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September 22, 2017

BREVIEW: Beyond The Tracks… Sunday @ Eastside Park 17.09.17

Words by Damien Russell / Pics by Michelle Martin

Day three of any festival weekend is always a tough one for me. Day one I’m mad for it. Day two is a recover and then get back on it kind of day. Day three is usually spent sober, tired, and can be a very tough sell.

There’s also no pretending I’m not hungover. So, having made it down in time for breakfast a fruit based recovery drink is in order. The city centre feel quiet as Paul and I head on the now familiar journey to Eastside Park. And whilst it takes a little longer to get through the gates with our bags today, the queue isn’t vast.

That being so, it’s a pleasant surprise to see a fair-sized crowd already watching Nadine Shah as she performs a mix of new and classic material; she is good naturedly takes requests and works well with the audience, as well as putting on an expressive performance. Shah is an artist who knows how and when to bring her political agenda into her art, mentioning it, tastefully, toward the end but in a manner that leaves little room for confusion on what her point may be. Nadine Shah and her band put on a good show, and the few times where the saxophone and guitar clash – making the instrumentation a little muddy – can certainly be forgiven.

The next band on are Dorcha, on the second stage. Unfortunately they are absolutely not what my brain needs at the time of day they are on. They play well together, but the sound is high pitched and quite intense, and while I did on-site describe them as the sound I would expect a band to make when falling slowly down a hill, this was largely an expression of how they made my hangover feel rather than a statement on them as a group.

Not one to be driven to drink on a final festival day, I nevertheless relent and get a recovery cocktail – clutching it tightly in my hand, I head back to the stage as Peter Hook & The Light start their set. Peter Hook, being a previous Joy Division member, has brought with him a little slice of the 80’s. No bad thing in my opinion. But I must admit, I’d had never expected to see two bass guitars playing complimentary melodies and with different effects. And yet the result is definitely a positive one.

Peter Hook himself has a great, powerful stage presence. He jokes about being from up north and waiting for his son (being the other bass player, Jack Bates) to get ready. At 61, and with 41 years in the industry (possibly more), Hook puts on an excellent show. The band play a mix of New Order and Joy Division numbers and end with, you guessed it, Love Will Tear Us Apart; a classic, but one that didn’t excessively stand out in an all-round high-quality set.

With little change-over time, Hoopla Blue take to the second stage. I can see straight away that these guys are what I would expect from the term ‘shoegaze’ – although perhaps ‘stargaze’ would be more fitting and would work well with their ethereal, spacey sound. Hoopla Blue have some great songs with ‘Rotten Sodden Loot’ arguably the best of the day.

I must admit that seeing them in a live setting doesn’t work as well for me; having listened to their recorded material, I prefer the records. Not to disparage a good set too heavily, but some bands are just more effective in a studio setting; fact that Hoopla Blue come across as slightly shy, alongside the limits imposed by live sound, make me feel that their recorded sound wins out.

That being the case, I take the executive decision that standing for most of the weekend has made my knees hurt, so I retreat to an area of open space and take a seat where I can still see the stage. I’ve had a message from a friend telling me to be sure to check out both Slowdive and The Jesus & Mary Chain; knowing Slowdive are on next, I prepare to either stay put or make a move to the front.

Staying put it is. Slowdive are continuing what I’m beginning to think might be the theme for the rest of the day: ethereal, slightly psychedelic, rock. They provide a good soundtrack to sitting in the sun sipping an iced drink, and have the kind of trippy visual effects on stage that I was expecting from Friday night – with the video screen working wonders for their live show. It may be unfair to make comparisons, but in some ways Slowdive put me in mind of a The-Wall-era Pink Floyd. No bad thing; music to relax to, a great soundtrack to a Sunday afternoon.

While Slowdive’s ‘When the Sun Hits’ does indeed bring out the sun, the closing of their set seems to encourage the lovely rainbow over the stage to become the considerably less lovely rain. Blackash take to the second stage under a slightly gloomy mix of cloud, rain and sun, all paying Beyond The Tracks a visit in around five minute cycles. Not to worry, Blackash are here to brighten your day regardless.

The first thing that springs to mind is Assassin’s Creed, as the band are all dressed in partial face coverings and hoods. I was expecting this to some degree, but the image still makes an impact and it’s hard to know how to take them. None too seriously as it turns out; Blackash are a band here for a good time and here to make you have a good time too. They suffer a little with the sound and the vocals are both lacking volume and a little of their trademark distortion.

Nevertheless, they are up-tempo (which I am infinitely glad of at this stage in the day) and good fun – with an appropriate response from the crowd, who, I think, were a little uncertain to begin with. They seem to warm to this surreal bunch and there’s a good bit of dancing and nodding along before Blackash’s set is through. Another band I would definitely see again.

As Blackash finish, Paul and I get chatting to two lovely people who were enjoying the set as much as we were. They heartily recommend Wild Beasts, the next band on the main stage, and furnish us with glow sticks that would probably have been better fitted to Friday night, but will also work perfectly well with Sunday’s space-rock.

I’ve been forced to admit that I’ve not heard of Wild Beasts, but as they come onstage they kick into their set this thought gets pushed aside as they’re good; very good, in fact. Slightly dance oriented, they’re more artsy than Blackash but have a similar head nodding, foot tapping effect on the Sunday crowd. Exhibiting excellent musicianship, each band member seems to play at least two different instruments (excluding the poor drummer who is stuck where he is).

Wild Beasts also have two lead vocalists – both very different, both very good. From all Beyond The Tracks’ Sunday line up, Wild Beasts have the highest number of catchy songs so and ‘Wanderlust’, ‘Alpha Female’ and ‘Get My Bang’ are stuck in my head for quite some time afterwards. They have quite a few songs about… well, as Ben Little says, “Fucking”, and that gives them even more of a dual image.

Funky but ethereal, artsy but obvious, sensitive but direct; it’s the sort of thing that appeals to me, in that my opinion of it can change dependent on my mood. As Wild Beasts’ set progresses, the good run of weather comes to an end and the rain comes down. A good few people retreat to the shelter of the beer tent but I just put my coat on and wait it out. No way am I missing this set for a bit of water.

With the rain slowing but still coming down, it’s time to commit to my no-drinking Sunday. I go and grab a coffee to warm my cold hands and move over to the second stage as Victories At Sea are announced.

And move offstage again.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Technical difficulties. Whether the weather is to blame or not is a matter for the event staff alone to determine, but between the rain and the delays Victories At Sea start their set with some ground to make up. And it’s hard to be sure what else is to blame, but to my ear the sound is still terrible. It does get better as their set progresses but not enough to save it for me. (After the effect, I’ve done some research and again Victories At Sea recorded music sounds nothing like the stage show I watched. So I attribute it to water logged or faulty equipment, but bad luck all round)

After this minor downer, and having been given somewhat conflicting opinions of The Jesus & Mary Chain, I keep my fingers crossed for the next hour. As they take to the stage and their set starts, I’m once again pleasantly surprised. The uber-80’s sound I was told to expect fails to materialise and it turns out that The Jesus & Mary Chain are a good up-tempo Country-influenced band. Admittedly, they’re not as entertaining as they could be on stage, and their music isn’t entirely my sort of thing, but they’re solid enough for a Sunday with a 16-song set that is quite varied.

When they’re in the throes of a song, the sound is good and the balance of instruments works well, but for some reason William Reid won’t stop playing between songs making the set seem a little unprofessional. In some ways Jim Reid’s voice sounds a little strained too, but it doesn’t slow him down any and it was always their style in a way anyway.

They kick their Beyond The Tracks set off with the slightly new romantic/punk-esque ‘Amputation’, with the rest of the follows that somewhat heavily guitar led feeling. In comparison to the stargaze space rock mood of much of the day, The Jesus & Mary Chain seem more grounded and more traditional rock oriented.

Their set does unfortunately feel a little long, so when the last strains of the curiously titled ‘I Hate Rock ‘n’ Roll’ fade away, I head away from the stage and find somewhere to sit down. I can hear Josefin Ohrn + The Liberation starting up on the second stage, but they sadly take a backseat to my desire for pizza as I follow Lazlo’s hierarchy and get food.

The main stage is now a hive of activity, as what look like industrial extract fans are set up and drum kits, pianos, keyboards, and other musical items are brought out; it all looks very exciting. As my hunger is sated and my interest is piqued, Editors begin, striking out with ‘Cold’, ‘Sugar’ and then ‘The Racing Rats’. It’s easy for me to see why they were chosen to headline; the setting they’ve brought is excellent, making maximum use of the stage and the available lighting.

Their performance is musically excellent too, as you would expect from a band of 15 years pedigree, but also very visual with Tom Smith throwing his all into it. It’s a set to rival Saturday night’s Maxïmo Park experience and with the light show to go with it; I’m hard pressed to decide which I think is best. I decide to just love them both equally, and by the time Editors’ set is halfway through and ‘An End Has a Start begins, I’m having a too much of a good care either way. Smith has a warm vocal tone and the 80’s leaning that he is known for, alongside their synthesiser driven backline, ties the day together well.

Editors finish their main set 14 songs in with ‘Marching Orders’ and I can’t imagine what they could possibly do to top it. One cliched pause for applause later and they’re back out, smashing into ‘Open Your Arms’, ‘Bullets’, ‘Munich’ and finally ‘Papillion’ – arguably their most 80’s oriented track. It’s a fantastic encore and an excellent end to the day; Editors come across as the culmination of everything we’ve seen and heard throughout Sunday at Beyond The Tracks and what perfect headliners it makes them.

Slightly sad that it’s all over, but with one eye on work tomorrow morning, the walk to the train station is a swirling mix of emotions. The journey back to Wolverhampton is spent comparing highs and lows, reliving the highlights one more time, and making plans for the next event from this fledgling festival.

As we found out in our recent interview with the festival organiser, John Fell, Beyond the Tracks may not be back in 2018 – but I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for it in 2019. In the meantime I guess it’s back to normality.

Dorcha – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on Dorcha, visit www.dorcha.co.uk

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Peter Hook & The Light – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on Peter Hook & The Light, visit www.peterhook.get-ctrl.com

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Hoopla Blue – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on Hoopla Blue, visit www.soundcloud.com/hoopla-blue

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Slowdive – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on Slowdive, visit www.slowdiveofficial.com

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Wild Beasts – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on Wild Beasts, visit www.wild-beasts.co.uk

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The Jesus & Mary Chain – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on The Jesus & Mary Chain, visit www.thejesusandmarychain.uk.com

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Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, visit www.josefinohrnandtheliberation.bandcamp.com

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Editors – Beyond The Tracks @ Eastside Park 17.09.17 / Michelle Martin

For more on Editors, visit www.editorsofficial.com

For more on Beyond The Tracks, visit www.beyondthetracks.org

September 8, 2017September 8, 2017

INTERVIEW: John Fell – Beyond the Tracks @ Eastside Park 15-17.09.17

Words by Damien Russell / Pics by Eleanor Sutcliffe

Feeling like a lazy Sunday afternoon despite being a Monday (thank you Bank Holiday), sitting in the shade at Eastside Park has got something of a ‘last day of a festival’ feel.

Convenient really as I’ve braved exhaustion and headed out to into the sun to see a man about a festival. That man is John Fell and the festival is, of course, Beyond The Tracks.

I say ‘of course’ but given that Beyond The Tracks (for those who have missed the promo so far) is the newest addition to the Moseley Folk portfolio, it may not be as clear cut as that. This new city-centre, three day event is nestled comfortably alongside the Moseley Folk Festival itself, the Mostly Jazz, Funk & Soul Festival, and the Lunar Festival, all under the Moseley Folk banner.

And John Fell is, “kind of Festival Manager, really, so to be honest I do a lot things from booking the line-up to the marketing, to the press, the finances, I get involved with a little bit of kind of planning the site and things like that. All the staffing. So, it’s a lot there really.” If he does say so himself. And I agree, it is a lot; they’re big events with stellar line-ups and not exactly spread out in either area or through the year.

Curious about this, I ask about the rest of the team. “Well, there’s me, full time, and then there’s two directors (Gerv Havill, Carl Phillips) that are kind of more part time on the festivals. They’ve got their other businesses. And we’ve just taken on a new member of staff as well and she’s become a kind of Festival Assistant, so it’s slowly growing but it’s not a big team for all the things we do really”, Fell explains.

Not a big team at all. And with a variety of other events as well as the festivals, it must be a lot to take on. John Fell is a collected man and while he will admit that focusing on so much is “quite difficult”, he quickly adds, “I’ve always been quite good at that really. I’ve always… I don’t sit still very often”. I’m glad we got him pinned down for half an hour to talk to us.

So how did it all begin? And how did it become Beyond The Tracks? “When I joined we’d just created Goodnight Lenin”, Fell says, taking us back to both the start of his band (recently announced to be on hiatus) and his time with Moseley Folk, “and JJ from the band asked me to go round and come and play music at 3 o’clock in the morning because they’d been up all night drinking. Normally I would never do it, not if I hadn’t been out already, and I thought ‘you know what, fine, I’ll go round’. If he wants to play music, I’ll do it, whatever time of day”. And a 3am video became Goodnight Lenin’s application to play Moseley Folk Festival. “Carl who ran the festival rang us up and said ‘I wanna come and see you play’ and he wanted to manage the band and put us as headlining the second stage, the Lunar stage” Fell expands, describing an opportunity most bands would do something their mothers would disapprove of, to get.

It isn’t surprising but it is good to be reminded that Moseley Folk (both festival and company) have always been committed to local talent. And actively looking for it has “always been an ethos of ours, to support that and provide a platform for that. Which is quite cool”. And not just at the festivals. They “do loads of cool shows throughout the year… and because that’s not really our… job, I guess, our festivals are where we kind of scrape our salaries… we can book who we want. We’re not pressured to book gigs, we don’t just put gigs on for the sake of it; we can book who we want”.

An envious place to be. And a powerful place. Free from the constraints of popularity and to a certain extent cost, Moseley Folk remind me of the record companies of old – able to take risks and trail-blaze if they wish, whilst hosting the type of gigs many bands dream of getting to play at.

With such an open opportunity for booking talent, I wonder how the Beyond The Tracks lineup was approached. The answer lies in being different to the other festivals in the Moseley Folk portfolio, “with Folk and Jazz, Lunar’s a bit more psychedelic… we wanted to essentially make three different gigs. I mean, originally we didn’t put weekend tickets on sale because we didn’t think there would be that much demand. Essentially it was an electronic night, an indie night and, I guess, like a post-punk, shoegaze kind of Sunday, which is cool”.

Planning, then combining, three different gigs sounds like an unusual way to approach a festival, but less so when originally it was “going to be an Ocean Colour Scene gig with, you know, Maximo Park or whoever, and it grew into a festival which is, you know…”, John Fell leaves me to offer the rather clichéd ‘really cool’ but charitably goes with it. “It is really cool. So the whole thing has just been, like, a really natural progression”.

Choosing this site, currently just open grass and quiet couples, was also natural progression; John Fell takes us back to 22^nd January 2016, and to the 20^th anniversary shows of Ocean Colour Scene’s Moseley Shoals in Moseley Park. “And that was just incredible”, Fell says, and shortly after those shows “we were just sat outside the pub, the Eagle and Tun, and looking at this space and were like ‘why have we not done a festival here?’ Or at least a gig here” so they decide they should and went full on for Beyond The Tracks.

And what a festival it’s pitched to be. “It’s Birmingham’s, you know, I guess biggest inner city, kind of ‘band festival”, in John Fell’s words. “Obviously you’ve got things like MADE which are doing incredibly at The Rainbow and a lot of other events going on” he continues, “I suppose it’s not like a Great Escape but that kind of inner city festival, Tramlines in Sheffield, that kind of thing. And we thought for the first year we should really celebrate Birmingham music. We already had Ocean Colour Scene; Editors have got strong Birmingham links. So then we just go ‘right, okay, we want to support other bands’ so, you know: Superfood, Jaws, Victories at Sea, Dorcha, Table Scraps. We just added Hoopla Blue and Sunshine Frisbee Laserbeam, there’s so many bands… The Leftfield guys are coming to DJ, Magic Door guys coming to DJ… So it’s a bit of a Birmingham love-in really. It’s gonna be really cool.”

And speaking of Hoopla Blue… I ask John about the sad news that Goodnight Lenin wouldn’t be playing and would be replaced by, you guessed it, “Hoopla Blue. Yeah, we wanted it to be a local band and Hoopla – great band – they just jumped on it straight away. It is a shame but it just felt right to end Goodnight Lenin with Liam rather than playing another show, it didn’t quite make sense”. I don’t ask about the conflict of interest in booking a band you play with; if John Fell began working for Moseley Folk through Goodnight Lenin, it stands to reason Goodnight Lenin would still be one of Moseley Folk’s regular artists.

There’s certainly plenty of Birmingham music at Beyond The Tracks, possibly more Birmingham on the stage than in the audience at times, as to my surprise, “Friday night’s about 40 percent people coming from outside the Midlands. Which is pretty incredible. It’s very similar numbers to the Jazz and Folk, to be honest with you, it’s like, high 30’s from outside the Midlands. Saturday here with Ocean Colour Scene and The Twang, is obviously more localised but it’s still a good 25 percent from outside the Midlands and Sunday as well is about 30, high 30’s. So, we are actually bringing people in,” and in saying so Fell sounds proud. And I believe he is, proud of what Birmingham has to offer and proud to be a part of it.

And not without merit either; four major festivals are not organised through hope alone, that kind of work needs vision. The vision that Beyond The Tracks is “what Birmingham needs really just to kind of give it that other, kind of, star next to its name of what we have here to offer”. The drive to “bring people to Birmingham and actually show them what we do”. And the eye on the future looking to “see what else we can do for the city now”.

But with the rise of Beyond The Tracks, we’ve seen the fall of the Lunar Festival; this yearly switch looks set to continue, as the original three year access to the Beyond The Tracks site has been scuppered by the HS2 development. “We are bringing Lunar back next year and then… we don’t have the land for this (Beyond The Tracks) next year”, Fell explains, taking me a little by surprise. “We were told two years, we could have it… three years we could have it and HS2 is being built on this land. So they’re acquiring the land. So it might be the case that we maybe have a year off Beyond The Tracks, bring Lunar back. We’ve been refining that (Lunar Festival) so we’re quite excited to bring that back. Erm, and then, you know, hopefully we can bring Beyond The Tracks back the year after, maybe”.

Maybe, maybe not; there is always the fear that “it’s four festivals. You do start eating into your own audience as well. People only have so much money”. So maybe one on, one off could be on the cards. Or maybe it’s just a one-off.

Either way, when you think that “Friday night’s going to be crazy with Leftfield and Orbital and the light show they’ve got, here, in the city centre on a Friday night”, then the local focus lineup on Saturday and Sunday, with “Fairground Rides in the middle… a Ferris wheel and everything” it’s hard not to get a building sense of excitement.

And as I walk back across the site toward The Woodman pub, thinking to myself ‘stage there, fairground there, bar somewhere here…’ it’s also hard to disagree with John Fell when he shares the sentiment, “It’s gonna be quite cool. I mean it’s gonna be phenomenal, you know. It’s costing the world, really, so it should be…. But yeah, it gonna be cool, man”. Cool indeed. Phenomenal sounds about right too; I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Beyond The Tracks comes to Eastside Park in Birmingham City Centre, running 15^th to 17^th September. Tickets for this event are £54.45 for individual day tickets, £145 for a weekend pass, with a host of after parties after each day.

For more on Beyond The Tracks, including full festival details and online ticket sales, visit www.beyondthetracks.org

December 24, 2016

THE GALLERY: Dorcha + Chartreuse, Delta Autumn @ Hare & Hounds 22.12.16

Words by Ed King / Pics by Rob Hadley

On Thursday 22^nd December, Dorcha performed at the Hare & Hounds with Chartreuse + Delta Autumn as support.

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

For more on Delta Autumn, visit www.deltaautumnmusic.com

Chartreuse – supporting Dorcha @ Hare & Hounds 22.12.16

For more on Chartreuse, visit www.facebook.com/chartreuseband

Dorcha @ Hare & Hounds 22.12.16

For more on Dorcha, visit www.facebook.com/Dorchauk

For more from This Is Tmrw, including full event listing and online ticket sales, visit www.thisistmrw.co.uk

For more from the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath), including full event listing and online ticket sales, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

December 21, 2016

BPREVIEW: Dorcha + Chartreuse, Delta Autumn @ Hare & Hounds 22.12.16

Words by Ed King

On Thursday 22^nd December, Dorcha perform at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) with Chartreuse + Delta Autumn as support.

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.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Dorcha / ISM EP Launch party @ Centrala 17.11.16

On Thursday 22^nd December, Dorcha perform at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) with support from Chartreuse + Delta Autumn. For direct gig info and online tickets sales, click here.

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For more on Dorcha, visit www.facebook.com/Dorchauk

For more on Chartreuse, visit www.facebook.com/chartreuseband

For more on Delta Autumn, visit www.deltaautumnmusic.com

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For more artwork from Lewes Herriot, visit www.lewesherriot.carbonmade.com

For more from This Is Tmrw, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.thisistmrw.co.uk

For more from the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath), including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

October 10, 2016

BREVIEW: Club Integral – Dan Wilkins, Howie Reeve, Kamura Obsura, Dorcha @ The Edge 07.10.16

Words by Lucy Mounfield / Pics stolen from the corners of t’interweb… apologies

From the first look at Club Integral’s poster, I was a bit unsure of what tonight was all about. From the first step into the small warehouse in Digbeth, home to The Edge/Friction Arts, I begin to understand: eclectic furniture scattered around the space, extra-terrestrial drawings on the wall, neon lighting draped over every surface, this space felt more like a relaxed community-centre-cum-wonder-emporium. This evening is certainly going to be different.

The atmosphere is friendly; The Edge has a community feel and this is at the very heart of their manifesto – according to which Friction Arts have been working within the community for 23 years, helping people and translate their thoughts and ideas into artworks. And as I walk into the venue (being greeted by two alien murals on the wall, with flying saucers in vibrant neon glowing colours surrounding them) I immediately relax; there are definitely no stuffy artists in residence here and I need not worry about my lack of knowledge of contemporary art, or indeed of left-field music.

The Edge is home to the unusual, and it is therefore fitting that Club Integral take over the space for the debut of their Midlands ‘branch’ – an evening of niche sounds, bands who might struggle to be heard outside of London. Interestingly though tonight two of the artists playing are local to the Midlands, whilst the others have roots from outside England.

Seikou Susso, a traditional Kora player from Gambia in North West Africa billed as the first act, unfortunately had to pull out at the last minute due to a family death. Dan Wilkins, his student (and the first Birmingham name) instead treats us to some of Susso’s work on the Kora. The stage is a makeshift raised platform at one end of the warehouse; this is not a night to marvel at the technical prowess of the venue, but instead we, the audience, are treated to pared down, intimate moments of musical and emotional expression. Dan Wilkins sits alone, centre-stage, with the Kora.

The first three songs are in the Gambian style of Kora music, the first two being Susso’s and the third a composition of Dan Wilkins’ own. The Kora is a plucked string instrument which I had not heard of before, but it reminds me of Nitin Sawhney’s work with delicate Indian string instruments. I particularly like Wilkins’ composition; his face showing an emotional investment. The sound produced is rich, layered and textured, filling the warehouse and captivating the audience. The fourth and fifth songs depart from the previous three in their style; looser and slower than the previous two, which creates an earthy feel to them. It’s worth noting that there is some constant low level ambient noise, such as the kettle going off, throughout the set. For me this wasn’t a problem, it was all part of the atmosphere and to be expected given the nature of the venue, but others might find it an issue. Symphony Hall it is not.

Next to perform are Kamura Obscura, a three-piece band comprising a violinist (Natalie Mason, who is part of the team who run Club Integral), a guitarist (Robert Story) and a singer (Atsuko Kamura) who also plays keyboard. The first played, ‘Chapel of Atheist’, is a traditional Japanese song with haunting falsetto, both guitarist and violinist picking at their strings to create a stark background to the singing. The second song, ‘Melting’, takes on a political edge, dealing with the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear reactor in 2011; the band donning headlights and sparkly comic glasses, declaring “we are safe now!” The song mirrors the outfits, comic yet dark, lyrics searing with intent, “The leader said we won’t be affected, the TV said the same”, the instruments scream with anger whilst the singing’s high pitch brakes down back into deep growls.

Each band tonight play for about 30 minutes, and we’re encouraged to drink and eat food from the Ubuntu van outside which sold homemade South African curries. Club Integral seems to be not just about the music but the spirit of trying something different – a culture and style which completely resonates with the locale of Digbeth. Digbeth is an in-between place: abandoned warehouses and patches of wasteland stand next to ‘luxury’ flats, industrial units are next door to independent restaurants, streets lined with pubs and shisha lounges, creative spaces dotted around car parks where buildings used to be, an air of slow dereliction and shadiness yet at the same time a sense of constantly being ‘on the verge’ of redevelopment. Club Integral taps into everything that is weird and wonderful about this fringe of Birmingham; it’s DIY and not shiny or new, but it certainly is expressive.

The next act definitely encompasses this vibe. All the way from Glasgow, Howie Reeve and his bass guitar tell modern day ditties about “Superdrug and children”. Reeve’s bass playing goes from one extreme to another, banging, picking and pulling at the strings. His audience interaction soon becomes part of his act and in a way detracts from his music, as we are sometimes laughing too much at Reeve’s stories to fully listen to his songs.

The dynamics and organisation of a traditional song disappear; Howie Reeve, instead, plays a continuous stream until it abruptly stops; only when he says “done” do we know the song has finally finished. His second to last song about children is my favourite, the quiet glockenspiel keeping the beat whilst Reeve tells the furtive imaginings of three children, with the bass guitar bursting into life when the children get excited or angry. Howie Reeve feels like an overactive mind unable to sleep, one minute he is whispering and the next he is shouting.

The last act to play are Birmingham’s own, Dorcha – normally a five piece band but reduced to three for tonight’s Club Integral. Traditionally Dorcha are loud, a wall of noise, but here they became intimate and inclusive. The paired down band became folkesque – a violin reed organ, a piano, and singer/guitarist; Dorcha sit on a sofa whilst the audience huddle around them.

‘Space Age’ has a rhythm drum beat that runs through the piece like a military parade, but it is the reed organ that acts as the backbone to the song. For me, the best of Dorcha’s songs are the ones the band admits they played the least, ‘Crimson’ being a good example. The guitar gives a darker tone and at times straddles psychedelia, with the reed organ hovering and twisting throughout.

But their last song best epitomises the evening, a cover of Ane Brun’s ‘Do You Remember’. Dorcha tell us they haven’t rehearsed this until today, the day they perform it live for us, but the song is a work in progress – a sharing of influences and ideas in a safe space.

That, for me, is what Club Integral delivers: an exciting and eclectic mix of music for which there needs to be a space. And I think, after tonight, the Midlands have just found another one.

For more on Club Integral, visit www.clubintegral.wordpress.com

For more from The Edge/Friction Arts, visit www.frictionarts.com

For more on Digbeth First Friday, visit www.digbethfirstfriday.com