Leeds | Aural Aggravation

Posts Tagged ‘Leeds’

Aural Aggravation and Modern Technology Present….

Posted: 18 December 2019 in Previews and Editorial
Tags: Cattle, Charity benefit show, early bird tickets, Human Worth, Leeds, lineup, Lump Hammer, Mind, Modern Technology, Shelter, Territorial Gobbing ...(something) ruined

We’ve been bigging up Modern Technology since the release of their eponymous EP – not just because it’s powerful musically and lyrically, but because the duo believe in trying to make a difference in a bleak world. And so we’re inordinately proud to be involved in the latest Human Worth charity fundraiser, which sees proceeds donated to Mind and Shelter, and which sees their first Leeds show in 9th February 2020. It’s headlined by percussion-heavy racketeers Cattle, and they’re joined by one of Newcastle’s heftiest, sludgiest bands in the form of Lump Hammer, Leeds’ finest maker of manic electronic noise, Territorial Gobbing, and relative newcomers, …(something) ruined, a brutal power electronics duo consisting of Paul Tone (Foldhead, Inverted Nepal) and one Christopher Nosnibor.

The event will be held at DIY venue CHUNK, and tickets are a mere £5.50, available via this link. There’s also a super limited run of Early Bird cheap tickets: just 15 in total, then onto Advance Tickets which saves money on door and guarantees entry.

Shellac / Beige Palace – The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 13th December 2019

Posted: 15 December 2019 in Live
Tags: angular, Beige Palace, Bob Weston, Leeds, Live Review, math rock, Noise, Shellac, Steve Albini, The Brudenell Social Club, Todd Trainer

Christopher Nosnibor

I arrived at University in York in September 1994 with around £700 of savings. Even then, it wasn’t a lot, and I blew the majority of it on vinyl in my first term. A friend back home wrote to me (yes, we had to wrote letters then) with some recommendations, and the list included the newly-released Shellac debut album. It’s one of the few albums I’ve had to buy a second time not because of a reissue with bonus tracks or a remastering, but because I managed to wear it so hard.

I remember walking into the record shop near work and spotting it behind the counter. I said ‘New Shellac album?’ and the woman behind the counter asked if I wanted the vinyl or CD. Obviously, I said vinyl, and she beamed and said the CD came with the vinyl anyway. I was overdrawn, and went another £11.99 overdrawn, but it was still a bargain.

These albums have been significant features in the soundtrack of my adult life, and I consider Steve Albini and Shellac as a band are inspirational in many respects. If you want to know how to operate as a band – a vinyl-selling band – in the 21st century, they’ve got the operating model nailed: build your own kit, load and unload your own gear, concentrate on technique and sound over anything showy. Work the band around the day-jobs. Keep everything that can be kept in-house in-house: it’s paying everyone else to do stuff that renders most bands ultimately unviable. Oh, and no guest-list.

And the state of their gear is something: Steve and Bob’s guitars aren’t only worn to the wood but have massive gouges out of them, and Todd’s snare is edged with rust. They travel with a surprisingly compact backline, too, especially considering the colossal racket they kick out.

Anyway: it’s the night after half the population experienced a devastating blow to everything they believe in as fridge-hiding racist posho Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to an overwhelming majority in the election that put paid to any hope of remaining in the EU, of keeping the NHS intact, or restoring any sense of humanity to daily existence in an increasingly harsh world. It means ‘m not alone in seeing tonight as a source of solace: what better way to forget the world for a bit that with some mighty musical immersion in the best venue on the planet? The Brudenell always feels like home, and the fact Shellac keep coming back whenever they visit our sorry shores speaks volumes.

Having opened for Shellac on this UK tour, tonight sees Beige Palace back in front of a home crowd. It’s probably something of a relief following the mixed reception they’ve had. If the on-line criticism has bothered them, they’re not letting on, and good on them: they’re not instantly accessible or easy on the ear, and that’s every reason to like them, and also every reason why they’re a good fit on tonight’s bill.

Beige Palace

There’s also a certain personal pride here: having been present at their first performance back in 2016, I reported that ‘Beige Palace make sparse-sounding music that’s jarring, dissonant and hints at a clash between early Pram and No Wave angularity.’ They still do, only now, instead of playing to 25 people in a poky DIY venue on an industrial estate, they’re supporting Shellac in front of a good 300 people.

Shellac don’t piss about, and crash straight in with the thunderous rhythm section and scratchy guitars, and while they may not play any of the fan favourites (At Action Park is represented solely by ‘A Minute’ and ‘Squirrel Song’, which gets an early airing is the only song from 1000 Hurts, meaning no ‘Prayer to God’ or ‘My Black Ass’ or ‘The Admiral’), they nevertheless deliver a set that slays from beginning to end, with ‘Dude Incredible’ and ‘Wingwalker’ (with an extended narrative forming the mid-section) being obvious back-catalogue standouts. It almost goes without saying that they’re as tight as fuck, loud as fuck, and an absolute joy to watch – and the chat, when it happens, is sharp, witty and entertaining.

Shellac

‘Scrappers’, delivered alongside a long, rambling introduction that becomes the first of the evening’s interactive sessions, is one of a handful of new songs and again presents all of the best elements of the trio’s work in distilled form: a thunking, repetitive rhythm section and nagging stop/start guitar that bursts into sharding noise, and if it, ‘The Girl From Outside’ and ‘The World Series of Dick Sucking’ are representative, the next album will be an absolute blinder.

Shellac

Of course there’s no encore, and Bob Weston is plugging the new orange T-shirts he’ll be flogging from the boxes on stage next to his amp while Steve packs up afterwards. And that’s cool: encores are fake and half the time are about ego rather than anything. Yes, we want more, and we’ll always want mote. And that’s why we’ll be back next time.

Black Moth / Venus / Sky Valley Mistress – The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 6th December 2019

Posted: 8 December 2019 in Live
Tags: Black Moth, Farewell, final shows, Hard Rock, Leeds, Live Review, Sky Valley Mistress, The Brudenell Social Club, Venus

Christopher Nosnibor

Tonight was always going to combine celebration and commiseration: in the decade since their inception, Black Moth have gone from Leeds-scene hard rock revivalists to a stoner / doom colossus of an outfit at the forefront of an albeit disparate movement, with fans spread internationally.

I first caught the band at the Cockpit, playing early doors at Live at Leeds, around the time of their 2012 debut The Killing Jar. Back then , they were solid, with clear potential, but were still in development as alive act. That would change quickly, and that potential was rapidly realised, with the band landing support slots with ever-bigger headliners and the albums growing heavier and denser along the way. I felt a certain pride seeing them more than hold their own supporting The Sisters of Mercy in 2015. This was a band in bloom, a band with immense confidence and tunes to match, a band capable of conquering the world.

And they fucking should have. But, life. Harriet’s frank interview with Kerrang! on the eve of their two farewell shows puts the bands end down to life – the reality of operating a band when the members are split between two cities, and of working rehearsals and tours around day-jobs and the responsibilities of adult life. It was her call, and not one she’s taken lightly. But the fact of the matter is- as I’ve said before – if you’re not Ed Sheeran or Coldplay or whoever, you’re not going to make a wage off making music or anything creative.

You can only go on international tours on annual leave for so long. Employers will only cut you so much slack, however much of a cult following you may have. And so Black Moth’s curtain call is for perhaps the most depressing of reasons: the economics of late capitalism.

But on a more positive note, they’ve pretty much packed out the Brudenell, and have a brace of belting supports in tow – local acts who prove for any doubters that women can rock as hard as any men. Kudos to the Moth for the choice, and mega thumbs up to a brace of killer support acts.

The first, Sky Valley Mistress are strong, cranking out no-messing hard rock.

“As soon as I’ve got this hair out of my mouth, I’ll start singing.” You couldn’t call Kayley “Hell Kitten” Davies pretentious. She’s a commanding performer, confident and cool with the between song chat. It’s rare. big hair, big voice, big presence, big riffs, big tunes. But what decade is it? The drummer’s been teleported from the 70s and the guitarist is double white denim. These are visual distractions from a solid set packed with songs that are meaty and strong on groove.

Sky Valley Mistress

All-female quintet Venus pile in with a more shoegaze / indie sound driven by throbbing bass and sturdy percussion. Simultaneously crisp and dense, they chuck out choppy, short songs. And fuck, are they solid. They talk mental health, they rock hard. This is a band who get behind their beliefs and aren’t afraid to address issues and use their medium as a platform. They’re also as good as any band you’ll see around.

Venus

And Black Moth – well, they’re pure quality on every level. Detailed guitar contrasts with slugging power chords as they open with ‘Istra’, the first song from their final album, Anatomical Venus, an album that brought them to a wider audience and also served as their definitive statement. I guess if you’re going to call time on a band, it’s best to do it after your strongest album.

Everything about Black Moth that appealed at the beginning remains true, although the confidence they show in their performances now is as immense as the riffs. That isn’t to say Harriet’s turned into some egotistical rock-star type: she’s as down to earth as ever, and still air guitars her way through the breaks, and it’s clear they absolutely love doing what they do. Same as it ever was.

Black Moth

Tonight’s career-spanning at is delivered at appropriate volume. Proper headbanging down the front and halfway to the back. There’s a lot of love for this band. When they go heavy, they go HEAVY. The balloons are out for ‘Loomer’, and we’re reminded of the band’s February 2018 show in the same venue following the single’s release that prefaced the album. The atmosphere that night was jubilant, and while it may be something of a black celebration on this occasion, there’s still an overriding sense of enjoyment, and a rapport between band and audience that’s a source of joy.

Burst of metal confetti for closer and whole venue lunges and lurches exuberantly as the band power through a final encore of ‘Pigman’ and ‘Blackbird’s Fall’.

Black Moth’s departure is a sad one, but they’ve signed off on a high, bowing out at the absolute peak of their game. Respect.

Team Picture – Another, Always

Posted: 6 December 2019 in Singles and EPs
Tags: Always, Another, Indie, Leeds, New Wave, Pop, Single Review, Team Picture

Clue Records – 22nd November 2019

Christopher Nosnibor

The thing about Team Picture is that they just don’t fit. Anywhere. Stylistically, they’re a bit of this, a bit of that. A bit indie, a but pop, a bit shoegaze, a bit Krautrock. To see them performing, they don’t even seem to fit together. They’re like a satirical homage to The Village People: despite the uniform, they present as a selection of characters / caricatures with no obvious connection, separate, pulling in different directions.

And yet somehow this most disparate bunch work, and incredibly well. They’re incredibly adept at forging strong songs – which ultimately, is what being a band is about (unless it’s an avant-garde jazz band, where the objective is to make as discordant a racket in as many different tie signatures as possible). Their songs manage to represent their divergent personalities, pulling apart as much as together. And yet they work, and this latest single is no exception.

‘Another Always’ starts with space-age synths before shifting into some new-wave / indie crossover that smooshes together jerky, quirky vocals and chorus-tinged guitar to forge a sound that’s a collision of The Cure and The B52’s with a post-millennial retro sass and a certain yet oddly distinctive Leeds twist.

Earth / Helen Money – The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 13th November 2019

Posted: 15 November 2019 in Live
Tags: Drone, Earth, evolution, Folk, Helen Money. Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, Live Review

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s hard to conceive that there was a point when Earth were moribund, to the extent their existence was questionable and their re-emergence improbable. By 1996’s Pentastar, they had evolved far beyond the ambient metal drone of Earth 2, there was a palpable sense of exhaustion that wasn’t just about Dylan Carlson’s state, dominated by addiction. The turn of the millennium marked a return, for cure, but 2011’s ‘Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I’ felt like something of a landmark. It may simply be a matter of perspective, and that their touring schedule found them making regular visits to the UK, but since then, a band I never expected to see play has performed every year or so in the north of England. And they’ve never disappointed. There’s something spellbinding and hypnotic about cyclical, repetitive guitar lines played incredibly slowly.

Before doors, there are a lot of overtly middle-aged folks in the bar, and a proliferation of long, greying beards.

Helen Money, returning to the Brudenell after her support with Shellac a while back, starts bang on time and is on the money, swiftly transitioning from delicate strings to booming thunderous barrages of Sound, with dense, dark atmospheres and coarse textured abrasions grating hard to challenge the senses. But there are interludes of stealthy, almost jazz-styled, wanderings.

Helen Money

New track ‘Midnight’ is brooding, seductive, sliding slow and low. Her vascular hand and arms are magical. A swelling hum of crackling static… Then, thunderous drums and sharding distortion overload fizzing with treble explodes. The final piece, ‘Redshift’, is haunting, eerie, to begin, before the final assault, and it’s mighty and concludes a completely captivating set with am apposite finale.

There’s no pomp or ceremony with Earth. No cowboy shirts tonight, and no changes of guitar at any point during the set, which is a celebration of pure tone. They walk on stage, plug in, and Carlson announces the first track before leading in with ‘Cats on the Briar’. Carlson is looking fit and well, and trimmed facially. Everything about him, and the band as a collective, feels sharp.

Earth

Expanded to a 3-piece, they radiate so much depth: the second guitar brings immersive drone that provides a thick, rich backdrop to Carlson’s slow, deliberate lead lines built around picked notes that hang for aeons.

And the drumming… Always the drumming. Adrienne Davies is a reason alone to see Earth play live. She balances immense power and breathtaking grace to create art. Her sticks float. Time slows. Time evaporates. The songs blur into one another and memory slowly melts. And all I can do is watch the arms, the hands, the floating sticks that almost never make visible contact with the skins and the cymbals, despite hefty percussion crashing all around.

Carlson, meanwhile, seem energised, invigorated, and throws classic axe-wielding rock poses while churning chords at 40bpm, and it’s magnificent. The sustain!! Lofting his guitar as a single note rings out for an entire bar risks running into Spinal Tap territory, but in context, it doesn’t just work: it’s everything. Earth live has long been a mesmerising experience, but they’re take it to another level here and I find myself drifting in a vast ocean of sound. At some point I realise that Carlson’s guitar doesn’t actually have woodworm but is intricately etched, which I come to see as an analogue for the layered compositions.

Earth

The choppy discord of ‘The Colour of Poison’ brings a new aspect to the mellow meandering style as they lock into a solid rock groove, and they treat us to a new untitled song which follows the rock trajectory of the set. ‘Rock’ may have semi-derogatory connotations and hint at conventionality, but Earth seems to be teasing with the trappings while continuing to stubbornly eschew the standardisation of any one genre.

Earth

Earth have existed out of time and in their own space: they’ve never sounded like anyone else, and have instead been the band other acts looked to for inspiration (perhaps most famously Sunn O))), who may well have eclipsed their forebears, but simply wouldn’t exist without them), and continue to forge a singular path. There is simply no other band on the planet comparable to Earth and, incredibly, this far into their career, they seem to have reached a new peak.

Hogwash 27: Claus Poulsen // Stuart Chalmers, Eskimoomin, Two’s Company, Inhuman Resources – Wharf Chambers – 6th November 2019

Posted: 7 November 2019 in Live
Tags: Experimental, Hogwash 27, Leeds, Live

Words: Christopher Nosnibor

Pics: Chris Power

Sometimes, the everyday and the ordinary are just so difficult to navigate. Stuff that the majority of the time is just what you do becomes suddenly too much. For some, it’s going to work; others, it’s worse even than that, like leaving the house to go to the corner shop. We all have our limits, and they can change unexpectedly, and seemingly inexplicably. For me, the onset of darkness as the clocks changing hurls us into the late autumn / winter spell does it every time and the urge to hibernate or hang myself becomes stronger than the enthusiasm for going out and watching live music.

Sometimes, it’s easier to crawl out to someplace where you know you won’t be known, so it’s possible to concentrate on the music and not have to deal with conversation. But sometimes, there has to be an end to avoidance, and the only way forward is to do the thing, however hard. There’s no snapping out of it, no flicking a virtual or metaphorical switch. There is no one single means of dealing. For me, it’s about a self-created nudge. Because no amount of external nudging has any effect – although, arguably, Hogwash was a successful external nudge here.

Wharf Chambers is one of those places that doesn’t make a twitchy, lone drinker feel awkward, and the vibe is never anything but welcoming and inclusive. This matters, a lot: I don’t feel like anyone thinks I’m a weirdo or inadequate when I fumble around with change, or as I sit in a corner with a pint to read – Lee Rourke’s Vulgar Things – and do the constant phone-checking thing that’s become habitual, by candlelight while waiting for doors.

So why am I here? Well, the Facebook event suggests folk may be ‘baffled and/or enticed by’ the eclectic lineup, consisting of Claus Poulsen // Stuart Chalmers, Eskimoomin, Two’s Company, and Inhuman Resources. I’m here for the music. Also, people: much as I feel a compulsion to avoid them, there’s a comfort in knowing there will be people there that you know, who are there for the same reasons.

The latter is up first, and it’s another of the infinitely-numerous project by event organiser and master purveyor of weird random noise, Dave Procter. Playing in a Parka with the hood up, he churns out a wall of blistering electronic noise that gets louder and more brain-melting as the set progresses. Reminiscent of Whitehouse without the vocals, here’s some classic power posing happening behind the trestle table laden with gear, and it’s a quality example of contemporary power electronics, with a self-awareness that carries an ironic twist in the posturing. Oddly, I find this all a source of immense joy: I find myself relaxing, and smiling to myself. This is exactly what I came for, and this is why live music is a holistic form of therapy: it offers escape, external stimuli suggesting routes inwards to explore and also let go of things.

Inhuman Resources

Eskimoomin play warped synth pop. She plays synths and sings. He dances like Bez, wearing shorts, a Hawaiian shirt with some kind of shark design and meerkat mask or something. It’s brilliantly bizarre, visually and sonically, and as quirky as fuck, but also accessible with some pumping beats. Bewildering, baffling, a but wrong, but also a whole lot of fun. The world needs more artists who give this much effort and this little of a shit what you think of it.

Eskimoomin

Claus Poulsen and Stuart Chalmers do what I might reasonably describe – according to what I’ve tapped in onto my phone – as ‘some kind of Eastern / pan pipe percussive string-scraping shit. Bow against the side of a table. Clattering percussion gives way to trilling organ tones’. It’s immersive, although I suspect it’s the beer rather than the music that’s proving soporific. The pair work their respective segments of kit intuitively and coordinatedly, and it’ a pleasure to watch.

Claus Poulsen and Stuart Chalmers

Headliners Two’s Company deliver fractured, droning noise, and I’m way in the wash of atmosphere. Nothing seems entirely real right now, and I like it like that. I’m, primarily in the moment but if my sketchy notes are to be believed, the ‘synth guy in coat has William Bennett trappings, while guy sitting down has lounging cunt all over. Beat-heavy electro with a hard and challenging edge’. I could, and maybe should, expand on that, and attempt to convey the real, lived experience. But ultimately, you had to be there to fully experience the physical and psychological effects of their textured soundscapes in a darkened room. And being there next time is a must.

Two’s Company

Helmet – The Key Club, Leeds, 5th October 2019

Posted: 6 October 2019 in Live
Tags: 30x30x30, 5th October 2019, Helmet, Leeds, Live Review, Riffs, The Key Club, Tour

Christopher Nosnibor

Riff after riff after riff.

Celebrating their thirtieth anniversary, Helmet are playing thirty-song sets in thirty cities. It feels like an immense privilege that Leeds is one of them, and the fact it’s the 150-capacity Key Club even more so. With only ten tickets remaining for sale on the door, for a cult band who’ve only released two albums in the last decade, they’ve retained a hardcore following, not all of who, are old buggers.

With no support act, they take the stage at eight sharp, and immediately start with the riffs. Not a word at the start, nor between songs for the first half dozen at least. Instead, it’s all about the riffs.

Riff after riff after riff.

The extended freeform solos drift into the background while the rhythm section thunder on relentlessly: the floor-shaking, gut-churning bass, the rhythm guitar that blasts out concrete slabs of noise.

Riff after riff after riff.

The blunt, bludgeoning weight of thick, stop/start chunks of noise that became the defining feature of Nu-Metal are Helmet’s staple, but they did it first and did it best. Helmet were also one of the first off-the-street jeans ‘n’ T-shirt bands, and Beavis and Butthead were on the money when they observed that “That drummer looks like a regular guy,” and “If you, like, saw these guys on the street, you wouldn’t even know they were cool.” And yes, they are cool. Seriously cool. Their influence clearly extends far, far beyond their fanbase and commercial reach, which peaked in the early ‘90s. But being cool is also about pushing on, and Helmet’s achieving radio play and MTV exposure around this time was a matter of coincidental timing rather than strategized mass appeal.

There’s no messing, no posturing: Page regales us with an amusing anecdote about being rehearsing in a space next to Buck Cherry, who commented on the fact the band load their own gear, and who they heard rehearsing their between-song banter. But I never mentioned that. It’s one of only a few moments of chat we get but what’s keenly apparent is that these are nice guys, with no pretence or rock-star delusions, and with their major-label years long behind them, no industry bullshit surrounding them.

They play songs in small venues.

They play hard.

Riff after riff after riff.

Song number thirty is ‘In The Meantime’. It’s blistering. But then, so were the preceding twenty-nine songs.

And long may they continue to knock out the riffs.

Emma Ruth Rundle / Jo Quail / Dystopian Future Movies – The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 27th September 2019

Posted: 28 September 2019 in Live
Tags: Brudenell Social Club, Cello, Dystopian Future Movies, Emma Ruth Rundle, Emotive, Goth Shoegaze, Jo Quail, Leeds, Post Rock

Christopher Nosnibor

Over the course of the last eleven years, Emma Ruth Rundle has been busy, and has built a fair body of work in various forms, and her third solo album, On dark Horses has not only cemented her position with existing fans but also expanded her fan-base, resulting in tonight’s 400-plus capacity show close to a sell-out in advance.

It’s getting busy by the time Nottingham’s Dystopian Future Movies take the stage at 7:30, and on the strength of their releases to date and a strong set supporting Grave Lines at Wharf Chambers back in February, it’s not entirely surprising. The demographic spans a fair range of ages, but is characterised by long-haired gothy / hippie women and bearded hipster blokes. I swear they follow me around.

With a lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums, they’re a fairly conventional rock act, but their blend of post-rock, shoegaze and a dash of sludgy metal, they’re far from conventional musically. The set begins with an ethereal intro. The songs are defined by delicate, detailed, musicianship and spectacular crescendos, but they’re also liable to pulling back when least expected. With rolling drums and soaring vocals, ‘Countenance’ exploits the quiet / loud dynamic to the max. Their allure is not in the volume or force, but the threat, as if they’ve got a lot in reserve, simmering beneath the surface. And with grace and dynamic range, they’re a uniquely exciting act.

Dystopian Future Movies

It’s nice to see Jo Quail play a set that doesn’t start before the doors open (as was the case when she supported both Mono and Boris last year). She’s an artist who’s hard to place, but on a bill between Dystopian Future Movies and Emma Ruth Rundle, her brooding, turbulent cello works are a wonderful fit. Rapping out military tattoos and rolling thunder and sounds like nothing on earth, her mastery of her instrument is only matched by the passion with which she plays it. She opens with ‘White Salt Stag,’ and puts everything into her playing: hers is a very physical performance, which sees her channel the music through her body, while she conjures drama and otherworldly sound, layered upon layer of sound. It’s not quite going to plan for her technically with the looping, but it keeps it real and exciting. The third track of her set is ‘Reya Pavan’, the bonus track on the forthcoming Exsolve vinyl, which she’s performed (and by her admission, fucked up) only three times previously. It’s dark, spare, and brooding. She plays ‘Mandrel Cantus’ next, and it a bass throb and thrust with subsonic grooves and mewling top strings draped over an industrial rhythm. She finishes with ‘Adder Stone’, and it’s completely captivating.

Jo Quail

From the off, Emma Ruth Rundle and her band create captivating shoegaze cathedrals of sound, the likes of which have the power to evoke deep emotions. Despite being a solo artist, this is very much a band effort. The drummer looks particularly young, but they’re a tight unit. Watching the audience responses, it’s evident that for some, this is a deeply moving, spiritual experience. ‘So, Come’ hits a peak of near-transcendence. If she veers into vaguely emo territory at times, it’s actually okay. I wouldn’t normally say that, but she carries off those softer, more accessible moments with sincerity and the bursts of noise that characterise her set convey more than words ever could. Her delivery is disarmingly straightforward. She’s not big on between-song chat and mumbles a bit. And that’s okay. We’re here for the songs.

Emma Ruth Rundle

They depart – and swiftly return – in a tempest of noise to perform an encore consisting of the new single ‘You Don’t Need to Cry,’ before Emma performs ‘Real Big Sky’ solo. It’s an incredible moment, and as the lights come up, many remain rooted to the spot transfixed by the performance they’ve just witnessed. And when you see that, you know you’ve seen something special.

Therapy? – The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 23rd September 2019

Posted: 24 September 2019 in Live
Tags: Leeds, makeup set, matinee, Review, The Brudenell Social Club, Therapy?

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s been nine months since Therapy’s set at the Brudenell was halted abruptly by an altercation at the back of the venue. They promised they’d come back and finish the set, and before tonight’s show proper, they made good on that promise with a matinee that picked up where they’d left off.

So, before playing a regular evening show, they opened the doors early for those who’d had tickets for the abridged show to play the remaining twelve songs on the set for free. And there was a more than respectable turnout, and it seems a fair few had purchased tickets for the gig proper, too: almost 30 years into their career, Therapy? still inspire real devotion and enthusiasm. Sometimes I forget just how big a deal they were to me back in the early 90s, but live they remind us just how many songs – bloody brilliant songs – hey have in their catalogue, and they don’t by any means all belong to their 90s heyday.

My mate joked that with just over nine months between the set’s start and finish – during which time children alive now have gone from conception to birth – it’s the longest set he’s ever seen (although neither of us have seen Bob Dylan, and I haven’t seen any recent Cure gigs). In exchange, I tell him about the new desk I’ve bought for my office at home, at which point I start to feel like the kind of old bastard who first saw Therapy? back in March ’94 while still in 6th form. But there’s a reason fans have stuck with Therapy? even after Semi-Detached. Not only did they rediscover their form and have spent almost two decades dispatching solid albums brimming with energy, sincerity and decent tunes, but they’re as passionate, enthusiastic and enjoyable live act as you’re likely to see.

Therapy?

It did feel a little strange arriving at the Brudenell for 6pm doors and a 6:30 prompt start, with time for only one pint and no support, and it also felt a little odd to see a band launch straight into a set that had been building in the first half to a climactic second half. But the fact they came on positively bursting with energy and enthusiasm and blasted through ‘Screamager’ as if they hadn’t started cold was enough to completely blow away any awkwardness. They followed with a swift one-two of a positively throbbing ‘Teethgrinder’ and a rip-snorting ‘Potato Junky’, and this opening trio alone justifies turning out for.

Despite having dispatched ‘Turn’, ‘Opal Mantra’, and ‘Trigger Inside’ in November, they’ve an embarrassment of riches in the major tunes stakes. ‘Stories’ and ‘Nowhere’, the former of which sees Andy spontaneously try out a new pedal combo to replicate the horn section on his guitar with a pleasing degree of success, are single cut highlights, but on a par are killer back-catalogue album selections ‘Stop it You’re Killing Me’, ‘Unbeliever’, and a furious rendition of ‘Knives’.

‘Crutch’ and set closer ‘Success? Success is Survival’ stand up well against the older material and show they’ve lost none of their knack for combining hefty riffs with magnificent melodies.

But Therapy? are so much more than the music in a live setting: they could have so easily played this as an obligation fulfilment, but no: bassist Michael Keegan grins from ear to ear and pogos for the duration and they make no concession to conserving energy for the full set to follow. Cairns is so affable he’s almost cuddly with between-song chat that rangers from bantz to rants, and as it’s drummer Neil’s birthday, leads the audience through some chants of ‘drum like a motherfucker’. He signs off with a sincere call for everyone to look after one another, and it’s a heart-warming, life-affirming experience. In dark days like these, we need good people, and Therapy’s unique brand of poppunknoise. And this time, no-one got hurt.

Territorial Gobbing – Sausage Chain

Posted: 27 August 2019 in Albums
Tags: Album Review, Experimental, Leeds, Noise, Panurus Productions, Sausage Chain, Tape, Territorial Gobbing, Theo Gowans

Panurus Productions – 27th August 2019

Christopher Nosnibor

When I lived in Glasgow, I was perplexed by the use of the word ‘links’ to refer to sausages for quite some time. Being from Lincolnshire by birth, I assumed (erroneously) that they were saying ‘Lincs’, but at the same time was aware that there was a certain logic gap in my thinking. It wasn’t until after about a year I discovered that ‘links’ were actually just what anyone else would call sausages, and the term was used to differentiate these from the ‘square’ sausages, or Lorne sausages, used in breakfast baps north of the border.

I hadn’t thought about this in years: after all, I left Glasgow in September 2004, and being vegetarian, never tried any square sausage – or delicacies like deep-fried back or white pudding as served by my local chippy, which also had deep-fried pizza, Mars Bars, and Crème Eggs on the menu. But despite the fact that unlike this album, it didn’t offer deep fried cash, the title of Territorial Gobbings’ latest reminded me.

The liner notes state that ‘Sausage Chain is yet more fresh, amorphous meat drippings from the Territorial Gobbing mechanical reproduction unit. The most disappointing member of Thank gives up on music, instead smearing tape up the wall, wailing into a dictaphone all while gnawing on a skip-salvaged record player… Bodyless body horror. Idiot-savant-garde. Daft ambience. Sausage Chain tries and fails to keeps it together, unravelling and scattering across the stereo field over its anxious run until only trace sausage grease remains.’

It’s a fair summary and sets reasonable expectations for the discordant hash of sound that the album contains, its five pieces not so much compositions or even sound collages, as a semi-random assemblage tossed together to create maximum disorientation and discomfort. Assuming that’s the objective, it succeeds.

‘Machine Learning to Scowl’ is as irreverent as the title suggests, and at the same time is a mess of bleeps, crackles, fizzes, tweets, and twitters before it bleeds into the primitively-captured scrape of mic feedback and distortion that is ‘Painted Teeth’. It’s only a couple of minutes long, but it’s a howling racket of the highest order, making no pretence of structure or anything other than being a noise for the sake of being a noise.

‘Caressed to Smithereens’, with six minutes of haphazard pings and thunks provides a more than adequate build-up to the album’s feature track, the eleven-minute ‘Unusual Achievements in Human Rights’, which fizzes and crackles in a grizzling hum of sparking electrodes and swampy circuitry meltdowns.

It’s a welcome addition to the rapidly-expanding catalogues of both the prolific TG (and yes, this set definitely contains as much gristle as it does meat, and probably a fair amount of rusk and fat) and the eclectic tape label Panurus Productions – and this is reason enough, surely, to check out their York show at the Fulford Arms on Thursday…

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