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PREVIEW ELECTRONICA GRECO-ROMAN SOUNDSYSTEM Hinterland at the Arches, Glasgow, Sat 3 Apr Returning for its second annual instalment, Glasgow- based single ticket festival Hinterland has wisely scaled operations down a little this year. Focused around the Arches, the Sub Club and smaller venues like the Admiral and MacSorley’s, the one-day event promises a higher audience concentration at each site for headliners like Mystery Jets, British Sea Power and Jeffrey Lewis. Yet the list of 30 artists announced so far is also healthily diverse. Part of the Arches’ late-night programme includes the Greco-Roman Soundsystem, the touring wing of the four-man London party collective and electronic label Greco-Roman. Founded four years ago by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip (pictured above, with mask) and Alex ‘Full Nelson / Half Nelson’ Waldron (left of Joe), Greco- Roman is described as a ‘labour of love’ by the latter.
‘We all have day jobs, so we can only hold parties infrequently or release a record when the right one comes along,’ says Waldron, a Berlin-based A&R man for XL Recordings. ‘We’d release more than one every nine months if this was our main thing.’
This infrequent approach has seen GR’s four-monthly parties in non-club venues around London and Berlin build a buzz, while the label enjoys a fierce reputation among fans of youthful, rave focused sounds: their artists include Buraka Som Sistema, Drums of Death and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, the latter will be appearing live here alongside DJs Waldron and Goddard. ‘We always have something live at a Greco- Roman show,’ says Waldron. ‘We just hate stern and boring DJ parties, you know? There has to be something visual, something exciting. And something that can go wrong, I think that’s just as important.’ (David Pollock) ■ See www.thehinterlandfestival.com/blog/ for the full Hinterland line-up.
Music
PREVIEW ELECTRONICA DAM MANTLE EP LAUNCH Glasgow Social Centre, Glasgow, Fri 2 Apr; Stereo, Glasgow, Wed 14 Apr (with Gold Panda)
Dam Mantle is the alter-ego of musician and artist Tom Marshallsay, who releases debut EP, Grey, on new Glasgow label Halleluwah Hits (see page 12) this month. A kaleidoscopic mix of melodic samples, jittery beats and post-dubstep bass mutations, Dam Mantle’s tunes sound equally good in a club or a rock venue. ‘I’m more than happy to play to a club or play next to a noise band,’ explains Marshallsay, ‘I hope that music works like that and it can be seen in different contexts.’
Dam Mantle evolved out of
Marshallsay’s previous project Animals & War. ‘It was more folk influenced but I tried to reflect electronic music organically. And then I came to this point. It probably comes down to having access to software and collecting enough synthesisers and drum machines to make the music I do now.’ For live shows Marshallsay is joined by Calum Cunneen. ‘I go to see electronic artists and they’re just standing there twiddling a knob and this huge sound comes out; that’s really disconcerting to me. We try to keep it as live as possible. They’re not really rigid, so we pretty much just jam the tracks out with the samples that were used in the originals.’
Future plans include a UK tour with hotly-tipped Essex electronic artist, Gold Panda, remixes for Warp’s latest signing Gonjasufi, and the soundtrack to a video. ‘I’m trying to incorporate other media, making visual work and combining it with my audio work. I’m constantly working on new stuff. We’ll see what shape things take.’ (Stewart Smith)
PREVIEW JAZZ THE WORLD OF GODS Byre Theatre, St. Andrews, Thu 8 Apr; Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Fri 9 Apr; RSAMD, Glasgow, Sat 10 Apr; macrobert, Stirling, Sun 11 Apr
Tommy Smith is never short of imaginative ideas when it comes to cooking up repertoire for the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, but this pushes even that estimable band’s envelope – and then some. I can’t be absolutely sure, but I’d guess that this is the first ever collaboration between a jazz big band and a Japanese drum ensemble. The World of Gods brings together the SNJO and three drummers from the Mugenkyo
Taiko Drummers (based, like Smith himself, in Lanarkshire), group founders Neil Mackie and Miyuki Williams, and Teresa Brookes. Smith is writing an entire new set of music for the programme based, as the title suggests, on Shinto Gods.
‘It is a tough one, I freely admit,’ he said. ‘I have had to learn a lot about the drummers
and the instruments and how they work, and about Japanese music and culture. I’m writing some music around themes of the Shinto gods, most of whom are related to the elements – thunder and sun and so on. I’m incorporating Japanese scales rather than just traditional jazz harmony, so it won’t be simply superimposing Count Basie on Taiko Drummers.’
The show will also incorporate atmospheric lighting effects and elements of choreography for the drummers, and the idea has already attracted interest from several festivals in the months following this inaugural tour. (Kenny Mathieson)
1–15 Apr 2010 THE LIST 63