Savaging Spires + Shinamo Moki + The Wharves + Mooncreatures - 08/01/14 - Old Blue Last - Free

Happy New Year jabronis! We're so, so, so excited for 2014 - we've got some excellent shows lined up - the first of which being this one! Here's some more info about the bands - if you like what you hear, and are free next Wednesday - come down, say 'hi!!', buy a t-shirt, drink some beer, have a great time.

Savaging Spires are an improvisational pop band who record live to tape, and quite often to just cassette. Gathering around a single microphone, their songs are often elongated passages, fragments of potential songs that despite their fragile, bordering-on-the-edge-of-collapse approach, seem to create a force of sound that’s impossible to not be overwhelmed by.

Savaging Spires might not always be an easy listen, especially for a band built around simplicity of melody, and complexity of texture but are one of the most rewarding of sonic experiences.’ – Critical Heights

‘Shinamo Moki are electronic duo Auryn Tate Waring & Felix Treadwell.Originating from the south coast of England & combining their passion of 90’s Anime, Japanese contemporary art, nature & Eastern architecture with sparse synths & splintering, textural percussions to form a core to their sound’ – LastFM

The Wharves are ‘a three-piece whose beef comes from thick bass twangs offset against dramatic vocals fit for a grander setting than your iPod and spooky echoes…appropriate [for] Halloween’ SEXBEAT

'Moncreatures play epic and atmospheric reverb pop that gets lost somewhere between Low, Cocteau Twins and the more delicate moments of Explosions in the Sky. Hushed vocals are hidden beneath the icy guitar melodies and gentle drums patterns' - Brixton Buzz

Date: 08/01/14

Doors: 8pm

Cost: Free

Facebook: Click me

In Photos - 03/12/13 - Dawn Hunger, Flamingods, Bastardgeist - Old Blue Last

Pretty blown away by just how awesome Tuesday's Scene Not Herd was. What a great bunch of bands! Have a look:

Photography by Rebecca Hughes

Dawn Hunger + Flamingods - 03/12/13 @ Old Blue Last

We've had a little break - yes another one - but we're pretty happy to say we're back and have a bunch of live shows lined up - the first being this one...

DAWN HUNGER is Claire Inglis and Matthew de Pulford (with music written and produced by Fuck Buttons' Andrew Hung)

This is music that is both turbulent and disconcerting. Bereft of excess; jagged components are given space to breathe and move, attracting each other into unsettling frenzy. Groove is redefined by unhinged yet locked drums. Inglis' voice screeches and wails to disturb, and compel in equal measures.

“Dawn Hunger was written for a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist to perform. I was interested in the concept of composing for musicians and not being involved in the live performance.” - Andrew Hung

We'll have some great supports lined up too - updates to follow! Hope to catch some of you down there:

Date: 03/12/13

Doors: 8pm

Cost: Free

Dead Wolf Club + Ice, Sea, Dead People - 10 July - Old Blue Last - Free

We’re back again, to ply you all with another dose of musical medicine, this time in the form of the ferociously vitriolic Dead Wolf Club and the ludicrously loud and raucously rambunctious Ice, Sea, Dead People.

Dead Wolf Club: - 

Their quiet/loud dynamic is just the thing to shake you from the daily grind - think Liars, or The Pixies. The quartet makes your eardrums earn their money with the kind of racket that will make you go into hyperbolic shock. Their sound is like a double espresso for the ears; blowing away any cobwebs better than a trip to a wind farm in a hurricane.

Watch: Strange Letters

Listen: A vs E

Ice, Sea, Dead People: -

Ice, Sea, Dead People are three child-men from London. Inspired by art-rock and punk luminaries such as Fugazi, Erase Errata, Black Eyes, et al, the trio are more than content to punch through the ceiling of their peers to achieve an even more liberal approach to their explosive sound formed from sharp riffery, rhythmic foreplay and peaking with esoteric vocals. Everything is distorted, most of it is screamed and all of it is energetic.

Watch: You Could Be a Model

Listen: If it's Broken Break it More

Announcing Extra Life (US) - Old Blue Last - 30/05/12

We’re pretty thrilled to announce that Brooklyn’s experimental art-rockers, Extra Life, will be performing for us, in conjunction with Pink Mist, on May 30 at the Old Blue Last.

The New York group is fronted by guitarist/vocalist Charlie Looker, who has played with ZS, Mick Barr, was a member of Dirty Projectors.

The band’s two first albums (Secular Works and Made Flesh) received wide critical acclaim, landing them on countless end of year Best Of-lists.  These were accompanied by split singles with Parenthetical Girls, Nat Baldwin and Larkin Grimm, and remixes by artists including Xiu Xiu, Justin Broadrick and Tyondai Braxton. 

The band are soon to release their third album, Dream Seeds, which builds on the avant-garde rock and enthralling post-punk sound of the first two offerings, but sees a shift in terms of a musical level. Dream Seeds is set to be EL’s most clearly define concept album. With seven songs dealing with themes for dreams and children, the band moves away from the morbid, dark lyrics of their former offerings; instead purveying lyrical focus centred around innocence and meaning.  

We look forward to welcoming them on to the SNH stage. More details on tickets and supports to follow – in the meantime, have a listen:

PHOTOS! Warm Digits + Pseudo Nippon + Gum Takes Tooth

Gum Takes Tooth





Pseudo Nippon





Warm Digits

Interview: Keeping Warm with the Digits

Fresh from releasing their debut last month, Keep Warm...With the Warm Digits, and receiving rave reviews  (as well as quite a bit of attention from those BBC Radio people), we caught up with the lovely lads from Warm Digits ahead of their SNH London show this week.  Prepare for tales of Pacman and boyband fame...well almost...

SNH: How did Warm Digits come together? Was there an idea of the sound you wanted?

Warm Digits : We had known each other for ages in Newcastle – both playing on each other’s projects (Cathode and The Matinee Orchestra). As Warm Digits, we were originally a laptop duo, making dubbed-out techno, heavily influenced by Basic Channel. After a few gigs, we were asked to do a live score for a work by (Canadian film maker) Norman McLaren. In rehearsals for this, it became clear that the dual laptop didn’t really work for the scoring project, and we decided to try using instruments that we both played – drums and guitar – and we soon realised that it worked better than the dual laptop, and we have developed Warm Digits in that format since then.

How did you come to call yourself Warm Digits?

Steve’s partner said to him that she had cold digits – Steve thought this would be a good name for our band. However, we thought it was to Northern European, and so changed cold for warm.

How would you guys describe your sound? Is krautadelic a fair description?

Blizzardwave, Trans-Pennine, Krautaphonic duo.

I can hear splashes of Trans Am & Neu! as well as a plethora of other musical greats. Who are your personal biggest influences in music?

Yes – Neu! and Trans AM. Bands that we have talked about around this project have a wide range of connections – My Bloody Valentine, Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, Chris Corsano, Kraftwerk, Can, Harmonia, Michael Rother, Bob Moog, Emeralds, Drexciya…

What’s your plans for the upcoming year?

We are releasing a 7” on Signals record label. Another tour. Another album…

You guys have played the odd show, any stand out gigs you’ve played? Any particular shows you looking forward to?

We enjoyed supporting Goblin at The Sage in Gateshead. Our album launch at the Star and Shadow in Newcastle was pretty cool. It was fun to go Berlin and play earlier this year. It is always great to support Field Music (which we did at The Deaf Institute in Manchester). We love playing live – and it’s nice to play outside of Newcastle – we’ve done about 30 shows there, and have a great following, so we are looking forward to taking our show to other cities.

With names like Weapons Destruction and Grapefruit, what are your songs titles about?


Weapons Destruction is an anti-nuclear weapons track. Often song titles come out of research – it’s great to read around things we are interested in and find titles there. Also some of our song titles come from experiences we have. For example, Trans-Pennine Express is the train line that we use to visit each other (Newcastle-Manchester), and, of course, it is also homage to Kraftwerk.
Weapons Destruction by Warm Digits

Can you give us a heads up on some of the lesser known bands in the Tyneside/Mancunian area?


Quack Quack are amazing. Silver Fox are great. Rachel Lancaster is amazing.

Beards from Leeds are brill. Razmataz Lorry Excitement played a blinder at a club gig we did recently.

Sometimes your music sounds like being trapped in a computer game. What computer
game are you (?), and what is the best video game EVER?!

We are a BBC programme-it-yourself computer manual. (Andy likes Pacman).
PLAY PACMAN HERE 

And lastly, an odd Warm Digits fact please?

One member of Warm Digits was in the original line-up of the 90s pop band Orlando (he left before the time of this video, due to musical differences) 

Catch the marvellous Warm Digits, along with Gum Takes Tooth and Pseudo Nippon on Tuesday 25th October for Free at The Old Blue Last. Details on our events page or Facebook here

DIVORCE / Stig Noise / Dethscalator - photos!

DETHSCALATOR





STIG NOISE





DIVORCE



MOSHING!

Warm Digits + Pseudo Nippon + Gum Takes Tooth - 25 October - Old Blue Last - FREE!

The third free show of the Scene not Herd autumn sees three superb bands with debut albums out in 2011 light up the Old Blue Last with their mixture of electronics and live drumming.

Expect raw, thrumming and ferocious grooves, improvised and sampled electronics and whacked-out visuals.

For full details, sign up for our facebook event.

Warm Digits

Warm Digits is the krautophonic blizzard-wave duo of Andrew Hodson and Steve Jefferis, based either side of the Pennines in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Manchester. Warm Digits make a semi-improvised brew of metronomic rhythms, snowstorm guitar and radiophonic electronics, dual-laptop electro, swathes of no-wave guitar and frantic free jazz drumming, taking their cue from the hypnotic repetition of Neu!, the textural overload of My Bloody Valentine, the glacial otherworldliness of Emeralds, and the sensuous modernity of cosmic disco, along with a pinch of Brian Eno-esque melody. After remix duties for the likes of UNKLE and Maxïmo Park, Warm Digits coalesced these improvisations into a set of crisp, propulsive instrumental songs for their debut album Keep Warm... with the Warm Digits.

Warm Digits have already pricked the ears of Marc Riley who invited them in for a BBC 6Music session, and David Brewis of Field Music who asked to play bass on their album as a guest. The live show, recently aired around Europe in support of the likes of Field Music, Goblin, Modeselektor and Barbara Morgenstern, aims for fully engaged sensory overload with a live-mixed collision of colour-coded structural films and live-feed video cameras.

September saw the release of their debut album on Distraction records and this will be the sole London date on their UK tour.

Pseudo Nippon

Topless, shouting like a deranged preacher, and restlessly twitching across the stage, Pseudo Nippon isn’t your average frontman. He’s backed by cheap electronics and two live drummers who mimic, jam and interlock, and it all comes at you like an alternative soundtrack to a particularly frenetic Sega game. Come with an open mind and dancing shoes and catch them while you can. Shows like this don’t often stick around for long.

Pseudo Nippon recently released their debut album on One Inch Badge. See their live show here: http://www.pseudonippon.com/#!__live-video

Gum Takes Tooth

Gum Takes Tooth are Scene Not Herd favourites. They played our festival last year and basically make any show they play. Originally a two-some featuring the extraordinary live drumming of Thomas Fuglesang, sampled live and manipulated by electro wizard Jussi Brightmore, they have recently added a second drummer just to make things that bit more propulsive.
GTT’s debut album Silent Cenotaph was released earlier this year to acclaim from mainstream and underground press alike. They have an unrivalled ability to tread the line between wild and weird whilst remaining amazingly danceable.