East End Review

Tag: Mirrors

  • Concert pitch – October gig guide for East London

    Concert pitch – October gig guide for East London

    Isabel-Sörling-Soil-Collectors
    Isabel Sörling of Soil Collectors, playing at Match and Fuse Festival this month

    15–16 October, Hackney Wonderland @ Oval Space, The Laundry, London Fields Brewery, Sebright Arms, The Pickle Factory

    Five venues play host to a line-up of established bands such as Mystery Jets and We Are Scientists as well as up-and-coming acts like singer Sonia Stein and NGod.

    21–23 October – Stoke Newington Music Festival @ various venues including Mascara Bar, St Pauls Church West Hackney, The Waiting Room, Haunt, Stereo92, The Lion, The Lacy Nook, Green Room Café, The Haberdashery

    Three-day multi-venue event across Stoke Newington will see DJ sets and live music from the likes of Thurston Moore, Sterling Roswell, Pink Cigar and The Pacers

    22 October – Super Hans @ Oval Space

    One of the nation’s best loved comic creations Super Hans from Peepshow (aka Australian comic Matt King) takes to the decks for his debut London DJ set.

    28–29 October – Match and Fuse festival @ New River Studios, Café Oto, The Vortex

    Organisers boast this will be a “knees up like no other”, bringing together musicians from 14 European countries. Highlights include Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and the Native American/Scandinavian pop improvisers the Soil Collectors.

    29 October – Mirrors festival @ St John at Hackney, Moth Club, Oslo, Round Chapel

    Eyes will be on the Mercury Prize-nominated Bat for Lashes, who is set to headline this one-day indoor festival. Also on the line-up are Allah-Las, Bill Ryder Jones and the curiously-named garage punk six-piece Diarrhea Planet.

  • Reflections on Mirrors festival: stellar venues and sounds

    Photogrpah: Mike Massaro
    Photograph: Mike Massaro

    Mirrors, the new multi-venue event from the promoters behind Dot to Dot, proved that festivals should not be restrained to those carefree summer months.

    Held this weekend on Halloween, organisers eschewed the traditional theme and provided an eclectic musical line-up on the stages of three stellar venues: Oslo, St John at Hackney and the Round Chapel on Lower Clapton Road. Ticket holders had only to walk five minutes between each site and despite 2,000 attendees, there was no time wasted queuing for drinks or entry.

    Headliners at the sell-out festival included The Wytches, Nadine Shah and The Thurston Moore Band but true gems were the lesser-known acts. 4AD’s new signing, Pixx (also known as Hannah Rodgers) donned elf ears to croon to the crowd at Oslo, although her melancholic vocals would have been better suited to one of the church venues.

    Midlands electronica duo Shelter Point were first at the atmospheric St John at Hackney and their astral sounds, overlaid with Liam Hearne’s wistful lyrics bore a strong resemblance to the music of James Blake or Thom Yorke. By the second act, festival goers had begun to migrate to the church’s upper tier pews for the best view of the stunning grade II-listed building. The formidable Nadine Shah brought a darker edge to the evening, with her heady combination of gothic acoustic guitar and brooding lyricism.

    But it was Rhye who stole the show at Mirrors, the band’s clicking beats, swooning bass lines and androgynous vocals matching perfectly with the echoing expanse of the church. Singer Mike Milosh opened with a slowed-down version of ‘3 Days’, gathering momentum and confidence throughout the hour-long set.

    After a two-year hiatus, Rhye took the chance to sample some much-anticipated new material and closed with the sublime ‘Last Dance’.

    And with that, festival goers spilled out into the night, to wreak Halloween havoc or retire to their homes, happy they now have a new arsenal of musical earworms to keep them going until summer. Maybe winter isn’t so bad after all.