Cantilever is a weekly rundown of London-based gigs and other musical ephemera.
This week’s playlist
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More than a few subscribers to this newsletter have mentioned that they wanted to see what was coming up further than a week. With this in mind we have just launched the Cantilever Recommends website where we’re listing all of our recommended shows for the upcoming couple of months. We’re removing the “also happening this week” section from this newsletter and will link the website below after each edition so you can see everything coming up further in advance more easily, leaving the newsletter to focus on its longer-form commentary. Go here to view the website, have a play around, (but then come back and read the longer pieces, please).
Cantilever Recommends
Mustafa Özkent — The Jazz Café, 15.01.2025.
The near total digitisation of and access to the history of recorded music in the 21st century has had many intriguing consequences. One of them is what I am calling The Mainstreaming of Rare Groove. Rare Groove is a faintly ridiculous term that encompasses genres as wide reaching as psych-rock, R&B, jazz and hip-hop, bound together by a difficulty to find (on vinyl) and largely sourced from countries with less abundant music industries than the UK and the US (hence the relative rarity). There has always been an interested collectors market for these records in the “west”: Gilles Peterson and co. have been playing out these sounds for some time and before them many unsung crate diggers. But this form of appreciation was always centred around championing the recorded music as it was.
More recently, musically literate types have caused a genuine surge in popularity of the so called Rare Groove sounds, once revered for their scarcity, by bringing them into their own live and recorded music. To think of Rare Groove as a genre would be a pretty reductive take. But when you listen to Khruangbin (from the US), the leader of this particular pack, it would be hard to make any other claim. The mask wearing (identity concealing, one wonders why…) Glass Beams (from Australia) provide infographics over their instagram reels explaining where their musical influences are coming from directly. They’ve done their homework.
When we think of musical “revivals” what is being revived is typically something that was fairly popular in the first place, the culture having moved on, then come back around. But what’s odd here is that “Rare Groove” was never popular to begin with. It was rare. Its scarcity was its selling point. Maybe this is a good thing: a line of cultural appreciation that shines a light on the original work while bringing the sounds to a new audience (though more robust music industry channels). For now at least then, the vinyl is still pricey, but the groove is no longer rare. In fact, the groove is pretty ubiquitous: hear it floating in the background of your local coffee shop. Whither the aura? Whither the original artists?
Turkish musician and producer Mustafa Özkent’s album Gençlik İle Elele (1973) is considered by many as a classic of rare groove. It’s a preeminently danceable collection of phaser-heavy guitars, compressed drums, hammond organ, and ferociously distorted bass, all exquisitely recorded. A compact, fun listen, well worthy of your full attention. Özkent takes to the 500 cap Jazz Café on Wednesday with a seven piece band to play the album in full. Meanwhile, Khruangbin, whose guitar tone and phrasing heavily echoes that of this record, headline Gunnersbury park this summer. Go figure! Tickets.
If you want a lot more where Gençlik İle Elele came from, check out Anatolian Rock Revival Project: “A non-profit project, dedicated to bring the non-mainstream pieces from the Turkish Rock History into light with unique art works.”
Josef Van Wissem + Sam Grassie — The 100 Club, 16.01.2025.
Dutch contemporary lute musician Josef Van Wissem is prolific in both his solo recorded output and his work in film, lending a medieval-ish experimentalism to Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and more recently, the critically divisive (I’m told) Un Prince (2023). His project incorporates ambience, noise, drone, sampling and other experimental techniques, but is firmly rooted in the lute and its acoustic tones. In 2019, Cinémathèque Française in Paris commissioned Van Wissem to compose the soundtrack to the restored original version of “Nosferatu” (1922), which features an intriguing Shoegaze-cut on track three and a Sun O))) or Godspeed You! Black Emperor-esque feeling on track 4. A far cry from the lush, chilling cinematic score Robin Carolan has presented for the David Eggers reimagining of Nosferatu that is out right now. Two takes, both great!
For his part, Carolan has only recently pivoted into film work, having previously run the Tri Angle record label that gave us releases by serpentwithfeet, Clams Casino and Evian Christ (playlist here).
Supporting Van Wissem is Sam Grassie, guitarist in Broadside Hacks and, like the headliner here, also a controlled virtuoso at his acoustic instrument. Grassie was the Bert Jansch (legendary Scottish Folk Guitarist) foundation young guitarist from 2020-2022. “I discovered Bert Jansch while sifting through my father’s music collection. Naturally, as a budding guitarist, I was enthralled by his original style and virtuosic technique. It was when I heard his protest song ‘Anti-apartheid’ that I first appreciated the power of song to illustrate situations beyond our experience” he said. Here he is playing Jansch’s The Blacksmith (with Naima Bock on vocals). Exquisite stuff. The 100 club this Wednesday. Tickets.
Elias Rønnenfelt — Avalon Café, 16.01.2025.
Heavy Glory is a new solo record from Iceage frontman Elias Rønnenfelt, faintly reminiscent of Yung Lean’s jonathan leandoer96 project in that it will have you saying “surely not!” to its Stomp and Holler sincerity, before growing on you in a genuine way.
The opening track will immediately raise eyebrows from any Iceage fan. A bold statement of intent. I wonder if Rønnenfelt has heard of Jake Bugg? No doubt the Dane is pretty familiar with English culture as he sings “Even Luton wasn’t built in a day” on “Another Round”, a line that may have worked better if it referenced Milton Keynes…
This is not a bit. This is not Country-inspired music through the prism of Iceage. When it’s Country, it’s just Country. And there are some great, rousing moments on Heavy Glory. “Stalker” stands out as a lyrically complex portrait of a voyeuristic relationship. “Unarmed” puts its lighters in the air chorus and picked guitar front and centre. And the guitar line and synth bed in the chorus of “No One Else” recalls the best of early 2000s acoustic guitar bands. Some welcome unabashed earnestness.
Tickets to this free show at Avalon Café can only be received by singing up to Rønnenfelt’s nascent substack. Yes! Plus a recent live session with Rønnenfelt swaggering with distorted acoustic guitar makes for compelling watching for those who miss out.
Sacconi Quartet play Terry Riley’s Sun Rings — King’s Place, 16.01.2025.
Sun Rings is a collaborative piece composed by Kronos Quartet and Terry Riley, which incorporates samples of sounds sent back and forth between the earth and the outer reaches of the solar system from space probes Voyager I and II. The string arrangements are Kronos’ and the chorus on “Earth Whistlers” and “Prayer Central” are Riley’s. In its interpolation of vocal samples it has shades of Steve Reich, but unlike Reich's best sample based pieces (listen to him discuss Different Trains on the best episode Song Exploder ever put out), these sounds are more “world building” than they are fundamental drivers of the piece itself, they’re the ornament not the bones. Sun Rings is occasionally very beautiful and at other times puts you in mind of the chilling cults that emerge in the film Aniara (2018) as the passengers aboard the spaceship attempt to salvage some spirituality out of their nihilistic situation. If you haven’t seen this film — which is based on the 1956 nobel prize winning Swedish epic poem of the same name — it is an absolute must: unbelievably underrated and genuinely life changing.
This performance at Kings Place is timed to celebrate Terry Riley’s 90th birthday and performed by Sacconi Quartet (who were recently turned into a digitally manipulable orchestral sample pack by Spitfire Audio, so surely beyond technically excellent).
Putting on pieces expressly about Space — that most 20th century fad — takes on a different character now we’re engaged in a new kind of billionaire led consumer space race. Who knows if we’re due another kind of cultural shift into sci-fi fanaticism because of it? Although there’s always been art that responds to the unknown up there. A couple of years ago I enjoyed watching composer Christo Squier perform a WIP collaboration with particle physicist Dr. Teppei Katori titled “Subatomic”. Cosmic rays are tiny particles that are constantly flying out of the Sun, into our atmosphere and through our bodies. A couple will fly through the room you are in while you read this newsletter. In Japan, an institution inside a hollowed out mountain (for real!) called Super Kamiokande picks up these extremely hard to detect particles to study them: Subatomic was a piece for chamber orchestra that used data from Super Kamiokande to change compositional elements of the piece on the fly. A neat experiment that worked well. But like Sun Rings, these classical pieces often walk the tightrope between gimmicky and compelling. Although at a time when the term “experimental” music means almost nothing (including when used by this newsletter), it’s great to see an undeniable experiment unfold before you.
These pieces respond to the information we get back from space, but what about the sounds we send there? The Voyager II contains the Golden Disks; time capsules of human culture for any aliens who might intercept the spacecraft as it burrows further and further away from earth. The cover of the record shows a diagram — in the simplest terms possible — of how you might go about playing it if you are from a civilisation that has not yet invented record players.
The disk is filled with a global mix of classical music, greetings in different languages, whale songs, Chuck Berry and so on. But the penultimate track is the most moving: Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark was The Night, Cold Was the Ground” (1927) a wordless gospel blues number that seems to be the perfect soundtrack to a solitary journey into darkness.
Whenever I think of the Golden Disk, however, I can’t help but think of one of the most disturbing sections from W.G Sebald’s docu-novel The Rings of Saturn (1995). The passage begins with a description of the terrible actions and consequences of the Ustasha (more or less the Croatian equivalent of the SS during WW2), and the complicity of the German Heeresgruppe E intelligence officers, stationed in Banja Luka, in their acts of unimaginable violence. The passage then goes on to reveal this horrifying (entirely true) information about the first track on the Golden Disk:
“[…] one of the Heeresgruppe E intelligence officers at that time was a young Viennese lawyer whose chief task was to draw up memoranda relating to the necessary resettlements, described as imperative for humanitarian reasons. For this commendable paper-work he was awarded by Croatian head of state Ante Pavelić the silver medal of the crown of King Zvonomir, with oak leaves. In the post-war years this officer, who at the very start of his career was so promising and so very competent in the technicalities of administration, occupied various high offices, among them that of Secretary General of the United Nations. And reportedly it was in this last capacity that he spoke onto tape, for the benefit of any extra-terrestrials that may happen to share our universe, words of greeting that are now, together with other memorabilia of mankind, approaching the outer limits of our solar system aboard the space probe Voyager II.”
This is the voice that anyone who plays the disk will hear first — the opening greeting — the voice that represents the human race; the banality of evil.
Tickets to Sun Rings.
Pozi + Clementine March — Two Palms, 17.01.2025.
Only after listening to a good amount of Pozi do you realise that this guitar music contains no guitars. Instead bass, violin and synthesis take up the melodic space, producing something comparable to a certain kind of 80s New Wave, yet sonically distinct. They play Two Palms on Friday, a relatively new pub venue in Hackney Central which benefits from a fantastic balcony from which you can wryly observe the crowd. Supporting is Clementine March, whose latest EP My Empty Town moves through genres — alt-rock, Bossa, something Jungle-esque — as easily as it moves through languages. Comparisons to Stereolab are maybe too obvious given the French voice singing English lyrics, but to make something even remotely comparable to Stereolab in the first place is no mean feat. Tickets.
Ephemera
Is there any escape from the Spotify Syndrome? Asks the New Yorker. Yes, we reply. Read Cantilever newsletter.
Neil Young confirmed to headline Glastonbury (but only after leaking his own unannounced performance through the medium of dropping out after a dispute over broadcasting rights…) "Neil's management agreed to let TV and radio broadcast five songs […] They believe in the live event and retaining its mystery and that of their artist” said the BBC. This feels like a set of values from a bygone era: the number of artists who are able to preserve this level of cult value, or any real mystery at all, is surely dwindling. Long live the cult!
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