Upset The Rhythm

RICHARD DAWSON has drawn so many long drafts from the whirlpools of Elemental North Eastern Archetypes, he may now be one himself. Fearless in his research and willingness to follow his inspiration, Dawson has created an impressive catalogue of music and storytelling steeped in both ancient myths and contemporary dread. A fog of sickness, trauma and mute inevitability inhabits his records and is often expressed in the havoc with which Dawson’s hands produce sounds from his long-suffering guitar, an instrument as bruised, individual and indefatigable as its owner.

Dawson’s forthcoming new album ‘End of the Middle’ (out Feb 14th through Weird World) is intricate, evocative, stripped-back, tactile and almost has the transportive ability to put you in the places and scenarios it describes. The album focuses around a family unit. “It zooms in quite close-up to try and explore a typical middle class English family home,” Dawson says. “We're listening to the stories of people from three or four generations of perhaps the same family. But really, it’s about how we break certain cycles. I think the family is a useful metaphor to examine how things are passed on generationally.”

The title of the new album End of the Middle is a suitably slippery contradiction, one that invites multiple interpretations: Middle-aging? Middle-class? The middle-point of Dawson's career? The centre of a record? Centrism in general? Polarisation? The possibility of having a balanced discussion about anything? Stuck in the middle with you? Middle England? Decide for yourself on February 14th 2025.

https://richarddawson.net/

This is an 18+ event

Richard Dawson

Richard Dawson - Soldier

Richard Dawson - Polytunnel

Gigs

London

The Ivy House

NIGHTSHIFT are a Glasgow music collective whose new album ‘Homosapien’ just came out on Chicago’s Trouble In Mind Records. Notably, the band has lost some members, gained a new member & shuffled some roles; former drummer Chris White (Spinning Coin) is now on guitar. His distinctive playing delivers a countrified energy that is central to the album, leading the song structures into more succinct and colorful places, matching the upbeat and playful nature the band has always drawn strength from, only more so now under his stylish approach. Primary vocalist & keyboardist Eothen Stearn’s lyrical gifts illuminate the group’s output with an optimistic urgency that is unmatched. On ‘Homosapien’ she wears her heart on her sleeve, but even in the song’s darkest moments, the words create a sense of hope and potential.

https://nightshiftgroup.bandcamp.com

MARY CURRIE & ROBERT SOTELO have a forthcoming 7” EP coming out on Upset The Rhythm this October entitled ‘Dream Songs’. Introduced via a mutual friend, Robert Sotelo approached Mary Currie (Flaming Tunes/Officer!) about collaborating on four songs he was constructing with Glasgow based producer/sound guru Joe Howe. Performing live with a set-up that will reconfigure these four compositions into a minimalist bass, drum machine and keys dynamic the duo (and band) will also look at recreating some cuts from the Flaming Tunes era also, focusing quite heavily on a anything could happen approach.

https://robertsotelo.bandcamp.com/

ANNELIES MONSERÉ has been playing music solo since 2000. Initially the music was piano-based and mostly instrumental. Once she ‘discovered’ her voice, vocals became a main focus. The early songs had very simple structures and melodies, and the words were sparse and introvert. Her debut album ‘Helder’ (released by BlueSanct) was described as “a delicate album, complete with beautiful cracks and loads of tape-hiss.” Recorded at home in Gent between 2016 and 2023, Annelies new album ‘I Sigh, I Resign’ (Horn of Plenty) retains the intimacy of previous LP ‘Mares’ with it’s close-mic’d keyboards and vocals that capture every breath. Folk and early music are at the core of her sound but the palette of piano, organ, bass guitar, cello, synth and drum machine make it very much a document of the here and now.

https://anneliesmonsere.bandcamp.com/

Nightshift + Mary Currie & Robert Sotelo + Annelies Monseré

Nightshift - Phone

Annelies Monseré

Mary Currie

Nightshift

The Lexington

TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD are a Welsh-language gothic rock power-coven. Conjured from the experimental underground of darkest Leeds, the group channels songs of bog bodies, flickering landscapes and queer enchantment for dual-zither, bass and electronic drums. Tristwch y Fenywod (The Sadness of Women) are Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth (Guttersnipe, Petronn Sphene), Leila Lygad (Hawthonn) and Sidni Sarffwraig (Slaylor Moon, The Courtneys). Formed in 2022, the music sounds like it could have been excavated from a haul of mouldering reel-to-reel tapes from the early 80s – like some recently rediscovered unholy grail of edgy, atmospheric, occult feminist goth. The dual-zither which leads their music is Gwretsien’s innovation, giving them a unique Celtic darkwave sound, but comparisons have also been drawn with The Cure circa “Pornography” and early Virgin Prunes. Their first record will be released this summer by Night School Records.

https://night-school.bandcamp.com/album/tristwch-y-fenywod

TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD

Tristwch Y Fenywod - Llwydwyrdd

St Pancras Old Church

TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD are a Welsh-language dreamy, gothic rock power-trio. Conjured from the experimental underground of Leeds, the group channels songs of bog bodies, flickering landscapes and queer enchantment for dual-zither, bass and electronic drums. Tristwch y Fenywod (The Sadness of Women) are Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth (Guttersnipe, Petronn Sphene), Leila Lygad (Hawthonn) and Sidni Sarffwraig (Slaylor Moon, The Courtneys). Formed in 2022, the music sounds like it could have been excavated from a haul of mouldering reel-to-reel tapes from the early 80s – like some recently rediscovered unholy grail of edgy, atmospheric feminist goth. The dual-zither which leads their music is Gwretsien’s innovation, giving them a unique Celtic darkwave sound, but comparisons have also been drawn with The Cure and early Virgin Prunes. Their first record will be released this summer by Night School Records.

Tristwch Y Fenywod - Ferch Gyda’r Llygaiud Du

This event will take place in EartH Theatre.

JAKE XERXES FUSSELL is a singer, guitarist and folk music interpreter who has distinguished himself as one of his generation's preeminent interpreters of traditional (and not so traditional) "folk" songs, a practice which he approaches with a refreshingly unfussy lack of nostalgia. By recontextualizing ancient vernacular songs and sources of the American South, he allows them to breathe and speak for themselves and for himself; he alternately inhabits them and allows them to inhabit him. In all his work, Fussell humanises his material with his own curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways.

On his latest album, When I’m Called—his first LP for Fat Possum, and his first as a parent - Fussell returns to a well of music that holds lifelong sentimental meaning, loosely contemplating the passage of time and the procession of life’s unexpected offerings. The album was produced by James Elkington and mixed by Tucker Martine. In addition to Elkington, it features the playing of Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station) and Joe Westerlund (Bon Iver, Califone). Blake Mills contributes guitars on several tracks. Joan Shelley and Robin Holcomb provide backing vocals.

https://www.jakexerxesfussell.com/

JENNIFER CASTLE is a Canadian songwriter, musician, and poet. ‘Camelot’ (Paradise of Bachelors), Jennifer Castle’s extraordinary, moving 2024 chronicle of the artist in early middle age, charts a realer, more rooted, and more metaphorical place than the fabled Camelot of the Early Middle Ages (or its myriad depictions), but it too is a space more psychic than physical. In Castle’s Camelot, the fantastic interpenetrates the mundane, and the Grail, if there is one, distills everyday experience into art and art into faith, subliming terrestrial concerns into sublime celestial prayers to Mother Nature, and to the unfolding process of perfecting imperfection in one’s own nature. Co-produced by Jennifer and longtime collaborator Jeff McMurrich, her seventh record is at once her most monumental and unguarded to date, demonstrating a mastery of rendering her verse and melodies alike with crisply poignant economy. For all their pointedly plainspoken lyrical detail and exhilarating full-band musical flourishes, these songs sound inevitable, eternal as morning devotions.

https://www.jennifercastlemusic.com/music

This is a 16+ event. Each under 18 must be accompanied by a responsible adult who is over 21 (1:1 ratio). In order to verify your age, ID may be requested. For this reason, we advise that all customers bring valid ID. For further information see Age and ID in FAQ’s. Right of admission reserved.

EartH

JAKE XERXES FUSSELL + JENNIFER CASTLE

Jake Xerxes Fussell - Three Ravens

Jake Xerxes Fussell - Cuckoo!

Jennifer Castle

Jake Xerxes Fussell

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE have built a prolific and diverse body of work over the last 20+ years. Ben Chasny's project is an experimental amalgam of new folk, drone music, percussion and strange textures, with Chasny delivering an outpouring of eclectic releases in the early 2000s for various small labels before finding a longstanding home on Drag City. In 2003, Chasny began an association with Comets on Fire, which led to him becoming a full-time touring and recording member of the band. After recording and touring extensively with Comets on Fire in 2004, Chasny returned to the studio and issued the moving and beautiful School of the Flower on Drag City in January of 2005. Sun Awakens and Shelter from the Ash arrived in 2006 and 2007. After touring and a break in 2008, Six Organs began what would become a prolific return to force, releasing a further 18 astonishing records up to the current time. First was the release of the sonically expansive -- and very electric -- Luminous Night, followed by the double-disc retrospective RTZ, both of which appeared on Drag City. Chasny also plays in 200 Years alongside Elisa Ambrogio (of Magik Markers), with Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards) in the project New Bums, and is also a member of tightly-wound improv unit Rangda, accompanied by Sir Richard Bishop and Chris Corsano.

Chasny more recently developed a card-based creative system called a Hexadic for making music and released several related albums before resuming his primary project with new work like 2021's The Veiled Sea and the 2024 Shackleton collaboration Jinxed by Being. This year Six Organs also released a fully solo album Time Is Glass, which consists of haunted, unsettled rural folk sounds. With Time is Glass, Six Organs of Admittance is captured once again in the intricate tangle of the fretboards, soaring in open skies above. Like lens flare cutting through the speakers; spider-webs cracking the windshield that holds back all the onrushing reality. Blowing the dust away, cutting a new path for cognition.

Six Organs Of Admittance

Six Organs Of Admittance - The Mission

Six Organs of Admittance - The Mission

Six Organs of Admittance

Metronome London

CLEANERS FROM VENUS (Martin Newell joined by a live band) will be performing next spring in London on St Georges day no less. The group will be performing some classic Cleaners songs. Martin will be on guitar and piano - and talking. The band have drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, it will be special!

Martin Newell is a purveyor of ingenious pop music. His music is refracted from late 60s rock only shot through with invention from the rough-and-ready explosion of DIY tape releases in 80s Britain. As a songwriter, he’s right up there with Syd Barrett and Ray Davies, capturing a peculiar Englishness that’s very much his own.

Martin started his career in music aged 19 when he joined an Essex glam-rock band called The Mighty Plod as a singer and gigged in rough clubs, pubs and colleges for the next two years. In his early twenties he joined a hard rock/prog band from Ipswich called Gypp and gigged in the UK as well as touring northern Germany several times. In 1979, he won his first record contract and shortly afterwards his first single ‘Young Jobless / Sylvie In Toytown’ was released, first on an indie label and then with Liberty Records. In the 1980s he formed the anarchic and wonderfully offbeat Cleaners From Venus, who after much defiance of music biz convention, signed to a London record company and began making proper records which were well reviewed and well-received. He began co-writing songs with Captain Sensible in 1986, a relationship which endures to some extent to this day. In 1989 he and his friend Nelson, now of New Model Army formed The Brotherhood of Lizards, were signed to make an album and proceeded to promote it, touring the record by bicycle. This led to many TV appearances and some notoriety and amusement in the media. In 1993, with XTC's Andy Partridge in the producer's chair Martin made what was to become his most successful album ‘The Greatest Living Englishman’, hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as a rock classic. Over the last ten years Martin has continued to release exhilarating albums under his own name and as Cleaners from Venus, most recently a winsome new Cleaners album called ‘K7’ was released on CD and cassette.

A highly-entertaining live act, Martin Newell performs infrequently, refusing nowadays to tour at all.  He has been the subject of  a highly-praised documentary film Upstairs Planet (2019) which enjoyed premieres both in London and in New York. A second documentary The Jangling Man, the director James Sharp’s intimate portrait of  Newell’s life and work,  premiered in London and Los Angeles in October 2022. http://www.martinnewell.co.uk/ 

THE GARDENERS are a jangle-pop inspired indie rock band hailing from London and Southend On Sea. Check out their sublime new single ‘Time to Breathe’ / ‘Sunlight’

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLt2rWh6oMBfG9GQvJd_aHA

Bush Hall

Cleaners From Venus (Martin Newell + live band) + The Gardeners

The Cleaners From Venus - Only a Shadow

The Gardeners

Cleaners From Venus

CLEANERS FROM VENUS (Martin Newell joined by a live band) will be performing next spring in London. The group will be performing some classic Cleaners songs. Martin will be on guitar and piano - and talking. The band have drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, it will be special!

Martin Newell is a purveyor of ingenious pop music. His music is refracted from late 60s rock only shot through with invention from the rough-and-ready explosion of DIY tape releases in 80s Britain. As a songwriter, he’s right up there with Syd Barrett and Ray Davies, capturing a peculiar Englishness that’s very much his own.

Martin started his career in music aged 19 when he joined an Essex glam-rock band called The Mighty Plod as a singer and gigged in rough clubs, pubs and colleges for the next two years. In his early twenties he joined a hard rock/prog band from Ipswich called Gypp and gigged in the UK as well as touring northern Germany several times. In 1979, he won his first record contract and shortly afterwards his first single ‘Young Jobless / Sylvie In Toytown’ was released, first on an indie label and then with Liberty Records. In the 1980s he formed the anarchic and wonderfully offbeat Cleaners From Venus, who after much defiance of music biz convention, signed to a London record company and began making proper records which were well reviewed and well-received. He began co-writing songs with Captain Sensible in 1986, a relationship which endures to some extent to this day. In 1989 he and his friend Nelson, now of New Model Army formed The Brotherhood of Lizards, were signed to make an album and proceeded to promote it, touring the record by bicycle. This led to many TV appearances and some notoriety and amusement in the media. In 1993, with XTC's Andy Partridge in the producer's chair Martin made what was to become his most successful album ‘The Greatest Living Englishman’, hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as a rock classic. Over the last ten years Martin has continued to release exhilarating albums under his own name and as Cleaners from Venus, most recently a winsome new Cleaners album called ‘K7’ was released on CD and cassette.

A highly-entertaining live act, Martin Newell performs infrequently, refusing nowadays to tour at all.  He has been the subject of  a highly-praised documentary film Upstairs Planet (2019) which enjoyed premieres both in London and in New York. A second documentary The Jangling Man, the director James Sharp’s intimate portrait of  Newell’s life and work,  premiered in London and Los Angeles in October 2022. https://www.cleanersfromvenus.com/

THE GARDENERS are a jangle-pop inspired indie rock band hailing from London and Southend On Sea. Check out their sublime new single ‘Time to Breathe’ / ‘Sunlight’.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLt2rWh6oMBfG9GQvJd_aHA

The Cleaners From Venus - The Jangling Man

The Cleaners From Venus

Martin Newell

See Richard Dawson live on our stage, presented by Upset The Rhythm!

RICHARD DAWSON has drawn so many long drafts from the whirlpools of Elemental North Eastern Archetypes, he may now be one himself. Fearless in his research and willingness to follow his inspiration, Dawson has created an impressive catalogue of music and storytelling steeped in both ancient myths and contemporary dread. A fog of sickness, trauma and mute inevitability inhabits his records and is often expressed in the havoc with which Dawson’s hands produce sounds from his long-suffering guitar, an instrument as bruised, individual and indefatigable as its owner.

Dawson’s forthcoming new album ‘End of the Middle’ (out Feb 14th through Weird World) is intricate, evocative, stripped-back, tactile and almost has the transportive ability to put you in the places and scenarios it describes. The album focuses around a family unit. “It zooms in quite close-up to try and explore a typical middle class English family home,” Dawson says. “We're listening to the stories of people from three or four generations of perhaps the same family. But really, it’s about how we break certain cycles. I think the family is a useful metaphor to examine how things are passed on generationally.”

The title of the new album End of the Middle is a suitably slippery contradiction, one that invites multiple interpretations: Middle-aging? Middle-class? The middle-point of Dawson's career? The centre of a record? Centrism in general? Polarisation? The possibility of having a balanced discussion about anything? Stuck in the middle with you? Middle England? Decide for yourself at this concert in the intimate setting of The Clapham Grand, tickets are going to fly!

\*\*Important information:  
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This is an 14+ event (under 18s to be accompanied by a 21 year old, 2 under 18s per 21+ adult)

The Clapham Grand

Upset The Rhythm presents... Rich(ard) Dawson

Jogging

party

Party

NAP EYES still bring to mind the bucolic ennui of the Silver Jews and Daniel Johnston’s jittery naïveté, but the sheen and maturity they boast lends a wide-angle appeal. Nap Eyes’ metamorphic fifth long-player collects a cache of nine fascinating songs recorded over the four years since their last album. ‘The Neon Gate’ reveals classic touchstones (the uneasy interplay of physics and philosophy, perambulatory meditations, self-interrogating soliloquies, apertures of surreality, video games), but also evidence of divergent impulses toward nonlinear abstraction and longform improvisational composition (resulting in their most discursive, deconstructed, and deliquescent songs to date) and narrative and lyric formality, imparting the sense that Nap Eyes have transmuted, as has their understanding of what a song is, what it can do, where it might go.

 https://napeyes.bandcamp.com/

Nap Eyes

Nap Eyes - Mark Zuckerberg

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