho Tavern at the from across Europe, America and and punk to folk, jazz, blues and Small Festival and The Grassroots end of September, a date which Australia as well as generations of funk. Venues involved include the Festival Award in particular.”

Tributes have been pouring in for Dave Norland, the whole Oxford music scene.” a key figure in the Oxford music scene over DAVE NORLAND Local musician and promoter and long-time the last 20 years, who has died, aged 40, after friend Mark `Osprey’ O’Brien said, “Dave was suffering from cancer. 1974-2014 an absolute rock to me over the last decade. He Dave’s contributions to the local scene were mastered and released my first album, which put many and varied. In 1994 he launched his own me on a good pedestal from the start. Without him record label, Backbeat, and released Supergrass’ I’d never have been able to do it. When he came up debut single, `Caught By The Fuzz’ and its with the idea of a radio station he asked me to be a follow-up `Mansized Rooster’, before the presenter and I said `yes’ straight away. We had to band were signed to Parlophone. He was also go through so many meetings to get a license but responsible for `Happy’, the debut single by he stuck with it through all the shit and we came seminal local heroes The Mystics, the same year. out with a great station. And he was a good friend, Soon after this Dave began working as a he made everything fun. He was the most loving sound engineer around Oxford, notably at the person; I’m going to miss him forever. Zodiac, where he became a much-loved fixture, Hugo Makepeace, who worked with Dave on renowned for his support of up and coming local also quick to recognise Dave’s contribution to Desta*Nation, said, “he knew how to make stuff acts, his patience and good humour. Dave was his band’s early career. “Dave was one of those happen, he never stopped being on it. We’d talk also a founding member and bass player with people that just made things happen. When I first about stuff, but he’d do it then ask permission. local reggae favourites Mackating, alongside arrived in Oxford with the Mystics he released When Dave opened his mouth, I’d be listening. his brother Daniel, as well as sound system our first single on Backbeat; the next night it David was the Oxford bass line, the foundation, Desta*Nation, and was instrumental in setting was on the Radio 1 Evening Session, and within the engine room.” up the community radio station OX4 FM, now a few weeks the band was signed to Fontana. I Dylan Davies, who worked with Dave at known as Destiny 105. He also helped set up went straight back to him with the first Supergrass Soundworks and The Zodiac, added, “David Soundworks studios in Blackbird Leys, working tracks and he did it again. He had great musical helped people make music from nothing; he with Sugar Minott and Michael Rose. instinct and was the real deal in terms of gave them the key to make music.” Former Supergrass singer Gaz Coombes independent attitude with no regard for authority. Promoter Mac, who also worked with Dave at was among those who recognised Dave’s I remember him as being completely intuitive the Zodiac, paid a simple tribute to his friend: contribution to local music: “Dave was such and spontaneous, whether it was watching him “He was a top man, the only person ever to drink a gentle guy, always a pleasure to be around. hand stamp 7” vinyl labels with a Woolworth’s me under the table.” He was instrumental in getting our first single printing kit on the floor of his Iffley Road squat, For Nightshift’s part, we remember Dave’s `Caught By The Fuzz out’, which led to us or watching him break into a record pressing plant seemingly boundless enthusiasm, both with getting signed. He went above and beyond at window to emerge triumphantly with the first Backbeat and working with bands as a sound times to help us during those early days; he Supergrass singles under his arm because we had engineer. He was a man who believed absolutely always fought for the underdog.” arrived late too late to collect them the normal in music and its place in the community. As Mystics frontman Sam Williams, who produced way. Dave was a truly maverick spirit and he had such, he remains an inspiration to many, many Supergrass’s debut album `I Should Coco’, was a major effect on my own musical life and that of people in Oxford. photo:Johnny Moto 24 2006 –willreturn forashowonthe to headlineaPindrop showbackin 2015 BrickworkLizards–thefirst act Thought andLeeRiley. Movinginto Petrels, LaidEyes,Paddox, After The the MidwinterDroneFestival,with Thursday 11 Reservoir andJuliaMeijer. Then on Ascents (pictured), Rainbow Morris, featuringsetsfromBalloon works by Andy Warhol and William launch gigforanewexhibitionof www.facebook.com/pindropmusic. Friday 5 shows atModern Art Oxford.On a seriesofspeciallycommissioned of promotinggigsinOxfordwith enteringtheirtenthyear celebrate PINDROP PERFORMANCES when theycelebrated The Club That CannotBeNamed’s 10 S Cowley Roadon Thursday 27 The quintetwillplayinthenone-more-intimatesettingof The Libraryon Meat’, producedbySevenchurchguitaristDaveSmart,in2004. Storm. They releasedoneminialbum,`TheBansheeScreamsForBuffalo current generationoflocalmetalbands,particularlyUndersmileandDesert 2004, and,sincetheirdemise,havebeenquotedasamajorinfluenceonthe but werehugefavouritesatNightshift,appearingonthefrontcoverinJune with anastonishinglybrutalblendofsludge,stoner-metal andhardcore, 2010 metalspecialissue,wererenownedintheirtimeforclearingvenues The band,votedOxford’s greatestevermetalbandbyNightshiftinour reform foronehometownshowtolaunchtherecord. “We didn’t forget aboutit such,butafterthebandsplitupitgotpushed who managedtomixitamongsthisinsanelybusyschedule. spare roomandwegaveitto(A SilentFilmfrontman)RobStevenson, find it. ThetapesturnedupunderapileofboxesinBenPerrier’s dad’s or soagoweremembereditspossibleexistenceandsetoutonaquestto why –welettheprocessgrindtoahaltanditgotshelved. Around ayear Winnebago Deal.Forwhateverreason–noneofuscanquiteremember – said,“ThealbumwasrecordedsevenyearsagowiththetwoBensfrom Sextodecimo’s Tommy Longfellow–nowpartof Tamara &theMartyrs Talkingto occasion. by GUNNBUNNY,whowillsimilarlyreformforonenighttomarkthe at The Wheatsheaf. Inanevenmoreexcitingtwist,theywillbesupported th EXTODECIMO releasetheirlong-lostalbumthismonthandwill January. Findoutmoreat th December they host a Decembertheyhosta th Nightshift aboutthereunionandreleaseofalbum, December they host Decembertheyhost th November. Their finalshowwasin 2010 On Thursday 13 any albumsnotalreadyinstock. accessories, canalsotakeordersfor which alsostocksinstrumentsand closure ofHMV inJune. The store, the citycentremarketleftby from thismonth,fillingavoidin world musicandfolkCDsvinyl a widerangeofrock,pop,blues, in BroadStreetwillbestocking BLACKWELLS MUSICSTORE MOTHER CORONAreleasea new irregularfolk.co.uk formorenews. from Wegottickets.com. Visit www. £10 inadvance,areonsalenow other attractions. Tickets, priced, Wooden Arms, aswellmyriad Lantern, FlightsofHeliosand will featurelivesetsfromMagic December. The innovativefolkclub Community CentreonSaturday13 Christmas partyatEastOxford IRREGULAR FOLKhosttheir Pyre. Doors, LoveBecomesaFuneral to talkabouthisnewbookon The journalist Mick Wall beatthestore th November, rock th anniversary th

Bullingdon bythe10 should contactPaul Williams atthe Bar Supervisor. Anyone interested an Assistant Venue Manageranda Cowley Roadisvenuelookingfor jobs upforgrabsthismonth. The THE BULLINGDONhastwo from whenplanetscollideuk.com. review nextissue,butgrabyourcopy “fifteen puresludgeanthems.”Full Records and is, according to the band, released on When PlanetsCollide album thismonth.`Reburn’ is com/wearetraps/sets/darker. `Darker’ availableatsoundcloud. at theendofSeptember, havemade their farewellgig at theO2 Academy EP thismonth. The band,who played TRAPS moonfruit.com fordetails. www.clearwater-recording. interested inrecodingthere. Visit studio demoCDtoanylocalbands Headington, isoffering afree CLEARWATER STUDIOSin 01865 244516. saying thankyou.” one morningwithanewFixersrecordonyourphone.It’s ourlittlewayof 3310 users.Seriously, ifyouhaveaNokia3310,thenwillwakeup mastered atthemoment. We aregoingtogiveitawayforfreeallNokia “ThenewFixersrecordismoreorlessfinished;it’s beingmixedand even bethethingI’mbestatinlife.Fuckinghoorayforme. keyboard drums.I’mamasteroftheSeriously, itmight and roadmovies;allIdidwaswatchhorrorfilms,eatpizzaplay just outsideof Witney singingaboutmusclecars,80sHollywoodactors at leastbeingcomfortablewithlost. We werekidsinasmallvillage Ithinkitcorrelateswithbeinglost,or Manchu recordsandsmashstuff’. five stonelighter, andsaytoyourself`IwannalistenallofmyFu thought aboutitinyears.Then,outoftheblue,youwakeuponemorning, “It’s beentenyearssincethethreeofuslastplayedtogether. Ihadn’t Fixers plans. JackalsochattedtoNightshiftabouttheupcomingreuniongigandfuture Elizabeth. come outofthecity, intheirearlydayssharingstageswithpre-Foalsband Bhasin, Gunnbunnyarestillregardedasoneofthebestyoungrockbandsto Goldstein, whowouldgoontoformFixerswithSextodecimoguitaristRoo Sextodecimo justaddedtotheexcitementofnews.FrontedbyJack The newsthatgrunge/hardcoretrioGunnbunnywouldbejoining certainly wouldn’t wanttokeeprehashingtheoldstuff. Time willtell.” see howwegetoninrehearsalsandwhethercanstillwritetogether. We decided. “We’re allbusywithourfamiliesandstuff. It’llbeinterestingto As towhetherthereunionwillbemorethanaone-off, though,hasn’t been won usmorefansthanplayingliveeverdid!” in theaudienceatendofanyourshows.Splittingupseemstohave is gonnabepacked,butIdon’t remembertherebeingmorethantenpeople asking ustoreformandputthealbumout;IreckonthisshowinNovember burning whilstweweren’t playing. It’s funny, we’vehadsomanypeople those guystoreformovertheyears;itdefinitelyhelpedkeepanember “Itfeelsprettygoodtoknowthat. We’ve hadnothingbutbadgeringfrom pleased about. influence onanewwaveofbands,something Tommy isunderstandably come outofOxford,Sextodecimohavesubsequentlybecomeatouchstone Having establishedareputationasoneofthemostpolarisingbandseverto Records, availabletofansattendingtheLibraryshow. The albumissettobereleasedasalimitededitionCDonLonelyLinda on record.Lookingback,Ireallythinkwemanagedit.” away fromwhatwe’drecordedpreviously, andwewantedtocapturethat “Personally, Ithinkitsoundsincredible.Ourliveshowhadventuredfar finished. Thenitwasjustamatteroftrackingdownthetapes… took afewyears,andendlessrequests,torekindleourenthusiasmgetit to thebackofourprioritylists. bow out with a posthumous bow outwithaposthumous th November– We gotprettylazytowardstheend,andit Well, youcan,butwe’lllaugh atyou. complain ifthey’re notincluded. don’t sendusyourlistings, youcan’t A quicknote to Email yourneedsinupto30words, can advertiseforfreeinNightshift. members ormusicianslookingforbands OXFORD BANDSlookingfor nightshift.oxfordmusic.net. all localmusicfansandmusiciansat Nightshift’s onlineformisopento photo galleryandgigguide. also featuresinteractivereviews,a www.musicinoxford.co.uk. The site is availableonlineat Regularlyupdatedlocalmusicnews bbc.co.uk/oxford. or downloadasapodcastat acts. The showisavailabletostream interviews andsessionswithlocal and demosaswellfeaturing show playsthebestOxfordreleases 95.2fm. The dedicatedlocalmusic Saturday nightbetween8-9pmon BBC OxfordIntroducing every AS EVER,don’t forget totuneinto [email protected].

to say, if you ifyou

A quiet word with so for live electronic music. What successful acts from Oxford like JAKE: “I’ve been seeing a lot Tim played with Jake in The Old do Maiians think can be done to TEED and Glass Animals that of DJs play with a live set-up Grinding Young. Mike played in improve the situation? Is there have gone on to release really good recently, like Gardland, Blawan that band too, and Salvation Bill even a decent audience for live electronic records; it’s great to see and Pariah’s Karenn project, and with me, whilst both Mike and electronic music in Oxford? those kind of acts being able to Juju and Jordash with Move D, Tim also work with Sam on the IK JAKE: “Club nights for house and step over into the mainstream.” who play under the name Magic video sessions. They’re a lovely techno in Oxford have certainly Mountain High. These have mostly bunch and very efficient! gotten better in the last couple Given the dominance of been based around drum machines SAM: “It’s great to have people MAIIANS of years, but you’re right, less electronics in their sound, why is it and synths and an improvised set. outside the band who are really so for live electronic music. We so important to Maiians to perform I’d love to play a live improvised into the music and are really keen know that some of the house and live rather than with laptops and techno set in a club. The hard part to help you push it. I don’t think techno promoters in Oxford are loops? would be getting people to treat it we’d have gotten the exposure trying to put on live shows, which JAKE: “We all grew up playing as a club night as opposed to a gig, we’ve had so far without them. would definitely improve things. in local bands so it’s a way of I think.” And it’s obviously great to be able And just the fact that dance music making and playing music that to hold all of your meetings in a is becoming fashionable again we’re comfortable with. Also Certainly `Tokyo’ feels pub in Oxford.” is helping. There’s definitely most of us spend all day working like a record that demands to be an audience for dance music on computers so when we come played live, an assured debut that For a band dedicated to in Oxford, this is evident from to make music we prefer not to belies the nervousness Maiians felt the ideal of playing live, Maiians’ the Simple, Extracurricular and stare at waveforms on an Ableton when they set out to make it. gig outings have been few and NTNS nights we go to and the screen. We don’t want people JAMES: “We weren’t sure how to far between so far, but on the 1st Field Manoeuvres festival. There’s thinking we’re analogue purists record initially, whether to sample November you’ll be able to see obviously an audience for live or anything though; we don’t it all and build it up electronically them live at Modern Art Oxford music, so we’d hope there is an when they launch the EP. The audience for live electronic music.” band claim they’d rather do fewer JAMES: “The venues that tend “Most of us spend all day working but more special shows rather to be able to handle live acts than trawl round the local circuit. alongside DJs as a late night on computers so when we come to What does the launch gig hold in entertainment option tend to be store and can they imagine doing large, multi-room structures that make music we prefer not to stare at Pink Floyd-scale live shows in the Oxford doesn’t really have – and future? maybe there aren’t quite enough waveforms on an Ableton screen.” SAM: “It’s going to be the first people to fill that kind of venue time we’ve played with some at the moment, though you have anything against that way or to record live. I think at one proper visuals, so we’re really can see from the success of the of making music. In fact, we plan point we were going to do both. excited about it. A lot of the songs aforementioned club nights that to adopt more electronic ways of We ended up deciding on live are quite cinematic, and lend there is some audience, and I think making and playing music in to our though as we’d written the tracks themselves well to visual content, Last year Ben Goldacre, I enjoy the chaos.” dynamics to Fuck Buttons, LTJ were both available. it’s growing.” set-up, but the core will always be that way. We recorded it up at so I think it’s going to go down the renowned physician, academic Maiians’ other synthesist is Sam Bukem and Banco de Gaia (“We’d SAM: “The main reason we SAM: “Certainly from our live live instruments, I think.” Strawhouse with Richard Neuberg, really well. We’ve found in the and science writer tweeted, “The King, who also plays guitar. If never even heard of Banco de Gaia started was because I knew Matt performances we feel that there is JAMES: “This is something that, who is a genius. He set up his live past that when we’ve had lighting genius of Gary Numan was the those two names sound familiar, before then,” admits James, “but and Callum and we were in town an audience for it. Whilst Oxford for me, goes back to Keyboard room in a way that allowed us to that reacts to the songs it really discovery that synthesisers must James is perhaps better known it’s always nice to be given new at the same time; it was a happy isn’t renowned for its electronic Choir; I was really into creating play everything live. I’m really complements them, so to use some only be played alongside real drum around Oxford as frontman musical areas to explore.”). accident that it seemed to work. scene, it’s definitely growing, and something that can be so robotic – happy with how it’s turned out, visuals was the next natural step. kits.” for expansive indie pop crew Their name is set to become I love the use of electronic beats although there probably isn’t the electronic music – in the live arena. especially the drums. There are a “We’ll be using some of the Ben’s rarely wrong about stuff, We Aeronauts, while Sam much better known though with and a lot of the music we listen audience to bring in bigger acts, Maiians feels like an extension few overdubs on there but mostly content from the videos we’ve and we imagine he’d love Maiians. was previously producer, and the release this month of their to incorporates them, but there’s people are certainly receptive to it to the feeling Keyboard Choir it is us playing live, so, yeah, other been working on, mixed in with Maiians play synthesizers. They sometimes co-host, of BBC debut EP, `Tokyo’, on Idiot King, something unique about having when we play.” generated, although we have much than a few bits we don’t have some other footage, so it’ll be also have two real drum kits. Oxford’s Introducing show. James the label set up by local musician two drummers playing together.” Which other local electronic more energy.” enough hands for, it is pretty much great to see how it goes down. While a lot of “live” electronic was also a part of The Keyboard Michael Chilcott and friends. JAKE: “The approach we take to acts are you fans of or who have SAM: “Certainly from my a completely live recording.” We’ve also got some new material music can be a slightly sterile Choir, the synthesizer orchestra put The EP features three expansive writing songs is more in the style influenced you? previous experience, when you SAM: “We knew we wanted that’ll be heard for the first time, experience – watching a couple of together by Adrian Wardle a few instrumental electronic journeys of dance music, lots of 16 bar JAMES: “The Evenings were use a backing track that is limited it to sound a little different and so to mix that in amongst the EP is guys peering at their laptops isn’t years ago. punctuated by sparse vocal samples phrases with many parts dropping a big influence when they were to a click, you’re restricted to that distinctive, so we spent a lot of something we’re all really looking great entertainment in anyone’s The pair are joined by their twin (from a reading of a Walt Whitman in and out, and I don’t think we around, which was coincidentally tempo. There’s no flexibility to time finding the right person to forward to.” (Mac)book – Maiians are one of powerhouse percussionists Matt poem), chief of which is lead could have achieved that with a when I joined Keyboard Choir. react to the crowd or the energy mix it. There is a Polish duo who How about a live residency in a the bands who buck the trend. Goolding and Callum Peaston, who track `Lemon’ that could be early single drummer. It was a bit of a You could probably see a few of the room, and that’s something I’m a big fan of called Ptaki, suitable club in Ibiza next summer? Propelled by two live drummers, have similarly done time in local Kraftwerk being taken for chilled gamble when we started but now similarities between them and that’s really important to me. As who released a great track called JAKE: “Yeah, Maiians B2B Carl their gigs, the few they’ve played bands. The quintet is completed drive along an Ibiza coastal road I’d say it’s essential, having two Maiians – stage set up built around Jake says, we’re not purists or `Krystyna’ at the start of the year. Cox in the main room at Space, so far in their short existence, are by bassist Jake Swadling, once of rather than an endless autobahn. drummers. It’s not like they’re just the drums, and I’m sure I’ve seen anything, and we do use samples There was something that really six-hour set! But in seriousness, compelling evidence that electronic indie-folksters The Cooling Pearls, Further in you’ll hear the influence exchanging fills or anything like them play with two drummers at and loops, but they’re more for stood out about the sound of their we’d like to play more club type music can be every bit as much fun and who is soon to depart the of Four Tet and Caribou. that.” points. Also I can remember seeing layers and not something that work, so I dropped them a message venues like Corsica Studios and and feel as alive as any other more band and these shores to take up a While the electronic side of JAMES: “I like the way we can South Sea Company Prospectus, restricts our live performance.” to see if they might be interested in Bussey Building, for sure. I don’t organic style. university professorship in Japan. the music veers from dreamy achieve very subtle rhythmic shifts Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element and Do you think there is still a clear mixing the EP. Fortunately Bartek think we want to be pigeon-holed to euphoric to steely, it’s those and touches that can give the band The Rock of Travolta at various divide between live electronic acts got back to me and said he’d be into being something like an “I’ve seen plenty of Maiians came into being constantly driving rhythms that more or less drive. I was very sure points over the years. All incredible and DJs, or is anyone properly up for working on it, and we think electronic act or a live dance outfit: electronic acts listed as ‘live’ when last year but remain a relatively really take it to another level. that the two shouldn’t be playing live acts with strong electronic blurring those lines? he did a fantastic job. He really we want to play live house and it’s just a one man and his laptop unknown quantity on the Oxford While so much ambient electronica the same thing.” elements. Also Chad Valley and MATT: “It seems to be happening brought a punchiness to the songs techno in clubs and we want to scenario; I’ve no problem with scene having played a mere is held back by tinny electronic the Coloureds/ODC Drumline a lot more; we recently went to see that wasn’t there before. So yeah, I play indie festivals too.” that, but it’s not ‘live’ in the band handful of gigs to date, including beats, this is a groove you can get Oxford is well served collaboration at Truck a few years Dark Sky in London who started think we’re all really pleased!” sense,” explains James Cunning, a show in March this year that seriously lost in. for house and techno club nights, back. At the moment there a few off as producers but now perform And it’s out on Idiot King, another Tokyo is released on 3rd November. one of Maiian’s two synth was rapturously received by with the likes of Simple having decent acts; Theo Bass, After The as a live band, and then there acts local DIY label to add to the list. Maiians play Modern Art Oxford botherers, “the lack of laptops Nightshift’s reviewer who likened It’s no surprise to been around for a over a decade Thought and Kid Kin immediately like Mount Kimbie who have a JAMES: “It’s very incestuous. on Saturday 1st November. Visit means we can improvise more and their mix of ambient electronica, discover, then, that Maiians came and others spread across the city’s spring to mind.” live band. That’s the kind of thing I think most of us are connected maiians.com for more news and each performance can be different. drum&bass and rock-style together because Matt and Callum clubs and venues, but rather less SAM: “There’s been a number of we’re striving towards.” to Mike and Tim in some way. gig dates. Sponsored by treads with surprising ease into Morrissey- PHILIP SELWAY esque croon territory, the song full of properly `Weatherhouse’ epic sweep at its climax. Certainly he’s (Bella Union) not afraid to bare his soul a little; Àround Again’is fully engaged emotionally, charged When you hear the drummer from a world- RELEASED with uncertainty. renowned band has spent some of his downtime There are weaker links – `Ghosts’ drifts SEXTODECIMO FLOODED HALLWAYS recording a solo album, the temptation, even compulsion, to go, “aw, bless,” can be softly and elegantly but there’s little substance `Sextodecimo’ Ìmpervious To Hell’s overwhelming. Particularly when that band is to it, but his tender touch works better on Radiohead whose two most prominent members `Don’t Go Now’, all sombre reflection with its (Lonely Linda) plucked acoustic guitar, cello hum and vocal During their tenure as probably the most Fires’ have their own catalogues of boundary- (Illgotit) challenging solo works to hold up to the light. swoons. At each turn it’s Phil’s vocal strength extreme band on the local scene, Sextodecimo that grabs you. He shames most dedicated were the musical equivalent of a Lars von Trier Flooded Hallways’ modus operandi has always It possibly doesn’t help that Philip Selway is frontmen and if he doesn’t stretch himself too movie: critically-lauded, yet able to clear a tended towards the `chuck it all in the blender one of the most genial men in music, and one far, that is a talent in itself; listen to the starry- room in under twenty minutes, and with some and see what mixes or sticks.’ Such dedication who gives much of his time to working for The eyed `Waiting For a Sign’ and tell us this man extremely unpleasant bits you wouldn’t want to lo-fi adventuring means that what comes Samaritans and being a patron of local youth doesn’t have the voice of a world-weary angel. your mum to experience. out the other end can be as much a chaotic old theatre and music projects. Of course everyone peril. Working with Adem Ilhan and Quinta, Amid the constant clamour for new things, The editor of this magazine once threatened mess as a cohesive slice of hip hop, but we will smile and say well done and isn’t that nice Philip has stepped out from behind his kit but, and coming so quickly in the wake of Thom a dictatorial mandate that every mention of kind of like such a haphazard approach in an and when will the new Radiohead album be crucially, unlike on `Familial’ is happy to return Yorke’s latest, low-key solo release, chances Sextodecimo’s name must be preceded with increasingly over-polished world. ready? to it when duty calls. are `Weatherhouse’ will get a fraction of the ‘the mighty’. Thankfully, he never had to For this latest in a very long line of releases And then they’ll actually hear `Weatherhouse’ From the off `Weatherhouse’ oozes a rare sense exposure it so richly deserves, just something enforce it since down to the last writer the the duo – Nemrot and Deeq – have gathered and they’ll start asking why Philip hasn’t of class. `Coming Up For Air’ could be a prime to sate Radiohead completists before the Nightshift crew were as much in awe of their unremittingly bleak, crushing doom of the what amounts to a who’s who of Oxford hip made more solo albums. He has of course; cut from a Radiohead album, with its ominous monstrous sludge as of their ability to alienate highest order, with passages sitting somewhere hop – from Illgotit label honcho Elliot Fresh, to `Weatherhouse’ is the follow-up to 2010’s electronics, chattering beats and sense of next main event. Truth is it is easily equal to most of an audience through sheer force of riff. between a slowed-down Carcass and a sped-up Rawz and Asher Dust to Death of Hi-Fi, plus `Familial’, but while that solo debut actually repressed epic, Phil’s voice misty and distorted. anything his Radiohead compadres have made, Back by (un)popular demand, Sextodecimo Sunn0))). What’s most impressive about the a few London mates, like Tang the Pilgrim. was a genial, mostly acoustic moment of career From here he touches base with Mark Hollis (a and certainly far more accessible. Frankly, have re-emerged with a long-lost album, band is their sheer relentlessness, clenching This revolving cast keeps the album fresh when diversion, this new album is far more fully big favourite of all of Radiohead), particularly the depth and breadth of talent in that band is recorded back in 2007 and presumably so heavy down until their knuckles whiten and refusing otherwise, at close to an hour, it could get stuck realised, proof positive that you underestimate the renowned perfectionist’s post-Talk Talk breathtaking. they lost it in a rift in the space-time continuum to let go. Only ‘Cervix With A Smile’ ups the in the doldrums at times. Asher and Rawz’ your humble sticksman at your very great work, while on Ìt Will End In Tears’ his voice Dale Kattack for seven years. pace slightly, slipping almost involuntarily contribution to Ènough’s Enough’ makes for a The album pretty much picks up where they into some stoner rock motifs before dropping rapid-fire jam and the album’s highlight, while left off with `The Banshee Screams for Buffalo abruptly into an Earth-style tremolo-inflected the authoritive tones of Evo Lucian make for dynamism, but retain the languid fluidity, espionage thriller well, and Èating Crayons’ Meat’ a decade ago, with just a few extra bells Western soundtrack. Before, y’know, smashing a neat counterpoint to Deeq’s near-hysterical finding an ambience pitched neatly in the is archetypal first-person shooter video game and whistles. Muffled, distressed vocal samples straight into a brick wall of feedback and noise. delivery on tracks like `They Think I’m On middle between Fuck Button and Toro Y Moi. music: an Orb-like pulsating drone with bleeps punctuate the gloom, giving twelve-minute If you’re going to level a criticism at this Drugs’. An unexpected treat from a band that started out that takes you through a dimly-lit shipwrecked opener ‘Vulture’s Military Soap’ a whiff of bludgeoning blunt instrument of a record, it’s While drugs are hardly the dominant subject as a side-project diversion from We Aeronauts, spacecraft on an unfamiliar planet, stalking Neurosis (in fact, the middle section is a dead that there’s nothing new here, either for them matter, there remains a slight stoner edge and one that sounds like it could easily eclipse pursuing aliens. ringer for ‘Through Silver In Blood’). There are or in terms of adding a distinctive voice to the to much of Flooded Hallways’ vibe, like on its mother band. On the one non-instrumental, `Literature and passages of moody ambience bringing to mind wider scene. But then gargantuan riffs from the loping, brassy skank of Ìt Don’t Really Dale Kattack Life’, David’s hushed and measured vocals some of Justin Broadrick’s work as Council bands who sound like they’re playing their Matter’, with cuts by Death of Hi-Fi, although are underpinned by a plaintive cello while Estate Electronics or Final, but their mere very souls out will always have a home here. there’s a hint of pot confusion on `Sucka Toe’, percussion batters around them. The slow and presence mostly serves to emphasise the gaps A hearty ‘welcome back’ to – yes – the mighty which is a curdled mess with little apparent TIGER MENDOZA steady resultant tension is palpable. between business as usual. Sextodecimo. idea what it wants to be. Far more fluid is `Just `Home Is The Sailor’ is reminiscent of ambient And business as usual for Sextodecimo is Stuart Fowkes Passing Through’, with Elliot Fresh on guest WITH DAVID electronica proponent Ulrich Schnauss with vocals, though even here there are moments its relentless drifting of beats above layers of when the freestyling loses its focus. GRIFFITHS strings. The beats remain delicate as the strings days, though, everything’s all multimedia and As is so often the case with hip hop albums, are joined by grinding guitar in a compelling short-attention-span bursts, so Limbo Kids’ the desire to squeeze everyone’s contributions Àlong Dangerous juxtaposition of the whimsical and the sinister. third single ‘Graceless’ is in fact a single, in means brevity is at a premium and a couple MAIIANS Roads’ While video game and film soundtracks work solitary track. Admittedly, it’s accompanied by of Deeq and Nemrot’s own tracks could easily with the visuals and action to consolidate the a video, giving it more of a sense of occasion be ditched to make it feel more cohesive and `Tokyo’ (Self released) experience for the player or viewer, these that an MP3 in my inbox may afford, but compact, but there’s enough ragged invention on (Idiot King) Electro-rockers Tiger Mendoza have been tracks tell stories themselves; melody and still… strange. show to help Ìmpervious To Hell’s Fires’ stand If Kraftwerk had taken an earlier exit off their descending into darker industrial hip hop mood combine into something evocative and As seems to be an increasingly familiar sonic its ground, and for fans of Mos Def or GZA, they autobahn and ended up sipping Tequila Sunrises of late, but their (or rather his, this release’s compelling. thing in recent times, ‘Graceless’ hints rather could be the local act you’re looking forward on an Ibiza beach bar all afternoon instead of incarnation effectively being a solo project for Kirsten Etheridge heavily at the pop music of the mid-1980s, Victoria Waterfield checking the progress of the Tour de France, Ian de Quatros) new EP Àlong Dangerous while tilting at the clean’n’clear rhythms they’d likely have come up with `Lemon’, the Roads’, a collaboration with ex-Eeebleee and and skitterings of latter-day Foals songs. It’s lead track from Maiian’s debut EP. It’s got Witches chap and latterly solo artist David exceptionally well recorded, performed and all the slick, linear insistency of Düsseldorf’s Griffiths, draws on both parties’ influences of assembled; a carefully-pitched combination favourite sons, powered by a bit of double computer game music and soundtracks – with of bright guitar melodies, groovin’ basslines drummer action and strong bass undercurrents hypnotic results. and gentle drum patterns. Level 42? Tears For but there’s a tender, almost twinkly touch `Now That Days Are Colder’ is a synthesis Fears? Echo And The Bunnymen, perhaps? It about the guitar’n’synth melody, which cast of rhythm and orchestra on a claustrophobic LIMBO KIDS may be all of these, or more modern references you back fully two decades to the blissed-out scale, like a mini-Hybrid. This theme continues that hark back to such olden times, that have trance of Banco de Gaia and his beach party in the swooping violin-led title track, which ‘Graceless’ informed the sound of ‘Graceless’. They’re buddies. At seven minutes it never outlasts its is punctuated by frenetic, impatient beats and (Self released) not shying away from clarity, space, or even welcome, takes you on a chilled drive along the descends into snipped-up nu-skool breaks like Eeeee, I remember when this were all fields the dreaded funk. Emotionally-scarred post- seafront and could easily carry on for another it’s the turn of the Millennium again and Adam around here, and a ‘single’ meant at least two grunge catharsis this may not be; but it’s not half an hour while you stared glassy-eyed at the Freeland will be along any minute to remix the tracks on a 7” record, or a tape (remember the unpleasant to hear high quality, confident and horizon and forgot what you set off for in the hell out of it. ‘cassingle’?), or even the overblown multi- unchallenging pop music. first place. Ìn Desperate Times’ is a Bedouin-flavoured formatted CD releases of the 1990s. These Simon Minter The rest of the EP lacks that gently persuasive heavy soundclash that would serve an Sponsored by but we’re the sort of cruel bastards who think Einsterdende Neubaten tended to be a bit too thevenuecollective PRESENTS tune-heavy at times. Some types of music tend RELEASED to make us want to break stuff. The stand-out track from Phoebe’s EP, Àngel’, gotharama, it billows and expands by way of a is an epic piano ballad that sounds like it was serious overdriven crescendo into a towering ripped straight off the Frozen soundtrack, with climax, with Lex’s soaring yet slightly clipped its starry-eyed lyrics and rousing chorus. She voice giving it everything amid the Euro-goth- sounds like a cross between Jewel, Alecia Keys grunge guitar storm. Further in they add hefty and Feist, with a pure, shrill bird-like voice amounts of cello to `Blood Is Warm’ for extra, and you can just imagine a nation of Saturday extra gravitas and repeat the old billow’n’build evening prime-time TV watchers thinking she’s dynamic on closer `Bore War’. a talented lass as they shovel another fistful It feels like Traps, having decided to split, of Pringles down their throats, but we’re sat decided to put every ounce of effort and wondering when it’ll finish so we can stick the emotion they’d have expended over a ten-year Sextodecimo album on again. So let’s leave it at career into three final songs. They might not go that. Phoebe’s good at what she does, and we’re down in local music history as much more than not in the habit of upsetting 14-year-olds. a footnote, but we can safely say, they were Phew. Do you think anyone noticed we just never knowingly understated. completely avoided the issue? Dale Kattack Dale Kattack TRAPS PHOEBE ROSE `Darker’ (Self-released) `Fledgling’ Having called it a day with a final headline show (Self-released) at the Academy last month, Traps leave us with We think that just once in a while we shouldn’t this farewell EP, a little online evidence that, have been sent something to review. It’s going while they might not quite have set Oxford on to do neither side any good. fire, they were here and their time among us was Phoebe Rose’s debut EP is a case in point. worthwhile. Phoebe, her publicist tells us, is 14 years old, SUNDAY 30TH NOVEMBER FRIDAY 5TH DECEMBER Doors 7.30pm - Tickets £12 adv In stark contrast to the prevailing mood in the has been writing songs since she was 9, was Doors 7pm - Tickets £16 adv city for fidgety dynamics and oblique lyricism, invited to take part in The Voice but was still too Traps were unabashed rock romantics with a young and has performed as part of Joseph & predilection for the epic and melodramatic. This The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Chitty EP’s lead track, `Particles’, pretty much sums Chitty Bang Bang. She cites Taylor Swift as a the band up: from questing All About Eve-like chief influences. Nightshift is a broad church

SUNDAY 22ND MARCH 2015 Doors 7pm - Tickets £17.50 adv (on sale 10th October)

SATURDAY 20TH DECEMBER Doors 6.30pm - 10pm - Tickets £18 adv

TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM WWW.WEGOTTICKETS.COM WWW.THEBULLINGDON.CO.UK Anastasia Gorbunova unplug themselves for shows into their schedule between supporting Alice tonight’s acoustic club. in Chains on tour and heading off to open for Slash FUNK’N’SOUL: The Cellar – Isis (no, not that in Europe. Isis) host a night of funk and soul with Dot’s Funky GERARD WAY: O2 Academy – Sold-out-in- Odyssey and Zander Sharp. seconds solo show from the former-My Chemical ACOUSTIC LOUNGE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Open Romance singer, leaving the post-hardcore rock of acoustic session. his old band behind on solo debut `Hesitant Alien’ GIG GUIDE for a no-less stadium-friendly pop anthem sound in THURSDAY 6th the style of mid-70s Bowie and Suede. THE RETROS: The Bullingdon – The st afternoon of unplugged music, with Ian Nixon and MONSTER TRUCK + THE GRAVELTONES: SATURDAY 1 knowingly-named retro rockers launch their album, th Karen Cleave from Les Clochards playing together O2 Academy – Gruff, anthemic heavy rocking CATWEAZLE 20 BIRTHDAY PARTY: Ìn Our DNA’, playing covers of The Beatles, The as Dave & the Tramp, plus Grieg Stewart from in the grand tradition of AC/DC from Ontario’s Holywell Music Room – Oxford’s longest-running NOVEMBER Who, David Bowie and more. `Mary of the Fourth Form’, `She’s So Modern’ and Guillemots joining Ben Heaney for a violin, loops Monster Truck, squeezing a handful of UK headline open club night (not an open mic night, as host CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community of course Ì Don’t Like Mondays’, still hit the spot, and percussion project. Matt Sage pointed out in last issue’s interview Centre – Following on from their 20th anniversary and they’ll all be getting an outing tonight, with th th – they don’t have a microphone) celebrates two Wednesday 5 / Thursday 13 celebrations at the Holywell on Saturday, Catweazle Bob still a commanding onstage presence. rd decades of showcasing local singers, musicians, MONDAY 3 continues to do what it’s done so well for the past THE SMYTHS: O2 Academy – Smiths tribute poets, storytellers, performance artists and KIRK FLETCHER + THE KATIE BRADLEY STORNOWAY: two decades, providing opportunities for singers, th band celebrate the 35th anniversary of `Hatful of Friday 7 pretty much everything in between and beyond. BAND: The Bullingdon – Blues mastery from the musicians, poets, storytellers, performance artists Hollow’. The Sheldonian Tonight’s celebration party brings together assorted renowned guitarist at tonight’s Haven club show – and more every week. MAIIANS + KID KIN: Modern Art Oxford – th KATE TEMPEST: performers from the club’s past in the historic but see main preview Thursday 20 BURIED BY BEARS: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Post- This month’s Nightshift cover stars launch their suitably intimate setting of the Holywell. LUCY WARD & JOY GRAVESTOCK: hardcore in the vein of Lower Than Atlantis and debut EP for Idiot King Records, mixing up the O2 Academy THE BOOMTOWN RATS: O2 Academy – Bob Nettlebed Folk Club – Elegantly brooding folk SPRING OFFENSIVE: Four Year Strong from Witney’s Buried By Bears, Rapper, poet, playwright, novelist. Kate ambient electronic soundscapes of Four Tet and Geldof’s punk outsiders reform and head back out from the 2012 BBC Folk Awards Horizon Award making their live debut tonight. Tempest is all of these, but give it a couple Caribou with the more propulsive electronica of on the road to coincide with an extensive Greatest winner, joined by Joy Gravestock for tonight’s visit O2 Academy OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon of years and you’ll doubtless be able to add Fuck Buttons. They’re joined by this month’s Three gigs by two of Oxford’s favourite Hits package. Always treated with some disdain by to the weekly Nettlebed Folk Club gathering. a few more strings to her impressive bow. Introducing piece star Kid Kin, with his heavy-duty bands this month. Two will be an anniversary the press and fellow punk bands, they nevertheless th In the last few months she’s been nominated instrumental post-rock and math-rock – see main celebration, the other a wake. But in each FRIDAY 7 enjoyed far more commercial success than most th for the Mercury Prize and listed among the interview features TUESDAY 4 case we should celebrate the music with BAND OF SKULLS + BO NINGEN: O2 others and scored what was arguably punk’s first Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation HEADBANGERS BALL: The Bullingdon – THE COURTEENERS: O2 Academy – Another equal gusto. For Stornoway two nights at the Academy – Grungy blues-rocking from Brighton’s Number 1 hit with `Rat Trap’. Geldof is of course Poets. Which is a bit of a turnaround for Heavy duty tribute goings on at the Bully with local year, another Courteeners tour. You’re either going Sheldonian mark the fifth anniversary of their Band of Skulls, with incendiary support from a celebrated public figure well beyond the band, someone who was kicked out of school as metallers Jabroni Sandwich, Dead Mesa, Aethara, or you’re not and nothing we can say can make you historic show there in 2009 when they became Japanese noisemongers Bo Ningen – see main not least for Live Aid, but while rarely celebrated a disruptive influence aged 16. Now 27, the Godsbane and Crow’s Reign playing at being Rage feel otherwise. The pressing question, though, is the first non-orchestral band to perform at the preview in punk retrospectives, hits like `Like Clockwork’, south Londoner has studied music at the Against the Machine, Nirvana, System of a Down, when are Shed Seven coming back to town? venue. It was a show that has almost come to KATE TEMPEST: O2 Academy – Wordmaster BRIT School and poetry at Goldsmiths and Metallica and more. JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Free live jazz define Stornoway as they played the gig of Tempest celebrates her Mercury nomination and looks like becoming an overnight sensation a rd SIMPLE with LEON VYNEHALL: The every Tuesday in the Bully’s Backroom venue, their lives, alongside the Oxford Millennium Ted Hughes poetry prize – see main preview Monday 3 mere decade or so after making her first live Bullingdon – The Bully’s long-running house tonight with The Stuart Henderson Quartet. Orchestra, the event much, much more than a SWITCH: O2 Academy – Electro, house and bass appearances at hip hop open nights and slam and techno club night hosts rising producer Leon SAMUEL RODGERS & REBECCA LEE: The mere gig. Having already sold out the show on with Connoisseur, Maxquerade and Archie B. KIRK FLETCHER: poetry sessions. Her debut album, Èverybody Vynehall, with an often offbeat take on bassline- Old Fire Station – Oxford Improvisers present the 13th, they added a second – earlier – gig, SKYLARKIN SOUNDSYSTEM: The Cellar Down’, rides on simple, uncluttered hip hop heavy house and r’n’b. flautist Rebecca Lee collaborating with audio and any spare tickets should be snapped up – Count Skylarkin’ hosts his monthly reggae, The Bullingdon beats and textures, but it’s her lyrical dexterity With The Famous Monday Blues possibly TURF with RANDOMER + TESSELA: The engineer Samuel Rodgers. immediately. As the band record their third dancehall and ska shindig, tonight featuring a return that’s her chief weapon – she’s a fluid, potent no more, it’s very much in the hands of the Cellar – The techno, beats and breaks club OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern album, with producer Gil Norton, financed by visit to town for Bristol’s Laid Blak, bringing their master of words, some sort of meeting point Bully’s Haven Club to keep the flag flying welcomes back London’s Randomer – Rohan a Pledgemusic campaign, they’ll be playing livewire reggae party to the stage. The band’s DJ of Wu Tang Clan, Virginia Woolf and Mike for blues in Oxford. With gigs like this it Walder – with his new jack techno and roughneck th new material alongside old favourites, while Bunjy and MC Joe Peng will join Count Skylarkin WEDNESDAY 5 Skinner with her hometown tales. Billy Bragg seems things are safe. Kirk Fletcher is rightly house, treading a fine line between inventive, once again connecting with their home crowd on the decks, spinning reggae, dancehall, hip hop STORNOWAY: The Sheldonian – First of was an early supporter and got her on the bill renowned around the world as one of the distorted experimentation and full-on party bangers. in a way that few other bands can. and more. Stornoway’s two celebratory Sheldonian shows, for Glastonbury and she’s since gone on to best blues guitarists on the scene, having TRASHY: O2 Academy – Kitsch pop, glam, 80s And after that we bid a teary farewell to KLUB KAKOFANNEY with THE BALKAN playing songs from their forthcoming third album perform at Latitude, Reading and Leeds, and spent four years playing in The Fabulous and more at the O2’s weekly pop extravaganza. Spring Offensive, who furnished us with WANDERERS + THE RECKLESS SLEEPERS alongside old faves – see main preview when you learn that Chuck D is a fan, you Thunderbirds as well as performing with EYECON: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Classic mod an indisputably superb debut album earlier + BEARD OF DESTINY + PUPPET NETSKY: O2 Academy – Liquid funk and know there’s something special going on. blues supergroup The Mannish Boys. From covers. drum&bass in the vein of High Contrast from the this year – again financed by a Pledgemusic MECHANIC: The Wheatsheaf – Klub Kak’s his earliest days, playing guitar at his father’s SUNJAY BRAYNE + 15-STRING TRIO: Tiddy campaign – but, after an inspiring five-year monthly get-together brings eastern European folk Belgian producer and DJ, enjoying a run of dance annual festival in aid of Shelter brings Public church, he’s made the blues his life, brought Hall, Aston-under-Wychwood – The Wychwood hits in recent times, including Come Alive’, `Love career seem to have worn themselves out. It’s and dance from Balkan Wanderers, plus psychedelic up on gospel before discovering jazz, then Folk Club welcomes BBC Young Folk Awards in the nature of bands to come and go, but the folk-pop from Reckless Sleepers, blues from Beard Service Broadcasting, Silver Apples and more to Has Gone’ and `Running Low’. town – see main preview Hendrix and Steely Dan. A meeting with nominee Sunjay Brayne, the blues/folk singer- SUPERFOOD + HONEYBLOOD: O2 Academy best of them leave us with a musical legacy of Destiny and acoustic folk and blues from Puppet singer Al Blake of the Hollywood Fats Band guitarist drawing comparisons to John Martyn, that will last for years to come, so come along, Mechanic. MOTHERLOAD + SANSARA + TWISTED – NME’s latest New Breed tour brings together STATE OF MIND: The Cellar – OxRox hosts led to an introduction to the Thunderbirds’ Ralph McTell and Jackson C Frank. two types of indie revivalism. In the case of celebrate Spring Offensive’s short but bright AMBER RUN + FYFE + KIMBERLY ANNE Kim Wilson, which in turn led Fletcher to play THE HONOLULU COWBOYS: St. Giles lifespan and then go home happy to relive it all + PIXEL FIX: The Bullingdon – New Faces Wycombe’s monsterweight metallers Motherload, Birmingham’s Superfood, the 90s Britpop sounds named after a Mastodon song and boasting with Charlie Musselwhite and Pinetop Perkins Church Hall – Hawaiian tea dance with live music. of Blur, Oasis, Supergrass and Bluetones condensed on vinyl to your heart’s content. package tour featuring Oxford’s own chilled amongst others. So the man’s been there and electro-pop starlets on the rise, Pixel Fix. They’re suitably giant riffage and choruses made from into a pop-friendly package that’s seen them rise granite. They’re joined by Bournemouth’s melodic done it, that’s for sure. As leader of his own nd from tour support to friends and neighbours Peace joined by Nottingham’s epic soft rockers Amber SUNDAY 2 Run, London’s spectral r’n’b chap Fyfe and south heavyweights Sansara and local teen grunge- band he’s released four albums, with a fifth on RICHARD BROTHERTON + TWIZZ to headliners in their own right. Glaswegian duo London acoustic soul singer Kimberly Anne. metallers Twisted State of Mind. the way, and earned himself four Blues Music TWANGLE + BEARD OF DESTINY + Honeyblood, meanwhile, opt for a more 80s-styled PEATBOG FAERIES: The Cornerstone, Didcot IVO NEAME’S ESCAPE HATCH: The North Award nominations. As ever, it’s in intimate MOON LEOPARD + CELESTE: Donnington fuzzbox of Throwing Muses and The Primitives, – Traditional Scottish folk music gets abducted and Wall – MOBO-winning pianist Ivo Neame teams backroom venues like tonight where live blues Community Centre (6pm) – Free evening of with a pleasingly lo-fi edge. taken raving by Skye’s Peatbog Faeries, heading up with Italian double bass virtuoso Andrea works best, so make the most of this rare acoustic music hosted by Moon Leopard’s Jeremy TACOCAT + RAINBOW RESERVOIR + off on a tour of indoor venues after a festival-filled di Biase, drummer Dave Hamblet and Loose opportunity to see a master at work. Hughes, featuring bluesman Beard of Destiny and EMMA BALLANTINE: The Wheatsheaf summer, including Glastonbury and Cornbury, Tubes saxophonist Julian Arquelles for his latest all-round pop loon Twizz Twangle, among others. – All Tamara’s Parties teams up with Pindrop fiddles, bagpipes and beats mixing up an infectious Escape Hatch project, tonight performing their FACEOMETER: The Jam Factory – After a Performances to bring Seattle’s Tacocat to town, party cocktail of traditional Scottish sounds, reggae, polyrhythmic compositions as part of OCM’s prolonged absence from the Oxford scene, singer- the band pitching a perfect blend of summery funk, African rhythms and techno. autumn season. songwriter Will Tattersdill returns to action with bubblegum pop, surf-rock and 60s girl group DISCO MUTANTE: The Library – Disco, boogie NON-STOP TANGO: The Bullingdon – The a new album, which he’s launching at tonight’s sounds with sabre-sharp feminist satire. They’re and house club night. Oxford Improvisers supergroup mix up jazz, funk, TIGMUS show, the well-travelled troubadour a joined by Oxford-based American singer Rainbow BLACKTHORN + BEWARETHISBOY: James electronica, psychedelia and more. wordy, offbeat songsmith in the vein of Jeffrey Reservoir, whose jaunty, gleefully quirky style of Street Tavern HEPZIBAH + ANASTASIA GORBUNOVA + Lewis. pop leans towards the Randy Newman and Ben TOM IVEY + RICHARD BROTHERTON + DAVE & THE TRAMP + LUNA GECKOS Folds style of whimsy. th BEN PILSTON + SAM EDWARDS + KARL + PURPLE MAY + JOHNNY’S SEXUAL OXFORD ACOUSTIC CLUB: The Jericho SATURDAY 8 HERRING: The Wheatsheaf – An evening of KITCHEN: The Wheatsheaf (3.30-7pm) – Free Tavern – Megan Josephy, Andy Robbins and AUDIOSCOPE: The Jericho Tavern – The acoustic singer-songwriters. show from July after Tim Booth lost his voice, the Dramas and post-rock instrumentalist Kid Kin. SUNDAY 16th Newton and singer and violinist Lucy Farrell. th Mancunian indie stars playing songs from their 14 BOY & BEAR: O2 Academy – Mellow, album, `La Petite Mort’, along with hits from their FRIDAY 14th 1970s-California-style folk-rocking from TUESDAY 18th 25-year career, including `Sit Down, `Laid’ and CIRCA WAVES: O2 Academy – Liverpool’s Melbourne’s Boy & Bear, out on an extensive JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon –The Bully’s free `Come Home’. lightweight guitar pop newcomers head off on a European tour to promote their `Harlequin Dream’ weekly jazz club plays host to the Martin Pickett COOPE, BOYES & SIMPSON: Nettlebed headline tour after supporting The Libertines back album, following on from supports to Laura Organisation. Folk Club – Nettlebed’s weekly folk gathering in September. Marling and Mumford & Sons in their native Oz. OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern plays host to a special concert, Ìn Flanders Field’, BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Latin dance, PERKELT + LEWIS NEWCOMBE-JONES songs created from the words of WWI soldiers Balkan beats, world grooves and nu-jazz club + SPOON THEORY + PURPLE MAY: The th alongside specially-commissioned songs for the WEDNESDAY 19 th night, tonight featuring a live set from funked-up Wheatsheaf (3.30-7pm) – Free afternoon of music Friday 7 commemoration of the centenary of the start of The EAGLES FOR HANDS + GAG REFLEX: The Ethiopian roots outfit Krar Collective, adding a in the downstairs bar with celtic folk act Perkelt, Great War. Nick Drake-inspired songsmith Lewis and Leigh Jericho Tavern – Soulful garage, r’n’b and bass BAND OF SKULLS / strong dance edge to traditional Ethiopian music, from Brighton producer Laurie James Ross in his led by Tamesgen Zeleke, a former student of Beaverfuel’s solo Spoon Theory project. Tuesday 11th th Eagles For hands guise, out on tour to promote BO NINGEN: TUESDAY 11 Ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke, his krar lyre is new single `Glass Heart’. ROYAL BLOOD + TURBOWOLF: O2 th electrified and turned into a gritty, ancient rock MONDAY 17 SPARKY’S JAM NIGHT: James Street Tavern ROYAL BLOOD: Academy – Brighton’s garage rocking duo enjoy O2 Academy guitar, accompanied by kabero drums. They have THE BREW: The Bullingdon – Rock’n’soul – Open mic and jam night. Some bands should be wary of who they pick life at the top – see main preview been dubbed The White Stripes of Ethiopia and from Grimsby’s The Brew at tonight’s Haven Club O2 Academy as their tour support. Southampton’s Band of SLOW DOWN MOLASSES + WE for this gig they will be beefed up by a three-part Things are moving fast in Royal Blood’s show. th Skulls are a fine enough band – heavy-duty AERONAUTS + ROBOT SWANS: The horn section. THE EMILY PORTMAN TRIO: Nettlebed THURSDAY 20 world. Last time the Brighton duo came to blues-grunge and garage rock in the vein of Wheatsheaf – Expansive, almost orchestral folk, FRIDAY STREET + TOM WADDINGTON Folk Club – Glastonbury’s folk singer and SPRING OFFENSIVE + SALVATION BILL + town was in February at the Bully. It was busy Black Keys, The Kills and The Dead Weather, alt.country and post-rock dream pop from Canada’s + FRAZER ARCHIE: The Bullingdon – Indie concertina player comes to Nettlebed’s weekly WILLIE J HEALEY: O2 Academy – And so we and the band looked like contenders. Nine with a glammy T-Rex edge to their hook-laden Slow Down, Molasses, at tonight’s Divine Schism rocking in the vein of Arctic Monkeys from Friday gathering in the company of harpist Rachel say goodbye to the local faves, bowing out with a months later singer.guitarist Michael Kerr and songs, hirsute and beardy but given a sweet edge show, the collective over in the UK to promote Street. final Oxford show – see main preview drummer Ben Thatcher have a Number 1 debut by bassist Emma Richardson’s co-vocals and, second album `Walk Into The Sea’. Euphoric folk- THE FALLEN LEAVES + THE OTHER th POLLY & THE BILLETS DEUX: Fat Lil’s, album under their belts, are favourites for the following on from 2012’s Top 20 album `Sweet pop support from We Aeronauts and folky electro- DRAMAS + LES CLOCHARDS: The Saturday 8 Witney – Winchester’s twee, smooth-edged Mercury Prize and tonight’s show sold out in Sour’, looking to climb another couple of steps pop from Robot Swans. Wheatsheaf – Rob Symons from punk legends country-folk and jazz outfit Polly & co. return to about ten minutes. And you can’t put all that of the rock hierarchy ladder with follow-up JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Live jazz from Subway Sect brings his garage rock band The AUDIOSCOPE: the county. down to the patronage of Arctic Monkeys. `Himalayan’, which proves, in the likes of The Hugh Turner Band at the Bully’s free weekly Fallen Leaves to town. They’re joined by garage- CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Seems a well-aimed guitar band can still stoke `Nightmares’, that they’re poppy enough to The Jericho Tavern Community Centre the imaginations of the gig-going massive. jazz club. pop duo The Other Dramas and Gallic folk-cum- The annual mini-festival in aid of homeless make it big. But tonight they follow Bo Ningen OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon And Royal Blood’s aim is certainly straight. INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth, ebm and rock’n’roll veterans Les Clochards. charity Shelter returns for its 14th outing, on stage. Which is a bit like picking a fight in Steeped in grunge and blues, the pair exist fully industrial club night with residents Doktor Joy and LITTLE RED + STUART CLARK + GUS boasting potentially its most exciting line-up to the pub with a pitbull armed with a Kalashnikov st in the lineage of Led Zeppelin, Queens of the Bookhouse. HEWLETT: The Old Fire Station – Album date. While always leaning toward the musical FRIDAY 21 and a claw hammer. The London-based Stone-Age and Black Keys – but they create a OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern launch show for the sweet-natured local folk trio. leftfield, Audioscope this year boasts two MAD CADDIES: O2 Academy – California’s Japanese noise band have earned an enviable pleasingly thunderous old noise, particularly NOASIS: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Tribute to Blur… acts who can rightly be considered legends in veteran ska-punks tour their new `Dirty Rice’ reputation on the back of incendiary live shows, given they make it all on just bass guitar and WEDNESDAY 12th no, Pulp… no, oh work it out for yourself. their respective fields. SILVER APPLES laid album, coming up to 20 years of rabble-rousing cutting extreme psychedelic exploration and drums. Kerr has a great blues holler, while WE LEGIONAIRES + MISSING PERSIANS: down the template for metronomic psych-rock, fun on Fat Wreck Chords. sheer volume through with cool melodies and Thatcher hits his kit with all the methodical The Wheatsheaf – Moshka local bands showcase. th anticipating Krautrock and inspiring the likes MALLORY KNOX: O2 Academy – Big-boned leaving carnage and tinnitus in their wake. SATURDAY 15 violence of John Bonham, and together the LA ROUX + MEANWHILE: O2 Academy – of Spacemen 3 and acid house along the way. alt.rocking from Cambridge’s Mallory Knox, out Intense, shamanic frontwoman Taigen Kawabe pair resemble a couple of redneck truckers. th Elly Jackson makes her overdue comeback, now Drummer Danny Taylor sadly died in 2005 on tour to promote new album Àsymmetrical’. is a nominal focal point for the group but really THURSDAY 13 In `Little Monsters’ they have one of those going it alone as La Roux – see main preview but Simeon, with his home-made electronics, SWITCH with RAM RECORDS: O2 Academy it’s the noise that’s the spectacle, and good luck STORNOWAY: The Sheldonian – Second of riff-laden anthems that’ll be cropping up on SAEDLY DORUS & THE HOOLIE BAND: O2 continues to take his music into the stratosphere. – Andy C’s RAM Records, home to Chase & to any band following that. Stornoway’s celebration hometown shows – see TV montages for some time to come, and if no He’s joined on today’s bill by Stephen Status, DC Breaks and Sub Focus, return to Switch main preview Academy – Disco and funk hits get the ceilidh and musical barriers are being broken, no statues Mallinder, an electronic music pioneer with after their showing here last year for a night of THE WEDDING PRESENT: O2 Academy – honky tonk treatment from the Hoolie folk dance overturned, Royal Blood simply remember DO THE SKA: The Bullingdon – Ska club night. Cabaret Voltaire back in the 1970s and through dubstep and drum&bass. David Gedge and his veteran indie warriors return band and singer Saedly. what it means to rock, and such simple TRASHY: O2 Academy the 80s, now going out under his WRANGLER THE BIG TEN INCH: The Cellar – Count to town, this time playing 1994’s `Watusi’ album MASSIVE: The Wheatsheaf – Melbourne’s pleasures never really go out of fashion. EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar – Techno, moniker, keeping the flame of analogue Skylarkin’s monthly celebration of jump blues, in its entirety, the Weddos’ “lost album” having Earache-signed road dogs hit the UK to promote bass and house club night. electronica very much alive. Today’s headliners rock’n’roll, r’n’b and vintage dance sounds, with alienated much of their famously loyal fanbase new album `Full Throttle’, a suitably-titled opus HIPSHAKIN!: James Street Tavern – A vinyl- are PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING, live bands, plus The Disco Shed’s Kerry Smallman when it was released for its move away from their for a band whose anthemic hard rock recalls AC/ nd only selection of 50s and 60s rock’n’roll, r’n’b, making an overdue return to town after the and the Count spinning vinyl from the Cotton Club SATURDAY 22 trademark wall-of-sound noise-pop in favour of a DC, Guns’n’Roses and Motley Crue. boogaloo, jazz and Latin. success of their superb `War Room’ EP and to the Caribbean. THE PRETTY RECKLESS: O2 Academy – If lo-fi aesthetic. With eight of the band’s albums set CHARMS AGAINST THE EVIL EYE + MAD DAMN GOOD REASON: Fat Lil’s, Witney – last year’s Ìnform Educate Entertain’ album, LITTLE ARROW + BE GOOD + OWL & Disney had made a film of the story of Hole, for deluxe re-release this month, expect a whole LARRY + TRUE RUMOUR: The Bullingdon Heavy rock covers. pillaging Pathe’s archives to fuel their heady, MOUSE: The Wheatsheaf – Divine Schism show scripted by a hormonal teenage Motley Crue heap of classic oldies besides. – Poetic 80s-flavoured indie in the vein of REM motorik soundscapes. Other highlights across with rustic alt.folksters Little Arrow, plaintive fan, it might have looked like the video to The ELLIE ROSE + JORDAN O’SHEA: The Cellar and The Church from Charms, alongside bluesman th a day of serious quality should be MATT local folk-pop crew Be Good and sweet, stripped- Pretty Reckless’s `Fucked Up World’. Courtney SUNDAY 9 – Gentle melancholy from singer-songwriters Ellie Larry Reddington and jazzy pop crew True WARD THOMAS & THE SHIRES: O2 ELLIOTT from 3rd Eye Foundation and Flying down acoustic pop from London’s Owl & Mouse. Love would be played by Gossip Girl actress and Jordan. Rumour at tonight’s One Gig Closer to Wittstock Academy – Back in town after their headline set at Saucer Attack cult fame; minimalist drone crew WESTERN SAND + PISTON: The Bullingdon and sometime model for Madonna’s fashion line SUPERMARKET: The Cellar – Pop, disco, UK show, in aid of the annual free festival. Halfway To 75 back in July, Nashville-based twin TELESCOPES, and divine loop-based folk – Classic southern-flavoured hard rock from Taylor Momsen, there would be lots of boobs and garage and house club night. TURF with HACKMAN B2B CROPPER + sisters Ward Thomas come to the O2 to promote singer YOU ARE WOLF. Flying the flag for Dorset’s Western Sand on tour. bikinis on show and the music would sound a bit BOO HEWERDINE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – The ANUSHKA: The Cellar – B2B set from the their debut album, recorded with country music Oxford will be one-man shoegaze noisemaker FLIGHTS OF HELIOS + JULIA MEIJER: The like The Runaways if The Runaways had been former-Bible frontman and renowned, Ivor Novello- London producers. mainstay Vince Gill. Preceded by an instore set at KID KIN and heavy-duty psychedelic rockers Jericho Tavern - Daisy Rodgers Music night with imagined by Chad Kroeger from Nickleback. nominated songwriter plays an intimate show at Fat FRACTOFUSUS: St Michael @ The Northgate Truck Store. THE NEON VIOLETS. Great music, a spaced-out psych-prog-electro drifters FoH, plus Tonight’s show is already sold out, folks, so don’t Lil’s. After enjoying some minor chart success with – Experimental music, taking influences from THE WAILERS: O2 Academy – The legendary great cause, and one of the friendliest, most Swedish/Oxford singer-songwriter Julia Meijer. worry, you don’t have to go and see it. his band in the 1980s, Hewerdine went on to write Irish, Indian, Hawaiian, Native American, Jamaican band, or what’s left of the original line-up adventurous crowds you’ll find; it’s already sold POD: Oxford University History Faculty BRIGHTWORKS + KANCHO: The for and play alongside Richard Thompson, Eddie Romany, Eastern European and English folk (only Aston `Family Man’ Barrett remains from out, so if you’re still without a ticket, bad luck. Garden – One of three OCM-curated shows as Wheatsheaf – Uptight electro-tinged Afropop Reader, Martha Wainwright, Kris Drever and John music, and Arabic and Western classical music Marley’s classic band) return to town to perform Donate the money anyway. part of the Christmas Light Festival tonight across from local faves Bright Works. McCusker, amongst others, author of cult classics from the quartet, launching their new album, `Legend’ in its entirety, so essentially Marley’s Oxford. POD features tactile sonic sculptures SALVAGE + I CRIED WOLF + EVAVOID + like `Harvest Gypsies’, and a literate songsmith in `Making Sense of Trees’. Greatest Hits. Barrett’s joined by former-Upsetter created by Alison Ballard and Mike Blow in the GODSBANE: The Bullingdon – Warming up the lineage of Nick Drake and JJ Cale. TRASHY: O2 Academy and renowned reggae session man Keith Sterling as secluded gardens of the Uni’s History faculty. for tonight’s Bedrock rock club is a quartet of CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community JITTERBUGGIN: The Jericho Tavern – well as his son Aston Barrett Jr. These days Dwayne TWITTERING MACHINES: Lamb & Flag local metallers, including Salvage, inspired by Centre Ragtime, swing, jazz, boogie and jump blues Anglin takes on vocal duties, providing a pretty Alley – Kathy Hinde’s homemade musical Killswitch and In Flames; Banbury’s Dillinger OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon night, with a live set from seven-piece nu-swing authentic Marley vocal style to the old classics. machines as part of the Light Festival. and Bring Me The Horizon-influenced I Cried THE PINK DIAMOND REVUE + THE band Captain Redeye and The Hoods. WARD THOMAS: Truck Store – Pre-gig instore PLAYHOUSE: The Old Museum – Ever- Wolf; recent Karma To Burn support Evavoid, and OTHER DRAMAS + KID KIN: The Bell, MARK PIDGEON: The Swan, Aston-under- set from the Nashville sisters. changing hypnotic house music made from an Nordic-inspired tech/blues-metallers Godsbane. Bicester – Last month’s Nightshift Demo of the Wychwood – Wychwood Folk Club host Mark automata made of Lego gears, levers and latches. BEDROCK: The Bullingdon – Skeletor’s new Monthers Pink Diamond Revue bring their twisted Pidgeon takes to the stage mixing traditional HEADINGTON HILLBILIES: James Street rock club night plays classic rock and metal th psychedelic electronica to tonight’s Strummerroom English and American styles, inspired by Steve MONDAY 10 Tavern – Americana, country-folk and bluegrass. anthems and the best new tracks from the genre. JAMES: O2 Academy – Re-arranged sold-out Project show, joined by garage-pop duo The Other Earle, Steve Knightley and Martyn Joseph. MONDAY 24th EDWARDS BAND + REVELATOR + CAT Festival show. one of the great musical pioneers of the last 50 THE FLEUR STEVENSON JAZZ BAND + SHAKER: The Bullingdon – Oxford City CLAIRE LEMASTER + JENNIFER years. He was an originator of breakbeat DJing KEVIN JENKINS + SAMUEL EDWARDS: Festival show with local blues faves SBF and STEEVES: The Bear and turntablism; arguably invented the whole James Street Tavern – Launching this year’s Matt Edwards. INDIA ELECTRIC CO.: The Cornerstone, electro-funk genre; is credited with giving hip week-long Oxford City Festival is a free night of PEERLESS PIRATES + DUCHESS + MAN Didcot – Folk with a flourish from India Electric hop its name, and strived for many years to bring live jazz and acoustic music. MAKE FIRE + SEX WITH YOUR X: The Co, recent tour support across Europe to Show a semblance of peace and unity to New York’s SAL & TOM: The Bear - Acoustic show as part Cellar – Oxford City Festival show with rum- of Hands, as well as Hazel O’Connor and Midge street gangs through the power of hip hop and of Oxford City Festival fuelled indie-rockabilly seafarers Peerless Pirates Ure. his Zulu Nation movement. He was an activist alongside Township dance and samba pop crew as much as a musicians and DJ, campaigning th Duchess, and bolshy blues-punkers Sex With SATURDAY 29th against apartheid as well as violence closer TUESDAY 25 Your X. AFRIKA BAMBAATAA: O2 Academy – Back to home, and the block parties he organised WARDENS + ENDLESS MILE + DAISY + NORTHEAST CORRIDOR + THE SEA, in Oxford after his DJ show at the Cellar last burgeoned into the global music style we now th SUGAR DARLING: The Wheatsheaf – Indie THE SEA + JEFFERSON DUKE + ADAM Saturday 29 year, the hip hop legend returns to town as part of take for granted. rockers Wardens, heavy rockers Endless Mile and McMILLAN: The Jericho Tavern – Oxford a short UK tour. Indisputably the man born Kevin LITTLE DRAGON + NAO: O2 Academy electro-funk types Sugar Darling play as part of City Festival show with fidgety indie types The LITTLE DRAGON: Donovan in the Bronx is a true hip hop Godhead, – Wobbly electro-house from Gothenburg’s the Oxford City Festival. Sea, The Sea and more. collaboration-happy Little Dragons – see main DIME WEST + TOM IVEY BAND + O2 Academy DENNY ILETT Snr JAZZ QUARTET + preview For a band so loved and in demand, one that’s BEARD OF DESTINY + PURPLE MAY + TONY BATEY: James Street Tavern – The Thursday 27th FRESH OUT THE BOX with STANTON MOMENTO: The Jericho Tavern – Oxford featured on so many critically-acclaimed local jazz luminaries play tonight’s Oxford City WARRIORS: The Cellar – House club night and commercially successful music projects, City Festival show with groove-heavy blues Festival show. SEXTODECIMO / with veteran breaks duo Dominic Butler and rockers Dime West, plus one-man blues army Gothenburg’s Little Dragon remain a bit of a BEN AVISON + ROB LANYON + ALAN Mark Yardley. no-hit zone under their own name. Individually Beard of Destiny. JAGGS: The Bear GUNNBUNNY: VIENNA DITTO + INTERSTELLAR EMILY Saturday 15th JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Classic or collectively they’ve worked with Gorillaz, TAKE WARNING + GEMMA MOSS + DJ + AUREATE ACT + CHARMS AGAINST SBTRKT, Outkast, DJ Shadow and Dave Dixieland jazz from The Eddie Condon Legacy PRISM: The Corridor – Oxford City Festival The Library THE EVIL EYE: The Bullingdon (5pm) – LA ROUX: Band, paying tribute to the late pioneer. You have no idea just how excited Nightshift Sitek, singer Yukimi Nagano being the chief show. Oxford City Festival show with electro-soul- in-demand Dragon. It’s after her that the band DEEP WHOLE TRIO: The White House CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford is about tonight’s Smash Disco show, featuring rockabilly-blues duo Vienna Ditto, proggy th is named, for her in-studio tantrums apparently, O2 Academy – Oxford Improvisers host a 30 anniversary Community Centre two of the finest bands to have come out rockers Aureate Act and poetic indie-psych We were beginning to think La Roux’s Elly show from saxophonist and bagpipe player Paul of Oxford reforming for one night only to though you’d not think that to hear her nimble, Jackson would never be back in town, so long OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon popsters Charms Against the Evil Eye. sometimes almost Bjӧrk-ish vocals on the Dunmall, bassist Paul Rogers and drummer Mark celebrate the release of Sextodecimo’s long-lost PUNKOLYMPIA: The Cellar (6pm) – Oxford has she been gone. After the success of her debut Sanders, who’ll be joined by hosts Pat Thomas, second album. Back in 2010 we named them band’s last album, the near-breakthrough th City Festival punk show with Barmy Army, album in 2009 and its associated hit singles – Ìn Dominic Lash and Lawrence Cassidy. FRIDAY 28 Oxford’s greatest ever metal band for their `Ritual Dance’, and this year’s more For the Kill’, and `Bullet Proof’ – everything BALLOON ASCENTS + THE AUGUST Twat Daddies, Hatemail, Trauma II, Four Minute atmospheric follow-up, `Nabuma Rubberband’ OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern monstrously dark and viciously loud blend Warning and Don’t Go Plastic. seemed to be set for a swift follow-up, with RECOGNISE: The Cellar – House, disco, funk, LIST + OSPREY & THE OX4 ALLSTARS of sludge, stoner-metal and hardcore, back in (part produced by The Weeknd), becoming ever Jackson and her musical partner Ben Langmaid + THE STRAYS + MEGAN JOSEPHY + FRACTURE + ONE WING LEFT + NUDY more a commercial prospect with their r’n’b garage and techno club night. the mists of time describing them as “what BRONQUE + STORYTELLER: The Jericho returning to the studio. And that’s when things ANDY ROBBINS: O2 Academy – Local the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl would and electronic dance, hints of everything from went quiet. Then got a bit weird, and then went rising indie starlets Balloon Ascents headline Tavern – Oxford City Festival show with grungy Prince to Zero 7 infecting their grooves. It’s WEDNESDAY 26th sound like if it formed a band,” as well as “a rockers Fracture and more. quiet again. There were rumours they were tonight’s Oxford City Festival show, mixing whole new world of musical pain.” Back in all relative, mind; Little Dragon remain a bit BEARDYMAN: O2 Academy – Inventive BLACK MAX & THE PIRATES + BAXTER working with Nile Rodgers. And White Lies. up Radiohead’s understated electronica with the day they could clear a room of hardened too wayward, restless and off-kilter to worry human beatboxing from the former UK champ, CURRIE: The Corridor – The final Oxford City Then Langmaid announced he’d left the band, Stornoway’s questing folk-rock. Backwoods metallers with only the hardiest of gig-goers about bothering the singles charts much, even using vocal loops to augment his virtuoso Festival gig of the week, featuring late DJ sets and not on friendly terms. Then it emerged porch-folk duo The August List, and festival left standing, but years later they’re credited as as they inch towards such things with each new beatmaking skills, taking in hip hop, dubstep and from Northern Mark and Art Lagun. Jackson had suffered a debilitating stress-related organiser Osprey are among the supporting cast. a major inspiration for the likes of Desert Storm album. It’s live where they come into their own, drum&bass. GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with illness and couldn’t sing. Five years is a long THE MIGHTY REDOX + SMILEX + and Undersmile and plenty of folks are getting bridging the gap between gig and club night, DEATH OF HI-FI + HALF DECENT + THE THE BALKAN WANDERERS + LOST time in music, and even more so in electronic CHARLIE LEAVY + THE HAZE: The a bit frothy about the prospect of re-entering electro-house vibes going up against bold rock FR3E LIONS + BLACK TISH II + IAM HARBOURS + JULIA MEIJER: The music; it seemed that even if La Roux were Bullingdon (6pm) – Swamp-blues veterans The Sextodecimo’s terrifying musical world. We rhythms and a propensity to go off on one like MIKEY: The Bullingdon – Hip hop and roots Wheatsheaf – GTI’s eclectic monthly gig night to return, she/they would be irrelevant. So it Mighty Redox headline this Oxford City Festival first witnessed Gunnbunny on the same bill as some old psychedelic jam band at times. After show as part of the Oxford City Festival, with tonight brings local eastern European folksters must have been heartening for Jackson to read show, joined by rabblerousing rockers Smilex, Elizabeth, a teenage trio that featured future- their last visit to town, almost three years ago, sci-fi sampling electro/hip hop duo Death of Hi- The Balkan Wanderers to the Sheaf’s stage. the almost universally enthusiastic reviews of making a return to action, and singer Charlie Foals Yannis and Jack, and they more than held chances are tonight’s show will be a sell-out. Fi up alongside rapid-fire rapper Half Decent and They’re joined by Southend’s psych-folk outfit `Trouble In Paradise’, some claiming it to be Leavy. their own, lava-lunged frontman Jack Goldstein Word is slowly getting out beyond the already hip hop newcomers Fr3e Lions. Lost Harbours, and Oxford-Swedish songstress the best album of the year so far. Certainly her SWITCH with ETON MESSY: O2 Academy possessed of the raw grunge power of a young converted. CHURCH OF THE HEAVY: The Wheatsheaf Julia Meijer, a hit at this year’s Oxford Punt with voice is recovered, and while the 80s synth-pop – The O2’s weekly electronic dance night hosts Tad. Of course Jack went on to form Fixers – The Deviated, The Mark, Sanity Loss and Kid her sweet, soulful electro-acoustic folk-pop. references are still strong, there are more fluid Bristol’s Youtube sensations Eton Messy, a DJ (with Sextodecimo’s Roo Bhasin) but it’ll be band who’ve gradually made their reputation on Kin play tonight’s heavyweight leg of the Oxford PADDOX: Old Fire Station – Lush ambient funk and disco elements in the new songs, with collective who’ve turned their online presence an absolute joy to see them bringing the house endless gigging – including tour supports to The City Festival. soundscaping from Paddox at tonight’s launch everyone from Grace Jones and Carly Simon into a live showcase for new future garage and down once again. Given the Library’s compact Levellers – and myriad festival appearances. THE RUSSIAN COWBOYS + PROD THE gig for their debut album Àphrodisiaque’, to ABBA seemingly playing a small part in the bass artists, hosting the likes of Pusherman, nature, early arrival is advised for this historic MAD LARRY + MEGAN JOSEPHY + SHEEPLE + RUSHIL + RAYZO + SYLVA former Trophy Wife drummer Kit Monteith influence stakes. It’s pretty lightweight pop, but Maribou State and Bondax along the way. occasion. Nightshift has bought a sleeping bag MARK BOSLEY + PURPLE MAY: The KAY: The Cellar – Oxford City Festival show setting sail with his new band. it’s heavy on catchy tunes, and those are things ORANGE VISION + THE OTHER DRAMAS and taken up residence under the bar already, Wheatsheaf (3.30-7pm) – Unplugged session with funk-pop and 60s-style rock from Russian WHITE MAGIC SOUND: The Bullingdon that never go out of fashion, however long you + THE SHAPES + PLASTIC BARRICADES: just to make sure of our vantage point. in the downstairs bar with Larry Reddington’s Cowboys. TRASHY: O2 Academy disappear for. The Wheatsheaf – Oxford City Festival show new band, mixing up blues, country and rock, THE BALKAN WANDERERS + AUTUMN THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Railway, with rockers Orange Vision, garage-pop duo The alongside folk singer Megan Josephy and gothic SAINTS + JOSH SAVAGE + CARDBOARD Wheatley – Blues-rocking from the local veteran. SOUND EXPLORERS: The Story Museum – Other Dramas and 60s-styled r’n’b outfit The troubadour Mark Bosley. CASTLE: The Jericho Tavern – Oxford City OCM present an exploration of music and sound Shapes. JALI FILY CISSOKHO & NATUREBOY + Festival show with Balkan folk-dance crew The th via a headphone nature tour. CHURCH OF THE HEAVY: The Cellar – SUNDAY 30 THE JON FLETCHER BAND: Florence Park Balkan Wanderers and more. TRASHY: O2 Academy Oxford City Festival show with local stoner-rock 3 DAFT MONKEYS: The Bullingdon – Community Centre (2-5pm) – Florence Park MEAN MONTAGE: The Corridor – Oxford BREEZE: Fat Lil’s, Witney titans Desert Storm, plus Manchester’s bluesy Eclectic blend of traditional English protest folk, Community Centre’s monthly family Sunday City Festival show. heavyweights Blackballed, Germany’s Brothers Latin, Balkan and gypsy dance with dub, punk session, with local kora player Cissokho teaming of the Head, and local rockers Last Rites and SUNDAY 23rd and reggae from Cornwall’s 3 Daft Monkeys, a up with soulful singer-songwriter Natureboy. THURSDAY 27th Indica Blues. THE SUMMER SET: O2 Academy – Polished LES CLOCHARDS + PUPPET MECHANIC pop-punk from Arizona’s Summer Set, back in town SEXTODECIMO + GUNNBUNNY: The Library – Double dose of reformed local + THE LOST ART + THE MILLER TEST + after supporting Mayday Parade, now out in their MARK COPE: The Jericho Tavern – Oxford own right to promote their fourth album, the follow- monsters of rock - see main preview RALEIGH RITCHIE: O2 Academy – Actor City Festival show with Les Clochards mixing up to `Legendary’. Parisian café folk with classic rock’n’roll CROOKES + LAUREL CANYONS: The Jacob Anderson – best known for his roles in Adulthood as well as the part of Grey Wor in crooning in the vein of Roy Orbison. Jericho Tavern – Sheffield’s sprightly indie- CHASING DAYLIGHT + ROCKY VALLEY rockers head off on tour to plug new album Game of Thrones, dons his musical identity, banging out epic r’n’b and garage on songs like + ANASTASIA GORBUNOVA: James Street `Soapbox’, their third for Fierce Panda, following Tavern – Oxford City Festival show. Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each mont - no exceptions. Email a tour support to fellow Sheffieldonian Richard Top 40 hit `Stronger Than Ever’. SOUTHERN BLUES FIASCO + THE MATT THE MAGIC MANGO BAND + RICHARD listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright Nightshift Magazine and may not Hawley. BROTHERTON: The Corridor – Oxford City be reproduced without permission. PEERLESS PIRATES / VIENNA CO-PILGRIM / THE AUGUST LIST DITTO / THE OTHER DRAMAS / / SWINDLESTOCK LIVE CHARLIE LEAVY The Bullingdon Perhaps in tribute to Vienna Ditto, Cash do get the stage to themselves photo: Greg Lacey photo: Greg The Jericho Tavern for whom they’re last-minute for a while (“We let the band go Charlie Leavy, from Hook Norton singer Hattie pressing the wrong replacements, Swindlestock have and ring their families, so they via Leeds, falls neatly into the buttons on the little box of tricks, or slimmed down to a duo for the can let them know they’re okay”), confessional-girl-with-guitar bracket, threatening to end the night in the evening. It hardly matters. Dava inspiring a mass stompalong to displaying the best and worst of JR as Nigel plays a guitar solo atop possesses a better set of pipes than ‘High Town Crow’, as sinister a tale that particular niche. Occasionally a fan’s shoulders or teeters across the tobacconists on Oxford High of claustrophobic small-town life she slips into melisma and wailing the monitors, they’re knocking out a Street, even if he doesn’t have a as you’ll hear. Their accomplices over ragged acoustic strumming, snarling, glitterstomping synth-soul- harmonica case (“I should get one return to provide backing holler but when she hits the right tone, as rockabilly racket that’s held together instead of a fucking Tesco bag”), on rollicking ode to moonshine on `Patchworks’, she shows she’s by paperclips and hope but packs an and a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Forty Rod Of Lightning’. The only got something worth investigating, almighty punch, their take on blues ‘Lungs’ isn’t noticeably superior misstep is the cover of Jenny Lewis’ a sweet, almost folky voice that classic Ì Know His Blood Will to any of their own rootsy folk. ‘See Fernando’ to finish, if only she pushes just to its limits and Make Me Whole Again’ still a thing The jaunty ‘Sitting On The Stoop’ because they could put more faith in no further, and a strong sense of of absolute wonder. sneaks in an improbable reference the strength of their own material to melody. We’d like to hear more of Peerless Pirate, unsurprisingly, to snorkelling before the complete do the job. her natural Yorkshire accent in her dress as pirates, as do a sizeable contrast of final song ‘Let It Also launching a new album are singing but with a more polished number of their following. It could Storm’, which finds Dava really Co-Pilgrim, who immediately sound on her recent `The Best Damn be a horribly kitsch novelty, but letting rip. situate themselves somewhere Ride’, there’s undoubtedly better while their music is unabashed, rum- While Swindlestock have scaled between the American Midwest and things ahead for her than opening a soaked roustabout fun, it wouldn’t down for the occasion, The August the West Coast and whose tender four-band bill. count for anything if they didn’t have List have scaled up. Normally a songs wear their melancholy like The Other Dramas is a duo made the songs to back it up. The Smiths twosome comprising husband-and- a comfort blanket. ‘I’m Going To up of local scene veterans Maria influence is well-documented, wife combo Kerraleigh and Martin The Country’ clearly signposts Ilett and Richie Wildsmith. With a best heard on set highlight `Bring Childs, tonight they’re backed by where the set is headed, though with stripped-down voice/guitar/drums Out Your Dead’, but they skitter electric guitar, bass and drums to detours for the gorgeously slow and set-up, they’re heavily reliant on through all manner of offbeat styles give us a flavour of the fuller sound meditative ‘Come Out Alive’ and Maria’s voice but seem unsure, at through tonight’s set, reminding of debut album, ‘O Hinterland’. the prime Teenage Fanclub jangle least for the first half of their set, us of 80s Balearic beat pioneers At first it’s something of of ‘Pushover’. whether to go for sweet and poppy, The Woodentops at one point, the a curveball, rendering the ‘It’s Curtains For Me’ is the or all-out garage rocking. Turns Shadows a few minutes later, Ennio stupendously good ‘Wooden Trunk appropriately titled set-closer (“If out they’re better at the former: Morricone soon after that, and all Blues’ – the set opener and a you’ve still got the will to live after `Starlight’, about being abducted by three at once on `The Ghost of personal favourite – disconcertingly that, come and say hello,” jokes Joe aliens, is the stand-out, adding a well- Captain Kid’. A great, strident cover unfamiliar. A couple of tracks Bennett), though it’s testament to needed dose of bounce to the set. of `Swords of a Thousand Men’ later, however, spellbound by the their abilities that they somehow If they need any pointers as to adds to the knockabout nature of the additional depth and force the manage to pull off a percussion- how much noise two people can band’s show, while new single Èl backing instrumentation brings to free encore of Don Henley’s ‘The make, they need look no further Gringo’ shows they’re as happy on their raw, dark-hearted Americana, Boys Of Summer’ despite reluctant than Vienna Ditto whose balance the Tequila as the grog. Looks like I’m completely smitten, quite frontman Mike Gale being five between musical splendour and The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm prepared to stand on street corners audience-purchased whiskies worse outright chaos becomes more Band finally have a serious rival for loudly proclaiming them the best for wear and struggling to recall the precarious with each gig. When best drinking music in town. band in Oxford. lyrics. the pair aren’t laughing about Dale Kattack Chinnor’s answer to Carter and Ben Woolhead

LORRAINE McCAULEY & THE BORDERLANDS talented, with the achingly poignant FRANK TURNER / KOO KOO KANGA ROO Alternating between powerful story of ‘Roscrea Robbery’ and rock and roll with a full band and Albion Beatnik Bookstore as the ominous ‘Man & Machine’ soulful solo acoustic performance, staying long in the memory. Oxford Town Hall Some gigs prompt questions the just been funded to record their to still be heard while contributing to Turner controls his audience with Throughout she carries the lyrical Here at Nightshift we can appreciate support, describing the band as “one to a stadium-filling artist whose moment you’re through the door. second album. the strong shared groove. the masterful skill of a natural theme that whatever the emotional the humour of a novelty act. of the best live acts ever”, but for most recent album, `Tape Deck Is this the smallest of Oxford’s It’s easy to see why they are While they enhance the catchy frontman, chatting personably to baggage and however tough life is, However, when, as in the case of every one of Koo Koo Kanga Roo’s Heart’, reached number 2 on the myriad small venues? Probably. Is attracting this attention. Donegal- ‘Stepping Stones’, a feisty song the crowd as if he was still playing it can get better; so, her song about Koo Koo Kanga Roo, the punchline newfound ‘fans’, there are several charts. In addition, most of The this the first Nightshift review from born, Edinburgh-based Lorraine has about having been misused, with to punters in pub back rooms. A being misused, ‘Stepping Stones’, is simply an appalling lack of unimpressed faces dotted around Sleeping Souls, Turner’s backing a bookstore since the The Punt a highly expressive voice that can go angry strings and ‘Haunt Me’ mixture of recent hits, old favourites is immediately followed by ‘Big musicality, the joke is lost on us. the crowd, arms crossed, sipping band, will be familiar to followers used to begin among the shelves of through the emotions; it combines and ‘Goddess’ with ghostly faux and as-yet-unheard new tracks create Love’, about the opposite. The music itself is an atrocious their pints in a vaguely disgusted of the Oxford scene under their the now defunct Borders? Almost delicacy with a touch of huskiness, theremin sounds, they, in tandem a well-rounded set, showcasing song The biggest contrast of the night, product of the Internet age: pre- fashion. Even so, we can’t help but other name, Dive Dive, and they certainly. And who is that dude plus she’s got a raw almost soulful with Lorraine, weave an intriguing writing imbued with a phenomenal though, is Lorraine and the band recorded, poorly crafted beats and commend the band as a warm-up jovially point out that this is a apparently asleep in the corner? Of power when she chooses to flick the sound-world at the very heart of sense of subtlety and style that lifts launching into a rumbustuous jam sickly, saccharine synth parts are act - they’re certainly high octane, hometown show for three of the five course he turns out to one of the switch. them. It’s impressive, especially as of an encore, revealing a hitherto dubbed with childishly yelled, and the end of their set sees the performers on stage, reminiscing otherwise straightforward rock songs band as became clear when Lorraine The Borderlands are multi- this is only the cello player’s third hidden aspect of their playing. crudely humorous vocals. The energy levels of the crowd lifted to about their first gig together at The leagues above the sea of mediocre McCauley and The Borderlands talented and multi-instrumental gig with the band. It leaves us wondering whether, band completes the package with a a fever pitch of anticipation for the Port Mahon, which only adds to the acts attempting to do the same thing. settled themselves in front of the with percussion, hang, accordion, McCauley writes all the songs so impressive as they are, perhaps series of increasingly inane dance main event of the night. air of friendliness and familiarity Turner truly performs to each and bookshelves to play. glockenspiel, cello, fiddle ,viola and there are no traditional songs in the they’re too respectful of their moves which evoke the atmosphere In the last ten years, hardcore emanating from the stage. As every individual in his audience, and One of their lyrics goes “Finally mandolin, plus Lorraine’s guitar. Not set, which differentiates her from of a toddler’s birthday party. Even punk turned singer-songwriter such, tonight’s show is packed to as the crowd spills haphazardly out it all seems worthwhile, right your usual folk band, they’ve been so many other young female folk lovingly-crafted arrangements and those tonight who do seem to get Frank Turner has developed a the rafters with dedicated fans, into the street at the end of the night, places right time,” and it might be compared to a string quartet with singers with brilliant voices, like maybe should do more jamming. To into the set do so in a strictly ironic fanatical following, rising in creating an electric atmosphere in there’s a collective sense of having becoming true as they’re currently some justification, as their rich tight Oxford’s Jackie Oates or Jess Hall, see how that works out could be an sense, and Frank Turner himself stature from an unknown who once the grandiose confines of the Town witnessed something very special. making waves on the Scottish ensemble playing leaves space for and if not every lyric strikes home, even more intriguing gig. even takes to the stage to show his opened a show at The Wheatsheaf Hall. Tal Fineman contemporary folk scene and have each instrument’s distinctive sound as a songwriter she’s supremely Colin May WOMAN’S HOUR / FARAO photo: James Sutton The Cellar LIVE Tonight’s opening act is Norwegian song-writer Kari Jahnsen known to the world as Farao. Her delicate almost harp-like solo-guitar floats in a sea of reverb under her strong and intense vocals. These are beautiful, melancholic songs but somehow they still fill the room. Jahnsen has the photo: Keira Cullinane power of Anna Calvi, but is balanced with a delicate sincerity that is really quite special. Woman’s Hour, however, are less about the stripped back and intimate; even though we’re in The Cellar, they’ve brought a big production; there’s a smoke machine, intro music, and 4ft high recreations of the pyramidal artwork from their recently released debut album. It all seems a bit much, and it makes me think the whole performance might be a tad overwrought, but I needn’t have worried. Woman’s Hour are a band who have risen to indie-blog stardom pretty quickly this year, but in fact they’ve been playing together for years and it really shows. They have the confidence and polished performance of a much more established band. On record they are sedate and controlled, like Beach House and Rhye, but live the whole band comes alive giving their reflective brand of dream-pop some much needed drive and energy. Tracks like ‘Conversations’ morph from rhythmically interesting on the album to full-on dance pop, and on the slower numbers like `Two Sides Of Her’ really benefit from the fuller low-end. Woman’s Hour are band that it would be easy to dismiss as “of the moment” but Fiona Jane Burgess, whose breathy and plaintive vocals reflect on loss and the darker sides of love, give the band the substance of a real pop band, not just a flash-in-the-pan indie sensation. If you want a clear image of the scope they have in their minds, you only need to look to their choice of cover: Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’. They may only be playing the basement circuit at the moment but they’ve got the talent and ambition for far bigger things. pleasers. Even in the slower parts Matt Chapman-Jones BAD FOR LAZARUS / INDICA BLUES of songs like Àppetites’ and The Bullingdon `Billiards’ don’t let up, as they perp walk us into rock heaven. EAGULLS DAN CROLL / PANAMA WEDDING Recent Nightshift Demo of the basics of bands like Eyehategod, convention, where the naked energy The fans are in town from Monthers Indica Blues have and Grief. With guitarist John of The Stooges and MC5 has London and the south coast, and The Jericho Tavern The Bullingdon already started their first live gig Slaymaker from Caravan of exchanged body fluids with droll frontman Rich Fownes, with his A relentless, melody-free sonic which he maintains throughout the Going to see new bands at the good. when we get here tonight. We Whores shoring up the doom end English macabre and psychotropic ex-NIN credentials knows exactly assault. Depending on your way of entire set, contrasts starkly with moment is like one long pub quiz. When they’re not spinning `Now know this because we’re blown of things, Indica Blues are going pop. The resulting fever of long what shapes people want, but thinking, you can look away now; his louche appearance, like Neil It’s not so much that the music is 7’ for inspiration, hip young back against the doors by the to be a mighty addition to the local hair, sweat and compellingly beneath all the mayhem this is a Eagulls might not be the band for Hannon possessed by the evil spirit retro – pop’s been retro since the things are copping some tricks downtuned bass, forced to retreat metal scene. unhinged adrenaline romps us bunch of highly creative musicians you. We’re sure Ed Sheeran will be of Jaz Coleman, and this fuses second minute of its existence – it’s from African music, although and review the rest of their set Brighton five piece Bad for through their debut album `Life is working at their peak, and tonight along soon with some more asinine perfectly with the hollowed-out just the current reference points are Dan Croll has recorded in Durban through the windows and the Lazurus, on the last leg of a UK a Carnival, Bang! Bang! Bang!’, is a celebration that the heart cod-soul guff to sate what morsel clamour of bass and guitars that such odd mid-80s choices that we with the mighty Ladysmith Black comparative peace of the ticket tour, are the kind of band you wish with the dark hustling jauntiness of of rock is still very much alive, remains of your sense of taste. riptide you right back to Killing spend most of our time amongst Mambazo, so he has clearly taken lobby. The sheer weight of their you were in, the freewheeling, singles `My Muddle’ and `Caught and ever ready to roll. For everyone else, let’s just repeat Joke’s industrial punk by way of trendy, bopping audiences with his influences more seriously than Iommi riffage takes us back to the skinny-jeaned antithesis of In the Twist’ the standout crowd Paul Carrera that: a relentless, melody-free sonic The Comsat Angels’ almost gothic furrowed brow, trying to dredge up most. But, ignoring a few high assault. Feel the warm, shrapnel- pop desolation. names that have lain dormant in life licks, tonight’s set owes far infused treacly goodness of that And that’s how it stays for the the grey cells for 25 years. New more to smooth, mildly euphoric DRY THE RIVER / GENGAHR wash over you. Then go and tend entirety of a set that is as brilliant York’s Panama Wedding, for pop, somewhere between Black’s to your wounds. as it is unsubtle. `Possessed’ is as example, with their cleanly Moss Bros sophistication and O2 Academy Eagulls, hailing from Leeds, look near to a recognisable tune as they emotive, breathy vocals and The Beloved’s cultured Ibiza Unfortunately for most of tonight’s audience the peaceful falsetto vocals They look like a formidable rock outfit tonight, lead singer Peter a complete mess, like five random get, but the rest of the set, drawn bleached funk keyboard stabs, are comedowns. Croll’s voice might be are talked over by rowdy headliner fans during London band Gengahr’s Liddle sporting an all-white suit amongst the coherent-looking group twenty-something thrown together from their eponymous debut album essentially Huey Lewis crossed a little thin and falsetto-happy, but opening track, but lead guitar and drums rudely interrupt, allowing the of rockstars. Their overall voice remains the same and so tracks old and told to form a band. Singer draw from a dark well of post-punk with Brother Beyond. Two tracks he has an articulacy that lifts the openers to take over the proceedings. and new mix well into tonight’s set. They start out with a lot of songs George Mitchell looks like he’s rock nihilism, get firmly under in, presented with a riff redolent songs beyond mere fluff. Whilst Fluid new song `Bathed in Light’ builds slowly into an unobvious yet from August’s difficult second album Àlarms In The Heart’ and seem fallen out of Steve Strange’s Blitz your skin and just keep on piling of Òwner Of A Lonely Heart’, our favourite tonight is `Can You compelling chorus; elsewhere aggressive guitar interludes and heavy genuinely surprised to hear the words of their new tracks sung back to club circa 1980. The drummer on the pressure until they hit a we’re gearing up to abhor them, Hear Me?’, an improbably huge pedal-related fun weigh their floating tracks down to earth, which makes them, as many of their large, rowdy audience have already memorised looks like Gary Numan when he brick wall at the far end. The band but it turns out that good pop bass drum making it sound like for a set both mellow and tightly orchestrated. Their sound is similar to every word. “This is the best response we’ve had to that song on the dyed his hair blonde and pretended don’t return for an encore however music, played by a band that’s MOP’s take on `Cold As Ice’ Glass Animals with a hint of Kate Bush as they create ambient yet spiky whole tour,” announces Liddle at one point. You could reply, “I bet you to be a machman. One of the much the crowd bay for it. Maybe impeccably rehearsed without without the hip-hop, and while lullabies. say that to all the towns,” but as he leaves his post at the microphone to guitarists should probably be in because they’ve simply run out dropping into cynical posturing, the odd guitar wail or gratuitous Dry the River have been away for a while but it seems their absence let the revellers take over, he is laughing at the strength of the crowd’s a metal band. The other seems of songs to play, or energy to will always melt the hardest heart. Meatloaf drum fill sticks in our has only made their Oxford fans’ hearts stronger. The band have taken vocal performance. to have got lost on his way to a play it with, but it leaves a lasting Ùma’ might be more suited to a craw, Croll, like his support, a slight change in direction since their first album `Shallow Bed’; new The passionate `No Rest’ is a cathartic moment in the set, its rousing geography lecture. But put them impression that they’ve just given rom com miniature golf montage reminds us that well-made pop, song Èverlasting Light’ has a catchy, indie sound and a very pop video chorus leaving even the back rows deafened by their neighbours. Any together musically and they’re a you all they have to give and it’s than the Bully, but essentially these with an ear for a ripe melody, will that features the band members having their arses kicked by female nerves this band might have had about returning after a break have clanging, churning, superfuzzed, yours to take out from here into guys are Hot Chip with the irony never go out of style, regardless of karate experts, unlike their older, darker videos where they lay in piles of certainly been settled when, after a long encore, they leave their fans screaming joy of a band. that dark, dark night. replaced by gosh-darned American fashion’s whims. rocks singing their hearts out while water was poured over them, although wanting yet more. Mitchell’s near-hysterical scream, Dale Kattack pluck and, frankly, they’re just as David Murphy arguably keeping with the facing-random-uncomfortable-situations theme. Celina Macdonald THE ORB O2 Academy There’s one question everyone seems dose of LSD. to be trading tonight: Were you here in Tonight’s leg of their 25th anniversary tour 1990? The Orb’s last show in this very sees Paterson, the only consistent member of the band, joined by long-time on-off photo: Sam Shepherd room (fortunately we’re upstairs again) became an event passed into musical collaborator Thomas Fehlmann, playing as legend. Fourteen projectors illuminated the a duo. The visual element is a very modern stage and band, all decked in white; seven morphing of images projected behind the showing films, seven still images, with two, while Paterson pulls out CDs out of a nothing digital in those days. The highlight wallet to mix and treat into proceedings as came after the main show when Alex Fehlmann does something creative with his Paterson stumbled back on stage, barely MacBook. The set leans towards the more able to stand, to play the most amazing accessible, danceable parts of the band’s DJ set using just two records; a series of history, but lacks the sonic extremes, huge endless cuts and blends between `Naked bass lines and multiple layers of sound that In The Rain’ by Blue Pearl and The KLF’s typified those early shows. `Little Fluffy `What Time Is Love?’ Clouds’ gets a visit from The Beach Boys’ Though promoted as an ambient band, `God Only Knows’ in a clever twist, and early performances varied between the a decent version of `Blue Room’ keeps unsettling and the downright terrifying, the faithful happy. While Fehlmann takes culminating in another legendary headline a break Paterson plays around with Pink set, at Glastonbury 1993, where a rumour Floyd’s Èchoes’, a band they’ve been circulated that they were about to summon often compared with. But there’s a hint lightning to strike a huge metallic orb of Orb karaoke about proceedings and floating above the stage. What marked I’ve seen Paterson play DJ sets, billed as them out in those early years was a just that, with more experimentation and completely immersive 3D environment, creativity on show. That said, the talk with treated spoken word samples echoing afterwards is overwhelmingly positive, between the speakers, with numerous reflecting an affectionate loyalty to a most references to aliens, space exploration and British musical institution THE OXFORD RECORD science fiction, often enjoyed with a large Art Lagun DVD & CD FAIR St ALDATES PARISH CENTRE TOM VEK / FUN ADULTS throbs with urgent bass and is positively slinky. `Sherman OXJAM TAKEOVER 40 Pembroke St, St Aldates, OX1 1BP The Bullingdon (Animals In The Jungle)’, which Saturday 15th November closes the set, plays to his strengths: tight bass lines, repetitive beats and Various venues 10am-4pm People who claim that they instrumental sections sound as if Tom Vek is undoubtedly a lot more This year’s Oxjam Oxford Takeover Scholars, pre-name change – play gloomy, a lyrical hook that digs in deep. Yet have a good sense of humour or they might have been plucked from fun, but even he struggles to make spreads across five venues, its remit driven tracks to a packed crowd. With tense Rock/pop/jazz/soul/reggae/indie/all other genres there’s too many moments where categorically state that they are an obscure Warp release, but this a set of almost two hours truly remaining to raise money for the anti- guitar riffs, heavy bass and rolling drums Accessories/memoriabillia/books. his songs feel as if they’re written always the “fun” one in a group are is what happens when `Kid A’ gets soar. poverty charity, while providing a mix of underpinning the vocals, their set is like Brand new and back catalogue/Rare Vinyl to a template, and his sardonic so often the most godawful bores into the wrong hands. Overwrought, In truth, he’s something of a music that this time round ranges from one big catchy heartbeat. But the highlight www.usrfairs.co.uk presence doesn’t cut through. who do nothing but recite the worst theatrical, and utterly tedious, the one-trick pony, but when the trick reggae in The Cellar to acoustic pop in Turl of The Turtle’s noise-making tonight must At those points, the “you’re not bits of Miranda episodes. only interesting thing about them is works, as in the case of `C-C’, Street Kitchen. be the all-girl London rock band Rouge. In really listening to me?” refrain Fun Adults might well be adults, that not one of the band has a beard, it’s worth hearing. Àroused’, The takeover starts at Turl Street Kitchen a mass of leather, polka dots and sequins of À Chore’, becomes entirely but they’re really not fun at all. but this is possibly because any for example, is shot through with at 2:30pm; the next venue to open its doors they squabble over where to put the set-list applicable. They’re clever and arty enough, semblance of hair has been rubbed swathes of footstomping energy, would be The Purple Turtle, but as the before launching into an energetic set of Sam Shepherd and some of their synth-matic away by over-zealous chin stroking. while `Nothing But Green Lights’ first band has pulled out sick, those averse hard-hitting growling vocals and wailing to quiet, mostly gentle, acoustic sounds guitar solos. With ballsy, catchy, loud songs are wise to arrive later in the evening as they create a compelling argument to seek DELIA DARLINGS the Kitchen holds its own for the first few out the mysterious man who the bassist hours of the takeover. Helen Sanderson tells us is lurking around the back of the The North Wall White sings pretty but mostly hookless venue waiting to sell us merch. Delia Derbyshire was a genius. That is indisputable. Her work with the BBC old dansette, and Caro C’s hypnotic work with laptop, ping pong ball and music accompanied by her own soothing Squeezed into a corner, The White Rabbit Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s was so far ahead of its time it still sounds a plastic ruler share much of Derbyshire’s vision of making the most from keyboard-playing. The venue has a good stage plays host to duo Los Dos Amigos, like the future. Derbyshire’s work was massively under-appreciated in its unusual sounds and rhythms. vibe, with many people absorbed in the who have been entertaining the crowd time and she sadly died in 2001, unrewarded and disillusioned with electronic It’s the final part of the show, though, that is simply stunning. Sara Hill’s music, absorbing their drinks, and mostly with an extra impromptu set to cover up an music. The discovery of a huge archive of tapes in her attic has inspired often unnerving visuals complement Derbyshire’s music perfectly. And the making the most of the only venue where organisational flaw. Shortly after them folk tonight’s touring show, mixing live pieces alongside a documentary about her music is astonishing – by turns eerie, playful, harshly industrial, soothingly they can sit on the floor while retaining an duo Little Red take to the stage with warm, life and a collage of Derbyshire’s own work set to visual accompaniment. ambient and otherworldly. Despite the fact that much of this music has ounce of self-respect. story-telling songs. They lull their audience LIVE FOLK NEXT Tonight’s opening film, The Delian Mode, by Cara Blake, reveals never been heard publically before, you’d swear Delia had been a direct After those opener problems, Leader with pretty harmonies as chips are dished Derbyshire, a working class girl from Coventry who grew up hearing influence on everyone from Coil and Nurse With Wound, through Future appropriately kick off proceedings at The up loudly in the kitchen beside them. The DOOR IN DIDCOT. music in the noises of the Blitz – sirens, explosions, plane engines and Sound of London and Coldcut, to John Carpenter and Sonic Boom. The Purple Turtle. Looking quite like a group venue is fit to burst by the end of the night Friday 7 November 8pm, £17, 15 (Concs) clogs on cobbled pavements – to have been a brilliant mathematician who latter turns up in the first documentary to pay personal tribute and is, like of X-Factor hopefuls, the five-piece play when Los Dos Amigos get the crowd PEATBOG FAERIES could apply its rules and possibilities to music, spending hours, whole Aphex Twin and Portishead’s Adrian Uttley, an avowed fan. With copyright solid but unmemorable rock tracks as dancing to their second set, especially a High octane Celtic dance music, hailing from the Isle of Skye. nights, recording sounds onto magnetic tape that she sliced and taped into issues holding up a proper and fitting release of the archive, a wider audience their singer delivers most of his lyrics particularly enthusiastic dancer dressed as Friday 28 November 8pm, FREE pioneering music, including the seminal Dr Who theme tune. still awaits music that was made over 50 years ago, before even the most bent over in a display of Chris Martin- a tiger. Despite a few problems causing The live segment of the show features three pieces tagged `responses’ to her basic synthesizers were being used. It’s a wider audience such visionary style stomach cramps. They seem to be delayed or cancelled sets, the takeover INDIA ELECTRIC CO archive. The problem with responding to a genius is you’re always standing music deserves, and you hope that, much as van Gogh’s paintings were so setting a good mood for the night, with venues, scattered over town, create little ‘Sometimes folk, sometimes not’ and fresh from touring Europe. on the shoulders of giants. Brendan Ball and Geth Griffith’s trumpet and belatedly acknowledged as masterpieces, Delia Derbyshire will one day be an unusually appreciative audience for surprise pockets of light and music and pull Book Now. double bass piece is sadly flimsy and doesn’t appear to have much in fully recognised as one of the most important musicians of all time. an early-evening set. Later, on the same together for a fun night. www.cornerstone-arts.org common with its source, but Daniel Weaver’s inventive piece based on an Dale Kattack stage, Zurich – familiar to many as The Celina MacDonald 01235 515141 | 25 Station Road, OX117NE INTRODUCING.... Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under Kid Kin Who are they? Kid Kin is the musical alias of Peter Lloyd, a solo artist playing electronic rock music. Originally from Merseyside, he moved to Oxfordshire three years ago after graduating from Leeds University. He released his debut album, `New Day At Dusk’, made up of early demos, in early 2013 before he’d played live. He made his live debut at Oxford Contemporary Music’s annual Open concert, while exposure on BBC Oxford and 6Music led to more shows, including The Oxford Punt in May this year, as well as shows in London and Liverpool’s Threshold Festival. A new EP is due at the end of the more plecs with me and scatter them everywhere, just in case.” year and Kid Kin plays at Audioscope this month. His favourite other Oxfordshire act is: What does he sound like? “I’m a bit late to the party here, but I’ve been listening to We Aeronauts A lithe and extremely loud blend of post-rock and math-rock, with nods to lately; they’re right up my street.” the more aggressive end of prog and the noise blizzard dynamics of shoegaze. If he could only keep one album in the world, it would be: Purely instrumental, mixing electronics with heavily-effected guitars, “`Self Preserved While the Bodies Float Up’ by Oceansize. I was gutted Peter strikes a fine, often deafening, balance between upbeat synth-driven when they split, but I’m made up they went out on this album, their fourth and electronica and usually brutal post-rock walls of sound. best. It has some of their heaviest stuff, but also some utterly moving songs.” What inspires him? When is his next local gig and what can newcomers expect? “As a teenager, I was really into the mammoth post-rock bands, such “November 1st, supporting Maiians at their EP launch, then on the 8th I’m as Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and I was a huge fan of playing Audioscope at the Jericho Tavern, which I’m absolutely chuffed Oceansize and 65daysofstatic. But the older I got the more I started to enjoy about! It’s an amazing line-up this year and for a great cause.” electronic music, particularly the versatility of the likes of Four Tet, Corduroi, His favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: and Jon Hopkins. I think this goes some way to explaining where I’ve gone “I love the unpredictability. I hear a lot about it being ‘all indie guitar bands with Kid Kin, always trying to marry expansive rock music with electronics.” and metal’ but at every show I play there’s always a surprise, there’s so many Career highlight so far: different genres being covered right now. There seems to be a shortage of “Playing the Oxford Punt was amazing. I was at the White Rabbit and it was decent venues at the moment. I was sad to see the Port Mahon stop putting on rammed, hot, and stupidly loud. I’ll pay for not taking my ear plugs that night. shows, but hopefully others, like The Library, will crop up in its place. And the lowlight: You might love him if you love: “I played a show at The Cellar. It was a great night, but I kept dropping my Tall Ships; Eluvium; This Will Destroy You; Mogwai; The Album Leaf. plectrums mid-song. I dropped them all, and then dropped one I borrowed Hear him here: from an audience member. It totally ruined half of my set! Now I take a lot kidkin.bandcamp.com DR SHOTOVER: No Major Sweat T H E W H E A T S H E A F Welcome, ne’er-do-wells, to the East Indies Club Bar. Pull up a pew. I was just THIS MONTH IN OXFORD th Wednesday 5 November – ALL TAMARA’S PARTIES & PINDROP saying to ffoulkes-Dashby here, sadly Major Sweat (aka ‘Sweaty’ Swettsworth) ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY is long gone… sound fella in his day, though. Shared a billet when we were in TACOCAT RAINBOW RESERVOIR + EMMA BALLANTINE 8pm/£6 Friday 7th November – KLUB KAKOFANNEY Burma, in the King’s Own Mahavishnu Rifles. Always bought his round in the 20 YEARS AGO For now, though, there were still gigs to go to. 5 YEARS AGO Officers’ Mess, and handy in a scrape, eg when the West Orcadian Fusiliers cut “SAVE THE TAVERN!” ran the rallying cry on the Supergrass, The Nubiles and The Candyskins all “We try to put on a great show, but there’s a line, you RECKLESS SLEEPERS BEARD OF DESTINY + PUPPET MECHANIC 8pm/£5 up rough on a Saturday night out in the Bikini Atoll Hostess Club in downtown front cover of Curfew magazine back in November headlined Saturday showcase nights at the Venue, know. We played with a band called Scrotum Clamp, Saturday 8th November – MD PROMOTIONS ACOUSTIC SHOWCASE Rangoon. Wonder what’s become of Sweaty now…? Oh, er, talking of buying 1994. After the previous month’s worries over the while the Tavern hosted The Rockingbirds, The who dressed in wigs and bondage gear and ran one’s round, Lethbridge… is there a bloody minefield round the bar? No? Selecter, The Pastels and Gene. ANASTASIA GORBUNOVA + TOM IVEY + RICHARD BROTHERTON future of Oxford’s two main gig venues, The Jericho around the room hitting people with comedy props. HEPZIBAH Well, get over there, chop-chop, and do the business. Mine’s a pink gin and BEN PILSTON + SAM EDWARDS + KARL HERRING 8pm/£5 Tavern and The Oxford Venue, confirmation had That’s just crass and awful.” Tuesday 11th November Sanatogen. What’s that, Peabody? Have I tried Can’tFaceBook? For a drink – come that the Tavern was to be closed down and So spake Borderville, making their second why the blithering f*** would I want to do THAT?? Oh, I see. To try and track 10 YEARS AGO appearance on the cover of Nightshift back in converted into a Firkin pub, one of the country’s As history will tell, the Oxford music scene endured, SLOW DOWN MOLASSES WE AERONAUTS + ROBOT SWANS 8pm down such missing regimental types as old Sweaty, not to mention members November 2009, talking about their debut album, th most famous live music venues renovated to attract despite its trials and tribulations. A band who have Friday 14 November of such famed but long-lost Oxford bands as Fizzi Kisses and Fuzzgun. You’ll `Joy Through Work’; “we’re firmly in the realms “shoppers, businessmen and fun-loving students,” similarly endured are Smilex, who graced the be suggesting I go on Sh*tter next, or Trolls Reunited, or some other such of concept album here,” explained singer Joe THE FALLEN LEAVES THE OTHER DRAMAS + LES CLOCHARDS 8pm/£5 as the corporate blurb had it. Tavern landlord Bob cover of Nightshift back in November 2004. The th lame antisocial media site… I have said it BEFORE, and I’ll say it AGAIN… Swarbrick. “The narrative over the course of the Saturday 15 November – BLACK BULLET LIVE Woods and his family had run the pub for six years, accompanying photo of singer Lee Christian hanging [Distracted]… Ah, here record follows the arc of a relationship, but what that more than doubling its takings, while promoter Mac from the rafters of a festival stage summed up a band SKAM 8pm come the drinks. Good relationship is could be any number of things.” MASSIVE had helped launch the careers of Ride, Radiohead, who claimed to be fighting for the soul of rock and Wednesday 19th November man, Lethbridge. Now, Away from such highbrow talk, The Port Mahon Supergrass and more in his time there. All of which roll. “Split lips, bloody noses, soaking wet trousers what was I saying? re-launched itself as a live music venue after being counted for nothing in the name of progress. Petitions and frottage – just a few of the things you can expect ROCKSOC STUDENT ROCK NIGHT 8pm Erm. Well, whatever taken over by Joe Hill, previously singer with local Friday 21st November and demonstrations were organised to try and turn from a Smilex gig,” ran the introduction to the band’s it was, I am sure it metallers Black Candy. Sadly, it stopped doing gigs the decision round, but as it stood, come January, the interview. Smilex were set to release a split single involved torrents of this summer. Also this month Little Fish released LITTLE ARROW BE GOOD + OWL & MOUSE 8pm Jericho Tavern would be no more. with Young Knives this month, each band covering Saturday 22nd November hatred for grungy indies their debut single, `Darling Dear’, for Linda Perry’s To add to the misery the Hollybush in Osney was a song by the other as well as one of their own tracks, Custard Records, ahead of gigs with Eagles of Death aka grundies, student set to close down, ending its run of live music there. on Hanging Out With the Cool Kids Records. BRIGHT WORKS KANCHO + SECRET KIDS 8pm/£5 hipsters aka stupies, Metal and Juliette Lewis. th Promoter Dan Goddard has hosted early shows Tuesday 25 November – OXFORD CITY FESTIVAL Record company machinations scuppered its release Among a host of local gigs, one that sticks out is country-beard-wearers by Supergrass and The Nubiles among a host of and it’s now a collector’s item, but back then Lee was aka countbies. (No, it’s a bunch of newcomers called Mumford & Sons WARDENS ENDLESS MILE + VAGUEWORLD + SUGAR DARLING 8pm local bands, but a house-building project meant the more intent on getting his message across: “My only playing at the Bullingdon. When we spend so much th not pronounced like Wednesday 26 November – OXFORD CITY FESTIVAL pub’s separate gig room was to be demolished. With intention is to entertain people,” he declared. of our energy trying to get folks to go and see bands that, Peabody). Gah, the continued uncertainty at the Oxford Venue, things While Dive Dive’s `Good Show’ was the chief in small venues before they get famous, it’s examples THE DEVIATED THE MARK + SANITY LOSS + KID KIN 8pm modern world. I despair. were gearing up for a bleak few months. th local release this month, the gig calendar threw up like that we can drag up and stuff in their faces. Friday 28 November – OXFORD CITY FESTIVAL More drinks, NOW! And Meanwhile as Supergrass released `Man Sized such diverse highlights as Horace Andy, Dillinger Not destined for such huge things but on the way up plenty of Krautrock! Rooster’ this month on local label Backbeat, while Escape Plan, Lamb of God, Hayseed Dixie and Ed and in town this month were We Were Promised ORANGE VISION THE OTHER DRAMAS + THE SHAPES 8pm Next month: Saturday 29th November future Britpop stars Thurman put their debut Harcourt, all at The Zodiac, while local favourites Jetpacks, The Magic Numbers, and Wavves at the MINOTAUR! Oxford single Ènglish Tea’ out on Righteous Records, the like The Edmund Fitzgerald, Fell City Girl, Harry Jericho Tavern, while the mighty N-Dubz were down Prog rears its ugly (Ox- THE BALKAN WANDERERS LOST HARBOURS + JULIA MEIJER 8pm Dr Shotover enjoys the floor show at the dichotomy between local band and venue fortunes Angel, The Samurai Seven and Red Star Cycle at the Academy. On second thoughts, sometimes it’s The Wheatsheaf 129 High Street, Oxford OX1 4DF / www.facebook.com/wheatsheaf.oxford shaped) head… Bikini Atoll Hostess Club was thrown into starker relief. were gracing the Wheatsheaf’s stage. best to stay well away from local gigs. like the sort of friendless dullard who tries to electronic hum and drift. `First Love Then strike up conversation in the pub and who, Confusion’ lives up to its title, somnambulating while you wouldn’t go as far as to smash a pianism giving way to discordant sax skronks bottle over his skull, you just want to go and and jarring beats as it unravels, sounding like DEMOS bother someone else. Sadly the sort of pub the soundtrack to Bladerunner might have if Sponsored by we’re talking about here is unlikely to have Vangelis had composed it in a post-drum&bass Demo of the Month wins a free half day at `Nag Nag Nag’ by Cabaret Voltaire on the world. `February (Here Comes the Onslaught, Silver Street Studios in Reading, courtesy jukebox, so we can’t even scare the bugger Let’s Make Love)’ similarly pulls itself apart of Umair Chaudhry. away with some proper bastard noise. at an almost stately pace, lulling you to sleep Visit www.silverstreetstudios.co.uk/ so it can tie your shoelaces together before nightshift-demo-of-the-month/ waking you to tell you the house is on fire and SOCRATES III you have to get out, like, right now. There’s a indie-folk territory, revealing the chinks in A side project offering from ToLiesel whole album’s worth of this stuff on Richard’s the singer’s armour. Not unpleasant at all, 01865 240250 DEMO OF guitarist, One Note Forever Records chap and Soundcloud and we end up listening to the but hardly as memorable as that opening general nice bloke around town Tom Jowett, whole lot (we particularly love `Siren Song’, number. So there’s your lesson, people: more Socrates III is a long, long way from the big- which reminds us of the very excellent Salem) THE MONTH synthesizers. Always more synthesizers. hearted country rocking of his main band. In by which time it’s gotten late and it’s all a bit place of chiming guitars and bold choruses is dark and slightly chilly. Which are exactly how harsh minimalist electronica and microtonal we like it. Sterling work, sir. FALSE FRIENDS SUGAR DARLING drones. Lead track Ànjo de Pernas Tortas’ There’s not much we can tell you about False Another band who could do to use their is named after the nickname of the Brazilian Friends since their Facebook page is vague synths a bit more. Sugar Darling’s CD sleeve footballer Manuel Fransisco dos Santos, rated on details, but we’re guessing they’re mates has a photo of a dead bat pinned to a wooden THE DEMO as one of the greatest dribblers of a ball ever, with local drone-meister Lee Riley since he fence on it, so we initially suspect they might but a man who drank himself to death after remixed one of their tracks, and Rainbow be goths, but demo opener `Crater Crown’, a turbulent life. Instead of nimble musical DUMPER Reservoir, since she contributes vocals on after an unassuming intro, collapses into footwork or cataclysmic sonic destruction that same track. Thing don’t start particularly view by way of a disjointed-to-the-point-of- to reflect the man’s career and character, promisingly, `Keith and Michael’ is an mangled (much like that poor bat) electro- LESBIAN the piece is a scowling, trembling dirge that understated, sullen dirge that goes nowhere funk post-punk squall and shudder and we more resembles liver scarring and the DTs WEDNESDAYS with little apparent haste until it gets bored think the fun’s about to commence. And then than any fancy ball play, and so is probably After the last two months’ slightly depressing of its own company, stamps on a couple of it’s like they just lose the will to fight, drifting a sadly fitting tribute in its own right. `Kalle; demo piles, this month’s has been of reasonable effects pedals marked `shrapnel’ and `purge’ off into spangly psych-folk contemplation Dream/Nightmare’ is a softer affair, starry quality; even the less thrilling ones have and rumbles off on a new, far more abrasive before disappearing into nothingess while we guitar intercut with barely audible newsreel been inoffensive enough. Until we get to this tack altogether. Over nine minutes it ploughs sit around wondering quite what happened. TURAN AUDIO.co.uk commentary, sounding like an incidental pointless shambling shitheap of an offering. A this simple, singular furrow, a metallic grunge The second track, `F#1’, is a minute of Professional, independent CD mastering off-cut from a This Mortal Coil album for quick glance at Lesbian Wednesdays’ Facebook bass rumble that thinks tunes are for sissies, tumbling floor toms under a Tuvan throat its first half, before billowing into a My page shows there’s six of them, though other Artists mastered in the studio last month include; until it eventually collapses in a breathless singer that serves little purpose and `Hawaii’ Bloody Valentine-like guitar snowstorm that than the irritating shouty bloke and the girl heap amid a tangle of guitar strings and bits is little more than a mumbled flutter and SCOTT BOWLEY, SUZI QUATRO, TOMMY BASTOW, FRANZ never quite threatens to blow the windows in who giggles at the end of each track, we’re not FERDINAND, GANG OF FOUR, THE STRANGLERS, DIO, of studio junk. After which `Bluebird’ offers stumble through… well, we’re not really sure. and dissipates before it reaches a satisfying sure what the rest of them actually do. Their PANTERA, DEVILMENT, ORANGE GOBLIN, TAIL FEATHER, gentle whimsy by way of musical balm: Nothing resembling a proper tune or anything HUNCK, ROTTING CHRIST, THE DAMNED, ONE WING crescendo. With `The Lone Star’ Tom comes Facebook feed also suggests they think the birdsong and the odd bongo introducing the approaching the hellbound noise we’d hoped LEFT, AMBERSHIFT, VALERYAN, URBAN DOGS, MICHAEL closer to the Americana of ToLiesel, a word `moist’ is inherently hilarious. Which we PALMER, HELMHOLTZ RESONATORS, VICE SQUAD, FAMILY piece before Rainbow Reservoir’s dreamy this would be all about. It’s like as soon as the lonesome electric guitar instrumental that’s guess it might to a thirteen year old simpleton MACHINE, MUSTACHES E OS APACHES, CJ REARDON, vocals slink in. What starts off sounding bat died, they lost their powers, like Brandon PROCOL HARUM, JUSTIN HAYWARD, SPARKS, JOAN BAEZ, possibly what a Texan campfire shoegaze whose only exposure to humour is Two a bit like the soundtrack to Twin Peaks if Lee in The Crow. But then, right at the death, THE BAND, MCGUINN CLARK & HILLMAN, THE BLACK session might sound like. Which isn’t Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. The CROWES, JETHRO TULL, DEEP PURPLE, SATURNIAN MIST. Angelo Badalamenti had teamed up with Mo they burst, like a ripe cyst, back into life and something you can say about many bands. ramshackle rubbish tip of guitars and drums Tucker instead of Julee Cruise, unfurls into we’re off down that crazy electro-noise path that heralds the band’s arrival is as bearable as 01865 716466 [email protected] a dubby electro wow and flutter that wears again for a few very brief seconds. None of they get, suggesting they just failed to grasp its unfocussed nature as a badge of honour. this demo makes sense. And we quite like the concept of The Velvet Underground after It feels a bit unfinished at the moment, as if BLEDIG that. We’d like it even more if they played the What’s this, what’s this? More minimalism? half hearing a conversation about them from ideas are coagulating into something more THE COURTYARD lunatic card – and those mad babbling synths More drones? Anyone would think it was two rooms away. From here we’re into angsty, solid, but for starters, it’s a highly promising – a bit more in future. autumn and the heady days of carefree summer confessional performance narrative with first broadcast from Planet Strange. RECORDING STUDIO pop music and disco dancing were over and musical accompaniment as irritating bloke gone and only the sad swirling soundtrack to person explores his sexual failings in graphic PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/24, OTARI TRAMP AVIATORS falling leaves was allowed. Truth be told it detail over what sounds like a Grade II piano Then again, there are some people who would MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE MACHINE, 2 TRACKING suits us lifelong miserablists just fine. Hearing student’s attempt at Eric Satie. He probably do well never to even look at a synthesizer ROOMS, SUPERB CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELEC- ORIGAMI ROBOT children playing happily in the park is sheer imagines himself as a cool post-Inbetweeners Hailing from north Oxford, Origami Robot through a shop window, let alone use one. TION OF MICS & OUTBOARD GEAR + MIDI FACILITIES (Inc torment, a hellish cacophony to be drowned reincarnation of Holden Caulfield, but more tell us they’re usually an acoustic folk band The Tramp Aviators are a duo from Faringdon LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND etc.) out by non-stop playing of old Sisters of Mercy than that he sounds like Horrid Henry grown but have taken up messing with evil electronic who nestle nominally in the acoustic folk and Throbbing Gristle bootlegs. So welcome up as a sexually-frustrated sixth-form poet. things for the sake of these new recordings. It and blues scheme of things, which would be Residential facilities included. Bledig, the moniker of Richard Brinklow, a Premature ejaculations, awkward hard-ons stands them in good stead too, `Hold Steady’ harmless enough as they strum and grumble man well known in these parts as a member in maths lessons. It’s all so risqué. “I’m www.courtyardrecordingstudio.co.uk wobbling in on a nice Vangelis-like synth anonymously for the most part, until, on of local Polydor signings Medal and before worthless,” he concludes in a rare moment of Phone RICHARD WALSH on 01235 845800 line, the song wafting and drifting into focus `Happy Song’, they decide to lace their that, epic electro-rockers Bubbleman, now self-awareness. “The last number isn’t a proper and continuing to hang in the air hazily – humdrum observational musical musings with resident in Brighton (working as a coastal lock song,” we’re told. But then, none of them are. some might say lazily – around the singer’s synthetic strings that feel like discovering keeper, which sounds like the sort of bleakly In fact there’s a sneaking suspicion the whole breathless vocal scurry as he laments the fate a rusty syringe in the middle of the stale solitary career Nightshift might enjoy), and thing is a less than elaborate joke in a deliberate of an ex whose new lover can’t possibly be cheesecake you were about to polish off. seemingly inspired by staring out to sea all attempt to get in the Demo Dumper. If so, well treating her as well as he did. There’s an air of Horrible, but perhaps designed to detract day to create music that’s equally soporific done, you succeeded. Go on, you can Instagram quiet desperation about the whole thing and listeners from the overstretched vocals that and startling. `Psychoanalysis’, for example, this review and celebrate your ironic genius. it makes for a pretty and memorable piece have suddenly gone from growly and doleful carries a distinctly uneasy ambience with After which, your parents would quite like you of pop. Holding onto that morsel of magic to near hysterical. These four songs seem to its pastoral strings and shifting patterns of to get back to growing the fuck up, please. proves to be a test for Origami Robot; Àll be divided into two types: ones that sounds I See’ is more stuttering, less elegant, with like Chas and Dave or Billy Bragg with the merest passing hints of Wire and Talking any semblance of cockneyness or character Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links Heads about its mid-80s indie-pop sound, polished away, and those that sound like a to [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without overall riding closer to Prefab Sprout, but by busker covering a half-forgotten Levellers a contact address and phone number; no more than four tracks on a demo please. If you the time they reach Ì Was Eaten By A Tiger’, tune. The latter, with the odd nod to skiffle, can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. And don’t fucking whine about your they’ve lapsed into standard sub-Stornoway are marginally preferable; the former feel review on Twitter either, else we’ll print a screenshot and make you look like a prize tit.