#18: The Umlauts, Lou Terry, Lolina
This weeks shows, new music and more...
Cantilever is a weekly rundown of London-based gigs, and other musical ephemera.
This week’s playlist
This week’s Bandcamp pages.
“Here comes everybody” James Joyce once wrote. He was, of course, talking about the number of bands playing in London two weeks before Christmas. There are many, many top recommendations in the “also notable” section this week, but given the volume this time we’re concentrating exclusively on shows where you can still 100% buy a ticket.
Shows this week
DDD: Sculpture Park, Stanley Welch, Satan Club — The Social, 03.12.24
A relatively new night highlighting art-pop and other alternative sounds at The Social, Down Down Down is the brainchild of Tapir! affiliates (whose two dates at St Matthias Church are, sadly, both sold out this week & whose album The Pilgrim, Their God and The King Of My Decrepit Mountain (2024) is coming in hot on many end of year lists.)
This time, we’re treated to Sculpture Park, an intense jazz / post-rock quintet; the baroque, wonderfully bonkers chamber-pop of Stanley Welch; and Satan Club, an introspective acoustic spinoff from slowcore band Deathcrash. Tickets.
The Umlauts — Moor Beer Vaults, 04.12.24.
The Umlauts’ debut album Slags (2023) brings together their two currently released EPs of energetic electronica. Lyrics are delivered in multiple languages over propulsive, deftly orchestrated beats. At times, they’re like a jacked-up Kraftwerk. At others, mischievous electroclash to rival and ultimately trump The Dare.
In recent years, it would appear that the electroclash-revival that The Umlauts spend some of their time exploring — particularly on tracks like “Dance & Go” — has made something of a resurgence, most notably on Charli XCX’s Brat. It goes by a few names: Electroclash is probably the best, but also Blogcore, the short lived Nu-Rave, or, like NTS Radio’s essential mix, you could call it “Indie Sleaze” (but I wouldn’t recommend it). In any case, it feels like The Umlauts predicted this resurgence, rather than responded to it.
Live, the nine-strong band are hypnotic and commanding. Listen to banger “Boiler Suits & Combat Boots” to get you in the mood. Tickets.
Lou Terry — The Windmill, 04.12.24.
Lou Terry’s music is nothing if not honest. On his debut album Building a Case (2024), deep, poignant, sometimes uncomfortable feelings are expressed through many different shades of singer-songwriterly folk-rock.
On the opener, the narrator struggles to come to terms with an interaction with someone experiencing homelessness. “Canyon”, is a jaunty homage to wanting to escape the sadness of the world, and “Persistent” gives voice to renter’s anxieties: “doesn’t matter if you want to build your life here. Do you own this place? No, I didn’t think so.”
The album has many high points lyrically, but “Stupid Brain”, the longest track, sticks out. It gives us a poignant snapshot of a grandparent, struggling with feelings of self doubt:
“If only you could see how wrong I know I am / I know it makes you sad / That even my new grandson could not coax me out into the garden / Through clouds of smoke, they hang like hundred yard signs”
Before the perspective shifts to the child of this person who straightforwardly, but poetically gives us this:
“Falling back into holes that you poke / into the words I direct at a disillusioned face I still recognise, you’re still my father. / I wish that you’d stop smoking cigarettes / I don’t want you to die.”
Having been picked out by Black Country, New Road for tour slots last year, presumably for these kinds of moving and personal lyrics that would of course chime with their audience, Lou and band have had plenty of opportunities to hone their live set. While regular fixtures at The Windmill, this album launch party is sure to bring a revived and well-won energy. Tickets.
Skee Mask (all night long) — Fold, 06.12.24.
Skee Mask has been iconoclastically charting his own path through the electronic scene for fourteen years now. Most recent album Resort (2024) takes a good eight minutes before so much as a kick drum enters the scene, easing in on some glacial pads, then moving through closely related electronic genres. Dubby, Drexciya-esque manoeuvres abound on highlight “Daytime Gamer”; meanwhile, “Hölzl Was A Dancer” is a non-obnoxious bit of tech-house.
Skee Mask operates outside norms: in 2022, he removed his entire catalogue from Spotify, opting instead to release direct to fan experiments on Bandcamp. On Friday just gone, he gave his first ever in-depth interview to Resident Advisor, an enjoyable read, revealing the man behind the music to be (as is often the way) a totally normal, modest person who just happens to have an incredible ear and work ethic.
The article also mentioned that on the last Skee Mask appearance at Fold, the crowd didn’t appreciate his playing hip-hop among the techno tracks. To this we ask: have you forgotten Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” (1982), and the total historical indivisibility of these two genres?
Expect more of this genre-hopping as Skee Mask takes to the decks for a full 7 hours on Friday night. Tickets.
Mandy, Indiana (In the Round) — ICA, 07.12.24.
Mandy, Indiana’s debut album I’ve seen a way (2024) is a brooding blend of industrial techno and noise rock. Music for dancing then, but with an added sense of dread.
There’s no denying the industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle bear some influence on Mandy, Indiana’s sound, particularly on the noisier tracks like “Iron Maiden”. In fact the full album and Mandy, Indiana’s project at large could be said to be an apposite continuation of Throbbing Gristle’s track “Hot on the Heels of Love” (1979), which really set the blueprint for an industrial, cerebral noise-techno.
I don’t know if TG’s infamous “Live at the ICA 1977” was done in the round, but Mandy, Indiana’s choice for this performance — taking it off the stage and into the audience — is likely to bring it into the kind of “happening” territory that would please Cosey Fanni Tutti and co. (Even if you’re unfamiliar with TG, Tutti’s Art, Sex, Music is a must read.)
Head just off Trafalgar Square to receive 360 degrees of groove-led doom. Tickets.
Lolina — Moth Club, 08.12.24.
Lolina is the latest project from Alina Astrova, AKA Inga Copeland, the mercurial electronic art-pop musician perhaps best known for “Hype Williams”, her collaborative project with Dean Blunt.
Hype Williams’ content is deliberately obscure and tantalisingly rare. A single interview with the pair of them here. An interview where Copeland answers all the questions in Russian there. The really great Hype Williams album, Find Out What Happens When People Stop Being Polite, and Start Gettin' Reel (2010) was — until just two days ago! — not available on streaming services, only YouTube. Top comment: “I cleared a house party with this in 2011”.
Hype Williams’ real skill was in creating the negative image of an electronic pop song. A sketch or suggestion of a song where the listener had to fill in the blanks. There were a lot of blanks. But the effect — at its best on tracks like “The Throning” — is something haunting, dreamlike, and occasionally sublime.
Lolina’s latest album, Unrecognisable (2024) is, according to the Relaxin Records website (Lolina’s vehicle for self-releasing), the third part in a triptych of works intended to illustrate “a story about a city where buildings are used as weapons in a war between the government and the people.” So far so interesting. But it has to be said that these works are, to put it lightly, extremely obtuse.
You can read part 1, the interactive comic book titled “Eiffel Shard” on the Ormside website. You can watch part 2, the live streamed improvisation “Paris, dream” on YouTube. Neither will enlighten you. But you may come away with a sense of foreboding.
Chapter 3 is pragmatically described by the press release as “an album of new music.” It goes on: “it was recorded almost exclusively on a Casio SK-200 sampling keyboard boasting 1.62 seconds total sampling time. No beat preset (total of 20) is left untouched, unchopped or unlooped. Not one of the 49 mini keys is idle. Retains samples when turned off.”
When you press play on this “album of new music” you are met with a bass sound and a deep, processed voice that says: “From the ashes of Lolina and Inga Copeland, rising like your heartbeat, meet Geneva Heat and Paris Hell.” It’s self-referential and undeniably ironic: all the hallmarks of a truly Post Modern experience.
27 minutes of sludgy, etherised sounding beats and edited spoken word vocals ensue. At points, Unrecognisable is on the knife edge of barely being “music” at all. At the end: it’s impossible not to feel at least a bit confused.
This experience will either leave you cold, or may lead you down the over-intellectualising path. Pitchfork, for example, concluded of a previous release: “Lolina challenges ingrained assumptions about what songs are and what they can do, dragging her listeners through an exhilarating funhouse of sound.” And you have to ask: does she? Does she? Like, does she actually challenge those assumptions? The answer is: yes, if you like. But also, if we’re honest, not really.
The reality: actually, nothing very deep is going on here. She’s taking the piss. It’s a pisstake. All of it. And that’s fine! Are we really at the point in culture where we can’t accept a pisstake both as a joke and a work of art? Consider Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) — the one where he put a toilet in an art gallery — in many ways, the original pisstake. The artwork that looked at art and said: no. And that’s over a hundred years old! Is something similar going on here? I think so. And I’m going to MOTH club on Sunday to find out for sure. Tickets.
Grab a ticket before they sell out
GothBoiClique — Electric Brixton, 31.01.25. Tickets.
Justice — Alexandra Palace, 11.02.25. Tickets.
Gang of Four — O2 Kentish Town Forum, 24.06.25. Tickets.
John Glacier — Village Underground, 20.02.25. Tickets.
Also notable this week
Nilüfer Yanya — HERE at Outernet, 02.12.24. Waitlist.
Modern Woman — Servant Jazz Quarters, 03.12.24. Waitlist.
Honeyglaze — Village Underground, 03.12.24. Waitlist.
Billy Nomates — ICA, 04.12.24. Waitlist.
Tapir! — St Matthias Church, 04.12.24. Waitlist.
MASIWEI — Troxy, 04.12.24. Tickets.
Habibi — The Shacklewell Arms, 04.12.24. Waitlist.
Shovel Dance Collective (residency) — Cafe Oto, 05 - 07.12.24. Waitlist.
Azymuth — O2 Academy Islington, 05.12.24. Tickets.
End of the Road Xmas Party — The Lexington, 05.12.24. Waitlist.
Cumgirl8 — The Underworld, 05.12.24. Tickets.
Bakar — Alexandra Palace Great Hall, 05.12.24. Tickets.
Famous — Corscia Studios, 05.12.24. Waitlist.
Saul Adamczewski — The Victoria, 05.12.24. Tickets.
Snapped Ankles — The 100 Club, 06.12.24. Tickets.
Julia Holter — Islington Assembly Hall, 06.12.24. Tickets.
Blood Wizard — The Lexington, 06.12.24. Tickets.
White Denim — Rough Trade East, 06.12.24. Waitlist.
Richard Hawley — Hackney Church, 06.12.24. Waitlist.
Richard Dawson — The Ivy House, 07.12.24. Waitlist.
Piglet — Corsica Studios, 07.12.24. Tickets.
Joshua Idehen — Moth club, 07.12.24. Tickets.
Kwaku Asante — The Lower Third, 07.12.24. Tickets.
Nightshift — The Lexington, 08.12.24. Tickets.
Ephemera
Kanye West’s new video: a piece of “AI slop” featuring meme rapper yuno miles and both of Ye’s daughters.
Featurette on the upcoming Bob Dylan movie, which, like the (still underrated) Inside Llewyn Davis before it, uses period microphones and equipment to capture all of the music live.
Phil Elverum on the Lyrics That Changed His Life from Hearing Things. You can read our take Elverum’s lyrics from last year here.
Tell us what you think of the shows from last week + this week, we’re always keen to hear!