birminghamreview, Author at

September 22, 2016September 22, 2016

OPINION: What is Afrofuturism?

*Juice Aleem will be organising & hosting the AfroFlux – what is Afrofuturism? event as part of the B-Side Hip Hop Festival, free to attend at the Hippodrome on Saturday 24th September. For more info, click here.*

You may have heard the term ‘Afrofuturism’ being thrown about a lot in recent years. And if not it’s been behind the scenes in many of your favourite music videos and sci-fi films.

In its purest explanation it’s simply a way of seeing Black people in the future. A future that too often forecasts an image with little to no melanated peoples: A way to escape the drudgery of the traditional all white male winning all the time narrative and it’s far more sinister real life big brothers of racism, sexism and colonialism.

Even groundbreaking TV projections such as the original Star Trek, only had Lt Nyota Uhura and Lt Hikaru Sulu as leading nonwhite characters. When yesterday has already been bleached of your presence the least one could expect is to see themselves somewhere in the tomorrow of a sci-fi TV show. After all, it’s not real is it? It’s just entertainment.

With the original peoples of many areas of the Earth slowly disappearing due to pollution, disease and warfare in this at times harsh real life of ours. We who have the will, creativity and ability, not only seek to protect our elder family, but project a tomorrow where our children are not hated or hunted for being of darker shade to what is deemed ‘mainstream’?

Today’s news and yesterday’s history books show a picture of Black and brown bodies being enslaved, beaten, choked, evicted, lynched, polluted, bombed and all-round disrespected. The today of this now has us in a place where Black women cannot go to school or work without being chastised for their natural hair and skin tones. And even then those same women are cursed again for bleaching and wearing hairstyles unalike their nature.

The mainstream media ask us to believe that Black, brown and poor people stab, shoot and even break their own backs once we come into contact with law enforcement. This is how the mainstream often presents Black people. Unless singing or playing ball there is often little way to swim out. Be basic or be invisible. This mainstream predicts a future with no Black people at all. Swimming through this tide towards freedom, a new way has had to be presented.

Afrofuturism is that new tomorrow. A blend of ancient myth and modern technology remixed to fit the future of those who travel it. There are many mainstream artists, activists and scholars who use its imagery and techniques but its peaks in the AvantJazz of Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman are a great place to become initiated. Other spaces it inhabits include Dub Reggae and Electro. The elements that have been left us flood into films such as Blade and musicians like Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. The heroes of these pieces are left to be themselves and experiment without having to continually explain who and what they are.

Imagine Storm of the XMen, flying solo to save the day with the sonics of Public Enemy as the backdrop. If you can imagine that then you are at least a small part of the way to understanding what Afrofuturism is.

Juice Aleem will be organising & hosting the AfroFlux – what is Afrofuturism? event as part of the B-Side Hip Hop Festival, free to attend at the Hippodrome on Saturday 24th September. For more on AfroFlux – what is Afrofuturism? click here.

Juice Aleem is a Birmingham based rapper & producer. For more on Juice Aleem, click here.

September 21, 2016September 21, 2016

BPREVIEW: B-Side Hip Hop Festival @ Hippodrome & various 23-25.09

Words by Ed King

Running for three days across the weekend, B-Side Hip Hop Festival comes to the Birmingham Hippodrome from Friday 23^rd to Sunday 25^th September.

Presenting an ‘exciting weekend of talks, pop-up city centre performances, film, spoken word, workshops, D/VJ’s and graffiti artists’ much of the B-Side Hip Hop Festival is free to attend. Some workshops and performances will carry a cover charge – with tickets to the Masters of the Ceremony: Finale, held at The Patrick Centre (Hippodrome) on Sunday 25^th Sept, priced at £10.

Some events at the B-Side Hip Hop Festival are also, arguably, more ‘hip hop’ than others, with an oddly ancillary approach to dance taking up a large chunk of the programme. But never fear, Birmingham Review has ploughed through the cacophony of culture (appropriated or otherwise) to cherry pick you a few maraschinos worth checking out if it all gets a bit middle class and muddled – see below.

For more information direct from the Birmingham Hippodrome, including the full B-Side Hip Hop Festival event programme & online ticket sales, click here. But before that, cue wavy dream sequence… going back, distant, distant… dista…

Birmingham has always held a strong Hip Hop scene – whether it’s the Wu Tang Clan at the Que Club, De la Soul at the Medicine Bar/Factory (on a chuffing Monday) or Public Enemy in Moseley Park (…still, can’t, quite, believe…) the more respectable end of the spectrum has always had a warm second city welcome. And we grow our own too, with artists including Lady Leshurr, Soweto Kinch, Juice Aleem, TrueMendous, RTKal all hailing from these Brummie shores – alongside local labels such as Eatgood Records nurturing even more.

There’s longstanding regular club nights too, with Heducation giving it a fairly loud crack of the whip and Scratch Club still going strong – read our interview with the latter, including World DMC Champion Mr Switch, at this year’s City of Colours festival here. And god love us, but when you type ’50 Cents Birmingham’ into Google all you get is a BBC News report about Mr Jackson cancelling a PA in Argos due to a domestic violence charge. Bling.

The Blueprint Gallery (Selly Oak) and City of Colours (…and breathe) have done superlative things for the city’s graffiti and street art scene too – gaining city wide and council respect for what was once called ‘Criminal Damage’. So all in all, the Birmingham’s in pretty good shape for a good old block party.

Meanwhile, back at the Hippodrome…

B-Side Welcome: The Hip Hop Conversation – 23.09.16
Hosted by Birmingham’s own MC, rapper and all round rocking hologram, Juice Aleem, the B-Side Hip Hop Festival opens its doors with ‘a conversation and Q&A that explores Birmingham’s independent and vibrant contribution to global hip hop culture’.

From its humble back street beginnings, to the Council endorsed landscape that we are beginning to boarder, The Hip Hop Conversation will include speakers and artists from Birmingham and much further beyond.

Throwing their two cents into the ring will be ‘Mouse, BOM 5 (NYC), Chief 69 (NYC), Psykomantus, Buddha Stretch, DJ Renegade, Focus and more’ – alongside you, the audience, with your eager arm held high. Plus it’s free, so get involved people. 8-11pm / The Old Rep / Free / For direct info & reservations, click here.

Break Mission x Just Jam Intl ’16 – 24 & 25.09.16
There’s almost too much here to surmise here, but I’ll try. It’s a dance off. Just imagine Jurassic 5 find a time machine, can’t work out the control pad, and end up next to Danny and Cha Cha at Rydell High. Cue the music…

With categories in Hip Hop, Break Dancing & Popping – alongside a range of ages, formats and prizes – qualifying rounds will be held from on Sat 24^th at 11am to 7pm, in both The Patrick Centre and Reflex Bar . The big showdown will be held on Sun 25^th at The Patrick Centre between 4:30-7pm. Plus there’s DJs. And live sets. And street celebrity hosts. And an afterparty… just click on the link. Admission is free, with the UK organisers – Break Mission – asking for non monetary donations in the form of food, clothes and apparel. All donations will then be redistributed to local charities.

Birmingham Review missed the Break Mission x Just Jam Intl 2015 at the Que Club last September, but we love the door entry idea. Plus the 2016 event is uber packed – with graffiti, food stalls, music and a load more for your no money. Win, win, spread the love, and win again. Held at various times & locations / For direct event info, click here.

Afroflux – what is Afrofuturism? – 24.09.16
Hosted by Juice Aleem, who is having a somewhat busy weekend at B-Side, this ‘exploration of Afrofuturism and its many connections to the Hip Hop subculture’ will be a great chance to do just that. Find out what Afrofuturism means.

Running for a good 10hour stint, Afroflux will present speakers, live performances, DJs, film and a Q&A discussion – covering the multi faceted culture/sci-fi hybrid in many different forms. Juice Aleem is an engaging artist, with a book on Afrofuturism currently being tweaked for release; Afroflux looks like a promising introduction to anyone wanting to know more about this arena of art, culture and social constraints.

Click here for a short Afroflux introduction from Shantie TV, and watch out for Juice Aleem’s OPINION piece introducing Afrofuturism – published in Birmingham Review on Thursday 22^nd September. 3:30pm – 2am / Hippodrome / Free / For direct info, click here.

Sweat the Technique Workshops – 25.09.16
Following their early September workshops, festival partners Break Mission are offering three master classes for anyone wanting to add Breaking, Hip Hop or Popping to their dance floor portfolio.

So if you sit somewhere between Napoleon Dynamite and Carlton Banks, this could be a safer shortcut to cool than what those kids in leather jackets tell you about. Running simultaneously (because no one can be that cool) for three hours on the festival Sunday, each workshop will be led by ‘world class dancers’ in their genre: Focus (Breaking / Finland), Buddha Stretch (Hip Hop / USA), Hit Master Fish (Popping / USA). 10am to 1pm / Hippodrome / £15 per workshop / For direct info & bookings, click here.

B-Side Hip Hop Festival 2016

__________

For more on the B Side Hip Hop Festival, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/b-side-hip-hop-festival

For more from the Birmingham Hippodrome, including the venue’s full programme & online ticket sales, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com

September 19, 2016

BREVIEW: John J Presley + Table Scraps, The Hungry Ghosts @ Hare & Hounds 14.09.16

Words by Jay Dyer / Pic by Rob Hadley (Indie Images)

Wednesdays are not exactly prime nights for live music. Venues generally struggle to attract punters to their doors, punters whom have most likely hit the hump of the working week and long for the weekend. Surprisingly, however, as I arrive at the sun drenched Hare & Hounds I’m happy to see many people out to delve into some mid-week indulgence.

Entertainment for this evening comes in three forms: John J. Presley, Table Scraps and The Hungry Ghosts – which, from an initial perspective, looks like a bit of a mismatch. I head back up the winding stairs and into the Hare‘s smaller Venue 2. The room has been cut in half by a looming black curtain, I guess in order to condense the crowd, but alas we all huddle at the back – leaving enough space for a decent sized family car between ourselves and the stage.

The Hungry Ghosts take to the stage in their now customary fashion, seemingly appearing out of thin air. The band emerge without much fanfare, except front man Joe Joseph who looks like he got off his ship in Whitby and travelled down to Birmingham via a cowboy convention.

As the set commences, their impact become apparent. The marriage of the booming rhythm section and the screaming guitars is something to behold. It seems The Hungry Ghosts have spent a lot of time in the rehearsal room since the last time I saw them, ensuring they dial in their sound precisely on the brink of annihilation. The quiet to loud dynamics are wonderfully maintained with each movement proving both intricate and deadly. Then there is the swagger. During parts of the set they are touching on Nick Cave levels of swagger. ‘Super King King’ is a perfect example, with the strutting riff echoing around the room.

As Joe Joseph peruses the stage and beyond, the bass line creates a head bobbing, lip turning, effortlessly sexy beat. The Hungry Ghosts describe their sound as ‘slaughterhouse blues’. I agree. Just when you think you’re safe, you are riding the waves of chaos into impending doom. I love it. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Next up on stage tonight are Table Scraps. The three piece bring a fast paced brand of punk rock which has understandably rewarded them with much respect and admiration within the Birmingham ‘scene’.

They started out life as a two-piece, but have since added a bass player which makes all the difference. Table Scraps’ sound is light and thick in all the right places and they really know how to write a catchy hook. Whether it is the gloomy, sludge filled ‘Bad Feeling’, or the thumping ‘Motorcycle’, the band know how to knock you about and leave you begging for more.

Guitarist, Scott Abbott, is seriously good; combining complex guitar lines with singing duties is no easy feat, yet he pulls it off with enough instinct to make it seem effortless. The crowd respond with a bit more energy than they did with The Hungry Ghosts, moving into the no-man’s land in front of the stage and having a few knocks about.

Table Scraps’ sound is forged through the intense driving bass lines and pounding drums battling the high end guitar lines and the accompanying gruff vocals. It takes you on a journey through the best parts of punk rock and reassures you that it’s just a heap of fun.

The room reaches its capacity for this evening and the headline act appears on stage to a cheer from the crowd; enter John J. Presley, flanked by his backing musicians. Their focus, the heavy musical influences of the southern states of the U.S. and the forming of blues escapism; tonight’s set is dripping in conventional blues guitar styles and played with such a tender touch that it must be admired.

However, as the performance goes on things start to grind on me; songs begin to merge, sounding identical to the one preceding it. There is very little change or movement in the music, which ultimately leads to myself and some of the other crowd members becoming restless.

And whilst I am a complete advocate for poetic versatility making a prominent return to song lyrics, John J. Presley is going in the wrong direction. His lyrics feel overly conceited, so much so that I can mouth the next line with such ease it’s unbelievable.

I enjoy listening to blues, and understand it has the problem of being restrictive upon experimentation. But unfortunately I find tonight’s set derivative of everything I have heard before; it is not breaking any ground, at all, seeming to settle and stagnate as the set wears on.

Back on the positives though, I do admire John J. Presley voice – it’s wonderfully thick and raspy, which is great for his own style. Also the music is technically played, precisely, and with a level of ability few people possess. I am just saddened to find myself sat at the back of the venue by the end of the set.

For more on John J Presley, visit www.johnjpresley.com

For more on Table Scraps, visit www.facebook.com/tablescrapshq

For more on The Hungry Ghosts, visit www.facebook.com/the.hungry.ghosts

______

For more from the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath), visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

September 12, 2016

THE GALLERY: Moseley Folk Festival @ Moseley Park 02-04.09

Pics by Rob Hadley (Indie Images)

Moseley Folk Festival enjoyed its eleventh time round the sun this year, with another cascade of troubadours ushering in autumn at Moseley Park.

Billy Bragg was welcomed back to the fold, headlining the Friday night stage alongside The Levellers. The Coral and Songhoy Blues took centre stage on Saturday – with The Proclaimers playing their last UK gig of the year to close the show on Sunday. Rumour has it Benjamin Francis Leftwich even spent his birthday in Birmingham, but this could be the cough syrup talking.

Outside the high echelons of festival billing, the first weekend in September saw a range of international and UK based acts coming to Moseley – from local luminaries such as Dan Whitehouse and Chris Cleverley, to pan-Atlantic performances from Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop, Laura Gibson and Mothers.

All in all, a damn fine fettle of folk to round off another festival season. Rob Hadley was on weekend’s the front line for Birmingham Review – happy snapping an extended picture spread to go into THE GALLERY.

Check out some sample shots from each day below. Click here (or on the link above) to see the full flickr of pics.

____________

Luke Concannon & Jimmy Davis @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 02.09

For more on Luke Concannon, visit www.lukeconcannon.com

For more on Jimmy Davis, visit www.jimmydavisdavis.com

_____

Sam Lee & Friends @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 02.09

For more on Sam Lee, visit www.samleesong.co.uk

_____

The Levellers @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 02.09

For more on The Levellers, visit www.levellers.co.uk

_____

Billy Bragg @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 02.09

For more on Billy Bragg, visit www.shinealight-joehenry.billybragg.co.uk

_____

Barmer Boys @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 03.09

For more Barmer Boys, visit www.facebook.com/BarmerBoys

_____

C Duncan @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 03.09

For more C Duncan, visit www.musicglue.com/cduncan

_____

The Coral @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 03.09

For more on The Coral, visit www.thecoral.co.uk

_____

Songhoy Blues @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 03.09

For more on Songhoy Blues, visit www.songhoy-blues.com

_____

Benjamin Francis Leftwich @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 04.09

For more on Benjamin Francis Leftwich, visit www.benjaminfrancisleftwich.com

_____

Rhino & the Ranters @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 04.09

For more on Rhino & the Ranters, visit www.rhinoandtheranters.com

_____

Jesca Hoop @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 04.09

For more on Jesca Hoop, visit www.jescahoop.com

_____

The Proclaimers @ Moseley Folk Festival ’16 / 04.09

For more on The Proclaimers, visit www.proclaimers.co.uk

____

Moseley Folk Festival will be back on the city’s suburban event’s calendar, with next year’s festival coming to Moseley Park 1st – 3rd September 2017. For more Moseley Folk Festival, visit www.moseleyfolk.co.uk

September 10, 2016

OPINION: Contemporary music is bigger, broader and weirder than you thought

Words by Sam James / Pics courtesy of Reuben Penny

Last week, Ed wrote about his journey to overcoming what he called the ‘Michael Nyman Syndrome’. The piece was a call to arms – composers are still writing music and you should listen. He’s right, you should. But there’s more to the story than the film score/concert hall dichotomy he describes. For starters, let’s talk about the purpose music serves, has served and can serve.

In many cultures, the words ‘music’ and ‘dance’ are synonymous; you can’t have one without the other. And elsewhere across the world there is no divide between performer and audience – this is arguably a western construct, and a recent one at that.

While music for the concert hall has been pickled and preserved (and often taken wildly out of context – did you know a large quantity of Mozart and Haydn’s music was meant for dance?) most countries have had a vibrant culture of folk and traditional music. Oral traditions passed down ballads and jigs and epics that ordinary folk would sing and play and dance to.

And in the last hundred or so years, we’ve had an explosion of new music, predominantly in the guise of popular music (which, I would argue, has taken over the mantel of folk music). Much of this music has been music of the common man, by the common man.

Styles have come and gone, genres have arisen and died, and an entire industry has built itself around the mass-production of marketable three-minute chunks. Protest songs, gay anthems, a seemingly infinite supply of love songs; there appears to be no end to the scope of human expressiveness through sound.

But where in all this does ‘contemporary’ music fit – and not just when used as the emotive accompaniment to an Art House indie or Hollywood blockbuster? Contemporary music, broadly speaking, is the continuation of the western classical tradition. It is being written by living composers for all sorts of reasons and for all sorts of settings – from works for full on symphony orchestra, to intimate works for solo piano; from bizarr-o electro-acoustic music for enormous speaker arrays, to frogs playing potted plants.

The genre is more amorphous than world music, and more multi-faceted than jazz (There is a fascinating history that has brought us to this rather eclectic point, that is too long to go into here, but I can fully recommend Alex Ross’s book The Rest Is Noise if you are curious about the backstory).

All these disparate ways of producing sound has birthed an equally large number of ways to listen to it. Some composers prefer to stick to the safety and tradition of the concert hall, while others have transitioned to presenting their music almost solely digitally.

But by far the most exciting strand, to me at least, is the movement sometimes known as alt-classical; composers and ensembles out in the ‘real world’. Club nights like Nonclassical in London and Birmingham’s very own Night of the Unexpected bring the very best of music being written today and place it slap-bang in the middle of regular bars and coffee shops.

I hasten to add, this is not from some sort of contrived educate-the-masses-about-classical-music sentiment, but rather from a much more relatable we-like-bars-and-cool-music-let’s-mix-them sort of place.

In fact, it was at Night of the Unexpected that I first saw the aforementioned frog-playing-the-potted-plant, in the Yardbird (R.I.P.) of all places. The bill also included a ska band, a solo piano piece that involved the pianist being essentially molested on stage while playing, and a piece for a string quartet.

Eclecticism is the flavour of the day, and it tastes so good.

And while this movement is not a rejection of the old way – many of these composers would be over the moon to get ‘proper’ commissions – it is an embracing of the new. And perhaps of the very old.

Re-contextualising music opens up so many possibilities for how you get to experience it. You would never dream of getting up for a boogie in Symphony Hall, but you just might in The Actress and Bishop (Bach had his harpsichords, Leon Michener has his mental amplified, prepared techno-piano – you can totally dance to contemporary music if you want to).

We might not be at the point of exuberant, total body immersion in music that other cultures enjoy, but we are certainly poking our heads out of the concert hall and blinking in the bright light of day.

And I’m not saying that we should all start getting down to the sublime tones of Eva Maria-Houben; what I‘m getting at it, in a rather roundabout sort of way, is that music can have multiple purposes. It doesn’t end with its original function.

So it’s totally fine that THSH season ticket holders enjoy the works of the masters, in total silence, from the comfort of a plush red seat – just as it would also be totally fine to bust a move to the same jam if you heard it elsewhere (Mozart’s No40 anyone?).

And as a slight rebuttal to Ed’s Michael Nyman Syndrome, I believe it’s totally fine to enjoy a piece of music originally intended to accompany a movie or TV show; it may have been envisioned as part of a larger work of art, but that doesn’t make its expression any less valid.

Basically, everything’s just fine. Composers are still writing music and you should listen.

Sam James is a Birmingham based composer and musician. He has just released his debut album Sleep. Find him at www.sam-james.com or on twitter @SPJMusic