THE TEMPER TRAP
Plus special guests

Friday 30 April 2010
Doors 7pm

http://www.myspace.com/thetempertrap
http://www.thetempertrap.net

O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, Shepherds Bush Green, London W12 8TT 020 8354 3300

The Temper Trap round off a spectacular 2009 with the news of another London show added to their previously announced UK tour for Spring of next year. Due to phenomenal demand the band have now confirmed a third night at the Shepherds Bush Empire on 30th April.

Hailing from Melbourne, Dougy, Lorenzo, Jonathon and Toby came to England earlier this year and have toured the UK and taken their exhilarating live show to festivals across the world. Their breakthrough single ‘Sweet Disposition’ became the anthem of the summer and climbed the UK charts for over 10 weeks ending up in the top ten and selling a staggering 250,000 copies. The album ‘Conditions’ garnered great reviews and achieved silver status six weeks after release. A new single ‘Fader’ is out January 4th.

The Temper Trap are also nominated for four awards at the ARIA Awards (Australian Record Industry Association) which takes place later this month. ‘Conditions’ is shortlisted for Album of The Year, Best Rock Album, Breakthrough Artist (album) and ‘Sweet Disposition’ for Single of the Year.

Tickets from:
www.ticketweb.co.uk
08444771000
www.seetickets.com
0870 264 3333

THE DODOS
MEGAFAUN
Plus special guests

Sunday 15 November 2009
Doors 7:30pm

Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, King´s Cross, London N1 0207 833 2022
Tickets £12.50 available from
https://www.ticketweb.co.uk/promo/ownears/schedule/id=342922
0844 477 2000
Http://Www.Seetickets.Com/S.Asp?A=The+Dodos&P=1066
0870 264 3333

www.dodosmusic.net
www.wichita-recordings.com
http://www.myspace.com/megafaun

THE DODOS are a duo from San Francisco, who throw together a delightful mix of ephemeral psych-folk-pop. Singer and guitarist Meric Long’s fleeting, intricate and finely-tuned finger-picking is warm and focused, resonating under his refined lyrical hopscotch and drummer Logan Kroeber’s foot-stomping tom and-tambourine back beat. The propulsive results recall everything from John Fahey to the Akron/Family, and hones the callings of free-spirited, unhinged acts like Animal Collective.

"San Francisco duo the Dodos matches fleet strumming and picking with steady percussion and select other instrumentation, playing deceptively low-key songs that accrue a modest power like proverbial stones and moss" Time Out New York

MEGAFAUN neatly splice together different strands of sounds, whether it's tape manipulated hoedowns, mournful, slow-blooming banjo-and-white-noise-laced epics, or rural barbershop doo wop. Focusing on a wide palette of instrumentation, but always coming back to their soaring three-part harmonies

—
PORT O BRIEN
DEER TICK
DRY THE RIVER
Plus guests

24 November 2009
Doors 7.30pm

Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, King´s Cross, London N1 0207 833 2022

Tickets £9 from
http://www.gigantic.com/gigantic/home_port_o_brien.html
Or in person at Rough Trade East

http://www.myspace.com/portobrien
http://www.myspace.com/deertick
http://www.myspace.com/drytherivermusic

The rousing PORT O’BRIEN debut All We Could Was Sing was released to an ecstatic reception last year, with critics and fans alike swept away by their tales of the sea and music filled with joyous abandon. But while some of our favourite albums are informed by delirium and youthful adventure, others are informed by tragedy and the depths of heartache. Unexpectedly, Port O’Brien’s second album falls into this category.

Where the band’s stomping debut All We Could Do Was Sing was full of ragged chants and life affirming lyrics, Threadbare is, as the name suggests, a much more contemplative and introspective affair yet still filled with all-encompassing, emotionally charged anthems for which Port O’Brien have become known.

What began in early 2009 as a light-hearted and loose songwriting effort quickly turned into a dense and bold work, following the sudden death of close family member. A lingering sense of apprehension hung around the resultant recording process.

Chinks of light are seen on ‘Love Me Through’, as the band regenerate with jaunty licks and stripped kit. The subject matter peering through the darkness towards the light at the end of the tunnel; “And after all this/I still love love love/Everything you do/But still I wonder, If you’ll love me through”.

The album closes with the book-end ‘High Without the Hope’ which begins with the same intro except played backwards. The song is almost identical but crucially, the lyrics differ and at the end Cambria adds: “Mourning’s never linear…”.

Threadbare is alarmingly honest and cuts like a knife, but it’s all the richer and stronger for it.

Praise for All We Could Do Was Sing
“This bands waters aren’t always still, but they do run satisfyingly deep” 4/6 Time Out
“Excellent debut album… nautical but very nice” 4/5 The Times
"Songs of hardship, resilience and drifting melancholy thus feature, all imbued with salty spirit and a bracing musicality. Arcade Fire fans are advised to take the bait." 4/5 The Independent
“Joyous abandon” 4/5 Uncut
“’Fisherman’s Son’ captures the bleak beauty of the frozen wilderness. If it inspires music like this, they shouldn't give up their day jobs just yet." Q
"…seriously fine material. The Alaskan fishing fleet's loss will be roots-rock's gain." Word
“Port O'Brien recognise that simplicity yields extremely good results… and the reward is all ours on their debut." The Fly
“Energetic and life affirming… a cracking debut album” 4/5 The Sun
“We’ve developed a bit of a crush” NME
“The sense of exuberance at the sheer joy of being alive… a debut album of group chants and lush melodies” The Guardian
“Port O’Brien have cast their lines and have us completely hooked”
Independent On Sunday
“Contemplative acoustic and melodically stomping indie folk… a beguiling debut” Metro

PLUS support from DEER TICK and DRY THE RIVER

Eat Your Own Ears presents
JAMES YORKSTON & EAT YOUR OWN EARS PRESENT 'FOLK SONGS'
WITH
JAMES YORKSTON & THE BIG EYES FAMILY PLAYERS
ALASDAIR ROBERTS
MARRY WATERSON AND OLIVER KNIGHT
& MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED.

WITH DOMINO RECORDS DJS

Saturday 7 November 2009
Doors 7pm

The Tabernacle Powis Square, London, W11 2AY 0207 520 9305

Tickets £16.50 advance from:

www.ticketweb.co.uk 08444771000
www.seetickets.com 0870 264 3333

http://www.myspace.com/jamesyorkston
http://www.myspace.com/alasdairrobertsofficial

JAMES YORKSTON, resident of the East Neuk of Fife, returns for a special day of folk music at London’s historic Tabernacle venue in the company of The Big Eyes Family Players.

James plays in support of his new album Folk Songs – out on Domino on the 10th of August – which features traditional songs from the length and breadth of the Great Britain & Ireland and one tune from Galicia in Spain. After a decade which has seen folk music morph into nu-folk, mobile phone-ad folk, mortgage-folk, smoothie-folk and so on, Yorkston has reached back into the tradition of song and place and drawn a line in the sand.

ALASDAIR ROBERTS will offer up his ancient song in support. Long-time collaborator of Will Oldham, Robert’s songs revive the tradition song and balladry of the British Isles to tell tales of sweetly melodic tragedy.

MARRY WATERSON & OLIVER KNIGHT

Maria Gilhooley Waterson and Oliver Knight are brother and sister who have grown up immersed in traditional song. As part of the Waterson Family musical dynasty, the siblings have thrived on communal music making whilst developing highly original and distinctly English performance styles of their own, style that owes much to the folk tradition, but isn’t beholden to it.

Maria Gilhooley is a singer best known for her rich, striking vocal contributions to numerous recordings and live performances by various members of the Waterson family. Her younger brother Oliver Knight is probably best known as collaborator with their mother, Lal Waterson, on landmark albums Once in a Blue Moon (TSCD478) and A Bed of Roses (TSCD505). Oliver is a sought after guitarist, composer, arranger and has been record producer and engineer on a series of influential albums including those by Chumbawumba and his cousin, Eliza Carthy.

The children of the luminous singing talent, Lal Waterson and George Knight, Maria and Oliver were born in Yorkshire and both have long since made their respective homes in Robin Hood’s Bay, a fishing village perched on the edge of the dramatic East Coast.

While reading 20th Century Music at University, MARY HAMPTON heard something very strange on a friend’s mixtape in between Frank Zappa and Penderecki. It was an English folksong…The Snow it Melts the Soonest by Anne Briggs. It was the sheer exoticism of this sound alone that set her on her current path.

After recording 2 EPs of traditional folksongs at home (Book One and Book Two), she wrote her first original album: a collection called “My Mother’s Children” which was released by Navigator Records last August and went on to be named no.4 folk album of the year in MOJO’s 2008 round-up.

Reviews for her live shows:

“Idiosyncratically majestic” – FT

“Mary Hampton is different. She’s different from anyone I’ve seen or heard. Ever.” – Playlouder

“Mary Hampton is on another planet entirely” – Fact Magazine

More on Folk Songs and the Big Eyes Family Players:

“The idea behind this album of folk songs first surfaced around 2000 / 2001: To record an album of traditional songs for Fence Records of St. Andrews, to sell as a companion piece to my own work which they were then punting out to unsuspecting golfers. So I set to it, learning songs from cassettes and CDs by Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins, Jean Ritchie and Nic Jones, Eliza Carthy & Nancy Kerr; recording them to various states of success and undress. I also tackled a few Lal Waterson tracks – Scarecrow & Fine Horseman. Lal’s songwriting of course I’ve revisited since. Alas, it ended up unreleased – Domino Records, in a rare lapse of good judgement, decided to offer me a record contract and the folk album got put on the back burner. Being miserly, the songs I’d recorded already, or had marked for that original traditional album, were mostly put on subsequent albums or EPs. So, this album here consists of 11 “new” tunes. New as in chosen and recorded especially for this record. But they’re not new songs, by any means.

I picked up The Big Eyes Family Players somewhere along the way. Any touring musician will tell you – CDs from punters and fellow musicians seem to end up in your pockets at the end of every gig. At the end of every tour there’s a least half a dozen CDs, CDrs, etc. One such CD I discovered was by Big Eyes; and lo-and-behold, I loved what I heard. I contacted the main guy, James Green, and we’ve been in touch ever since. When I decided to resurrect this traditional album idea, he was an obvious choice of partner in crime. I didn’t want to work with my usual band The Athletes, but there was no slur there, they’ll be back on board for the next James Yorkston album proper – I just fancied trying something different.”

Next week, ephemeral psych-folk-pop from THE DODOS, ricocheting rhythms and tribal chants from DJANGO DJANGO and banjo-and-white-noise-laced epics courtesy of MEGAFAUN

THE DODOS
DJANGO DJANGO
MEGAFAUN
Plus special guests

Sunday 15 November 2009
Doors 7:30pm

Scala, 275 Pentonville Road, King´s Cross, London N1 0207 833 2022
Tickets £12.50 available from
www.ticketweb.co.uk
0844 477 2000
www.seetickets.com
0870 264 3333

www.dodosmusic.net
www.wichita-recordings.com
http://www.myspace.com/djangotime
http://www.myspace.com/megafaun

MAPS
BANJO OR FREAKOUT
IT HUGS BACK
Plus Guests

Monday 26th October
Doors 8pm

Cargo, 83 Rivington St, London, EC2A 3AY Tel 020 7739 3440

Tickets £9.50 from
www.seetickets.com
0870 264 3333
www.ticketweb.co.uk
08444 771000

www.myspace.com/mapsmusic
www.maps-blog.com
www.myspace.com/banjoorfreakout
www.myspace.com/ithugsback

MAPS promote their new album 'Turning the mind' with a live set of euphoric space-rock to folksy, downtempo whisperings and clattering, thudding noise-pop. It recalls everything from the far away electronics of Basic Channel and Carl Craig, through the skewed songwriting of postal service, Flaming Lips and Grandaddy to the euphoric Soundscapes of Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine.

BANJO OR FREAKOUT is London-based Italian Alessio Natalizia, maker of swirling avant-folk and looped, beautiful, stargazing reverb heavy pop.

"Impressive, enigmatic, lovely and atmospheric” – Pitchfork

"Channeling the repetitious melancholy of Arthur Russell, Can and Animal Collective” – NME

"Mesmerising, and undoubtedly unique” – Drowned In Sound

Friends since meeting at school aged 12, IT HUGS BACK started making music together after migrating from their hometown of Maidstone to London for university. Adopting a DIY approach, the band became a cottage industry, producing lovingly hand-made and hand-stitched recordings, which were released as limited edition 7" singles via Tigertrap records and the group's own label, safe and sound. Influenced by the intricate song-writing of Wilco, the sound layers of My Bloody Valentine, the pop charm of the Lemonheads, the textures of Sonic Youth and the DIY aesthetics of the arts and crafts movement, It Hugs Back soon caught the eye of Too Pure records who eventually took those early singles and released them together as a low-key eight-track ep, 'The Record Room' (also the moniker of their home studio), to sell on tour and through independent record stores. Now firmly ensconced in their new home at 4AD, Matthew Simms' softly spoken vocals turn the captivating guitar licks, rhythms and feedback fuzz into something wistful, imaginative and charming.

Domino resident CASS MCCOMBS possesses that rare ability to attack both the listener's heart with melodies and textures, and head with its poetry and themes. In the greatest of American traditions, McCombs carries on transcending fad and fashion to ensure the art of songwriting lives on.

The California native built his career traveling the East Coast of the US, performing at open mic nights in New York and Baltimore. His styles range from the anxious dronals of the Velvet Underground to lonesome hollowed out basement folk with many turns in between. His is a vivid and weary lyrical style that drifts into the high-spirited and whimsical.

www.seetickets.com
0870 264 3333
www.ticketweb.co.uk
08444771000