Saturday 25 October 2025, 7.30pm
Fourth Dimension Records presents…
The fourth London event since the debut (also at Cafe OTO) in late 2019.
Since their formation in 1977 Mark Perry’s group Alternative TV have moved far away from their more direct punk rock beginnings into all manner of other areas of music that have sometimes themselves drawn from improvisation, free jazz, industrial and electronic music. Direct Action, Alternative TV’s first studio album since 2015, initially appeared as an LP on Fourth Dimension Records in 2024 before its being reissued on CD in February 2025. This witnessed the group presenting six instrumental tracks which steadily rip apart all expectations as they shed all allusions to rock music in favour of the kinda sonic mutilations that once helped 1979’s classic (and Nurse With Wound list endorsed) Vibing Up the Senile Man (Part One) stumble into weird and wonderful shapes. It is here that the group emphasised a shift to a space tentatively explored in the past before now becoming firmly embraced as the group marry guttural electronics to sounds most artists would consign to the bin. Via Perry’s long perfected mastery of pulling together disparate strands to create something entirely alchemical and invigorating there’s not only a unique stamp to the ATV story at work here but also something defiantly outside most contemporary music that has more in common with AMM, Throbbing Gristle, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, This Heat and Jandek than anything immediate or accessible.
Alternative TV’s entirely own take on post-punk experimental noise promises to go to places previous appearances at the label events have only touched on. Do not expect to be greeted with any of the songs that helped define them in the early years.
For a number of years now, experimental and atmospheric noise-rock Splintered have played a sporadic selection of live shows in London and Poland following a lengthy hiatus that commenced in 1998. Because of this, they worked on new material between 2021 and 2024 which culminated in their first album since 1996, Between Scylla and Charybdis, being released by Fourth Dimension Records in May 2024. While their recorded work is less pulverising than their earlier releases, on the whole, the group counter this in a live setting by cranking the intensity up several notches and maintaining the blend of hypnotic rhythms, often savage guitar work and layers of electronics that they have long sculpted their sound from.
New recordings are being discussed but in the meantime the six members of the group are finalising work for an expanded vinyl edition of the latest album that should appear later in 2025.
The appearance at OTO will once again bring together old and new material, plus promises to be a powerful and immersive set.
Splintered are: Paul Wright, James Machin, Paul Dudeney, Richard Johnson, Steve Pittis and Stuart Carter.
Listen to 'The Horrors of Linden' from Between Scylla and Charybdis here:
If anybody has been paying attention (and in our opinion they bloody well should…), they might be aware that Gary Mundy of Ramleh and Breathless solo guise as Kleistwahr started in the early 1980s as a more directly noise/post-industrial-inspired project that saw a few limited edition cassette releases appear on his much vaunted Broken Flag imprint. While these cassettes have now been reissued on both vinyl and CD, Kleistwahr has long been committed to Gary’s utilising ideas that began with the exploration of cut-ups, grizzled electronics, guitar savagery and so on to the furthest reaches of a ravaged psyche rendered in sonic form. Often connected to the early work through the use of uncompromising blistered and blistering white hot textures, Kleistwahr these days also deploys everything from groaning church organs, Gary’s distinctive vocals, occasional rhythms and swells of distortion to equally trademark guitars which seem as though they’ve been sucked through the outer rings of Saturn. Besides being wholly possessed of its own sound, however, Kleistwahr is distinguishable for its always moving forward and developing ideas with its commitment to doing an album every year until Gary feels he’s no longer capable of producing one.
Live performances as Kleistwahr are always a solo affair with sets often only spanning between 20 and 30 minutes. Intense and alchemical, it is difficult to not remain transfixed throughout. Gary’s appearance here will start the evening off and be no exception.
No stranger to music that draws from post-punk, experimentalism, improvisation, noise and far more besides, Graham has mostly made a name for himself via the world of comedy and especially successful TV series (and now stage production) Ideal, which he wrote and co-starred in alongside Johnny Vegas. Beginning in fringe theatre and working at one point for Factory Records in the 1980s, his career has spiralled in multiple directions and even seen him curating an ongoing series of limited edition lathe-cut releases on the Heaven’s Lathe imprint by artists ranging from Stephen Thrower, Danielle Dax, Adi Newton and Alternative TV to the dub poetry of Roger Robinson and blatant pop of Desire Machines. Considering both his support and love of some of the releases on Fourth Dimension in recent years via his Mixtape show as well as his being a huge fan of ATV, it simply made sense to invite him to fill out the sounds in between the artists on the night. The pleasure is all ours.
