Racebannon started in 1996 with vocalist Anderson and guitarist James Bauman. They soon found the other members who would round out the line-up and they started recording and playing shows. After a string of releases on indie labels, the band signed with Bloomington-based Secretly Canadian in 2001. The label was known mostly for singer/songwriter indie bands, and having a noise/metal band among their ranks was challenging for the public to grasp. Their first release for the label, In The Grips Of The Light, was even recorded by Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes fame.

Their next album, Satan’s Kickin Yr Dick In, was a Rock Opera. It was released in 2002 to a fanbase hungry for the next offering; little did they know it would be so dense in noise obfuscation and content. It tells the tale of Rodney, who sells his soul to the devil and, in the course of seeking a better life, becomes lounge singer Rhonda Delight. This trans-gendered soul swap is conveyed through hazy blasts of distortion and the tortured vocals of Anderson (aka Delight.) Secretly Canadian then reissued an earlier release from Level Plane called First There Was The Emptiness in 2005. And after that there was silence.

At this point, a new album was brewing and the band were very careful about leaking the results. Acid or Blood veers away from the murky noise of earlier releases and spotlights the bone crushing riffs and manic vocals of Bauman and Anderson. While still retaining their nervous energy that hints at Melt Banana, the guitars have stamped out songs as memorable and hummable as anything from Melvins Houdini. Songs like Translucent Lifeforce and The Hard Way are incredible in their might while maintaining a feverish quality. Few bands can capture this kind of live ferocity in the studio. And Racebannon do it in spades.

http://www.myspace.com/racebannonrocks

Flyer designed by Matt Snowden- No Heaven Waiting

Liverpool’s Clinic present a contemporary psychedelic happening in collaboration with renowned animator Clemens Habicht, famous for his work with Franz Ferdinand and many others.

The result is a modern hallucinatory collision between animation and live music – a sensory intervention featuring the raw and ripped fluidity of Clinic’s anonymous group performances, in counterpoint to equally far out visuals. Or put more simply: a hypnotic wig out.

Lauded for their terse, masked performances Clinic have a reputation for live intensity, Planetarium of the Soul steps the level up a gear by combining live animation with the flickering and happening Clinic sound.

http://www.myspace.com/clinicvoot
http://www.clemenshabicht.com/

The date coincides with the EP release of the same name on the 24th of November and is part of Domino’s 15 year celebrations.

Support from Cardiff’s THREATMANTICS rising Cardiff three piece with mind-blowing violins and electric strings.

A new suite of music composed by the esteemed Mexican electronic composer Murcof, who has released three highly regarded albums on the Leaf Label. This will be a dream opportunity to hear Murcof’s distinctive hybrid of brooding electronics and classical sound sources enriched by live strings in a synchronised visual environment.

This special commission allows Murcof to find full integration between all the elements in his sound, whether acoustic, analogue or digital. Strings, pixelations, sound files, brass, digital sweeps, woodwind and video beams become a single whole in this new audiovisual composition. Murcof will allow the unique qualities of acoustic instruments to mix with microbeats and vast digital atmospherics, letting tracks shift and mutate in a minimal environment. This will be an immersive experience. More than anyone else, Murcof knows how to make blend these elements seamless together to move his audience. Peaceful, intense and limitless.

To begin the evening will be the joyous and free display of tuba virtuousity by the incredible solo performer Oren Marshall. Using a bank of electronic effects, he is able to twist the tuba’s sound into new and wonderful shapes.
Murcof’s music is an integrated sound – wholly digital and of his age, his control of timbre is organic and his atmospheres are overpowering. There is a timelessness to his music that absorbs the listener, drawing them deeper into his sound world. A laptop that can create a melancholic maelstrom. His ear for detail and undulating tempos as well as his sense of space are heightened by the themes of life, death and eternity that his work touches on. Composers such as Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki and Giya Kancheli are all suitable comparisons.

Murcof’s time working with artists and dance companies led him to develop a taste for 20th century classical music. His musical background runs the gamut from acoustic rock to experimental multimedia, and now he is one of the forefather of minimalist electronic compositions. Murcof has collaborated with choirs, the pianist Francesco Tristano, Erik Truffaz, Talvin Singh (with whom he releases an album later in the year), and video artist Saul Saguatti at the Geode IMAX in Paris. He has performed and created installations in churches, opera houses, castles and in the world’s leading Planetaria. He has now scored three feature films, including the forthcoming La ‘Sangre Iluminada’ (Enlightened Blood). This will be his first full UK tour.

Oren Marshall is a pioneering player of acoustic and electric tuba who straddles classical, jazz, improvised, and world music scenes. He has collaborated with the likes of Derek Bailey, Keith Tippet, the Pan-African Orchestra and the London Philharmonic. He makes his instrument sing, whoop and feedback like Hendrix did his guitar – it is that exhilarating an experience.

As a solo artist, Oren continues to explore strategies for extending the tonal range of the tuba and opening up a new vocabulary for his instrument. This groundbreaking solo work led to a nomination for the BBC Innovation in Jazz award with his composition ‘Introduction to the Story of Spedy Sponda; pt1: In a Silent Room’. Intended as a composition in five parts, Spedy Sponda provides a matrix for Oren’s continuing development of possibilities for solo acoustic/electric tuba. He takes the audience on a kaleidoscopic, and often humorous journey through uncharted musical terrain.

Thursday 6th November : New Art Gallery Walsall 6pm – 9pm

www.artatwalsall.org.uk

The New Art Gallery

Gallery Sq, Walsall, WS2 8LG

01922 654400

For further info and to check out the archive – www.homeofmetal.com

Home of Metal is a brand new project aimed at creating the first digital archive of metal music, memorabilia and fans stories, to tell the story of this unique moment of Midlands’ musical heritage.

Fans are encouraged to bring memorabilia along with their personal stories to the gallery to be recorded – all of which will go towards the new digital archive, which aims to tell the true story of the birth place of metal. – Think antiques roadshow for Metal fans!

We have a specially commissioned performance by Einstellung who will pay tribute to Black Sabbath – Einstellung are proud to have the opportunity to pay homage to Sabbath and thank them for allowing four like minds to meet. For this special evening Einstellung will be performing a Sabbath inspired piece. If you listen carefully within the simplistic motorik beats and slabs of Sabbath inspired riffage you may well be raising those metal fists in the air to some monstrously well know Sabbath gems.

www.myspace.com/einstellung

Seattle-based group The Dead Science are set to release their strongest work to date, a new album called Villainaire, on Montréal-based imprint Constellation. To coincide with the release of the new album the band will be touring the UK with a stop off in Birmingham.

Their songs range from epic orchestral pop to sinister jazz-rock to weary, soul-bleached balladry. Sam Mickens writes about “moral pragmatism and experimental moral nihilism, black-out drunkenness and its psychic and emotional repercussions, and the continuum of baroque fantasy and stark reality” – all delivered with inimitable, seductive, and at times disturbing operatics.
http://www.myspace.com/thedeadscience

Theo, the work of one Sam Knight, is one for themath rock fans. Taut, chugging guitar loops layer up with frenetictapping patterns that interweave in spiralling complexity before nearsub-atomically precise, powerhouse drumming clatters and builds eachsong into juggernaut of riffs and rhythms. To achieve something likethis recorded is one thing, but to see Theo perform live is quiteanother as each song blurs into the next and the dazzling guitar anddrum acrobatics leave jaws sagging on the faces of all who bear witnessto the talent on offer.
www.myspace.com/theo1000

FANCY DRESS – HALLOWEEN PARTY!
As with the London shows, we’d love it if you could come dressed as something inspired by one of the bands (Perhaps you could simulate some Pissed Jeans? Or arrive in a…Shjip?) or as something spooky to help us with creating the Halloween mood.

Shellac
Started in an informal setting between infamous engineer and guitarist Steve Albini (ex-Just Ducky, Big Black, Rapeman) and drummer Todd Trainer (ex-Rifle Sport, Brick Layer Cake) in 1992, Shellac came into full formation after Albini invited bassist Bob Weston (ex-Sorry, Volcano Suns) to move to Chicago, employing him as an engineer at his studio. A clutch of singles soon appeared in 1993 and 1994 on Touch and Go and Drag City, somewhat following in the footsteps of Albini’s Big Black and Rapeman, if only due to his trebly, cutting guitar work and deadpan vocals. As with Big Black, Shellac provided a forum for Albini to air his thoughts on the uglier side of humanity, though lowering the perversity and upping the humor a notch. (An early claim was that all Shellac songs concerned either baseball or Canada, sometimes both in the same song.) The odd rhythms of Trainer and rumbling bass of Weston, however, clearly removed Shellac from any of the members’ previous involvements.

OM
Formed in 2003 when former Sleep members Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius began to play again after a six year hiatus. The two began rehearsing without the addition of guitar or other instruments. OM’s first three albums feature Cisneros (bass/vocals) and Hakius (drums). In January 2008 Hakius left the group. Cisneros recruited drummer Emil Amos and in March of 2008 OM recorded a 7″ for Sub Pop records. The song “Gebel Barkal” is the first to feature Amos on drums. Cisneros and Amos are currently writing for the next Om full-length which is to be recorded in early 2009.

Wooden Shjips
(that’s not a typo) is a vital and refreshingly inspired quartet from San Francisco playing loud rock ‘n’ roll in a style heavily influenced by the experimentalism of psychedelia, classical minimalism and garage rock excess. Starting as an experiment in rhythmic primitivism and group improvisation, the current line-up brings a more structured rock approach to its performances, utilizing a traditional lineup of drums (Omar Ahsanuddin), bass (Dusty Jermier), organ (Nash Whalen), guitar (Erik “Ripley” Johnson) and vocals.

Pissed Jeans

The Straight World is a shallow, boring, soul-sucking vortex. This is where most folks spend their quiet, desperate lives. Working to consume, consuming to achieve status. Distractions like celebrity watching and religion are supposed to provide entertainment and meaning. Here, life on the edge means driving a Ford. It’s nearly impossible for those of us who despise the Straight World to avoid it. Many of us spend 8 hours a day there just to survive. The Straight World doesn’t take kindly to aberrance. That’s why some of us would rather not reveal ourselves. We move like shadows through the Straight World, keeping our secrets. We don’t need smoke to make ourselves disappear.

Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt emerged from Providence, Rhode Island in 1995 as a three-piece art school project. Initially there was Brian Chippendale’s explosive, non-stop drumming, Brian Gibson’s Contortions-like bass lines, and Hisham Bharoocha’s vocals propelling them in a fury of volatile noise and orgiastic tribalism. The group helped found Fort Thunder, a music and art collective, and recorded a self-titled album which was issued through Load in 1999. By 2001’s Ride the Skies Bharoocha had departed (he eventually formed Black Dice.). This left the vocal duties to Chippendale, who jammed the microphone into his mouth as he drummed. Lightning Bolt did a series of tours with bands like The Locust, Arab on Radar, Orchid, and Melt Banana before returning in 2003 with the studio album Wonderful Rainbow. The album did very well in underground music circles, and set up the release of 2005’s Hypermagic Mountain.

For more information and news updates on these shows keep an eye on  www.atpfestival.com

Ticketholders are advised that as Lightning Bolt will be playing on the floor of the venue and not on the stage, people wishing to see their performances – which will be the first on every night –  should arrive early to be able to see them.

Saturday 25th October : Wolverhampton Art Gallery 10am – 4.30pm

www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk

Lichfield Street,Wolverhampton, WV1

For further info and to check out the archive – www.homeofmetal.com

Home of Metal is a brand new project aimed at creating the first digital archive of metal music, memorabilia and fans stories, to tell the story of this unique moment of Midlands’ musical heritage.

Fans are encouraged to bring memorabilia along with their personal stories to the gallery to be recorded – all of which will go towards the new digital archive, which aims to tell the true story of the birth place of metal. – Think antiques roadshow for Metal fans!

The Wolverhampton date is part of Hello Digital Festival: Hello Digital is a major new festival bringing the mind blowing possibilities of the digital age explosively to life in a fully interactive four day event.

The OXES are back, and in grand style. After spending time apart getting married in Italy, delivering pizzas, worshipping football great Ray Lewis, and perfecting the art of the “claw” the OXES have returned to put their finest tunes to date on tape in THREE years!

Recorded by the OXES in their way fab home studio in the outskirts of Baltimore, the OXES EP is a maddening chunk of rock’n’roll, containing signature OXES’ stadium riffage, drum spills and fills, and sense of humor.

But, this release is a turning point in the OXES songwriting as they dabble in more straight forward rock numbers, and more, well mental rock numbers. Playing with time signatures, guitar leads/solos, off kilter rhythms, and even remixing a song, the OXES have taken a step into a slightly new direction.

http://www.myspace.com/oxxes