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Old Spitalfields to host Independent Label Market

Dolan Bergin / Electric Minds

Has your East London location played a part in the story of your label? Would your label be the same if you were based elsewhere?

Very much so as until very recently I lived in East London for the last 10 years. The label started shortly after a series of warehouse parties I produced in and around Dalston, Shoreditch some years back, so I think it was a reflection of the music that was being played at the time.

How has the independent landscape changed in London since you started the label?

When it comes to the parties / events / festivals so many people have set up their own independent version which I think is something that’s always happened in London. There are so many different scenes that evolve so quickly that it’s part of London’s personality to have many independent parties and labels.

Quinton Scott / Strut

What do you think about the music scene in East London – has this had any impact on the kind of acts you sign?

Strut started life in Shoreditch back in 1999 when it was a particularly influential hub for music – there was a very strong and varied music scene within the clubs and labels based there. The guys at Nuphonic Records were our landlords and their album projects with people like Faze Action and Femi Kuti complemented our early Afro and disco compilations. It was an inspiring time to be there during the heyday of the Blue Note and the 333 too.

What kind of benefits do you see from taking part in the Market?

Loads of benefits – it’s great to talk to customers face to face, it’s a lot of fun and it’s often one of the few times in the year we get to see some of the other labels and have a catch up. We also generally sell a lot each time we’re there. For me, it’s a really good barometer for the label overall. You get to compare your wares with the other stalls and get a good feeling for what you’re doing right and what you could be doing better.

Dom Mentsh / Greco Roman

Has your East London location played a part in the story of your label? Would your label be the same if you were based elsewhere?

We never were meant to be a label just a party, and our first ever one was in Belfast Road in Stoke Newington – so I suppose in that way it the East has played a massive role. The label has been until that last 6 months located between East London and Berlin.

What would you recommend for people wanting to start their own label?

Enjoy the process, it’s much more complicated than you imagine. We have learned so much and continue to do so.

Adrian Hughes / !K7

How has the independent landscape changed in London since you started the label?

Over the last ten to fifteen years the London landscape has changed dramatically. Independent distributors and record shops have closed left right and centre and the internet has been the primary reason behind this as people can get whatever music in whatever format they want at the touch of a button. From a clubbing perspective I think it’s fair to say that there are far less medium size and large branded clubs programming quality line-ups (The Cross, Turnmills, The Key, Cable and many others have all closed). These have been replaced by promoters working in different non-fixed locations – primarily East London warehouses.

What kind of benefits do you see from taking part in the Market?

We get to catch up with friends in the business and get a snapshot of the whole independent sector under one roof. It’s also great to roam around all the stalls and be inspired by the creativity and incredible range of music being represented. There is a real feeling of unity in the air throughout the whole day and plenty of opportunity to swap records!

Leo Belchetz / Fabric & Houndstoouth

Has your East London location played a part in the story of your label? Would your label be the same if you were based elsewhere?

The mixes we release on the fabric label are representative of the music played at the club, so whilst the music comes from a huge range of international artists, it is rooted in what has been going on underneath the streets of Farringdon every weekend for almost 15 years…

What would you recommend for people wanting to start their own label?

Be prepared to work hard and play hard! You have to be an expert at a million things – it’s as much sales spreadsheets and marketing meetings as it is late nights and backstage passes!

Tom King / No Pain in Pop

What do you think about the music scene in East London – has this had any impact on the kind of acts you sign?!

It definitely has – we often book acts for shows before we sign them, or get recommendations/introductions to friends of friends etc. – but I enjoy working more with artists who create their own personal world through their music than with those who fit in stylistically or geographically with other acts. Having said that, nothing beats being able to hit the red wine with someone who lives 10 minutes walk away and you’re working with.

Bullion / Deek

The Independent Label Market at Spitalfields seems to keep growing – what is it about independent labels that makes people so loyal?

I imagine it’s just a bit closer to the ground people actually walk on. People know there’s a slightly stronger chance they’ll get something interesting to hear through an independent.

Saturday, 12 July 2014, 11:00am – 6pm, Free Entrance, Old Spitalfields Market, 16 Horner Square, Spitalfields, E1 6EW

www.independentlabelmarket.com
www.oldspitalfieldsmarket.com/events
www.facebook.com/oldspitalfieldsmarket
@oldspitalfields

July 11, 2014
Chris Laurence Quartet review: Invisible polymath

Jazzmen: The Chris Laurence Quartet

Bassist and bandleader Chris Laurence is something of a genre-spanning polymath. He has been principal bassist with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, is a regular collaborator with Kenny Wheeler, Stan Sulzmann and John Surman in the jazz world, and has recorded with Elton John and Sting. He was joined for this Vortex gig by Frank Ricotti (vibraphone), Martin France (drums) and John Paricelli (guitar), who between them have played with Robbie Williams, M People and Joni Mitchell.

The set list provided a nod to many of Laurence’s former band mates and it wasn’t long before they were ensconced in a Sulzmann track entitled ‘Jack Stix’. This started with a plangent bass motif that was soon joined by some extended chords on the vibes. The ethereal swirling of the latter and the relatively free bass gave things a rather amorphous air, as if to provide an introduction to the palette they were about to paint with. The drums then joined in, fairly free at first, and gradually boiled things down to a focused groove as Paricelli’s chorus-saturated tone complemented the texture, giving rise to a more unified form to which an intricate guitar solo was appended.

This passage from relative freedom to form was to become a key theme for the rest of the gig. This antecedent freedom was never harsh or abrasive however, I imagine partly due to the naturally soporific qualities of the vibes as much as the way they were being employed. Kenny Wheeler’s The Long Waiting saw a reverb-laden Paricelli sketch a deliberately ill-defined outline of the melodic centre, to which the swaying vibes were added, before things were tightened up by the firm pulse of the rhythm section. The dynamics of this transition from freedom to form were interesting. A rich, possibly boomy bass provided the bottom end, whilst the vibes’ spacey modulation was offset against the more incisive angularity of the guitar. It was the drums that fully underpinned the unity of the group’s emerging form however, and much like he has done on recordings such as Mark Lockheart’s Big Idea, Martin France laid down grooves of drum and bass intensity whilst always being in and never on the music.

Things continued in this vein with Wheeler and Surman pieces before they broke into Paricelli’s ‘Scrim’. This was a personal highlight which saw France unleash flurries of notes in 5/4, providing Paricelli with the ballast to let rip a solo of Scofield-esque bite.

Musicians like these are vital to the music ecosystem. They support the commercial world, then get down to the real business unsung in small gigs. If anyone fancies checking these guys out (and/or escaping the football), three of this band are joined by Stan Sulzmann (sax) and John Taylor (piano) on 13 July at the Vortex.

Review of Chris Laurence Quartet at the Vortex on 21 June.

July 11, 2014
Sam Lee’s Campfire Club takes live music back to its roots

Sam Lee of the Nest Collective (left, in shorts) stokes the passions of crowds. Photograph: Eleonore de Bonneval

The smell of fresh firewood burning is one of the most nostalgic smells for me. It instantly evokes my childhood, camping and fun. So when I heard that renowned folk music impresarios the Nest Collective, led by the Mercury Prize-nominated musician Sam Lee, had started a Campfire Club, it immediately captured my imagination and I made sure to join them at their next event.

The Campfire Club is hosted by art and botany project Phytology in the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve throughout the summer. According to records, the location was a market and nursery gardens in medieval times, and in 1846 a church with active social functions was erected there before being totally destroyed in the Blitz. “The land was left dormant for 50 years and only just being used as a community space” explains Lee.

The old Second World War bombsite now feels like a little gem hidden away in buzzing London. Lee points out that “as a species we’ve existed every night for thousands and hundred of thousands of years around a fire. It is only now that we don’t do that anymore. I think people see the romance in it and are connected in a way that we don’t get an opportunity to do.”

On entering the nature reserve for the first time, I was invited to take a seat on the log benches of this intimate amphitheatre. Without amplification, the performers began to sing by the fire and their voices sounded timid. The sounds of the city seemed to override theirs: people talking in the street and cars passing with their horns sounding, constantly reminded me I was in East London.

But as the sun set and the night came, I leaned closer to the fire, and listened better. The city seemed to have calmed down and the performers’ voices became more audible. By that point I was captivated by the music, mesmerised by the flickering flames and – just as I was as a child – enchanted by the smell of the wood smoke.

Next Campfire Club with Bridie Jackson and the Arbour and Daniel Green Saturday 12 July at Phytology, Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, Middleton Street, Bethnal Green, E2 9RR

www.thenestcollective.co.uk

July 11, 2014
The Arcola Theatre launches supporter scheme

The Arcola’s Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen at the launch event for the Support Arcola scheme

The Arcola Theatre in Dalston plans to give exclusive benefits to theatregoers who sign up to its new Support Arcola Scheme.

As a charity, The Arcola receives only a quarter of its annual budget from the Arts Council – with the rest of the money self-generated.

Becoming a supporter will help the theatre realise its artistic ambitions and meet the increasing demand for community work, as well as continue nurturing new talent.

Benefits for supporters include priority booking, money off at the bar and access to special events and press nights.

At a launch event for the scheme, Graham Benson, chair of the Arcola’s new development board, said: “What I’ve seen here over the years is a radical, imaginative, thoroughly interesting and comprehensive body of work, challenged by no-one else, especially in London.”

Gary Beadle, who starred in Banksy: The Room in The Elephant in April, added: “The Arcola takes risks with new writers and new plays.”

Find out more about the Support Arcola Scheme here.

Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL

July 9, 2014
Living the highlife: Ibibio Sound Machine gear up for Walthamstow Garden Party

Eno Williams of Ibibio Sound Machine

How did the band get together?

We were experimenting with some ideas and found the sound of the Ibibio dialect was very well suited to musical interpretation. We wanted to find a sound that not only looked back to the past of African music and Western styles like funk and disco. We wanted something that captured a bit of ‘now’ too. That’s where the electronic element of the music came in.

To what extent is the group’s album, Ibibio Sound Machine, one that actually reflects London?

I think it’s an album that could only have happened with the diverse combination of influences you find in London – the sound of so many different cultures coming together. Just in our band we have Nigerian, Ghanaian, Brazilian, French, English and Australian backgrounds. London has a unique set of cultural influences these days and it’s that interaction between them that interests me the most about being a musician here.

Can you tell us a bit about the folk stories that make up the lyrics?

They are generally about morals and cultural lessons – things told by elders to young ones to teach certain life lessons. They generally involve animals and mystical happenings but all have a serious message. I think the prodigal son is a special one because my Granny told it to me before I realised it was a Bible story about a parent’s undying love for a runaway child.

What is your relationship to these stories and why was it important for you to sing them in Ibibio?

They mean a lot to me as they were part of my childhood growing up with my grandparents in Lagos and elsewhere. I had never really thought to sing in Ibibio but once I started it seemed like it was something I could offer that was uniquely me.

What can an audience expect from an Ibibio Sound Machine live show?

Energy and musicality. The band is sounding great right now – we never do things exactly the same way twice and always try to keep the life in live music!

Walthamstow Garden Party is at Lloyd Park, E17 5JW from 26-27 July.

July 9, 2014
Viv Albertine: ‘If I’m not passionate I won’t do it’

The Slits’ Viv Albertine lights a cigarette next to Sid Vicious

“You, you’re a careerist generation basically. Always want an answer and a goal,” insists Viv Albertine, the punk musician turned writer. “I grew up without any goals, which may be terrifying or unusual for people today. That film came along, that book I had to write, that album I had to make: if I’m going to go through another fallow period, so be it. I’m not just going to churn out creative work to keep myself in the public eye, or to earn a few hundred quid, or for ego reasons. If I’m not passionate, then I won’t do it. I don’t give a fuck what does or doesn’t come next.”

Despite the message, it doesn’t come across at all anachronistic, heavy-handed, or preachy. In fact, as far as accusations go, I can’t help but feel swayed. Now 59, Albertine has carved out her entire life from a fierce, yet wholehearted independence: from her days as a teenager, haphazardly venturing off to Amsterdam with a mere five pounds, her significant role in the formation of punk with her band The Slits, to vetoing the suggestion of having her recently-released autobiography ghostwritten. Even today, she refused to give up on our interview. “I shifted and became the rock,” she tells me serenely. “My husband was my rock until then, but when I had a daughter, I became the strong one.”

The day before we were originally scheduled to speak – and the evening of her book launch – Albertine’s mother passed away. A flurry of overwhelming admin meant a second date was cancelled, while on the day itself even her venue of choice was closed. Undeterred, we amble across to Hackney Picturehouse and take up residence in the cafe.

Albertine was actually born in Sydney. Her parents had moved to Australia because “in the 50s there was this thing where people could move there for 10 shillings”. When she was four, the family took a boat back to England, and set anchor at a North London council estate. “Muswell Hill wasn’t as cool as it is now,” she explains. “But at the time, young Communist families lived there – there were a lot of very forward thinking people and their children in the area.” Albertine was fortunate enough to attend one of the first comprehensive schools in Britain, with other sonic luminaries such as Rod Stewart and the Kinks her fellow alumni.

It was while studying fashion and textile design at the Chelsea School of Art that she met Mick Jones, who went on to form The Clash. As punk began, the art connection proved fertile: “Art schools back then used to put on brilliant bands – Bowie was first put on by art schools, Roxy music and Pink Floyd too,” says Albertine, between sips of steaming green tea. “Don’t forget that punk didn’t exist. I was the scene, I was part of making it. Through Mick I met John Rotten, he was just a kid in a band, and Mick knew Malcolm [McLaren]. It was just people who knew each other around the same time. By the time it was called punk, it was already dead – it only lasted 18 months.”

In her autobiography, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, Albertine writes candidly, almost brazenly, about the scene at the time. Johnny Rotten supposedly complained that she was “trying too hard” when attempting to fellate him, while Sid Vicious apparently was still a bedwetter despite his hardman persona. As a devotee of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s fetish-influenced clothing, she claims many guys at the time “didn’t know whether they wanted to kill us or fuck us”. Her bandmate Ari Up, the 15-year-old singer of The Slits, was stabbed twice by strangers on the street within a single year.

In 1978, Albertine became pregnant by Mick Jones, and decided to have an abortion to continue with the band. It’s a decision that haunts her to this day. “I didn’t regret it for 20 years,” she writes. “But eventually I did. It’s hard to live with.” She explains on the day: “Up till I was in my mid-30s, I couldn’t bear the thought of being a mother. It absolutely revolted me. It made me feel nauseous to see someone pushing a pram, because to me it represented the end of all opportunities. Then, when I fell in love, whether it was biology or age catching up to me, I had to have a daughter.”

What followed was “seven years of absolute madness”: attempts to get pregnant via IVF, diagnosis with cervical cancer six weeks after the birth of her daughter and an ill-fated attempt to become an obliging housewife. Albertine became so ashamed that her daughter initially grew up unaware that her mum had been in a band, but she eventually resolved to be honest. “I decided to let her know who I am, and trust that she will love me anyway,” Albertine enunciates in her lingering North London drawl. “I was a very natural mother. It surprised me. I knew what to do. That may be a legacy from my own mum, who was a very strong woman.”

Since The Slits disbanded in 1981, Albertine has variously been an aerobics instructor, a filmmaker, a ceramicist, a solo artist and the co-star of Joanna Hogg’s art-house movie, Exhibition. Now, she lives in an artist community in Hackney, and in a way, there’s a sense of completion. “I’ve lived in North, South, and West London, but never ever East. But a year ago, I had to move, with my divorce and all that, and I just got absolutely drawn here. It’s so funny, but now I actually feel like I’ve come home.”

Albertine is one of several music icons now residing in the borough, alongside the likes of Thurston Moore, whose label released her EP Flesh. “I absolutely adore it. I love getting the bus home, and I start hitting East London. I love the old warehouses, and the higgledy piggledy.”

The title of the autobiography actually comes from her mother, who once said that clothes, music and boys was all her daughter was interested in. What advice would she give herself as a young girl, I ask. “You’ve got to live your life as if you’re not going to have a tomorrow. Of course I’m still scared and feel like a twit, and know I can’t play very well, but I’m going to live my life how I want live it, because when I go, no one’s going to give a shit that I’ve made a fool of myself here, there or anywhere.”

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys is published by Faber & Faber. RRP: £14.99 ISBN: 9780571297757

July 9, 2014
‘Strange meeting’ of painters at Haggerston Riviera exhibition

Detail from Green Hands by Kiera Bennett

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend,” is the engraving on poet Wilfred Owen’s memorial in Shrewsbury Abbey. The line is from his poem ‘Strange Meeting’, which is also the title of an exhibition at Canal this month.

The allusion is deliberate, as the show features work from six painters that obliquely refers to the poem’s dream-like encounter between two dead soldiers from opposing sides and its meditation on war, art and culture.

Highlights include paintings by Kiera Bennett, which clearly owe much to early modernism, from the Cubists to Boccioni. Historical references demonstrate her belief in the timelessness of the form; the “wildest beauty” that “mocks the steady running of the hour,” in Owen’s words.

Meanwhile psychoanalysis, European culture, the feminine and classical literature are among the themes expressed by Eleanor Moreton. Her painting Woose at Embrook refers to the lonely mythological hybrid beast which represents the classical idea of love between the spiritual and the physical.

The exhibition runs until the end of the month with its opening on 3 July coinciding with the launch of the ‘Haggerston Riviera’, a cluster of venues on the canal around the area.

Strange Meeting is at Canal Projects, 60 De Beauvoir Cresent, London, N1 5SB until 27 July.

July 8, 2014
Bow Traveller children photograph their community in face of Crossrail development

Traveller children make their point. Photograph: Malita O’Donoghue

In 2012, Crossrail announced plans to build their new railway and shaft through a 32-year-old gypsy and traveller site on Eleanor Street in Bow.

In a petition to Parliament, the gypsy and traveller community state the move is “stressful” for the elderly, and that they face an “uncertain future for their children”.

These children have now visualised their experiences as part of Cranes, Trains, Plots and Shots, a youth-led photography project which started in June 2013 and culminates this month with an exhibition at Rich Mix.

The project was open to children aged four to 13, and is a moving document detailing the change in their environment and home life. Old and young, the travellers feel the weight of Crossrail. Elis is a seven year-old who took part in the project. “It’s upsetting because we have to leave our home and I don’t want to leave people behind,” he says.

The exhibition aims to break down the ‘negative stereotypes’ that exist towards this community. Despite their unique situation, what is clear from the photographs is that the children are like any other children in London, having fun with their friends and making the best of their circumstances.

“We have been taking photos of what we like, our friends, our home, our dogs to show other people,” explains Elis. Asked if taking the photographs were important, Elis replies: “It is very important because photos are on the news. With photos you can show people things, you can show people where you are.”

Perhaps without them realising, these childrens’ work is an empowering depiction of the community’s hopeful future.

The Crossrail project may have fractured and displaced the gypsies and travellers, but these photographs are proof children can articulate their thoughts positively, which in turn can only keep their community together and make them stronger.

Cranes, Trains, Plots & Shots is at Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA until 12 July

July 8, 2014
William Burroughs in Hackney: photographs of Beat writer go on display at Red Gallery

William Burroughs. Photograph: James Hamilton

In his 1964 novel Nova Express, a pitch-black social commentary about a dystopian future, William S. Burroughs writes: “I am primarily concerned with the question of survival – with Nova conspiracies, Nova criminals, and Nova police. A new mythology is possible in the Space Age, where we will again have heroes and villains, as regards intentions towards this Planet. I feel that the time of writing is in Space, not Time.”

It was another five years until Apollo 11 first touched down on a lunar surface, and another decade after that until the Nova Convention was held, a multimedia retrospective of his work in New York City. By this point, the diabolical American genius Burroughs, variously a Harvard University alumnus, drug savant, pioneer of the gay liberation movement, gun enthusiast and creator of the “cut-up technique”, had garnered widespread praise. In attendance were cultural giants from Patti Smith, to Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, John Cage and Allen Ginsberg.

An exhibition organised by Ecstatic Peace Library at Shoreditch’s Red Gallery entitled William Burroughs: Nova Convention, will mark the artist’s centennial with photographs of the event taken by James Hamilton of the Village Voice, who captured this celebratory and historic meeting of minds at The Entermedia Theater.

One of those in attendance that day was a 19-year-old Thurston Moore, scraggly and raw, who is now a co-curator of the Red Gallery show alongside Eva Prinz. He recalls in a “teenage potted reverie … a palpable excitement of the importance of Burroughs’ return to NYC”. These days, Moore travels each year from his home in Stoke Newington to the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics of Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, just as Burroughs taught there many years ago.

There, too, was a London connection. “At the Nova Convention he read this poem that he introduced by saying it had been inspired by a trip to London,” Moore recounts. “He had this whole connection to the London underground of radical poetry, people like Jeff Nuttall. He was living on Drury Lane and being part of the scene around the Indica Bookstore that Barry Miles had. He was a big part of the London scene, hanging out with Ian Sommerville, Iain Sinclair and all those guys. For me now living in London it’s something I really relate to, Burroughs’ time here, as an American in London.”

On the day of the convention itself, the poet Eileen Myles supposedly performed the so-called William Tell act where in 1951 Burroughs tragically sent a bullet through his wife Joan Vollmer’s skull, killing her instantly. But Moore explains there was plenty to revel in. “Glass’s idiosyncratic high-speed minimalist pianistics was natural, gorgeous and sublime. Zappa came out and read a Burroughs excerpt ‘The Talking Asshole’ which seemed appropriate and was mildly entertaining. Patti hit the stage in a glamorous black fur trench, purportedly on loan from some high-end clothier.

“There was always some magic in the air in NYC and it seemed like there could be no other world in 1978. Burroughs coming back to the city where he predicted the urban energy and flash lightning of punk rock was matter of pride and integrity. We owned the future.”

William Burroughs: Nova Convention is at Red Gallery, 1-3 Rivington Street, EC2A 3DT until 13 July.

July 7, 2014
East End Film Festival – three films that stood out

Winner of Best Documentary, Mistaken For Strangers

The East End Film Festival has been running for thirteen years, forging itself a reputation as one of the country’s foremost champions of fresh indie talent. With an alternative and cosmopolitan spirit coursing through its veins, this year’s fortnight-long event was as teeming as ever with memorable works from both home and abroad. Three films in particular left a lasting impression.

You and the Night (Les Rencontres d’après minuit)
Yann Gonzalez’s erotic debut feature is like The Breakfast Club meets Let the Right One In meets Drive, only it’s not quite as good as this combination might sound. It’s short on direction and substance, but a stuffing of sensual nourishment and a mesh of bold aesthetic ideas suggest a bright future for the French director.

Fabienne Babe and Eric Cantona deliver standout performances as participants in an orgy of lost souls in search of sexual therapy. Cast in a neon-lit semi-future, this original avant-garde piece explores dreams, love, loss and Cantona’s outlandishly large member.

Pleasing on the eye – and the ears even more so – You and the Night is very nearly a very clever re-imagining of traditional narrative techniques. Gonzalez is certainly one to watch.

The Distance (La distancia)
The Distance is strange and beautiful. It’s a Borgesian heist movie in which a trio of depraved dwarves, with telepathic and telekinetic powers, attempt to steal an abstract concept from an abandoned industrial power plant. Set in a surrealist Siberian landscape, the film was shot in Catalonia and captures a majestic kind of dereliction. The story itself isn’t completely satisfying, but through a fun combination of original sound and image – coupled with a hefty dose of dark humour – Sergio Caballero’s film leaves a distinct, Lynch-like mark.

Mistaken for Strangers
Named the festival’s Best Documentary, Mistaken for Strangers takes the rock-doc format to new and impressive territory. Tom Berninger, brother of The National frontman Matt Berninger, has lived in the shadow of stardom for too long; it’s his turn to shine, and shine he does. Invited to join The National on tour as a roadie, the amateur director takes a meta-introspective look at the distance between him and his iconic elder brother. Seemingly incompetent and completely disorganised, Tom roughly shuns any notion that he might be concerned with band dynamics or the music, subverting the genre to great effect.

What follows is hilarious and moving. It’s a self-reflexive jaunt into the depths of the sibling psyche, reaching a bizarre and dramatic climax in which the focus is almost entirely on the making of the film. Mistaken for Strangers is uplifting and unforgettable, with a magical final scene and a hearty nod to Werner Herzog, who makes a brief appearance.

July 7, 2014