The South Bank’s Ether Festival, now in its ninth edition, has already seen a host of memorable performances this year, with a weekend of events around the work of Edgar Varèse, the premiere of a new piece by Philip Glass and an evening with Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio. Invited to take over the Queen Elizabeth Hall on this Wednesday evening were Birmingham’s finest, retro future pop stalwarts Broadcast, who in just a handful of records in well over ten years of existence have time and time again proved to be the most essential band the UK has produced in years.

Laptop and cello were the backbone of cellist Oliver Coates’s opening set, first in extremely minimal form with cello played over an arid and dissonant drone and clusters of distant field recordings (one could spot in turn the ebb and flow of the sea or the threatening pull of gusts of wind, amongst other things). Continue Reading »

For the last date in their European tour, coinciding with the release of their tenth album, Oversteps, Autechre took over the Bocking Street Warehouse in Hackney, north London, and threw a party, inviting Russell Haswell to perform live and Rob Hall and Didgit to DJ for the event. After an opening DJ set for Didgit, Russell Haswell took the stage just after 12.30, and submitted the audience to an intense digital assault. Layers of distortions and interferences built up a particularly abrasive set of textures, pushing the sound system to the limit of the bearable, but ten minutes in, the intensity went up a few notches as the complexity of Haswell’s sonic fragments increased greatly. Barely twenty minutes in, it was all over.

Autechre are renowned for their hard-hitting sets, yet they kicked off this evening’s performance with a surprisingly smooth and straightforward beat, which for the first few minutes, eased an expectant crowd in gently. Continue Reading »

The Bubbly Blue And Green is a four-day festival which celebrates water in its many forms, put together by the excellent Arctic Circle crew in the pristine surroundings of King’s Place in King’s Cross, London, with performances from  Philip Jeck, Janek Schaefer, Samphire Band, The Sleeping Years, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Iarla O’Lionaird, The London Snorkelling Team, Paper Cinema and The Willkommen Orchestra. The second evening of the BBAG welcomed the gentle electronics of ISAN and the textured classical brushes of Hauschka, accompanied for the occasion by Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, who is also due to perform as part of the festival on Saturday.

ISAN’s elegant and fluid blend of electronica lends itself to watery connotations, and their set, played on a backdrop of remote Scandinavian snowed in landscapes, certainly fitted the bill, Antony Ryan and Robin Saville using a ‘dripophone’, a contraption which sole purpose seemed to amplify dripping water, for the first two somewhat quiet tracks, an issue with feedback preventing a louder use of the ‘instrument’, it appeared. These two first pieces were definitely on the more ambient side of the pair’s work, the first slowing emerging from light bells to implant a slow groove into a placid sequence, while the second, led by a rolling rhythmic pattern from early on allowed the pair to bridge this first part of their set with the more upbeat and familiar second half. Continue Reading »

Pete Judge and Paul Wigens form Eyebrow, a trumpet and drums duo which is found somewhere on the cool headed side of jazz. With pretty impressive CVs under their respective belts, each having performed alongside the likes of Super Furry Animal, Cousteau or Natasha Atlas, the pair were first to take the stage at the Union Chapel this rainy November evening. In the twenty minutes or so of their set, Eyebrow created a rather impressive series of jazz-infused tracks. Judge, on trumpet, assisted by a delay pedal borrowed from Vladislav Delay, and a few effects, provided the melodic structure, often in light floating strips, over Wigens rather delicate drumming. Continue Reading »

Natural Snow Building is a French duo formed of Mehdi Ameziane and classically trained cellist and pianist Solange Gularte, who met over a decade ago in Paris and whose records, often released in very limited quantities, have gained much praise and respect since. Opening the hostilities for this performance at St Giles in the Fields church, niched in the heart of London’s West End between Soho and Covent Garden, Natural Snow Building spent the major part of their set weaving layers of distorted guitars into a tapestry of dissonant drones, Ameziane and Gularte apparently evolving in their own universe, but converging to a central point. Ameziane provided the bulk of the cloud of noise, Gularte knitting faux melodic features over the top, until the distortion dissipated unexpectedly to leave just a few guitar textures floating in mid air. A ghostly voice then rose from the debris of the previous twenty or so minutes, feminine in aspect, yet belonging to Ameziane, who over the last few minutes of the set blew a gentle breeze over a rather stunned audience.

An Autumnal chill came down on St Giles with the next set, as a persistent wind engulfed the venue, catching distant vocals in its grip while shadows of leaves blown in all directions were projected onto the back of the church.  Rising from this seasonal setting, a lone guitar materialised for a moment before a gentle loop took its place, providing the backdrop for the voice to lie in. Continue Reading »

Hosted at the Union Chapel in Islington and organised by the good people over at Arctic Circle, this week saw a series of performances collected under the Marginalised banner, in support of the Margins Project, an charity operating from the back of the Union Chapel for people who are homeless or in crisis in London, with performances by Gavin Bryars and Max Richter and events focusing on the music of Vernon Elliot and Michael Nyman. Before the performance took place, an introduction to the charity was presented to the audience in the form of a short film, highlighting the need for such an organisation in the area, the relentless work of voluntaries and the major drop in donations resulting of the current economic climate. Marginalised, in its second year, gives a chance to put on a program of events and generate some revenue for Margins. Continue Reading »

Alex Paterson and co are used to huge venues and festivals, playing in front of thousands of people, but it is in the intimist settings of Arch 635 in Clapham, south London, that they chose to introduce their latest effort, Baghdad Batteries, to the world, in front of a crowd of just 250. The dress code du hour was uniformist to say the least: white overalls for all, with strict instruction that they should be worn during the band’s performance, making the place look like an over-busy crime scene of Silent Witness. Support was provided by Maliscious Damage’s Able & Cane and She Is Danger, the latter sounding something like Beth Gibbons submitted to electic shocks.While not really providing anything particularly new or fresh, the girls delivered a pretty sharp electro set. Continue Reading »

A stone throw from the sprawling Olympic building site, Dalston is the home of Café Oto, the venue chosen by Icarus for the London leg of their current tour, coinciding with the release of Sylt Remixes. For the event, they had invited experimental laptop sound artist Yee-King, electronic story tellers Isan and the Glass Shrimp DJ to complete the bill. Continue Reading »

The very essence of Fredo Viola’s work to date lies on his vocal prowess, singing each and every melody and harmony on each and every one of his songs. The issue with this is that, while he can record or video himself many times, there is, ultimately, only one of him. The live environment could therefore have been well beyond his reach, his music too clever to be performed in front of an audience. The solution could well have been to take backing tracks with him and sing over them, and it is exactly as his set starts, with, fittingly on the night of the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing, a rendition of Moon Over Berceuse, where he sung the lead vocal over pre-recorded instances of his voice harmonising. This was however the only song relying entirely on the laptop that was performed all night. Right from the second song, he was joined on stage by Ben Evens (guitar/voice), Graeme Brooker (bass), and Jasper Walkinson (rudimentary drums – only a bass drum, a snare and a couple of cymbals to him to play with – guitar, voice) all three of Manchester outfit I Am Your Autopilot, together with French touche-a-tout Scalde, who added many textures and sounds by playing anything and everything from bells to flute and cythera. Continue Reading »

On Friday night, Swedish duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums took part in A Ritual For Elephant & Castle, an event held at the Coronet Theatre, in the heart of Elephant & Castle, which also featured sets by Septic Heart and Chrome Hoof. For the occasion, Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Werliin invited amateur percussionists and drummers to join them for a one-off performance.

In just two albums, the brilliant debut Heatcore and its follow up, The Snake, published in as many years, vocalist Mariam Wallentin and drummer and percussionist Andreas Werliin, who are also a couple, have established their particular blend of primeval avant-pop based on Wallentin’s wonderfully warm and colourful vocal tones and Werliin’s omnipresent drumming, occasionally reminiscent of The Creatures. Their live sets have long gathered praises all over Europe, not only on the traditional rock circuit, but also in jazz circles. Continue Reading »

The rather discreet and, to most revellers it seemed, until then unknown, Village Underground, in London’s Shoreditch, welcomed a rather eclectic event, headlined by American experimental electronic duo Matmos and the London Contemporary Orchestra, with opening performances by electronic act Micromattic and pianist Sarah Nicholls, who, until recently, performed as Tilly Automatic.

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The Union Chapel, up in Islington, north London, played host to Nico Muhly’s pre-ATP performance this Friday evening, and as the billing suggested, the New Yorker had brought along a handful of friends, including young folk singer Sam Amidon, pianist Thomas Bartlett, who usually officiates under the name of Doveman, Icelandic vocalist Helgi Hrafn and Bedroom Community label head and Björk and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson.

In the two years since the release of his debut album, Speaks Volume, on Bedroom Community, Nico’s profile has risen greatly. His second album, Mothertongue, released last year, showcased his incredible range much more clearly. Beside his solo work, he’s also orchestrated music for people as diverse as Björk, Antony And The Johnsons, Rufus Wainwright, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and, most recently, Grizzly Bear. Continue Reading »