SSION at the MC Theater

SSION – the musical project of Cody Critcheloe, formed in 1996 out of Kansas City – are playing in Amsterdam tonight at the MC Theater. SSION are well known for their extravagant and elaborate live show, with their distinctive visual style also defining their music videos. Their latest album, Bent, was self-released in 2011; then re-released last year by New York’s Dovecote Records.

SSION will be joined at the MC Theater by Wampire, a group from Portland centred upon the duo of Rocky Tinder and Eric Phipps. Wampire’s combination of aspects of garage rock and psychedelia, utilising guitars and synthesizers with a lo-fi sound, has won the band comparisons with Ariel Pink and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. In fact, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s bassist, Jacob Portrait, produced the group’s debut album, Curiosity, released earlier this month on Polyvinyl.

SSION and Wampire will play at the MC Theater from 10 pm, courtesy of Subbacultcha!: tickets are €15, or free for Subbacultcha! members.

SSION are good to follow on Twitter and Instagram. Here’s the video for ‘Clown’, the excellent opening track from 2008’s Fools Gold:

No Age Pre-Sale via Subbacultcha!

No Age, the experimental punk duo of Randy Randall and Dean Spunt, will play in Amsterdam on 15 October. The date was announced by Subbacultcha! last night, with tickets for the performance – to take place in a ‘secret location’, apparently to be revealed not before 21 July – going on sale today. These will cost €10 if purchased in the pre-sale prior to the show; and €12 if you’re inclined to wait and try your luck on the door. Pre-sale tickets can be acquired via Subbacultcha!’s facebook page.

No Age – whose sound has been variously described as ambient punk and noise punk – emerged from Los Angeles in late 2005. Releasing their debut album, Weirdo Rippers – a collection of early singles – in 2007 on Fat Cat, the band signed to Sub Pop and released Nouns in 2008 and Everything in Between in 2010, all to wide acclaim among the mainstream and independent music press. Their fourth full-length is to be entitled An Object, and will appear on 19 August in Europe, and 20 August in North America.

Here’s the lead single for the upcoming album:

ERAAS and Dirty Beaches at OT301

ERAAS and Dirty Beaches will perform at OT301 tonight from 8.30 pm. Tickets will cost €10 on the door; with free entry for members of Subbacultcha!, under whose auspices the show appears.

ERAAS is a two-piece band from Brooklyn comprising Robert Toher and Austin Stawiarz, former members of Apse. Their atmospheric post-rock features whispered, reverberating vocals against thick percussion, often building, sometimes jagged and driving guitars, and droning synths. The duo’s self-titled debut album was released last October.

Dirty Beaches is the pseudonym of Alex Zhang Hungtai, a Montreal-based Taiwanese-born musician whose art draws from a divergence of genres. With his early work inspired by hip-hop and sampling, 2011’s acclaimed Badlands saw Hungtai moulding a sample-based, lo-fi, half-forgotten version of late 50s/early 60s rock and roll, producing an album evocative, disquieting and dramatic. Badlands was long-listed for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize. Hungtai has defined the album, and the Dirty Beaches persona, as an exploration of ‘repeating themes, reoccurring characters being in exile or just away from home’.

Staying in Berlin in late 2012 while completing his latest album, Drifters, Hungtai used the studio of a friend, empty into the night, to record a second set of largely ambient songs. The resulting double LP, Drifters/Love is The Devil, will be officially released on 20 May in Europe, and the following day in the United States.

PAWS, Autre Ne Veut, Widowspeak: Live Music with Subbacultcha!

Subbacultcha! has organised a strong trio of concerts over the weekend and on into next week.

PAWS, a Glaswegian punk-pop trio – whose hasty and energetic, openhearted and personal debut album, Cokefloat!, was released to positive reviews last autumn – will play at De Nieuwe Anita tonight. The evening’s music will commence from 8 pm, with Apneu – self-proclaimed ‘Gayrage pop from Amsterdam’ – providing the support.

Tomorrow evening, Autre Ne Veut will be performing at the same venue and from the same 8 pm time. Autre Ne Veut’s Arthur Ashin shared a room whilst at college with Daniel Lopatin, aka. Oneohtrix Point Never; he is part of Mexican Summer’s strong roster of artists, including Ford & Lopatin, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, and Washed Out; and he has performed with How To Dress Well. These artists give some sense of Autre Ne Veut’s rhythmic and atmospheric, experimental, electronic R&B, which moves about Ashin’s distinctive falsetto voice. Autre Ne Veut’s second full-length, Anxiety, was released in February to significant acclaim: labelled ‘Best New Music’ by Pitchfork, for instance; named Stereogum’s ‘Album of the Week’. ZES will open.

Next Wednesday, Widowspeak will perform at OT301 from 8:30 pm. A two-piece indie band from Brooklyn, they released their second album, Almanac, at the beginning of this year.

PAWS tickets are €7; Autre Ne Veut and Widowspeak are valued at €8; all tickets are free for Subbacultcha! members.

Ignite Amsterdam 26

Ignite Amsterdam is the name of a monthly event run by Mediamatic, a cultural institution based in Amsterdam since 1983, with a focus on innovative technologies. Once a month, at Mediamatic Fabriek – the institution’s event and exhibition space on the Voc-Kade, to the north-east of the city centre – there takes place an evening of short presentations on recent technological developments, start-up ventures, and artistic projects.

Each event usually starts around 7 pm, with a diverse range of home cooking available in the venue’s food court. Presentations start at 8:30 pm, and involve speakers blazing through multimedia presentations within an allocated five minutes. All presentations are given in English.

This month’s Ignite takes place tonight, with twelve speakers set to present for five minutes each. Tickets are €8 on the door for non-members; €3 for Mediamatic members; and free for members of Subbacultcha!. Information about tonight’s speakers is via the Mediamatic website at: http://www.mediamatic.net/333291/en/ignite-amsterdam-26

Vladimir Jurowski and Holly Herndon, Tonight

News not of a collaboration, but of two discrete performances taking place in Amsterdam tonight.

From 8:15 pm at the Concertgebouw, Vladimir Jurowski will conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a performance of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Die Seejungfrau. Die Seejungfrau is a symphonic poem based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy-tale, ‘The Little Mermaid’; it premiered in January 1905 in Vienna, alongside Arnold Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande, Op. 5, and saw Zemlinsky attempting to merge the influence of Brahms with the Romantic, narrative music of Richard Strauss.

Zemlinsky withdrew his piece after its 1905 premiere, and it is performed today based on transcriptions of the original manuscript. The performance tonight will utilise a recently published edition of the work. Vladimir Jurowski is Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and also Principal Conductor of Russia’s State Academic Symphony Orchestra.

At OT301 along Overtoom, Holly Herndon will perform in a concert arranged by Subbacultcha!, on the back of her acclaimed 2012 album Movement. She will be supported by Belgian artists IGNATZ and Maan; and doors will open at 8:30 pm.

Jurowski’s performance will be repeated tomorrow, and ticketing information is at: https://www.concertgebouw.nl/concerten-en-tickets/die-seejungfrau-door-jurowski-en-het-kco?event=26581

Information on Holly Herndon at OT301 is at: http://www.subbacultcha.nl/2013-03-26/holly-herndon-fade#.UVLuGhxwqSo. Tickets may be procured on the door, with free entry for Subbacultcha! members.

The Sound of the Dutch Underground, Tonight at the Melkweg

Subbacultcha! – the Amsterdam-based cultural platform which arranges concerts, film showings, art exhibitions and other events throughout the Netherlands; operates a publishing arm for music and art; and produces a free monthly magazine – started out focusing primarily on independent Dutch music. Its reach has extended with its growth, and today Subbacultcha! brings independent, up-and-coming and avant-garde musicians from across the world to the Netherlands on a routine basis – including, over the last few months, some of my favourite emerging musicians, Blood Diamonds and Doldrums.

This evening, Subbacultcha!’s investigatory gaze will return to centre on the Netherlands, for the one-night festival of music, The Sound of the Dutch Underground. More than twenty independent Dutch bands and artists will perform across four stages at the Melkweg from 7 pm. With the music ongoing, independent labels will be selling records and related wares in the Melkweg Gallery. An after-party will commence from midnight, with artists performing and DJ-sets well on into the petite hours.

Tickets are €12, or free for Subbacultcha! members (membership costs €7 a month, and comes with delivery of their magazine and free access to the vast majority of Subbacultcha! events).

The lineup and timetable for tonight may be found here:

http://subbacultcha.nl/2013-03-21/the-sound-of-the-dutch-underground#.UUsG3xxwqSo

Doldrums at De Nieuwe Anita

My initial thoughts on Doldrums’ Lesser Evil, released the same week; but more pertinently, a depiction of the live performance which Doldrums gave at De Nieuwe Anita on the evening of Saturday, 23 February. The event was promoted by Subbacultcha!; featured the Dutch artist Cosmo V as the support act; and it was a highly energetic and thoroughly engaging show.