Northwest Music News — 22 May: Liverpool Sound City, Bill Ryder-Jones and more

Our Northwest music round-up features Liverpool Sound City, a new Bill Ryder-Jones collaboration and more...

Blog by Simon Jay Catling | 22 May 2015

Liverpool Sound City - Five To Watch

Condensing into an old warehouse on the Albert Dock, Liverpool Sound City looks set to imbue more of a community spirit than ever before as it returns for another year of live music, panels and industry talks. The headliners are impressive indeed this year, with Swans and The Flaming Lips among our picks of the marquee names, but what else is there lurking below? Here are five that may well be worth your time...

Bad Meds

The sort of sludge-infested truly ballsy punk of the like that hasn't existed within Liverpool for a while, Bad Meds have been going in fits and starts for a couple of years, but have recently gained momentum, having been asked to join Swans on a handful of dates, with a release also recently out on small imprint Maple Death Records. There's elements of DC hardcore and the grizzlier end of the grunge spectrum within their five track cassette, epitomised perfectly on the remoreseless Hoax Apocalypse below.

R.Seiliog

Having worked away quietly on a number of analogue recordings taking in and distilling 70's kosmiche influence, Cardiff-based producer and artist R.Seiliog — the moniker of Robin Edwards — up his game last year with a twist in direction for LP In Hz, out on Turnstile Music. Looking more towards techno, R. Seiliog has married his natural penchant for earthy, organic sound elements to the more rigid gridlines of techno, creating a wonderfully immersive ebb and flow of both styles in the process.

Lonelady

Lonelady albums don't come along too often but, as both 2010's Nerve Up and this year's Hinterland have proven, they're invariably worth the weight. Both records are bedded deeply within glacially cold post-punk, but its the spark and urgency of Juliet Campbell's vocal that balances the mood, delighting in playing amidst the dark playground she's constructed around herself.

Cymbals Eat Guitars

Although the term "underrated" ususally means 'why's no-one else listening to this band I love' you can't help but feel that New York's Cymbals Eat Guitars could certainly be bestowed with such a dubious title. Quietly putting out inventive, intelligent rock opuses for a number of years now, their sprawling song structures mixed with lead singer Joe D'Agostino's verbose and graphic wordplay frequently give the impression of an acid trip recounted with wide-eyed wonder. Second album Lenses Alien was perhaps the most representative of that, although last year's LOSE also frequently delights in a non-linear narrative.

SeaWitches

Local slow burners SeaWitches have taken some seven years to get their line-up in order, but the fruits are really starting to show now, with the group offering a refined and murky take on chiming indie-pop. Active within Liverpool in terms of putting on gigs both for themelves and others, SeaWitches top The Label Recordings showcase, Edge Hill University's record label of which they're signed to.

Bill Ryder-Jones to collaborate with visual artist Marco Lawrence 

The Merseyside solo artist hasn't shied away from taking his songwriting away from its conventional form; his first album since leaving The Coral was a musical adaptation of Italo Calvino's 1979 novel If on a Winters Night a Traveler, Ryder-Jones revisiting it last year with the Manchester Camerata as part of Manchester Literature Festival, while he's also worked on a number of film soundtracks. Next Thursday (May 28), as part of the first Ad Hoc Creative EXPO, he'll be working with visual artist Marco Lawrence to produce a brand new installation, set to be presented for one evening only within the iconic Calderstones Mansion House, at the heart of Liverpool’s Calderstones estate. In keeping with Ryder-Jones' keen connection to literature, the pair will be using the poem No Worst, There Is None by Gerard Manley Hopkins as the inspiration for the installation.

Full of Noises Returns

Occupying areas of architectural and acoustic interest around the town of Barrow-in-Furness, Full of Noises is returning for another year, having recently revealed its full line-up for 2015. Krautrock forefathers Faust have been among those to previously descend on the Cumbrian town, using the surroundings as inspiration to create new work, and this year the line-up has been guest curated by Helen Frosi (SoundFjord) and Japanese avant-garde composer Ryoko Akama, with design work from Tom James Scott (Skire). The full line-up for the event can be viewed here, but one artist we're particularly excited about is Kenyan-born, Cumbrian-raised classically trained violinist and sound artist Alison Blunt.

Elsewhere from the Northwest on TheSkinny.co.uk