Northwest Gig Highlights – November 2014

Brainfood is plentiful in a month that takes in Philip Glass, John Grant with the Northern Sinfonia, and merchants of darkness Vessel, Tim Hecker and Ben Frost – while Ballet School and HAJAmadagascar bring the pop nous

Preview by Simon Jay Catling and Laura Swift | 03 Nov 2014

It’s a month for expanding your tiny little mind, with two explorations of the relationship between sight and sound coming to Liverpool. First up on 8 Nov at 24 Kitchen Street is the launch of the third phase of Syndrome, a research and performance programme conceived of by, among others, language and new media arts curators Mercy and electronic promoters The Hive Collective. For this next stretch of their series, they’re thinking about ‘post-humanities and techno-genesis’ – and kicking off with Norwegian AV artist T C F, virtual reality imagineer Lawrence Lek (with Sion Parkinson), and clever local pop band Outfit, who promise to take us to a ‘sparkly technoutopia.’ (Yes please.) If you fancy getting deeper into the subject, the next step of Phase 3, ‘Brain/Music Experiments,’ takes place 28 Nov as part of DaDaFest at the Bluecoat, where coders and neuroscientists from the Frozen Music Collective will present new work that uses real-time brainwave scanning to generate a live improvised score. If your own brainwaves aren’t quite at their strongest, fortunately for you there’ll be a Q&A session afterwards.

Seconally, on 14 Nov at The Kazimier is SPACES – the first major tour from Manchester audiovisual collective Video Jam, who pair local musicians with local filmmakers and ask them to prepare or improvise a live score. For just a fiver, you can witness three new moving image and live sound commissions, as well as join a host of special guests including Sex Hands and WANDA GROUP. The Deep Hedonia crew will be on hand for an AV party afterwards, numbering AKASA, Kepla, and Onika, the latter fresh from a recent mix for DIS mag.

With his second LP Punish, Honey, Tri-Angle records' Vessel became more than a brightly burning producer with a creative route around a beat. A truly compositional triumph, it held a considered tension over his non-linear techno structures that endured as a whole, rather than over individual moments. He'll be attempting to maintain that same sense of atmosphere at Soup Kitchen in Manchester on 15 Nov. Those who enjoy their electronically stitched music a little more cerebral are in for a good few days in fact, with Iceland-based innovator Ben Frost in action the night before at Gorilla (more on that below); in Liverpool, meanwhile, the imperious Tim Hecker plays Camp & Furnace on 19 Nov. The Vancouver-born artist's slow blossoming from soft-focus ambient to drones of the heaviest clout has been startling, his latest shows touring last year's Polaris Prize-longlisted LP Virgins among his most intense yet. If you need a bit of a kick up the arse after all that brooding, get moving to the Malagasy sound of HAJAmadagascar & The Groovy People – following up a joyous turn at Africa Oyé this summer with their own date at District, Liverpool, on 20 Nov.

In Manchester, the Ruby Lounge provides two notable nights of magnificent noise courtesy of cult American indie heavyweights Trans Am on 10 Nov, with ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead dropping by on the 16th. The two acts have 19 studio LPs between them, though both have taken markedly different routes to ensure survival in an increasingly ADD musical landscape; Trans Am, on their tenth album, X, balanced the rock tropes they'd been battling with for a decade beforehand with a re-investment in the electronic aspects of their catalogue. ’Trail of Dead, meanwhile, continue to rock with the same heart-on-sleeve vigour they've always had. New album IX again mixes post-hardcore aggression with more expansive tendencies to great effect, and with Source Tags & Codes being performed in full in London this same tour, you can expect more than a smattering from that 2002 classic as well.

Also this month, our latest New Bloods Ballet School call into Liverpool to play The Shipping Forecast on 13 Nov. As our interview with the band in the November issue reveals, the Berlin-based avant-pop trio sit right at home on Bella Union, their spatial debut album The Dew Lasts an Hour sharing much of the same astral presence as their label boss Simon Raymonde's old band Cocteau Twins – albeit with more tightly-packed pop foundations.

Finally, to truly space out this November – and if you can get hold of a ticket – luxuriate in the exquisite sound of John Grant backed by an actual orchestra (the Northern Sinfonia) at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on 22 Nov. We were lucky enough to witness his recording with the BBC Philharmonic at their studio in MediaCity a few weeks back, and if the likes of TC & Honeybear and It Doesn’t Matter to Him pushed you close to the edge as it was, you’re gonna wanna stash a whole multipack of tissues in your bag for this one.

Alternatively, you can go full-classical on 10 Nov, as Philip Glass comes to the Bridgewater Hall with the Philip Glass Ensemble. Glass’s oeuvre towers over the modern-classical landscape, his influence felt far and wide but ultimately never matched – a commanding yet modest stage presence, we last saw him in 2009 at the RNCM in a recital of works for solo piano, and can’t wait to experience him with his seven most trusted musicians behind him – performing work from Koyaanisqatsi, Music in Twelve Parts, and Music in Similar Motion (programme subject to change).

Do Not Miss:

Ben Frost
Gorilla, 14 Nov

As autumn finally draws in after weeks of teasing, it seems timely that Australian-born, Iceland-dwelling electronic composer Ben Frost should arrive in the UK – he’s an artist whose music shares a close affinity with the cloaked black skies and natural decay of the season.

Frost holds a high level of respect from critics and peers alike; the aforementioned Mr Hecker counts himself as a fan, among others, while he's also received praise from a more unexpected source in former Jane's Addiction guitarist Eric Avery. That these two very different characters 'get' Frost’s work is testament to the way he shifts his sound around, even amid its perennially overcast skies.

A U R O R A, his latest and arguably most high-profile album yet, given its release on Mute, is a case in point. It harries his previously more muddied textures into rigid channels, thunderous metallic beats surging forward behind them. Its abrasive elements are arguably more defined than previously, yet they still possess a wonderfully widescreen quality that allows for any number of stylistic rabbit holes to be explored. His live show promises to replicate that same bone-jangling intensity. [Simon Jay Catling]