What’s the perfect thing for a Sunday evening to ease you out of the weekend on what is supposed to be Britains stormiest night since Michael Fisher-gate of 1987? Well top of the list, way, way above X-Factor or Strictly, is gently lilting guitars, SILENT SLEEP. Considering commiserating the untimely death of Saint Lou Reed, dedications are made (notably It Breaks Me), easing the assembled crowd in with Elephant 6 Recording Company-ish pop (without 99% of it being noise). However, as great as songs like We’ve Fallen Out Again are… a bit samey, a bit too much ‘Real Music’, a bit too, well, parochial. A classic case of a band needing to do some heavy touring, and hopefully they well as they could be an excellent band, not merely good.
Rather excitingly, instead of a main support the audience are treated to a documentary made during the recording of EFTERKLANG’s last album Piramida, THE GHOST OF PIRAMIDA. Sitting in a darkened Kaz watching a partially subtitled documentary about trying to find the perfect percussion sound on Spitzbergen could have been highly pretentious, but mercifully the Dane’s black sense of humour, the home-footage about the failed mining town of Piramida (replete with subtitled Russian) and Cinéma Vérité-cinematography add a delightfully absurdist flourish to the affair. It even had people chortling, which was the last thing one would have expected from a brooding film set in a frozen, disintegrating town devoid of a population but by Jove it prepared us for the main act.
Well what it prepared us for was a rather Eraserhead-esque entry (in keeping with the cinematic theme); it’s industrial grade ambience which could only have come from a band now based in Berlin and can only be described as cinematic (that word again!). The primal drumming keeps the nuanced, textured sounds floating off into infinity, adding a surreally machine-like efficiency – especially key on tracks like I Was Playing Drums, Raincoats and Living Layer which could so easily evaporate in a puff of ambience at any moment. Instead, Efterklangs they become the perfect accompaniment to a soaked Sunday where plodding delicacy provides a sublime backdrop to the tail end of the weekend’s excesses.
Laurie Cheeseman / @Laurie Cheeseman
Friday, 22 November 2013
Matthew Xia / Feature // Bido Lito!
In such a short time, this chap has been and done many things; actor, director, not even to mention his DJ-ing which last year has taken him from pirate radio as a youth to the Paralympics opening parade (via a lauded stint at 1Xtra). I guess you could call MATTHEW XIA something of a polymath, something of a latter day renaissance man. And he has now got another string to his bow, having recently taken up the role of musical director at the Everyman theatre.
It really is amazing someone can accomplish so much in a relatively short space of time. “It doesn’t feel like such a short time, but a cod answer is not wanting to get a real job.” We’ve all been there, doing absolutely anything to put off the inevitable decline into turning into your father, but Matthew has avoided that so far, so there must be something more meaningful driving him on.
As a matter of fact there is, “A deeper answer… would be that I just like telling stories”. Story telling would, it seems, be the common thread of his life, from his hip-hop DJ-ing through to the theatre. “It’s all talking about people from similar circumstances as me, expressing themselves through art. It’s all about perseverance… the plays I’m into reflects that too.” Well that’s something Matthew knows about, having told his mum at 17 he was dropping out of college to make his DJ-ing work on that hotbed of talent down in that there London, pirate radio, before being head hunted for 1Xtra (and directing music for plays on the side and joining the board of directors at Stratford Youth Theatre at 19). Other than storytelling, it would appear the other overarching theme to all his work is telling the stories of the streets, “of shining lights into dark crevices where you shouldn’t go and why we shouldn’t be sat in a scrap yard in Fleetwood watching people eke out an existence”. It should be pointed out that we’re not actually sat in Fleetwood, but upstairs at the Playhouse on the set of Daniel Matthew’s debut play ‘Scrappers’, which Matthew has been directing.
So how has a man who has spent his whole life in London ended up working in a provincial theatre? Other than the fact there was a decent job going, he felt like he had “banging his head on a glass ceiling in London. It’s a chance to learn new skills and learn about regional theatre. And get out of the London bubble. Plus there’s the personal link, my girlfriend’s from these parts and my old drama teacher run’s 20 Stories High [which is a theatre company based in the city,] so I’ve got a readymade network.” But he always manages to find a way to come back to the music and it’s multifaceted relationship with theatre, despite putting music somewhat on the backburner, “as it exists as brand down in London, so I’m prepared to concentrate on directing … but I have actually been asked to write a piece of music for a short piece as part of Everyword at the Blind School [opposite the Phil], it adds a sense of experience to what could just be the small showing of a new work.” I guess you could say that re-appropriating derelict spaces and turning them into something new is part of the ‘quiet revolution’ that is part of so much of Matthew’s work; from ‘Scrappers’ to the backpack hip-hop he’s helped so many fall in love with.
Nonetheless, it’s gonna take some time for this restless chap to settle in right? I mean he is here for the long haul (especially as his option was Shrewsbury – no disrespect to our southern brothers, but ha!), but “I’ve not really discovered [the local hip hop scene], I’ve always known Kof and his manager Yaw, but that’s my only link to it but I’m thinking about setting up a clubnight if I can. If the audience is there...”
It really shouldn’t take him long to find his feet – our nascent scene is beginning to properly flourish, with the likes of No Fakin’ DJs, Nicky Talent, 2K and Jamie Broad beginning to make waves with a number of quality live performances over the summer (including an excellent night with all three supporting the legends that are the Pharcyde). Well Mr Xia, Liverpool really does hopes you stick around for a while.
[CL1]Dead cheesey but I am terrible at thinking of titles. Use anything better if you can think of it?
It really is amazing someone can accomplish so much in a relatively short space of time. “It doesn’t feel like such a short time, but a cod answer is not wanting to get a real job.” We’ve all been there, doing absolutely anything to put off the inevitable decline into turning into your father, but Matthew has avoided that so far, so there must be something more meaningful driving him on.
As a matter of fact there is, “A deeper answer… would be that I just like telling stories”. Story telling would, it seems, be the common thread of his life, from his hip-hop DJ-ing through to the theatre. “It’s all talking about people from similar circumstances as me, expressing themselves through art. It’s all about perseverance… the plays I’m into reflects that too.” Well that’s something Matthew knows about, having told his mum at 17 he was dropping out of college to make his DJ-ing work on that hotbed of talent down in that there London, pirate radio, before being head hunted for 1Xtra (and directing music for plays on the side and joining the board of directors at Stratford Youth Theatre at 19). Other than storytelling, it would appear the other overarching theme to all his work is telling the stories of the streets, “of shining lights into dark crevices where you shouldn’t go and why we shouldn’t be sat in a scrap yard in Fleetwood watching people eke out an existence”. It should be pointed out that we’re not actually sat in Fleetwood, but upstairs at the Playhouse on the set of Daniel Matthew’s debut play ‘Scrappers’, which Matthew has been directing.
So how has a man who has spent his whole life in London ended up working in a provincial theatre? Other than the fact there was a decent job going, he felt like he had “banging his head on a glass ceiling in London. It’s a chance to learn new skills and learn about regional theatre. And get out of the London bubble. Plus there’s the personal link, my girlfriend’s from these parts and my old drama teacher run’s 20 Stories High [which is a theatre company based in the city,] so I’ve got a readymade network.” But he always manages to find a way to come back to the music and it’s multifaceted relationship with theatre, despite putting music somewhat on the backburner, “as it exists as brand down in London, so I’m prepared to concentrate on directing … but I have actually been asked to write a piece of music for a short piece as part of Everyword at the Blind School [opposite the Phil], it adds a sense of experience to what could just be the small showing of a new work.” I guess you could say that re-appropriating derelict spaces and turning them into something new is part of the ‘quiet revolution’ that is part of so much of Matthew’s work; from ‘Scrappers’ to the backpack hip-hop he’s helped so many fall in love with.
Nonetheless, it’s gonna take some time for this restless chap to settle in right? I mean he is here for the long haul (especially as his option was Shrewsbury – no disrespect to our southern brothers, but ha!), but “I’ve not really discovered [the local hip hop scene], I’ve always known Kof and his manager Yaw, but that’s my only link to it but I’m thinking about setting up a clubnight if I can. If the audience is there...”
It really shouldn’t take him long to find his feet – our nascent scene is beginning to properly flourish, with the likes of No Fakin’ DJs, Nicky Talent, 2K and Jamie Broad beginning to make waves with a number of quality live performances over the summer (including an excellent night with all three supporting the legends that are the Pharcyde). Well Mr Xia, Liverpool really does hopes you stick around for a while.
[CL1]Dead cheesey but I am terrible at thinking of titles. Use anything better if you can think of it?
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Joy Orbison, Pearson Sound, Fold / Abandon Silence // East Village Arts Club, Liverpool
Joy Orbison posits a late contender for party of the year, Getintothis' Laurie Cheeseman emerges from another Abandon Silence bleary eyed into the light.
This autumn's round of Abandon Silence excellence is coming to an end, but before the year's final party there's the jewel in the year's crown - Joy Orbison, Pearson Sound and Fold visiting the East Village Art's Club's attic for a right royal shindig. Can they take Four Tet's title of party of the year?
Things start unusually slow, with resident DJ's warming the crowd up with their tasty blend of house and such, but things really start heating up with Fold, riding a wave of appreciation after this summer's rather excellent EP, Upstairs For Thinking, Downstairs For Dancing.
Fluid, stretchy bass-lines and supple drums appear to be what the doctor ordered to get this crowd moving, but the attic is truly poor for a night like this - especially when the audience needs little encouragement to get their sweat on.
As Pearson Sound takes charge, the bar quickly empties as he wastes little time in keeping the flow going and getting the audience to the front with shuffly, pounding beats and the atmosphere truly becomes electric.
The beats get harder until before you know it, the man himself Joy Orbison takes to the decks after the most seamless segue you could ask for.
Following the train-based mishaps that dogged his last appearance at Abandon Silence and an exceptionally quiet year (release-wise), the atmosphere is ecstatic asJoy Orbison comes back into the fold.
With a set taking in all of Joy's disparate influences; alternating between house-informed and techno-orientated cuts with effortless ease, his set always promised to be the stand out of the night, yett no one quite realised how rapturously Berliner's orTale Of Us would be received.
After a moment like that, there always was going to be a palpable early morning lull, but by the 3.30am mark, things start reaching towards another blissful, relentless climax. One of those climaxes full of those rare moments that everything suddenly makes sense in the dark, sweaty, writhing room and you do not rightly know where your feet are or what they're doing until before you know it, the lights are up.
Not even the relentless autumnal drizzle could possibly dampen spirits as folks start shuffling outside. Joy Orbison and co. may just have curated the year's clubbing highlight.
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