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London-based Welsh band The Tubs announce their debut album, Dead Meat, out 27th
January via Trouble in Mind. Owen “O” Williams and George “GN” Nicholls, the primary songwriters
from the group Joanna Gruesome, formed the band in 2018 following a trip to Llawr-Betws caravan
park.
The Tubs are also 3/4s of the “evil” Sniffany & The Nits, as well as the decidedly less evil Ex-Vöid.
Despite three bands’ sonic differences, there’s a similar derangement at play beneath The Tubs’
jangle. The Tubs make music that incorporates elements of post-punk, traditional British-folk, and
guitar jangle seasoned by nonchalant Flying Nun pop hooks and contemporary antipodean
indie bands.
Dead Meat is resplendent in hi-fidelity strum and thrum, but the group’s penchant for traditional British
folk and Canterbury folk-rock takes a noticeable, caffeinated step forward. Echoes of Fairport
Convention’s decidedly English chime cross swords with William’s lyrics. Many songs urgently soar
under Williams’ acerbic lyrics, recalling a younger, fiery Richard Thompson.
These are pop tunes about erotomania, groinal rashes, extreme acts of sniveling and heinous South
London flat odors. Mental illness tends to be a recurrent topic but these songs don’t offer any advice
or particular sense of affirmation, relatability, hope etc. If anything, they seem more interested in the
ways in which mental illness can turn the sufferer into a petty, annoying arsehole. O Williams
explains: “Having a compulsive disorder which makes me go bonkers isn’t my ‘superpower’ or
whatever, it actually just makes me this irritating guy who smells.”
Lead single “Sniveller” was inspired by Williams’ previous band, The Snivellers. “This song’s inspired
by an old band of mine – The Snivellers. It was fronted by Max Levy of Garden Centre and the
concept was that he’d embody the archetypal Sniveller – i.e the pathetic, scheming, slimy, manservant
forever backing slowly out of his master’s chambers. I wanted to write about how love can turn
anyone into a Sniveller”.
The Tubs have never been tighter and more dynamic, often imperceptible ratcheting up the tension,
an extra guitar line overdubbed, a barely audible organ/synth cranking under a chorus or bridge, or
unexpected backups from vocalist Lan McArdle. The Tubs are poised to take over your stereo –
there’s no point in resisting.

A lot has changed for everyone over the 8 years since Jimmy Whispers
released his debut LP, especially for Jimmy himself. In another lifetime,
he was that sweet kid from Chicago who stole our hearts with his aw-
shucks Midwestern attitude and his knack for writing catchy old-time
melodies. Legendary critic Jessica Hopper once called him the city’s
“greatest new homegrown musical enigma,” and he turned a mixtape
of iPhone voice memos (Summer in Pain) into a profound racket, that
saw him perform at the Pitchfork Music Festival and earn praise from
that outlet and places like Stereogum, Spin, BrooklynVegan, VICE, NME,
and many others. If you caught a glimpse, it was exciting, but it was
just a warm-up to his second act. As for today, Jimmy Whispers is alive
and well in Los Angeles. He’s still making music—quite a lot of it. He’s
got a blossoming new career as a music video director and filmmaker.
He’s become a co-writer for others including Drugdealer and Dent
May. He’s got his sobriety, a new commitment to making life-affirming
art, and a 1988 Buick Reatta. Jimmy Whispers has returned with a new
LP The Search For God out June 9th on Carpark Records. His first since
his 2015 debut, the album was co-produced by Ziyad Asrar of the band
Whitney, and returns to some jewel-box era teen influences out of step
with the chill/lo-fi LA indie rock scene he’s found himself lumped in
with.

Dear Daddy, Who Art in Heaven is a new original play that follows a boy who’s trying to reconcile his religious upbringing with his sexuality. The kicker is: as he wrestles, the audible voice of God speaks back to him “from above”… only it turns out God is actually irreverent, crass, fruity, and a total troll. The show examines fundamentalist Christian concepts and values while also tenderly (and often humorously) prodding at some of the stereotypes of the gay experience.

@deardaddytheplay

Russell Haswell is a restlessly forward-thinking, multi-disciplinary artist, performer and curator. With a background steeped in computer music, black metal, noise, techno and solo improvisation, his practice is renowned for broaching the extremities of visual and sonic arts. He’s performed in noted live and HDJ [hard disc jockey] actions with Aphex Twin, Gescom, Pan Sonic and Masami Akita (Merzbow), among others, and worked with Florian Hecker on Iannis Xenakis’ UPIC system in their Haswell & Hecker duo, whoseBlackest Ever Black LP is widely considered a milestone of modern electronic music composition—and zweikommasieben Magazin has been a fan ever since.

Reality Therapy is Russell Haswell’s first new work on Diagonal since 37 Minute Workout Vol. 2 in 2019 is a response to the continued absorption of real-time video feeds on YouTube in and around the Covid period. Across ten tracks, Russell makes connections to his youth, to a political climate punctuated by strikes, class-war and protest. “The themes and styles that I selected reflect what I saw going on in the world around me during this weird time that we all went through . . . The imprisonment of Navalny, Covid lockdowns and the shambolic government—I couldn’t help feeling the similarities to the 80s and early 90s, and so the music includes stylistic themes and sound references to that period transposed into a more positive and humorous light.”

‘Formed in September 2021, Hyppia is the sometime-collaboration between tw friends, Matthieu Robin and Daniel Magee. Now split between cities, the pair continue to come together for performances, each one different to the last, the sonic palette always shifting shape between dronal tones and exercises in rhythm, dubbed instrumentals and trance. Performances so far have included The White Hotel (Manchester), Stereo (Glasgow) and La Chunky Studio (Glasgow). Their first release ‘N’importe où, Hors du Monde’ is due out on Phase Group in 2023.’

Cru Servers recent album EEL on 12th Isle is part hexagonal lube-pool, part peatman’s gallbladder; EEL marks an encephalitic (onward) plowter for both of us. Like intractable flagellations hoisted through individual druse romps, staminate bleachfields give way to unillustrated gonging, in chiefly 12V 3A veinlets. EEL – acronymised in ‘pen scrape’ – decontaminates, in our eye, four key baronial globoids, expunging gladly by 5 pin toddy ladle. In the torrential burn below, head hair, jaw hair and clothes sticky, stinking and greased with black charcoaled remains; arms are held aloft, supplicants to a muse long rent from this earth.

Now in it’s twelfth year, the Second Sunday Sipping Sounds Series is surely one of the longest running amplified ‘ukulele residencies in the greater Strathclyde vicinity. Come gather ’round the hearth of the Old Hairdo for an enveloping early evening of the “innovative, heavily amplified, individualistic, boldly teetering on the brink of oddity” sounds you crave as you bask in the gentle flickering glow of some obscure visual fodder.

Now in it’s twelfth year, the Second Sunday Sipping Sounds Series is surely one of the longest running amplified ‘ukulele residencies in the greater Strathclyde vicinity. Come gather ’round the hearth of the Old Hairdo for an enveloping early evening of the “innovative, heavily amplified, individualistic, boldly teetering on the brink of oddity” sounds you crave as you bask in the gentle flickering glow of some obscure visual fodder.

Born in the very North of Scotland, Mikie Henderson is on a journey to play the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. His Scottish culture and American Country Music influences make for a unique, fun, Country-Pop sound, accompanied by honest tales of love, loss and life. Mikie is building a name for himself in the UK scene and beyond, with charting releases and live appearances across the length and breadth of the UK.

2022 was an exciting year for Mikie with the release of 4 singles, each one of them commanding worldwide radio airplay, including across the BBC and Country Radio. Two of those releases, Rolled a Six and Under the Light of Your Love, have been favourites amongst fans amassing over 28,000 combined streams on Spotify alone. During 2022 Mikie also performed at the British Country Music Association’s (BCMA) Awards Ceremony showcasing his popular releases and unreleased material.

Now based in Bristol, UK, Mikie records at Puzzle Maker Studios – a studio fast becoming the UK’s go-to for Country-Pop. 2023 is set to be even bigger yet with the release of 4 new singles across the summer and autumn, each one of them set to cement Mikie’s place in the scene as he develops his Country-Pop sound.

The ‘Tonight Tour’ – Mikie’s first headline UK tour – will kick off in October 2023 and will visit Bristol, London, Glasgow, Inverness, Wick and Edinburgh.