I’ve been looking forward to this for a lonnnng time and finally tonight Silver Apples will be performing at Hare & Hounds – combining those droning, pulsating rhythms with a psychedelic aesthetic.

Unfortunately, Pram have had to cancel their appearance tonight, however Matt Eaton of the band will be performing his solo work – Micronormous with live visuals.

Doors are at 8pm where a limited number of tickets are available. Or grab them in advance this arvo from here

after a hectic beginning of the year we took a little gig break through July, but we can’t stay quiet for long so here’s what’s coming up…

5th August: Silver Apples + Pram @ Hare and Hounds
We’re extremely excited to host the great grandaddy of electronica, Silver Apples created what are now widely regarded as the first rock-orientated albums to utilise electronic techniques.
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13th August: Tunng + Health & Efficiency @ mac
Twisted pop wonders perform at mac’s outdoor arena
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8th September: Modified Toy Orchestra @ Town Hall Birmingham
After international performances to critical and audience acclaim, MTO return to their hometown for this UK premiere of their new album Plastic Planet, performed using only modified toys.
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29th September: Josephine Foster and the Victor Herrero Band @ Hare and Hounds
One of the most enigmatic, luminious and enlightening American singers of her time
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11th October: Red Sparowes @ Hare and Hounds
Epic, instrumental songs that manage to pummel you into submission
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PLUS more Supersonic Festival announcements to come, watch this space as they say

The very talented Mr Ben Javens has designed three wonderful new posters for some our forthcoming shows.

Three Trapped Tigers – for fans of Battles, Lightning Bolt, Gentle Friendly

+ Talons + Health & Efficiency

https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Beautiful instrumentation from the other worldly Grails

+ Mothertrucker

+ Windscale

https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Doom disco from out of space!

Support comes from Japanese psych math rockers Bo Ningen

https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Tony Dudley Evans of Birmingham Jazz wrote this great piece on contemporary free jazz and the genre’s links with rock and punk music.

The Variety of Free Jazz and Improvised Music Today

I spent a lot of the Christmas period listening to Keith Jarrett, the solo albums, the trio especially the Inside Out album recorded live in London and Jarrett’s American Quartet with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian Listening to these various recordings made me realise what a range of music now contains free improvisation and what a broad term ‘free jazz’ now is. Jarrett says on the album sleeve, free playing is ‘an amazingly important part of true jazz history’. He goes on to say:

We need to be even more in tune with each other to play this way, without material; and even more attentive. Every possibility is available if you take away the tunes, but only some are valid under the circumstances. It is only our sensitivity to the flux that determines whether the music succeeds or fails.
(Inside Out Album Sleeve ECM Records).

The term free jazz began to be used in relation to Ornette Coleman’s groups of the late 1950s, and the totally improvised album called Free Jazz for two pianoless quartets may well have established this term.
It is in Europe that the free jazz has developed its greatest freedom and improvisers such as Evan Parker, Peter Brotzmann, Alex Schlippenbach, Albert Mangelsdorff and many others have established playing styles that have moved away totally from the conventions of American jazz. It was instructive to listen to two albums (also over the Christmas period!) produced as a result of Birmingham Jazz initiatives. Opus de Life with the Profound Sound Trio (Paul Dunmall, Henry Grimes and Andrew Cyrille) strikes me as free jazz that comes naturally from the jazz tradition. There are no tunes and everything is totally improvised, but the styles of playing of all three players seem to me to derive from a jazz approach.

Of course free jazz is not always energy music and both CDs referred to above contain passages of great gentleness and beauty and this is a constant feature of the best of free jazz. But this energy of free jazz does have an affinity with certain kinds of rock music. In recent years there have been a lot of collaborations between free jazz players and less mainstream rock or punk artists. Evan Parker has, for example, played with Jah Wobble and a number of ‘noise’ players; Paul Dunmall has played with Chris Corsano, Bjork’s drummer who also played a totally improvised duo set with Mick Flower on keys at The Supersonic Festival in 2009 and members of The Guillemots run their own free jazz group The Gannets. One of my favourite albums of 2009 was Sunn O>>>’s Dimensions and Extensions which put together Sunn O>>>’s drone metal guitar work with jazzers Julian Priester and Cuong Vu. Then a number of jazz groups such as The Thing, Peter Wareham’s Acoustic Ladyland and, even more, Pete’s The Final Terror and Led Bib are deliberately incorporating a strong rock and ‘in-your-face’ punk element into their approach.

It’s all a sign of how interesting the alternative music scene is at the moment and how barriers and boundaries are being broken down. One very interesting concrete piece of evidence of all this is the fact that a group called brass unbound is touring in late January and early February with the punk band The Ex and it seems that they will be playing together. Brass unbound consists of Mats Gustafsson of The Thing, Ken Vandermark, both on saxophones , Roy Paci on trumpet and Dutch trombonist Wolter Wierbos.

Tony Dudley Evans

For full article go to http://www.birminghamjazz.co.uk

Monday, 1st February 2010
The Ex & Brass Unbound
Zun Zun Egui
@Hare and Hounds, Birmingham
Doors 8pm
Advanced Tickets: http://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Looking forward to the Starless & Bible Black show at the Hare and Hounds on 8th October 09, especially after reading these brilliant reviews!

Anglo-French folk rockers named from Dylan Thomas via a King Crimson LP.Can you have too much of a nice thing? The world is currently awash with pretty female-fronted folk rock, the kind of thing that once had Mike Mansfield presenting a Cue The Music TV special on Judie Tzuke and gravely cooing, “Ah , a voice of the purest crystal.” The second album from this Manchester based group starts a bit like that. But by track three, Hanging On The Vine, they reach more challenging terrain. Singer Helene Gautier channels Sandy Denny over Cortez The Killer-period Neil Young.
There’s also sci-fi synth from the impressively titled Raz Ullah, adding to a
musical mood like a haunted stroll across the moors. By the time they’ve reached Les Furies, Raz is percolating away in full-on Floyd mode, the bass is burbling fruitily and it’s clear the more mind-blown fringes suit them well.
Roy Wilkinson Mojo Magazine

Shape of the Shape is the second album from Mancunian collective Starless and Bible Black and this time they’ve kicked the banjos into touch, opting instead for the sound of the 70’s. The musicianship on this album is exquisite, and showcased perfectly by a warm, organic recording which derives from twilight sessions in the magical wilderness of Snowdonia. The music may have become more eclectic but everything on the album still rotates around the soulful vocal talent of Hélène Gautier who shimmers and smoulders throughout. The end result of this melding of talents is an album which is essentially timeless and which demands attention; this is a record to be savoured on those dark winter’s evenings ahead.
The Music Fix

Heavyweight in quality but fluid and expansive in execution, Shape Of The Shape is epically beautiful. Exquisite guitar-based arrangements are layered and unfolded with a natural, organic grace made almost spiritual with dreamy, synth elevations. Moody yet warm, these compositions are the type that need little help from production gloss, reverberating with a sheer, natural pulse that really can’t be faked. They somehow manage to be both nostalgic and freshly modern, a clever feat indeed.
Wears the Trousers Magazine

8.10.09
Starless & Bible Black
Health & Efficiency
Fox
Lewis Garland
Hare and Hounds, Birmingham
8pm
£6
https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

After Andrew Hung’s storming DJ set at the Milk Kitchen fundraiser last weekend -Fuck Buttons return to Birmingham for an intimate show at the Hare and Hounds.

Fuck Buttons live at Supersonic Festival 2008

Support will come from Zun Zun Egui’s frenzied dance rock  and local love Theo and his complex percussive acrobatics. One for the dancers.

22.09.09
Fuck Buttons
+Zun Zun Egui
+Theo
Hare and Hounds
8pm
£7.00 Advanced www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Capsule’s first gig after Supersonic Festival will be the mighty and monstrous Electric Wizard with support from Blood Ceremony. A great way to kick things off after the summer and you seem to agree as all tickets online and in the shops have SOLD OUT! A few tickets will be kept on the door so anyone without one should get to the venue early.

11.09.09
Electric Wizard
+ Blood Ceremony
Hare and Hounds
8pm
£10.00