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Michael Chapman/Hiss Golden Messenger (April 27-May 3)
"Machine funk kraut-a-delia" as Andrew Weatherall calls it. Certainly big dollops of Harmonia, Neu!, Goblin, Giorgio Moroder and My Bloody Valentine lace the propulsive post-prog disco of Warm Digits.
Live drums and visuals, pulsing bass lines, scything guitars and robotic melodies add up to an irresistible live show AND a great album in the shape of the Distraction label's 'Keep Warm...With The Warm Digits", available on cd and sumptuous gatefold double vinyl.
More dates to be added soon, and a Radio 3 session to be announced shortly (to add to the mass of radio play they've already had).
http://warmdigits.co.uk/

Friday 9th December 2011 - Friday 27th January 2012
Artists: Warm Digits
27/1
DURHAM
JAMJAH
Arlington House
4 North Bailey
DH1 3ET
8pm-1.30 £4
28/1
MANCHESTER
Factory
118 Princess St
M1 7EN
8pm £6
http://www.fatsoma.com/tickets/warm-digits-guests/fac251-the-factory/manchester/e59075
17/2
LONDON
Subsonic Live
The Garage
20-22 Highbury Corner
N5 1RD
http://www.fredperrysubculture.com/competitions_mainpage.asp
+ Andrew Weatherall
8/3
NEWCASTLE
The Cluny
Lime St
NE1 2PQ
8pm £8
https://www.facebook.com/events/264243220292843/
+ Future Islands + Way Through
John Wiese is an artist and composer living in Los Angeles, California. He works primarily in recorded and performed sound with a focus on installation and multi-channel diffusions, as well as scoring for large ensembles. He has toured extensively throughout the world, covering the US, UK, Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. He is also a founding member of the concrète grindcore band Sissy Spacek, in recent years has entered the line-up of the legendary Smegma, and has collaborated with Pain Jerk, Evan Parker, Sunn O))), Merzbow, Wolf Eyes, C Spencer Yeh, Kevin Drumm and many more.
You've no doubt heard the rave reports regarding John's recent album for the great PAN label, Seven Of Wands and know his astounding back catalogue that finds itself filed under noise but isn't done justice by that narrow pigeonhole, with a technique more akin to the scientific precision of the late and legendary Maryanne Amacher, combined with tape collage, bloodyminded humour and a raft of sublime collaborations. Live, there's a deft artistry to John's work that sets him ahead of most others working in his area, his live shows as searing and explosive as they are intricately constructed.
"Wiese has reached a point in his career where he is informing the direction of the genre rather than following it, and these delectable selections of nouveau concrete sound as alien as they do referential. He knows his Xennakis, Ferrari and Hecker that's for sure, but 'Seven of Wands' is something all its own, and all the better for it. Needless to say, it's one of the most twisted pieces of sound manipulation you'll hear all year." boomkat.com
http://www.john-wiese.com/

Sunday 25th March 2012 - Monday 2nd April 2012
Artists: John Wiese
25/3
GENEVA
Ecurie de L'ILÔT 1
14, RUE DE MONBRILLANT
9pm 10fr
www.cave12.org
+ Will Guthrie + Mark Trayle/Jason Khan
28/3
NEWCASTLE
The Cluny
Lime St
NE1 2PQ
8pm £10
www.tuskmusic.co.uk
www.avfestival.co.uk
+ Ikue Mori & Maja S.K. Ratkje + Trancers II
29/3
EDINBURGH
The Banshee Labyrinth
29-35 Niddry Street
EH1 1LG
7.30PM £6
http://brawmusic.tumblr.com/
30/3
LONDON (duo w/ Evan Parker)
Cafe Oto
18-22 Ashwin St
Dalston
E8 3DL
http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/
+ Ikue Mori & Maja S.K. Ratkje
31/3
CORK
Theatre Development Centre
Triskel Arts Centre
8pm €tbc
http://blacksuncork.tumblr.com/
+ Wölfbait / Special screening of Personal Discipline by Miroslav-Bata Petrovi? & Julijana Terek / Wölflinge & First Blood Part II / Black Sun DJs
1/4
DUBLIN
The Joinery
6 Rosemount Terrace
Arbour Hill
Stoneybatter
Dublin 7
7.30pm €10
http://www.skinnywolves.com/wordpress/
+ Toymonger
2/4
PARIS
KOBE
29 rue Maurice Berteaux
Ivry
http://www.trashvortex.info/trashvortex/agenda.html
Sound and Music, [no.signal] and TUSK Music are delighted to bring together the electrifying improvisors Ikue Mori and Maja S.K. Ratkje for their first ever duo performances together.
This unmissable tour brings these two iconic figures from the world of improvised experimentation, together as a duo for the first time. After creating explosions in the downtown NY art rock scene with
the legendary DNA, Japanese-born Mori has become one of the world’s most celebrated and respected improv auteurs, while since the turn of the century the Norwegian Ratkje has dazzled with her maverick vocal work, feted compositions and thrilling excoriations of pure noise. Their performances will vibrate with wild sonic colours, forged by a pair of musicians who span two generations of fearlessly inventive sound craft.
Ikue Mori left Tokyo for New York in 1977, began playing the drums and soon formed the legendary No Wave band DNA with Arto Lindsay and Tim Wright, appearing on the highly influential compilation
No New York. DNA dissolved in the early 80s and Mori began experimenting with drum machines, developing a
singular improv style with an instrument people rarely associate with instant composition. As her technique evolved, she moved onto working with a laptop around 2000.
Over the past 3 decades, Mori has accrued an impressive reputation as an improvisor, testified by her stellar cast of collaborators, including John Zorn, Kim Gordon, Jim O’Rourke, Zeena Parkins, Mike
Patton, Thurston Moore and an impressive discography courtesy of labels such as Tzadik and Mego. She regularly performs with Parkins as the duo Phantom Orchard and in various combinations with Zorn,
and is a member of the trio Death Ambient with Fred Frith and Kato Hideki. Over 3 decades since her first impact on avant garde music, Ikue Mori’s influence on musical explorers of all generations is still profound.
“Ikue Mori is one of the most respected musicians in the downtown scene, renowned for her abilities as an accomplished composer and improviser and as one of the foremost electronic
music innovators” (allmusic)
Maja S. K. Ratkje approaches music making with a broad palette and rare profundity. A graduate in composition from the Norwegian State Academy Of Music, her music is performed around the world by
Oslo Sinfonietta, The Norwegian Radio Orchestra and many more.
Ratkje is also a major force in the world of noise and improvisation and is renowned for her solo performances, her work as part of groups such as SPUNK and Fe-mail and collaborations with artists
such as Jazzkammer, Joelle Leandre, Jaap Blonk, Zeena Parkins and Stephen O’Malley.
Ratkje has an impressive discography of albums for labels such as Rune Grammofon, Important and ECM, and it is perhaps her album for John Zorn’s Tzadik label, River Mouth Echoes, that best exemplifies
the considerable dynamic range of her work. A collection of tracks recorded over a decade, it includes orchestral pieces, electro-acoustic compositions, voice manipulations and sheer harsh noise and perfectly showcases the breadth of her musical ambition.
“Anyone who has seen or heard Ratkje perform live will know what a superb musician she is, and one who can genuinely be said to be extending the expressive range of the voice through technical and technological means…. Her work is celebratory and inclusive, an
energising rallying call to those who are curious enough to peek out from behind the curtain of mainstream mediocrity” (The Wire)
This tour is presented by Sound and Music and produced by [no.signal] and TUSK Music.

Wednesday 28th March 2012 - Saturday 31st March 2012
Artists: Ikue Mori & Maja S.K. Ratkje
28/3
NEWCASTLE
The Cluny
Lime St
NE1 2PQ
8PM £10
www.tuskmusic.co.uk
www.avfestival.co.uk
+ John Wiese + Trancers II
29/3
ULVERSTON
The Studio
Lanternhouse
The Ellers
LA12 0AA
7pm £5
www.lanternhouse.org
www.octopuscollective.org/
+ Ola Szmidt
30/3
LONDON
Cafe Oto
18-22 Ashwin St
Dalston
E8 3DL
8pm £10/12
http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/
+ Evan Parker & John Wiese
31/3
BELFAST
Black Box
18-22 Hill St
BT1 2LA
10pm £10
www.movingonmusic.co.uk
+ Brian Greene + Paul Acroplane (DJ set)
+ visuals by Barry Cullen
This coming April sees the arrival of a powerhouse trans-Atlantic folk reunion as Tim Eriksen, former frontman of Cordelia's Dad and "widely regarded as the best ballad singer of his generation" (BBC Radio 3) joins forces with our own wonderful Cath & Phil Tyler. Cath of course played bass in Cordelia's Dad for many years, and that ongoing association will be borne out on this tour as the Tylers' presence embellishes some of Eriksen's songs and vice versa. Elsewhere of course, we get the stripped-to-the-bone earthen folk that we all love of both acts.
Tim Eriksen combines hair-raising vocals with savvy arrangements for fiddle, banjo, guitar and bajo sexto, transforming American tradition with a "northern roots" Americana sound that embraces old New England murder ballads, “shape-note” gospel and haunted originals alongside Southern Appalachian and Irish songs. His 2010 Appleseed CD Soul of the January Hills, featuring fourteen solo unaccompanied songs, is hardcore Americana at its most elemental, and he appears as a soloist in Evan Chambers' new symphonic work The Old Burying Ground (Dorian/Sono Luminus 2010).
Considered "among the world's finest folk practitioners" (Toronto Star) for his expertise in traditional song, Tim is also known for his own compositions - “strange and original works” (NetRhythmsUK) with a “rare sense of purpose” (Q Magazine) that have been included in films like the Billy Bob Thornton vehicle Chrystal and the upcoming feature documentary Behold the Earth.
Eriksen's other notable work has included extensive contributions to Anthony Minghella’s 2004 Oscar-winning film Cold Mountain as well as collaborations ranging from hardcore punk and Bosnian pop to symphony orchestra and the 2010 Grammy-nominated album Across the Divide with Afro-Cuban world-jazz phenomenon Omar Sosa.
The former frontman of the prophetic groups Cordelia's Dad ("folk-noise"), Northampton Harmony (shape-note quartet) and Zabe i Babe (Bosnian folk and pop), Tim Eriksen is the only musician to have shared the stage with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson (not to mention Jack White and Ralph Stanley), and his media appearances have ranged from Prairie Home Companion to the Academy Awards. Having graduated from early shows at punk mecca CBGB, Tim’s more recent performances have included his Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist in Evan Chambers' The Old Burying Ground and two week-long stints at the Blue Note Jazz Club with Omar Sosa. In the studio, he has worked with producers including Joe Boyd, T-Bone Burnett and Steve Albini.
2008 saw Anglo-American duo Cath & Phil Tyler release their debut album Dumb Supper to great critical acclaim across all divides of the modern folk landscape – as Plan B magazine rightly noted, “Dumb Supper is one of those rare modern folk albums that will find a home both in the longstanding ‘traditional’ music community and among those attracted to the form’s more experimental and lo-fi possibilities”.
And so it was that they were feted by a bewilderingly multilateral mix of critics from The Wire to Mike Harding to Brainwashed to Bob Harris (for whom they recorded a session too). Fiona Talkington of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction was especially ardent, even arranging their performance at the Royal Opera House, this similarly contrasting with their underground UK tour in the company of Finnish jouhikko player Pekko Kappi.
With their follow-up album The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck, Cath & Phil further enhance their reputation for raw and powerfully emotive folk music that goes direct to the source, mining through their own contacts and treasure troves such as the Anne & Frank Warner Collection and the Sacred Harp song book, re-interpreting or adding their own music, and surfacing with pure gold.
Phil is an exquisite guitar and banjo player, and layered with Cath’s earthen voice and their haunted harmonies, plus Cath’s barebones fiddle playing, makes for an exquisitely minimal, beautifully scything delivery. Whip Poor Will, a Tyler-penned instrumental, sounds like a soundtrack to Where The Wild Things Are that should have been, conjuring a sense of child-like theatricality and anticipation that truly highlights Cath & Phil’s compositional skills, brilliantly breaking up the rhythm of the surrounding ballads and throwing something unexpected into the album’s emotional make-up.
Fittingly, The Hind Wheels Of Bad Luck was recorded over a long weekend in Morden Tower, the ancient and legendary miniature music venue built into Newcastle’s old town walls that has hosted everyone from Allen Ginsberg and Basil Bunting to The New Blockaders and Sir Richard Bishop. There’s something very fitting about a place that’s been a (largely unsung) cornerstone of Newcastle’s cultural evolution, and even older than many of the stories told on this album, being the place for this album to be made. Like the Tower, Cath & Phil Tyler's musical perspective is rooted in history, yet they continue to hypnotise audiences from Supersonic and Sotto Voce to TUSK festivals and across the UK with their beautifully stark style.

Friday 6th April 2012 - Thursday 12th April 2012
Artists: Tim Eriksen Cath & Phil Tyler
6/4
GATESHEAD
The Sage Gateshead
St Mary's Square,
Gateshead Quays,
NE8 2JR
8pm £10
http://thesagegateshead.org/event/tim-eriksen/
+ Alasdair Roberts
8/4
SALTBURN
Saltburn Community Theatre
Albion Terrace
TS12 1JW
7pm £10/£11
http://www.saltburnarts.co.uk/
www.pancrack.tv
11/4
LONDON
Slaughtered Lamb
34-35 Great Sutton Street
EC1V 0DX
7.30pm £8/10
http://www.pulluptheroots.co.uk/page.php?id=95
12/4
KENDAL
Brewery Arts Centre
22a Highgate
LA9 4HE
7:30pm £10/£9
www.breweryarts.co.uk
Volcano The Bear have, in the words of The Wire, "produced some of the finest, wildest British music of the last 10 years on record and on stage…”. Or, as Losing Today puts it, “No one sounds, has sounded or will ever sound quite like Volcano the Bear.”
A calculatedly hysterical melting pot of This Heat, Robert Wyatt and Faust, seen through a prism of occasionally theatrical improvisations and unhinged set pieces, VTB so excited Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton that he brought his United Dairies label out of cold storage to release their first album proper, 'The Inhazer Decline', in 2000.
Since then, they've graced such labels as Beta Lactam Ring, Textile, Digitalis, Pickled Egg, Alt Vinyl, even NO-FI with their peerless product.
VTB live is the duo of Daniel Padden and Aaron Moore - you'll know Padden from his sublime The One Ensemble, whilst Moore is also highy regarded for his performances as part of Boredoms, Airway and A Hawk And A Hacksaw.
On record, Volcano The Bear offer stark and stunning absurdities, in the most bizarrely beautiful way. Live, the adrenalin and invention drips from their earlobes as they thrust spectacular oddities and questing multi-instrumentalism in the faces of their audiences.
Once seen, never forgotten, or as this review from 2007's Avanto festival puts it: "Volcano The Bear...combines improvisation and playful experimentation with a conception of music that borders on the anthropological. Their extensive knowledge of the traditions of both experimental and folk music, combined with their other influences, makes the band a difficult one to categorise. Although VTB has been mentioned in connection with bands such as Vibracthedral Orchestra, Jackie-O Motherfucker and No-Neck Blues Band, VTB differs from the aforementioned as it consciously avoids the trance-inducing pulse in its music. Rather than trying to reach a trance through repetition they set up a ritual space where a large number of instruments associate freely. Absurd humour and eclectic ways of producing sounds are characteristic of VTB's live performances, which are largely built on improvisation. Familiar themes can be introduced as milestones on a journey towards a result, which remains unknown. The band records everything they play, and uses these recordings as raw material for their albums. For Volcano The Bear, post-processing is part of composing; their records are reminiscent of how This Heat and Faust used collage methods in rock music...The surprise element of their performances is further emphasised by the fact that their records - combinations of disciplined studio work and recorded improvisation - often sound nothing like the music played by the band on stage."
2011 saw Volcano The Bear release the excellent Hotbites Live At The Nightlight lp and 2012 sees their first release for the excellent Rune Grammofon and hopefully also the release of an album recorded at the legendary Faust studio last year.

Friday 6th April 2012 - Wednesday 11th April 2012
Artists: Volcano The Bear
6/4
GLASGOW
Mono
Kings Court, Kings Street
G1 5RB
10pm Free entry
https://www.facebook.com/events/245687402180044/?ref=ts
9/4
MANCHESTER
The Castle Hotel
66 Oldham Street
M4 1LE
7.30pm £6
http://www.buriedbones.co.uk/
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/153058
+ Hayden/Joinson/Jones Trio
10/4
LEEDS
Brudenell Social Club
33 Queens Road
LS6 1NY
7.30pm £5.50
http://www.britishwildlife.info/2012/01/volcano-bear.html
http://www.facebook.com/events/308523125855480/?ref=ts
+ Temperatures
11/4
LONDON
The Vortex
11 Gillett Square
Dalston
N16 8AZ
8pm £10
www.vortexjazz.co.uk
+ Braindead Collective + Glockenspiel
12/4
COVENTRY
Taylor Johns House
Coal Vaults
Canal Basin
CV1 4LY
8pm £tbc
http://www.thetinangel.co.uk/
13/4
LEICESTER
The Abattoir
The Abbey
104 St Margarets Way
LE4 OBT
7pm £6
http://www.facebook.com/events/183023345141277/
Banjos and fiddles, boards and bones in hand, the Black Twig Pickers dove into a living tradition of old-time music that surrounds their homes along the Virginia/West Virginia line and never looked back. Both scholars of the regional sounds and advocates of an ecstatic and highly personal approach to the music, the Twigs hold down local dance and bar gigs, play all manner of celebrations and every so often, hit the road. Along the way, Isak Howell, Nathan Bowles and Mike Gangloff kept company with some of underground America’s heavyweights and haunted the doorsteps of Appalachian fiddle and banjo masters. They’ve played for the National Council for the Traditional Arts and for audiences overseas.
The trio have toured the UK in the company of both Jack Rose and Charlie Parr, accompanying Rose on a series of raucous UK shows to celebrate the Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers album released in 2009. Rose and Gangloff were of course longtime band mates in drone masters Pelt, symbolizing the band’s emergence into traditional music from a more experimental background (Bowles is also now a member of Pelt and both he and Gangloff perform as part of Spiral Joy Band).
They also followed Rose onto Thrill Jockey’s books, releasing Ironto Special, an album of traditional Appalachian old-time tunes (and two originals) in 2010. Through study of both local old-time musicians and old-time records and field recordings, the trio have literally come to old-time from leftfield, purely through their love of the music, and found they can hold their own with the old-timers, constantly tearing up the Virginian highways to keep commitments at bars, country fairs and parties, while simultaneously turning on their more avant listeners too. Bowles has also become a powerhouse banjo player of growing repute, with his first solo output on the Belgian label Kraak imminent.
"The Black Twigs come from the tradition more akin to the previous generation of masters than from many of those plying the trade today ... wild and wooly playing, full out. What a refreshing sound, nothing fancy here! ... The Black Twigs recapture the golden age of old-time music with all the spirit intact." -- Sing Out! Magazine
"A shitkicking Virginian group" -- John Mulvey, Uncut
"The Appalachian Crazy Horse" – cowsarejustfood
"The Black Twigs Pickers are one of southwest Virginia's best old-time acts, yet they might as well be playing balls-out boogie rock. This trio can do more with fiddle/banjo, guitar and washboard than most bands can with towering stacks and squealing feedback. The Twigs understand that rhythm isn't a question of volume or force -- or feedback and reverb for that matter. It's about timing. ... You could call these guys alternative, which some in the old-time community do, but the Twigs aren't indie foreigners tinkering with Appalachian traditions." -- Justin Farrar, Strawberry Flats
"Exciting old-time music at its finest." -- Bluegrass Unlimited

Thursday 19th April 2012 - Thursday 26th April 2012
Artists: The Black Twig Pickers
19/4
BRIGHTON
Prince Albert
48 Trafalgar Street
BN1 4ED
8pm £8/10
www.wildwoodpromotions.tumblr.com
+ Ewan D. Rodgers
20/4
ANTWERP
Kraak
Oudaan 33
2000 Antwerp
8pm €10
www.kraak.net
+ Yann Gourdon + Family Underground
21/4
BRUSSELS
Le Viaduc
rue du Viaduc
1050 Brussel
8.30pm €5
http://www.yelp.fr/biz/brasserie-du-viaduc-ixelles-2
22/4
LONDON
The Slaughtered Lamb
34-35 Great Sutton St
EC1V 0DX
7.30pm £9.50/£12
www.pulluptheroots.co.uk
23/4
EDINBURGH
The Banshee Labyrinth
29-35 Niddry Street
EH1 1LG
8pm £tbc
http://brawmusic.tumblr.com/
+ Sir Richard Bishop
24/4
NEWCASTLE
Morden Tower
Back Stowell Street
West Walls
NE1 4XG
7.30pm £8
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Tea-Pad-Presents/185330794846128?ref=ts&sk=wall
+ Bob Stork & The Heaton Playboys
26/4
BRISTOL
Cafe Kino
108 Stokes Croft
BS1 3RU
8pm £6
http://www.cafe-kino.com/events/index.htm
The dream pairing of Michael Chapman and Hiss Golden Messenger hits the UK and Ireland. Michael's resurgence has opened everyone's ears and admiration to what was almost a lost case of genius. The re-emergence began a handful of years back with the lauding by and touring with No Neck Blues Band and Jack Rose. Since then Light In The Attic have re-issued two of his classic albums, Tompkins Square have released the double cd package Trainsong: Guitar Composition 1967-2010, and Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! released Michael's first 'noise' lp The Ressurection And Revenge Of The Clayton Peacock, which has also just been re-issued on cd by Blast First Petite. The magazines and venues we were trying to persuade two years ago now can't get enough of Chapman's exquisite guitar style, his phlegmatic yet tender songs, the stories and legends surrounding him (having his guitarist Mick Ronson and producer Gus Dudgeon poached by Bowie, drunken nights with John Fahey) - and that's no surprise; Chapman is a jewel that almost evaded us all, and his playing is as sweet and lyrical as ever.
From the generation that brought about Chapman's resurrection comes Hiss Golden Messenger, the nom-de-plume of North Carolina's Mike Taylor. Hiss Golden Messenger's bewitching mix of woozy roots and bare-spirited country folk has rarely been far from our turntable for the past two years. As well as the full-band recordings he's issued in recent years, last year has seen the release of the Bad Debt cd on blackmaps that is just Taylor, voice and guitar in close-up and it floors us with every listen. And not just us - he's had a whole raft of gushing reviews, even DJ magazine giving it 9/10 for its “Beautiful, beguiling songs. Effortless simplicity”. Since then, Taylor has spread his magic across the UK with a tour in the company of William Tyler (another killer double bill) and won many new converts at our own TUSK Festival last October. On the back of this, he released his Poor Moon lp, which almost immediately sold out, mostly with orders from the UK. Tompkins Square are about to issue a cd version of that album, and a 12" of the Bad Debt highlight Jesus Shot Me In The Head (with a dubbed-out version on the flip) will also be out ahead of this tour.


Friday 27th April 2012 - Thursday 3rd May 2012
Artists: Michael Chapman Hiss Golden Messenger
27/4
PRESTON
The Continental
South Meadow Lane
PR1 8JP
8pm £6/8
www.newcontinental.net
28/4
KIRKBYMOORSIDE
The Band Room
Low Mill
Farndale
Nr Kirkbymoorside
YO62 7UY
7.30pm £15
www.thebandroom.co.uk
29/4
GLASGOW
The Captains Rest
185 Great Western Road
G4 9EB
8pm £8
www.pclpresents.com
www.captainsrest.co.uk
30/4
DUBLIN
Whelan’s
25 Wexford Street
Dublin 2
8pm €15
www.whelanslive.com
www.ticketmaster.ie
www.tickets.ie
+ Amanda Shires
1/5
LONDON
The Slaughtered Lamb
34-35 Great Sutton St
EC1V 0DX
7.30pm £12
www.pulluptheroots.co.uk
2/5
BRIGHTON
The Prince Albert
48 Trafalgar Street
BN1 4ED
7.30pm £9
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/155756
+ Red River Dialect
3/5
CORK
Triskel Christchurch
Tobin st Off South Main Street Cork
7.30pm €12/15
http://www.triskelart.com/