East End Review

Category: MUSIC

Could this be the most loved up club in East London?

The state that they are in… revellers at How Does it Feel to Be Loved? Photograph: Ian Watson

If you’re wondering if you’d fit in at How Does It Feel To Be Loved? ask yourself a question: do you like Belle and Sebastian? This, says Ian Watson, is the band that lies at heart of HDIF.

There are other ways you might classify the archetypal HDIF punter though: “My favourite ever description,” says Watson, “was from the head of security at The Phoenix in central London, where we ran the club for nine years. One evening he said: ‘I’ve finally worked your night out – it’s a disco for the computer club’.”

Belle and Sebastian aside, at any given HDIF you’re likely to be plied with juggernaut indiepop hits like ‘This Charming Man’ to lesser-known-but-nonetheless-worshipped anthems such as the Magnetic Fields’ twee romp ‘The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side’.

“If you’ve ever wanted to go to a club where those songs are joyously received as the classics that they are”, says Watson, “then here we are”.
A music journalist from the late eighties to 2005, Watson wrote for the likes of Melody Maker and NME, simultaneously forging a club called Smashed along with Steve Lamacq, and Simon Williams of Fierce Panda.

Watson’s credentials also helped him secure a roster of indie ‘celeb’ DJs for HDIF when it was born in 2002, at The Buffalo Bar in Highbury. “I wrote a lot about the bands we play at HDIF,” he says, “and was one of the first people to champion Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Hefner, and so on, which made it easy when I started the club because I just asked the bands I used to write about if they’d like to DJ, and they all said yes.”

Indeed, the first night at The Shacklewell – in January this year – was graced by David Gedge from The Wedding Present. Watson’s favourite HDIF guest slot though was the first time Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners DJed in Brixton: “He didn’t just ask what kind of music was popular at the night,” says Ian, “he wanted to know what people wore, who they were, what the atmosphere was like at the night, everything. And he sang! We set up a mic for him, and he sang over certain songs.
“As you’d imagine, the response was huge – everyone clapping along and cheering.”

HDIF regulars Franic Rozycki and David Tattersall from The Wave Pictures

But it’s not all been a picnic. HDIF, it would appear, is cursed by the gentrification of its venues; The Buffalo along with two of the club’s Brixton venues – The Canterbury Arms and The Grosvenor – have recently been closed down to become luxury flats. Something, says Watson, has got to be done.

“This club is the kind of stuff we need in this city, it’s what’s made London famous the world over – our adventurous, groundbreaking cultural life. If you don’t have small venues supporting new clubs and bands, there soon won’t be anything interesting or fun to do in London.”

The Shacklewell is – you’d hope – under less immediate threat from drooling developers. But isn’t the venue a bit hip for a club that’s used having elderly punters round one side of the pub, supping lager whilst flicking through the sports section?

Not so, says Ian. The Shacklewell nights, he claims, are for Dalston people who want something different. “In fact,” he says, “we’ve had people say how delighted they are we’ve come to Dalston as they’re sick of the regular indie nights and wanted something a bit more hardcore.

“If me playing The Field Mice and Jens Lekman counts as hardcore, then I’m happy to help out!”

The unassuming nature of the club – no fancy lighting, no dress code, no likely lads prowling around the dance floor – is second only to the music, whether spun off vinyl or CDs excitedly pulled from plastics sleeves.

Old school himself, when asked if the concept of rare vinyl is dying out, Watson is taken aback: “What? You’re joking! Songs may have been released on repros or bootlegs, but they hardly compare to the originals, some of which are like the Holy Grail.

“A copy of ‘Love Finds A Way’ by Margaret Little surfaced a few years ago which had a chip in it, so you couldn’t play the first few seconds of the song, and that still went for thousands. Insanity!

“The most I’ve spent on a seven inch single was £130 for ‘Do It’ by Pat Powdrill. My favourite northern soul single of all time and worth every penny!”

You can see Ian and guest DJs spin ‘Do It’ and other hits for far less than £130, at regular nights at The Shacklewell Arms, and other venues across London. Visit howdoesitfeel.co.uk for more information.

October 20, 2015
Beirut – gig review: ‘meeting up with an old friend’

Bold as brass… Beirut get their instruments out at St John at Hackney. Photograph: Russell Parton

It’s been four years since Beirut last released an album; in which time I’d more or less forgotten about the group that made Balkan folk cool about a decade ago.

So watching the band at St John at Hackney, a venue tailor-made for expansive harmonies and intricate brass, was like meeting up with an old friend.

Fortunately, to push the analogy further, this old friend hadn’t changed all that much.

Treated to a slew of songs off new album NoNoNo, most had all the oomph and yearning beauty of old, the electric piano-led ‘Perth’ and heavily percussive ‘Gibraltar’ slipping in seamlessly alongside old favourites ‘Nantes’ and ‘Santa Fe’.

Trumpets blared on ‘The Gulag Orkestar’, undiminished after so long in the repertoire, whilst ‘Postcards from Italy’ (the zippy ukulele one) was just the right side of twee.

Three brass players spread across the front of the stage, proving a sight and sound for sore senses when going for it in unison. But then the next moment the trio became sweet harmony singers, offering up vocal parts worthy of Fleet Foxes.

In the middle of it all, of course, was Zach Condon, this enigmatic American who has forged a lasting career through total immersion in Eastern European folk.

Keyboards, ukulele, keyboard and (of course) trumpet, he plays them all, and in his own way, his solos immersed in Balkan scales whilst flat beats act like a marching elephant.

At one point, whilst getting the keyboard ready between songs, Condon tells us, in a rare instance of ‘patter’, that the previous night a cable had come loose mid-song, cutting out the instrument completely. It was hardly the anxiety of a rock ‘n‘ roller, though it was an insight into the perfectionism that every song at least equal to its recorded version.

Later we learned it was the band’s last night in Europe. Could I detect relief in their voices and body language? Perhaps, and there were few other attempts to connect with the audience, save the dutiful expressions of thanks at appropriate times. These, however, were quibbles that paled in the face of such original song-writing and technical virtuosity.

October 14, 2015
Acoustic Sundays are ‘invigorating the community’ with sweet music

Unplugged guitar picking … Acoustic Sundays

When I first moved to Hackney, I stumbled across an event in a crypt on a Sunday afternoon. It isn’t as creepy as it sounds. In fact, what I found there filled me with a slightly overwhelming sense of warm joy and joyful warmth. If that sounds like hyperbole, I can’t really admit that it is.

Acoustic Sundays are a bit like church services, but secular, chatty and fun – and with optional gin. Every month, a smorgasbord of up-and-coming musicians perform to an eclectic, friendly audience, fuelled by food and drink from local businesses.

The events are organised by SoundAdviceUK, a Hackney-based organisation that describes itself as “a music and media community that supports live music at no cost to the musicians”.

This Sunday’s line-up includes street musicians The Debt Collective, South London guitar band Eastern Barbers, the Laura Marling-inspired Lucy Evans and Diligent Indolent, a singer-songwriter who plays, in his words, “metal-inspired acoustic janglings”. The music starts at 2.30pm with an open mic session, with booked acts starting at 3.30pm until 8pm.

SoundAdviceUK is staffed by volunteers and unfunded, so all acts perform out of the goodness of their hearts but are rewarded by a professionally edited video of their performance.

The event is about “invigorating communities”, says Dominic Kasteel, co-director of Individio Media, the production company that runs SoundAdviceUK. Like most of us, Kasteel believes “happy communities are important” and says Acoustic Sundays aims to create an atmosphere “akin to a joyous Sunday afternoon in a rustic, Mediterranean-esque village square”.

Acoustic Sunday Circus is on Sunday 4th October 2015 from 2–8pm at St Peter’s Crypt, Northchurch Terrace, De Beauvoir, Hackney, N1 4DA. Entry is free.

October 2, 2015
Album review: Ultimate Painting – Green Lanes

Jack Cooper and James Hoare of Ultimate Painting

Green Lanes is a bustling stronghold for London’s Turkish, Kurdish, Greek and Cypriot communities, where you can find everything from wedding dresses to exotic jewellery and late night shish kebabs.

So on learning it was also the title of a new album by East London duo Ultimate Painting, I was hoping for something similarly rough-around-the-edges and eclectic. But Green Lanes the record owes a little more to the songwriting of Pavement, The Velvet Underground and The Beatles than to anything on the 6.3-mile stretch between Newington Green and Winchmore Hill.

Band members Jack Cooper and James Hoare recorded the album in the latter’s analogue home studio off Green Lanes, with the result something that could have been made at any time during the past 50 years.

Opener ‘Kodiak’ sets the tone with a melodic guitar riff that snakes around wistful vocals, and a dreamy, harmonised chorus that repeats enough times to force its way into your skull whether you like it or not. ‘Sweet Chris’ follows a similar pattern, with a straightforward melody and harmonies and a simple song structure.

Quickly, you realise there’s nothing massively original going on here, though the vocal melodies are beguiling and there’s some stellar, understated guitar work.

During the lolloping ‘(I’ve got the) Sanctioned Blues’, there’s a name-check for London Fields, but the lyrics err more towards the ethereal than tangible narratives, with ‘Woken by Noises’, a spoken blues romp reminiscent of ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’ but for insomniacs, one notable exception.

These are well-crafted songs that sound nice, and there’s little to suggest that Ultimate Painting have any greater musical ambition for the album than that. It’s the musical equivalent of comfort food – a Spaghetti Bolognese perhaps – something delicious when done well but not always a challenge for the taste buds.

Green Lanes by Ultimate Painting is published by Trouble in Mind Records
ultimatepainting.tumblr.com

September 21, 2015
Great Ex-pectations at Oslo

The Ex: performing at Oslo on 19 August

There aren’t too many acts out there that can say they brought punk to Ethiopia. That is, however, one of the more colourful entries in Dutch group The Ex’s pretty darn colourful CV.

But just because you bring it, doesn’t mean anyone actually wants it. “No one had ever heard of punk; they’d heard of hip hop and jazz, but none of them knew our type of music,” recalls guitarist Andy Moor, originally of these shores. “They found it quite amusing – there was a lot of laughing.”

In the interests of balance, it is worth pointing out that punk is something of a misnomer. Sure, The Ex started out in 1979 (of course), fitting in nicely with the likes of Gang of Four, The Slits and Birthday Party.

But when Moor joined in early 1990s, bringing with him a love of African and Eastern European music, the band were set on a more experimental course. Moor identifies meeting and collaborating with American cellist Tom Cora as a real turning point, and soon The Ex found themselves invited to play at jazz festivals.

“The Ex grew out of the punk scene, but mutated into its own thing. It’s hard to define, but we don’t have to!” (Attempts by others range from anarcho-punk to ethno-punk to jazz punk.)

Many collaborations have followed, some with popular acts – the likes of Sonic Youth and Tortoise – others with less well-known jazz artists (depending on who you ask) such as Han Bennink or current collaborator, saxophonist Ken Vandermark.

It is these collaborations, Moor explains, in combination with the band’s own (untrained) spontaneity that drives their musical direction. “We don’t want to have a jam with every musician in the world; we’ll just hear a sound that appeals to us. They don’t even have to be great players.”

His favourite joint project is the work the band did with legendary Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. “It was his idea – he saw us playing after we’d invited him to Amsterdam to play with the Instant Composers’ Pool (ICP). He came to us after, and said, ‘I want The Ex to be my band.’ We started rehearsing with him – none of us could speak Amharic, he couldn’t speak English, so we just communicated with hand signals, music, smiling, laughing. Somehow it worked – we were playing his pieces, songs he’s been playing for 40 years. That was my favourite maybe because it was so unlikely.”

One of the reasons The Ex can enjoy such musical freedom is their refusal to get involved with the trappings of the music industry – they have never had anything to do with a label or any type of management (now that’s pretty punk).

“I think the music industry has nothing to do with music. There’s great music that comes out of it, but the shit you have to deal with … we decided we’ll do it ourselves.”

It’s a fairly gruelling approach, Moor admits, which means they have to tour to live, and one which also means, he admits, they aren’t as well known as they might be (except, apparently, in France).

This might be read also as a political gesture as well as an artistic one – and indeed, the guitarist happily admits The Ex are a political band: “You sing about love, you sing about football, or you sing about your beliefs – we get frustrated, we see lot of shit happening around us – we manage to release a lot of that anger, but there’s also positive energy too. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of music – we want to make music we’ve never heard before, and music that we love. It’s simple.”

The Ex perform at Oslo, Hackney Central on 19 August 2015

August 3, 2015
Immersive classical music is a feast for all the senses

Rehearsals for the Sensory Score. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

What colour is music? And what does music taste like? BittterSuite attempts to answer these questions by creating immersive classical music performances that utilise all the senses.

It started out when musician Stephanie Singer was passing through Brixton tube station on her way to work, and could hear classical music being piped out of the station’s PA system. When she asked a member of staff, she was told it was to keep the passengers calm.

Singer went away resolved to challenge people’s perceptions of classical music and to make them listen to it more actively.

Her idea was informed by Singer’s fascination for graphic notation and her research into syneasthesia – where two or more of the five senses usually experienced separately are involuntarily joined together. “But it is more about cross-modal perceptions and putting an emphasis on one of our senses at a time in a unified sensory experience,” she explains.

This month, BitterSuite is teaming up with emerging composer Tanya Auclair for a blindfolded and immersive concert at Rich Mix called The Sensory Score. Performers interpret the music and convey it to the audience by stimulating their senses.

There will be bespoke tastes by gourmet chef Adam Thomason, perfumes by Sarah McCartney and a tactile experience choreographed by BitterSuite.

“I felt like a child being cuddled,” says one audience member at BitterSuite’s performance of Debussy’s ‘String Quartet in G’.

For composer Auclair, the idea of letting Singer and the performers have the freedom to interpret her music however they liked “felt like a real gift”.

Blindfolding the audience is essential to the experience says Singer. “Everybody relies on their sight. That is real. But if you take it away it gives you more room to play.”

The blindfolds mean audience members are more likely to let their imaginations free, explains Auclair, as there no visual distractions. It makes them hypersensitive to the all other senses too, including touch, taste and smell.

The relationship between the 30 performers and 30 audience members is very intimate, with each person’s experience different. Singer says that as a performer you can “feel the person straight away and can tailor it accordingly”, building a sense of trust with them.

She recalls being told by one audience member that it was the first time he had been touched like that in seven years.

“He was very emotional,” she says.

The Sensory Score is at Rich Mix, 35–47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA on 31 July
richmix.org.uk

July 19, 2015
Field Day 2015 – review: festival fun under East London skies

Patti Smith at Field Day. Photograph: Carolina Faruolo

Tights were joyfully stripped from sun-starved legs, sleeves rolled up and dungarees donned as a week-long smudgy cloud hanging over East London made way for glorious blue sky to welcome Field Day to Victoria Park.

Acoustic treats greeted punters as they flowed into the festival to the pacey parp of trumpets and trombones from local lads Hackney Colliery Band, kicking things off on the main stage. They were later followed by father and son duo Toumani and Sidiki Diabaté from Mali, playing the kora – a traditional West African instrument.

Glamorous hordes swanned by as a couple lay face down on the grass near the stage, their cheeks pressed against a cling-wrapped copy of Saturday’s Guardian, the sound of the world’s best harp players the perfect lullaby for a quick power-nap.

So far, so sedate. But as the sun began to set as dancing feet tossed dust into the air. Some reckless rapping from teenage hip-hop trio RatKing, who have been touring with Run the Jewels higher up on the Field day bill, got bodies shifting on the i-D Mix stage.

Ratking (not to be confused with Rat Boy, another Field Day act). Photograph: Ella Jessel

Sneaking under the awnings of the Shacklewell Arms tent came the bewitching vocals of Tei Shi, moniker of New York-based but Bogota-begot singer/songwriter Valerie Teicher. Her atmospheric electronic R&B left the crowd shouting for more.

But as with previous years, bigger acts seemed to struggle with sound. In the Crack tent, Chet Faker could hardly be heard, though the crowd seemed more than happy to sing blithely along to ‘No Diggedy’ all the same.

Punters crammed the main outdoor stage eager to hear Caribou – the perfect choice for the headline slot. But the sound on the Eat Your Own Ears stage was also weak. “I feel like I’m watching this on TV”, one chap said to his friend, staring glumly up at the video screens beaming images of crowd-surfers and girls hoisted on shoulders.

Sunday

If Saturday night was all right for partying, then Field Day Sunday put music firmly back in focus. A more seasoned festival crowd gathered to see the likes of Patti Smith, Ride and Mac Demarco on the main stage, with the weather gods once again looking kindly on proceedings.

Feeling disorientated in your local park by the array of tents, stalls and stages is a strange sensation at first, though wandering between them all to discover new acts whilst grazing on some of the stellar street food offerings is no bad thing.

Gulf were an early find, a psychedelic guitar-pop group from Liverpool playing to a modest crowd in the Moth Club tent. For a new band, festivals are like a shop window, a place to find new fans, and Gulf’s lilting, melancholic melodies and full-throttle guitars are sure to have won them friends.

Walking between stages it was surprisingly easy to be distracted by the sight of adults sack-racing, or in the words of the bawdy announcer, showing “athletic prowess in the sack”. Silly but actually rather fun, the ‘Village Mentality’ area is an enduring feature of Field Day that makes it stand out from its festival brethren.

Napping: A couple snooze while revellers flit between the bands. Photograph: Ella Jessel

Packing out the Verity tent were Leopold and His Fiction, who wowed the afternoon crowd with a high tempo set of vintage rock, complete with singing drummer. “This song is about Detroit,” declared frontman Daniel James, the crowd roaring their approval. “Has anyone ever been to Detroit?” he followed up, to a more muted response – though enthusiasm for this all-American blend of Detroit rock and soul was well placed.

In an early evening slot, Patti Smith and band played Horses in full, with punk poet Smith showing she’s lost none of her energy or stage presence in the 40 years since the album was released. From the snarled opening line of “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” it was clear Smith meant business.

Smith railed against governments and corporations and implored everyone to be free, to whoops and cheers. By the end, audience members were calling out the names of lost loved ones during an emotional rendition of ‘Elegie’, dedicated to all those people “who we have loved and are no longer with us”.

Those who left after Patti Smith must have felt there was no room for improvement, but the remaining faithful were rewarded with a serene set from headliners Ride. Playing songs from across their four albums and various EPs, the reformed cult act and original ‘shoegazers’ have lost none of their intensity, their guitar ‘wall of sound’ thankfully still intact.

With cruel punctuality the curfew was reached. Happy, sunburnt and a little worse for wear the crowd filed out, leaving only glimpses of grass under a carpet of plastic cups, broken sunglasses and crushed cans of Red Stripe.

Could the sound have been better? Probably. But Field Day has all the elements for a great party and emerged with its reputation for devising an eclectic line-up unscathed, though a few decibels short of fever pitch.

http://fielddayfestivals.com/news/

June 11, 2015
Musician creates the first ever 3D-printed melodica

Daren Barnarse

As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if you haven’t got anything to fix in the first place, then why not make something yourself?

That’s exactly the mode of thinking that led Daren Banarsë to become the first person to 3D print a melodica, originally a child’s instrument that looks like a cross between a harmonica and a piano.

Banarsë took up the melodica when he became disenchanted with the piano, realising its design wasn’t exactly complementary to the human form. He found it more comfortable to play a hand-held instrument.

“Eventually I wanted to play something that works well with the human body, so the melodica was the one,” the 42-year-old says.
With a penchant for Irish music, Banarsë had concerns about turning up to the pub with something that looked as though it had been prised from the hands of a toddler.

“We’d sit around a table and play the old tunes, but the image just isn’t right and also it’s slightly shrill sounding,” he says. “So I thought that I just had to build one and it’s got to be my next project.”

His tenacity meant that he couldn’t give up until he’d realised his dream, he had no choice but to make one and after a journey lasting six months he finally unveiled his labour of love.

The keys are coated in ivory and the wood is recovered from an old piano. And as he brings it to his lips to give it a blast, it’s clear he hasn’t sacrificed substance for style. Sitting at his kitchen table and closing my eyes, I could almost be in a Dublin boozer sitting next to The Pogues.

Attempts at buying a 3D printer and taking a complete DIY approach failed, and he eventually had to digitally render each component and send it off to a company in the Midlands.

Banarsë recalls: “Even just printing out one of the keys on the cheaper printer was just a mess, there were technical things that just didn’t work with it and it would always be slightly off. I didn’t realise how exact a melodica had to be. “It needs to be airtight and there’s so many points that need to fit perfectly.”

The finished article makes the piles of shop-bought melodicas that lie in his flat, a converted shipping container in Poplar’s Trinity Wharf, look like they might have been purchased at the Early Learning Centre.

Banarsë’s instrument is the product of months of painstaking research and a passion to make the perfect instrument. Having proved it can be done, he feels it won’t be long until 3D printing will be in regular use.

“It’s definitely the future,” he adds. “We’ll all soon have our own printing rooms, the technology is there.”

May 25, 2015
David Byrne’s 2015 Meltdown programme announced

David Byrne’s Meltdown festival programme has just been announced and features Sunn O))), Young Marble Giants, Benjamin Clementine, Atomic Bomb! The Music of William Onyeabor, David Longstreth, Matthew Herbert, Bianca Casady and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (and more). More will be added to the line up over the coming months.

“I am beyond excited at how much of this has fallen into place. It’s quite eclectic and I hope there are some new discoveries for everyone – including me – in this edition of the festival’ – David Byrne.

On sale to all from 8 May.

May 7, 2015
New East London music: Breathing Space

Facing the music: Breathing Space

One of the more unusual ensembles doing the rounds in East London is Breathing Space, a five-piece choral group whose site specific performances combine field recordings and soundscapes with contemporary classical elements.

Describing themselves as a “sound art performance collective”, Breathing Space formed two years ago when four East London-based friends came together to perform at Cody Dock in Canning Town for an art project.

The performance saw the singers floating on the dock inside a geodesic dome, and since then they have tried to keep their performances site-specific.

“We respond to each project as it comes along rather than spending lots of time writing lots of different material,” says composer and singer Hannah White.

A recent performance at Servants Jazz Quarters in Dalston saw four members of the group perform a piece called ‘Worm’, based on clips of speeches by well-known philosophers.

Sound artist Stephen Shiell, who makes the soundscapes and field recordings that underpin the group’s sound, used the clips to create a soundscape, which served as the basis for the composition.

“A lot of it we develop through improvisation, so with that piece, by the time we did it we had a structure but were still improvising on the night.

“We developed the vocals and lyrics using certain quotes from philosophers. The main one was from George Bataille when he talks about pleasure only starting when the worm is inside the fruit, and then there was Marcel Duchamp’s ‘I force myself to contradict myself in avoid conforming to my own taste’.

“We chose those because they resonated with us and the feelings that we had so I guess that is part of the process.”

This month, on 23 May, Breathing Space will be returning to Cody Dock, a formerly derelict dock turned bustling ‘creative quarter’ for the lower Lea, to perform a new piece as part of the opening of the Line Sculpture Trail.

Called ‘Cody Word Walks’, the piece is an hour-long improvisation using field recordings from around the dock, and poems by Breathing Space’s Melaina Barnes.

http://cargocollective.com/breathingspace/LUGUS

April 21, 2015