Upset The Rhythm

Upset The Rhythm presents their 20th birthday party with…

LINDA SMITH & NANCY ANDREWS shared a big house in Baltimore in 1983 with a continuously revolving cast of artists and musicians. It was there the like-minded artists formed their first band, Ceramic Madonna Head, a short-lived project which included housemates Elizabeth Downing and Peggy Bitzer. By the time the lease was up, Linda and Peggy had decided to move to New York where they would form a new band called The Woods while Nancy and Elizabeth remained in Baltimore and formed a performance art band called Lambs Eat Ivy.

While playing guitar in The Woods in the mid-80’s Linda purchased her first 4-track cassette recorder and embarked on a pioneering decade of solo, DIY home recording with a series of cassettes and 7” records of smart and moody singer-songwriter bedroom pop music. This trailblazing period was recently documented on jewel-box compilation ‘Sky Girl’ and Captured Tracks’ retrospective compilation ‘Till Another Time: 1988-1996.’ During this same period Nancy pursued art, animation and filmmaking. The friends stayed in touch but hadn’t worked on a project together in nearly thirty years.

In 2020, Linda rediscovered in the back of a drawer some old tapes of Nancy’s songs she had recorded for her in the 90’s. In the process of digitizing the old recordings she was inspired to reach out and float the idea of a new collaborative recording project with her old friend. ‘A Passing Cloud’ (Grapefruit/Gertrude Records) is the fruit of their rekindled long-distance musical conversation. All the songs were composed incrementally by passing tracks back and forth between Maine and Maryland, making for some beguiling pop music that draws us in with a carefully rendered intimacy.

RATTLE are a Nottingham based duo, Rattle focus almost exclusively on drums and more drums, beneath a delicate overlay of vocal harmonies and percussive effects. Formed by Katharine Eira Brown and Theresa Wrigley, Rattle began as an experiment in crafting rich songs and melody using drums and voice alone. Their music weaves and intertwines post-punk, minimalism and experimental rock, through off-kilter rhythms, patterns and counter melodies. Rattle effortlessly blend the avant-garde with irresistible melodies and hypnotic drum beats, using rhythm and harmony to create a refreshing sound that is utterly new - a pretty rare feat these days when we're saturated with so much music. Rattle's impressive ‘Sequence’ album came out recently through Upset The Rhythm.

RUSSELL WALKER is a 43 year old resident of Hitchin, Hertfordshire who dislikes Piers Morgan's son. He writes / performs on his own as well as in various projects - his most recent releases are Soothers with Malvern Brume (Are You Before, 2023) and I Can't Remember as the Lloyd Pack (Digital Regress, 2023).

This is an 18+ event

UTR 20th birthday - Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews

Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews - A Passing Cloud

Linda Smith - It's Everytown

Russell Walker

Rattle

Linda Smith

Gigs

London

Cafe OTO

Lankum live at the Roundhouse.

The ticket price includes a £2 venue restoration levy.

This is an all-ages event (Under 16s accompanied by an adult, Under 14s accompanied and in seats).

Parallel Lines

Lankum

Lankum - The Wild Rover

Rachael Lavelle

Roundhouse

THE HOMESICK are Elias Elgersma (Vocals, Effects), Jaap van der Velde (Vocals, Effects) and Erik Woudwijk (Drums). The Homesick fuse post-punk rhythms with melodic whimsical pop into an experimental blend of great songs. The Dutch group have been around since their first EP Television from 2013 and released their debut album Youth Hunt (Subroutine) in 2017. Hailing from the backwater Frisian municipality of Dokkum, the band enjoy exploring the extremes of their music. Their albums play with this ambiguity as they incorporate dark post-punk alongside sure-fire pop earworms. Their second album The Big Exercise (SubPop) from 2020 inverted this sound, second-guessing their core chemistry as a live unit. Where the debut album incorporates vocals drenched in reverb, warped synths and distorted guitars, the Big Excercise leaves a hint of romanticism through the baroque elements such as piano, acoustic guitar, percussion and clarinet.

Shortly after the release of The Big Exercise they individually started to explore new musical directions. Guitar and bass were dropped as Elias and Jaap searched for other sounds playing keys, sample boxes and more new rhythmic instruments. “We wanted to come up with something that we can dance to”, Jaap says. “After these last two years we very much felt like this is what we need now.” The new songs are unmistakably The Homesick and at the same time like you've never heard them before. The third and self-titled album by The Homesick will be released now.

The Homesick

The Homesick - Soola

The Lexington

TARA CLERKIN TRIO are Pat Benjamin, Sunny Joe Paradisos and Tara Clerkin, three musicians involved in a number of cult Bristol bands over the years before confidently settling down in triangle formation. They are inspired by and borrow from jazz, trip hop, electronica, psychedelia & minimalism, twirling the non-pretentious strands of these threads together into a trippy green winged-cloak, adorning Arthur Russell and dripping in blue jam.

Their self-titled debut LP was released in 2020 and was a sleeper hit, coming in at 35 in the Wire's top 100 albums of the year and in Bleeps top 10. Their latest EP, ‘On The Turning Ground’, was released on World of Echo in November. Whilst their inspirations might be centreless, but the trio still possess a very obvious anchor in the form of their hometown. Bristol stands as a city of multitudes, heterogenous and vibrant in such a way as to allow it to renew and remake time and again. Tara Clerkin Trio drink from that same well, duly reflecting a rich musical heritage built on fwd-facing electronic subcultures and experimental urges. As such, ‘On The Turning Ground’ finds them subject to their own subtle internal evolution, the pervasive sense that you've caught them mid-bloom, on their way to becoming but never anything but themselves.

https://taraclerkintrio.bandcamp.com/

Tara Clerkin Trio

Night Steps

Tara Clerkin Trio - In the Room

The 100 Club

How odd it is that the first reports of the existence of HOUSE Of ALL only appeared only early this year, followed by a magnificently-received debut album and two UK tours.

Praise was immediate and ecstatic, in spite of controversy from former management of The Fall, who took offence at Martin Bramah's off-the-cuff description of the band as "part of The Fall family continuum". Despite this self-evident fact - Bramah was The Fall's original singer before switching to guitar, and with the other members (Peter Greenway, Paul Hanley, Steve Hanley and Si Wolstencroft) HOUSE Of ALL collectively spanned the entire length of The Fall's career. Controversy arose, resulting in a full Guardian article on the band months before the album's release - a scant three days after it was announced.

Their two brief tours were flawless; nearly every show sold out, and the latter tour was bolstered by "Bay City Pistols", a limited package that sold out in two weeks.

Even before the first album was released, HOUSE Of All re-entered the studio to record a still-mysterious second album, which will be debuted on the April 2024 dates.

This is an 18+ event.

House Of All

HOUSE Of ALL - Dominus Ruinea

The Dome

THE REDS, PINKS AND PURPLES is the post-indie project of Glenn Donaldson from San Francisco who releases songs like monthly postcards to a loyal following, amassing a huge catalogue of cathartic guitar pop – releasing 8 LPs over the last 5 years (on Tough Love, Slumberland). Donaldson’s hazy, melodic DIY pop captures a cinematic mood, with Donaldson referring to films like “Summer of ’42” and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. The band debuts in the UK in June 2024 as a five-piece made-up of musicians from SF's thriving indie-pop underground.

https://theredspinksandpurples.bandcamp.com/

The Reds, Pinks And Purples

Too Late for an Early Grave

The Reds, Pinks and Purples - The Town That Cursed Your Name

The Reds, Pinks & Purples

THE REDS, PINKS AND PURPLES is the post-indie project of Glenn Donaldson from San Francisco who releases songs like monthly postcards to a loyal following, amassing a huge catalogue of cathartic guitar pop – releasing 8 LPs over the last 5 years (on Tough Love, Slumberland). Donaldson’s hazy, melodic DIY pop captures a cinematic mood, with Donaldson referring to films like “Summer of ’42” and the influence of the classic 4AD catalogue of the 1990s. This style informs much of Donaldson’s prior and current ventures of course (The Ivytree, Vacant Gardens, and a dozen projects in between) but now The Reds, Pinks & Purples have taken the mantle, embracing this instinct for instrumental or dreamier modes of pop songwriting. The band debuts in the UK in June 2024 as a five-piece made-up of musicians from SF's thriving indie-pop underground.

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