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June 23, 2015June 23, 2015

BPREVIEW: The Railway Social Club + Dutch Cousin @ The Sun at the Station 26/06/2015

Birmingham based bands The Railway Social Club and Dutch Cousin come to The Sun at The Station – for a double EP launch, on Friday 26th June.

Support is from local ‘sound maker’ James Brough and a DJ set from Sam Redmore.

Doors open at 8.30pm with tickets priced at £5 (on the door). For further gig info click here

Originally a duo formed in 2011, The Railway Social Club (TRSC) is an unsigned band from Birmingham. Now a four-piece act, their sound is influenced by artists such as Simon & Garfunkel and Ocean Colour Scene.

Self described as ‘harmonious voices set against African influenced grooves’, The Railway Social Club combine two-voice harmonies with guitar and piano to create their original compositions.

Regular performers in and around Birmingham, TRSC can often be seen at venues such as the Ort Cafe in Balsall Heath and the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath.

Having featured on Tom Robinson’s BBC6 radio show, as well as recording a live session with BBC WM, The Railway Social Club has been rising in prominence and popularity – independently releasing their debut Sketches EP in 2014.

The Railway Social Club now mark the shift from a duo to a four-piece with the new How to Make Friends and Influence People EP – a record described as “…short but perfectly formed”, to be launched at The Sun at the Station on 26^th June.

Joint headlining with The Railway Social Club, will be the six piece Birmingham based band, Dutch Cousin. Also unsigned, Dutch Cousin has been described as “electro pop dream” and “the future of Birmingham’s music scene” by BBC Introducing and Amazing Radio respectively.

Citing no direct influences, the group’s sound ranges across a broad spectrum of genres and eras by combining a variety of percussion, synth and vocal techniques.

June 2015 sees the release of Dutch Cousin‘s sophomore All The Things That You Hold Dear EP. Described as ‘deeply stirring,’ the record explores personal experiences of band members in an ethereal and often nostalgic style.

Friday 26th June sees The Railway Social Club and Dutch Cousin joint headline at The Sun at the Station in Kings Heath, with both bands launching new EPs at the event. Support comes from James Brough, alongside a DJ set from Sam Redmore.

For further gig details, visit https://www.facebook.com/events/461708117336750/

For more on The Railway Social Club, visit http://www.trscmusic.com/

For more on Dutch Cousin, visit https://soundcloud.com/dutch-cousin

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For more on James Brough, visit http://www.jamesbrough.net/

For more on Sam Redmore, visit https://www.facebook.com/samredmoremusic

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For more on The Sun at the Station, visit http://www.thesunatthestation.co.uk/

June 18, 2015June 18, 2015

BPREVIEW: Dead Kennedys @ O2 Academy – 23/06/15

Pioneering American Hardcore Punk band Dead Kennedys are bringing their distinctive sound to Birmingham’s O2 Academy on Tuesday 23rd June. Doors open at 7pm and tickets are priced at £20 advance – for direct gig info, click here

Formed in 1978 in San Francisco, Dead Kennedys quickly became one of the West Coast’s most prominent Punk bands – becoming part of the American Hardcore movement of the early 1980s.

Originally formed after founding member, Raymond Pepperell, posted an ad for band members in a local newspaper, Dead Kennedys’ early work remained closer to Ska and more traditional Punk sounds – until the 1981 release of In God We Trust, Inc. EP, which saw a marked shift into Hardcore.

Starting out by playing at numerous local venues, Dead Kennedys often had to use alias’ due to the controversial nature of the band’s name. Playing undercover with monikers such as The Sharks and The Pink Twinkies, the band became increasingly popular in the US after a well-attended East Coast tour.

In 1980, Dead Kennedys’ single ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ was recorded and released on both sides of the pond; this saw the band gain success, popularity, and the inevitable controversy, in the UK for the first time since their formation.

Their subsequent album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, was released the same year on Cherry Red Records reaching number 33 in UK charts. Fear from the BBC that Dead Kennedys’ next single, ‘Too Drunk To Fuck’, would reach the top 30 in UK singles charts, Top of The Pops executives pulled the song from air and only referred to the single as ‘Too Drunk’ – thus affirming Dead Kennedys place amongst the counter-culture of Britain.

Their 1985 album, Frankenchrist, was released on former lead singer Jello Biafra’s label, Alternative Tentacles, and met with further controversy.

A poster of H.R Giger’s Work 219: Landscape XX (or, Penis Landscape) was inserted into the original record sleeve; when a teenage girl purchased the album and discovered the graphic illustration, Dead Kennedys were charged with violating the California Penal Code with each band member facing up to a year in county jail.

Unfortunately this controversy overshadowed the actual content of Frankenchrist as an album, adding to the band’s growing disillusionment in the increasingly violent Hardcore scene. In January 1986 the original Dead Kennedys split up, playing their final concert in February and releasing their final album, Bedtime for Democracy, in November the same year.

In February 2015, the current lineup of Dead Kennedys announced a follow up to their 2014 European tour – including an extended six dates across the UK.

Dead Kennedys come to Birmingham’s O2 Academy on Tuesday 23rd June. Doors open at 7pm and tickets are priced at £20 advance. For further gig info, including venue details & online tickets, visit http://www.o2academybirmingham.co.uk/event/74603/dead-kennedys-tickets

For more from Dead Kennedys, visit http://www.deadkennedys.com/

For further listing from the O2 Academy Birmingham, visit http://www.o2academybirmingham.co.uk/

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015

REVIEW: Supersonic Festival, 11th to 14th June ‘15

Words by Helen Knott / Pics by Michelle Martin

Capsule’s Supersonic Festival, held in Birmingham every year for the past thirteen, has established itself as one of the most critically acclaimed experimental music and arts festivals in the world.

But don’t just take my word for it. For The Times, Supersonic is, ‘a celebration of the expressive, challenging and generally out there’. The Quietus thinks it’s, ‘perennially ace’, and for Drowned in Sound it’s, ‘mind-expanding and culturally life-changing’. This 2015 edition of the festival has plenty to live up to.

Proceedings began at Town Hall on Thursday evening, with The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble – a tribute to the inventor of the classic synthesiser, featuring members of Portishead and Goldfrapp. Since the opening concert there has been a Supersonic Kids Gig, a series of art happenings around the city and a whole heap of performances on Friday night by artists including post-Punk pioneers The Pop Group.

My Supersonic 2015 experience begins late on Saturday afternoon at Boxxed, a warehouse space in Digbeth that, along with The Crossing, has replaced The Custard Factory as Supersonic’s home for 2015.

On the surface, Circuit Des Yeux is just a person playing folk music on an acoustic guitar, but as you might expect, it’s so much more complicated than that. The person in question, Haley Fohr, begins the set with neat finger picking work that quickly explodes into distorted, passionate guitar passages.

The music is emotional and introspective; Fohr spends her set singing from behind a curtain of hair. But what a voice. She has a striking Baritone, and uses vibrato to create an unusual timbre that growls in the lower registers and rings sweetly in the upper.

Copenhagen’s Selvhenter is an instrumental collective that use drums, saxophone, trombone and violin to create a Jazz infused experimental sound. The listener’s attention in the improvised, experimental sections is rewarded with pleasing Rock outs, in a manner reminiscent of Spiritualised. Their performance is always surprising and quite frequently much noisier than you would expect from this collection of instruments; the trombone in particular, somehow distorted, sounds utterly demented.

Portland’s Eternal Tapestry reportedly recorded their latest album, Wild Strawberries, in a remote cabin in Oregon, sleeping under the stars and rolling around in nature. And the music has a certain feeling of hippie-psychedelia; it’s slow burning and dreamy, but well structured and moves with purpose. Keyboard drones mix with simple guitar melodies, primal drums and barely audible shoegaze vocals that, for the most part, punctuate some straightforward post Rock songs towards the end of the set.

Liima is the new band of Efterklang members: MadsBrauer, Casper Clausen, Rasmus Stolberg, and Finnish percussionist, Tatu Rönkkö; a live improvisation project, Rönkkö’s percussion forms the backbone around which synthesized sounds, guitar and processed vocals are free to explore. The result is essentially first-rate Scandinavian pop music; a little more experimental than ABBA, but no less joyful.

Sound artist Holly Herndon is ‘so hot right now’, recently collecting a series of unanimously glowing reviews following the release of her second album, Platform. Her set at Supersonic feels as much a video installation as a performance of music, with the accompanying visuals exploring issues of surveillance, technology and the body.

While the music itself, full of twitches and glitches, may sound like Pop made by robots from the future, the video focuses on softer, more organic matter. It’s an odd juxtaposition; Herndon takes the packed audience on a fractured journey, presenting ideas that are political, thought provoking and sometimes even amusing.

Supersonic’s Saturday night headline set sees Dylan Carlson, of instrumental drone metal band Earth, and techno artist Kevin Martin (The Bug) perform together as The Bug vs Dylan Carlson for the very first time. This meeting of two legends of the heavy music scene produces exactly the type of sound that you would expect: dark, heavy and slow, ambient guitar noise interacting with subtle beat shifts. It’s powerful music that envelops your mind and body, with bass so loud you can feel it vibrating in the very depths of your chest.

So did Supersonic 2015 live up to the hype? It certainly felt a little different to previous years, with a change in venue and a slight shift in programming from Metal to Electronica. But the Capsule born and raised festival still holds its singular character, with talks, market stalls and cakes creating the usual friendly atmosphere – feeling distinctively from and of Birmingham in a way that’s hard to quantify.

Most importantly, year after year Supersonic maintains its bravery, spirit of adventure and openness to new experiences. And that is why, in 2015 – nearly a decade and a half since the first act was booked, this annual Birmingham event is still venerated as one of the most pertinent festivals on the planet.

For more on Supersonic Festival, including archives of previous events, visit http://www.supersonicfestival.com/

For more on Capsule, visit http://www.capsule.org.uk/

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For more on Circuit Des Yeux, visit http://circuitdesyeux.com/

For more on Selvhenter, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Selvhenter/177892536719

For more on Eternal Tapestry, visit http://www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/Eternal-Tapestry/#.VX8-5vlViko

For more from Liima, visit https://www.facebook.com/liimaband

For more on Holly Herndon, visit http://www.hollyherndon.com

For more from Dylan Carlson, visit http://www.drcarlsonalbion.com/

For more from The Bug, visit https://www.facebook.com/thebugofficialpage

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015

REVIEW: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ The Glee Club, 10th June ‘15

Words by Helen Knott / Pics by Ella Carman

From the days of the Salvation Army street bands, to David Byrne, St Vincent and Taylor Swift, brass has become a lot cooler in recent years.

Raised in Chicago, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (HBE) was taught music from a young age by their father, Phil Cohran, himself a well respected jazz musician. The story goes that Cohran instilled a sense of discipline in the eight brothers, waking them at 6am every morning so that they could practice before school.

After leaving education they earned a living busking, eventually self-releasing their first album Flipside in 2004. Since then Hypnotic Brass Ensemble has performed with MosDef, Wu Tang Clan, De La Soul and Prince, and even supported Blur on a number of dates.

Tonight they join a warm and appreciative audience at The Glee Club for the first night of a five-date UK tour, having spent most of the last two months on the road in America, Europe & South America. Since the days of 6am rehearsals the HBE boys have always been a hardworking bunch – apparent in the tightness of their performance tonight, both in the music and choreography.

However tonight’s gig takes a while to get going. There are a few too many new songs in the first half of the set and a little too much smooth jazz – chugging and funking away nicely enough, but without really setting the pulse racing.

One of the most intriguing things about Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is their ability to incorporate a wide range of influences: Balkan, Spanish, even traditional Colliery brass band music – but again, this doesn’t really happen enough in the first half to keep things interesting.

Things kick off after the interval, when HBE’s most famous (and probably best) song ‘War’ definitely gets the crowd going. ‘War’, which you may have heard in the Hunger Games movies, showcases the band at its best, getting the brass interplay between bass, rhythm and melody exactly right.

Indeed, HBE are most fun when they go a little darker. ‘Delta’ sleazes around with a killer riff and ‘Kryptonite’ is a downright nasty Hip-Hop track. These boys honed their skills on the streets of Chicago and things still work best when we’re reminded of that.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble certainly looks the part, all tattoos, muscles and posturing. And despite their cool street style they are endearingly eager to please, obsessing about how to say ‘Birmingham’ the English way, “Burmingam. Burmingam. Am I saying it right? No vowels or consonants.”

First and foremost they are entertainers and they want the audience to enjoy their “real good, feel good, music”. And we do. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble doesn’t just make brass cool, they make it relevant and sexy – and that is more than you can say either Taylor Swift or the Sally Ann.

For more on the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, visit http://www.hypnoticbrassensemble.com/

For further listings from The Glee Club (Birmingham), including all music & comedy shows, visit https://www.glee.co.uk/birmingham/

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015

REVIEW: Föllakzoid + The Hungry Ghosts, Sky Children @ The Sunflower Lounge, Sun 7th June

Words by James Gardener

Chilean psych band Föllakzoid weren’t content with playing one gig of blissed out cosmic music in the Midlands, so they decided to make a surprise lunch time appearance at Lunar Festival – before heading to The Sunflower Lounge for their eagerly awaited Birmingham Promoters show.

Opening for them were Birmingham new boys Sky Children, giving a solid if not spectacular start to proceedings – albeit leaning on the much popular and over saturated BTown sound. There were moments of promise and with a few more gigs, and time to develop their own style, we may see brighter and better things to come.

Next to play in front of the packed out crowd were The Hungry Ghosts. With influences from the dark side and the other side of the pond, and with nods to The Velvet Underground and Dylan, this is a band happy to wear those influences on their leather clad sleeves.

The Hungry Ghost’s latest single ‘Hares on The Mountain’ comes halfway through a fast and ferocious set; this moment sees the band at their lyrically brutal and musical peak. The Hungry Ghosts, make a note – these are one to keep an eye on for sure.

Föllakzoid are in the UK as part of a European tour to plug their new album, Föllakzoid lll – out now on Sacred Bones Records. Tonight they are the puppet masters over a mesmerising crowd; with deep grooves and dark vibes they have the whole room in awe

Songs like ‘Electric’ are a master class in the interplay between drums, guitar and synth – drawing you in and toying with you; this is what the band have built a reputation on and tonight sees them execute it to perfection.

Föllakzoid’s set is a real treat for this Sunday evening Birmingham crowd, who stick with them through the ambient parts, the long drawn out songs, and revel in the ultimate highs.

Between a field in Tanworth-in-Arden to a basement in Birmingham city centre, if you caught one of Föllakzoid’s gigs today you should consider yourself lucky.

For more on Föllakzoid, visit https://www.facebook.com/FOLLAKZOID

For more on The Hungry Ghosts, visit http://thehungryghosts.co.uk/

For more on Sky Children, visit https://www.facebook.com/skychildrenband

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For more on The Sunflower Lounge, including full event listings, visit http://www.thesunflowerlounge.com/

For more from Birmingham Promoters, visit http://birminghampromoters.com/