Headlining the This Is Tmrw Christmas shindig, Dorcha were also releasing their new ISM EP – with hard press copies available for the first time. Dorcha had previously released a limited digital run at their Centrala party in mid November.
Lurking head and shoulders above the rest, if such as thing is logistically possible, was Jay Dyer – taking notes for a BREVIEW in between the occasional Winterval Shandy. To, be, continued after Christmas.
But to get something out before THE BIG DAY, and to save you too much of that troublesome reading lark, here’s some pics of all the acts on the Xmas bill from Rob Hadley. For the Full Flicker of Pics, click here or on featured links.
Now go wrap some pressies; Back to the Future’s on soon.
Happy holidays all x
Delta Autumn – supporting Dorcha @ Hare & Hounds 22.12.16
Doors open at 7:30pm. Tickets are priced at £7 (advance) and £10 (otd) with ‘all proceeds from this show will now go towards helping those affected by the Aleppo crisis.’ For direct gig info and online tickets sales, click here.
This Is Tmrw will be also throwing some DJs into the Christmas pudding, as it’s their party and they’ll play if they want to, with a ‘Special Guest’ also curiously billed to appear… Could it be Father Christmas?
No. He doesn’t exist. And how scary is a fat cosplayer, drunk on Sherry, creeping into your children’s bedroom at three in the morning..? Someone get Paul Dacre on the phone.
The obligatory Santa/Sexual Predator jokes aside; this looks like a good celebration whatever your appropriated religious predilection. Dorcha have (kind sorta) released a new EP recently, ISM, making some limited edition copies available at their Centrala party in mid November.
Being (INSERT PLAYFUL SELF DEPRECIATION) we never made it to Minerva Works and have been quietly self harming ever since. But now, dear hearts, bring out the short sleeves ‘cos Dorcha will be selling CDs at the Hare. It’s like Christmas.
Supporting Dorcha are the ever wonderful and sublime, Chartreuse. Named after mountains, monks or some really poky liquor, this Birmingham four piece are but wee nippers in the broader scheme of things – but bugger me with a salad tosser, they’re already amongst the cream of Birmingham crop. Like a chunk of 4D fell into Lou Reed’s overnight bag, got covered in Absinthe and glitter, before being sprinkled around Bobby Gillespie’s hotel room at 6am… It’s fair to say we like them. But see what you think – we rely too much on metaphors anyway.
Also supporting are Delta Autumn. Honestly, we don’t know much about this band. Except that it wasn’t always a band. But self described as ‘smashing hip hop, glitch, pop, rock, jazz and electro acoustic compositional techniques together to create a sound that sits somewhere between James Blake, Flying Lotus and Thundercat’ they sound worth a stop, look, listen. And This Is Tmrw are not often wrong.
But if you want a sneaky peak there’s a few tracks on Delta Autumn’s website for you to scroll through, including the oddly frenetic ‘Citrus Quotes’ with Juice Aleem – always a good name to see on a track listing.
April, the month of ‘openings’ according to the Romans – sandwiched in between the God of War and the Goddess of Growth. And apparently it snows, sometimes.
April 2016 saw the release of She Makes War’s third album, Direction of Travel – a glorious 12 track battle cry to love, family, resilience, and the threat of an angry girlfriend (or case of herpes) coming to settle the score.
Self-produced, She Makes War’s third album is a step up from its predecessors – built on rich bedrock of melody, mischievous lyrics and unflinching self-analysis. It sounds great too; recorded in part at Laura Kidd’s home (she who is She Makes War) and in part at J&J’s Recording Studio in Bristol.
In our interview with Laura Kidd she professed wanting to make the album ‘of a high quality but I didn’t want it to be about perfection – I wanted it to feel like something happened’. And that it does; Direction of Travel wears its heart on its sleeve in a fun, challenging and ultimately endearing way.
Plus the opening track is a ball grabbing corker – ‘Drown Me Out’ is a driven rock thumper, a melancholic call to arms wrapped around a simply addictive chorus. And you know one of the lines already, so sing along.
‘Cold Shoulder’ is the first playful dig at crap lovers, something She Makes War might become synonymous with if a few more February 14ths go sour. But if you’re going to do it then you do it like this; punky, unabashed, by the time the second line has been spat out you know right where you are. Plus the line I referenced earlier (beginning of the second verse) still makes me laugh and I’ve been playing it near on repeat.
A further high point comes from the subtle acoustic soul search of ‘Paper Thin’, which not only puts this trite metaphor to fresh use (not easy) but also has Tanya Donelly on backing vocals. Result. ‘Stargazing’ tells a soft lament of lost love with a beautiful string section adornment – Laura Kidd again composing beyond her own head.
‘Time to Change’ is a cracking, jangly jaunt on ukulele, and whilst the additional vocals from Mark Chadwick don’t work for me I’m sure the distinctive The Levellers front man will be a draw for some. Darker moments come in the Lynch-esque walk through psychosis and dependency in ‘Turning to You’, the brooding intent of ‘In Cold Blood’, and the inherently personal tale of family fears in ‘Please Don’t’ – a track written when Laura Kidd’s father was seriously ill.
Then there’s the final track on Direction to Travel, ‘The Best’. Listen to it after listening to the entire album and make you own minds up. But, to me, the uplifting lullaby exit on Direction of Travel is a simple stroke of brilliance, right down to the stripped back final fifteen seconds.
As a rule I look for counterpoints but it’s genuinely hard to do here. And whilst I’d cite ‘Alone’ and ‘5000 Miles’ as the weaker moments on the album – less fully filled out songs, but ideas that became more than a motif – this is in the face of stiff competition. The first half of Direction to Travel is noticeably stronger so maybe track listing could be another negative. There’s a couple of cloying lyrics in there too, but I’m reaching here. Maybe my heart just isn’t good enough to do amazing things.
If you’re a fan of She Makes War you’re going to, quite rightly, love this album – Kidd’s first two LPs feel now like they were always alluding to this release. If you’ve never heard of this Bristol based polymath, then this is pretty much the most perfect introduction.
And if you get the ‘rare chance’ to see She Makes War perform this with a full band… one of the best encores I’ve seen in years. I hugged the guitarist.
Direction of Travel was released in April 2016, via State51 Conspiricy. For more on She Makes War, including online purchase points to Laura Kidd’s full back catalogue, visit www.shemakeswar.com
Luckless was also on the bill, playing in between the solo/full band incarnations of She Makes War. PJ Harvey with a loop pedal, Luckless is originally from New Zealand but now lives and writes from Berlin – which makes a short jaunt round the UK a little less of a logistical problem.
Birmingham was the first to host ‘An Evening with She Makes War’, with two further events planned in London and Bristol. Having released her third studio album in April this year, Direction of Travel, She Makes War presented a cherry picked set of old and new. And yes, the megaphone came out to play.
Laura Kidd, better known as She Makes War, started her limited run of full-band shows at Birmingham’s Sunflower Lounge to tie in with the release of new single ‘Stargazing’ and to showcase some all-new material.
“I used to play acoustic when I was shit,” Kidd’s opening solo set is relaxed, personal and intimate. Her self-deprecation is not an uncomfortable plea for mercy from the crowd, but a way of showing how confident she is in how far she has come. Songs like‘Delete Myself’ explore the mire of breaking up in the digital age; Kidd layers her sweet voice over itself, creating ethereal gentle rhythms pierced by the siren of a megaphone. It marks a more experimental point in a set of earnest and revealing songwriting.
Luckless is the next act and the stage name for Ivy Rossiter. Coming to us from New Zealand via Berlin, Luckless is a friend and fan of tonight’s headliner. Where Kidd kept picking up and putting down anything with strings on it, Luckless sticks with a single old Japanese guitar with a rich, full tone.
Her sound is based around looping different electric guitar sounds, using different pedals to construct a rich foundation for her warm, powerful voice. Only once did the looping method go wrong and she was fighting against some messy sounds, but that was one misstep in an otherwise slick set.
For the full She Makes War trio, Laura Kidd picks up a bass guitar – the only thing on stage that she hasn’t already made use of – and looks out through glam-rock eye makeup over her mic. Together, the three range from dark and atmospheric to pounding riffs and squealing solos.
This is not what her previous set would lead you to expect at all. This is an altogether different side to She Makes War, something between the grand vision of her recorded output and the intimacy of her solo performance. It has the power and punch of a slick single with the raw edges of a stripped-back live setup.
The sonic landscape is dominated by the heavy guitar sound, “he does have Jonny Greenwood’s hair” says Kidd of her bandmate. He’s got Greenwood’s sound, too; the nasal jangle from ‘My Iron Lung’ features more than once tonight and Radiohead’s influence on the ensemble sound is obvious on songs like ‘Weary Bird’. When things get heavy, they sound like Smashing Pumpkins if they’d had a Riot Grrrl vocalist. In the quieter moments, the sparse guitar makes room for Kidd’s lilt to take the focus.
The main problem with the full trio is that Laura Kidd’s voice – and, in a lot of ways, the songs themselves – get a bit lost amongst the raucous cacophony of chunky riffs and pounding beats. Her sweet and melodic vocals feel better suited to the smaller acoustic singer/songwriter setting, or the Metric-style fusion of trip-hop and indie pop in some of her recorded material. To be fair to Kidd, she did mention she was suffering with a cold and qualified that “[she hates] when singers say ‘oh, I’m sorry, I have a cold’”. Given that fact, she did an excellent job.
When Laura Kidd is alone and in full control – even with limited equipment – it is evident that she is an artist with a grand vision and the technical know how to make it a reality. When she gives up some of that control, the pieces just don’t fit together as well as they should.
