Wednesday 16 December 2015, 8pm
A diverse four act bill from the Manchester based label.
Formed in 2012 after free-rock guitar player Nick Mitchell (also lead member of improv power trio Chalaque) decided he wanted to set up a Manchester sister band to Albany, NY guitar army Burnt Hills with whom he shares close connections, Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura was established as a somewhat free-flowing collective of North West England based six-string cacophonists. Over the course of eight albums, the band has counted among its members/guests Ros Murray (Trash Kit, Electrelene), Joincey (Inca Eyeball, COITS) and Jon Collin, but has settled on a core seven including both members of the Birchall-Cheetham Duo, Tom Settle (Serfs) and, of course, Mitchell himself. Exploring the power and ecstatic potential of the endless crescendo, DSDV creates a dense junk pile of classic rock rhythms and solos until all coalesce into a drone-like hum, part transcendental, part pure hedonism. File next to your favourite max-ist excursions by Flower-Corsano Duo, Burnt Hills and Vermonster.
Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep, Sex Hands, Klaus Kinski etc) and Andrew Cheetham (ABC trio, Birchall/Cheetham duo etc) are two of Manchester's most prolific purveyors of raging, outer-limits rock-ism. Both members of free-rock army Desmadrados Soldados de Ventura as well as countless other projects, they take a similar blueprint for their head-to-head skyscraping duo, only with a singularity of heavy chord chug that aligns them with Gown or even Michael Flower & Chris Corsano. Having just been on tour in Europe their debut LP is forthcoming on The Great Pop Supplement.
Chalaque is the solo project cum trio of Nick Mitchell (Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura / Golden Lab Records). With a singular focus, he takes the concept of the rock guitar solo to its ultimate end point, beyond the imposed cultural constrictions of artlessness, finding a kind of punk rock spirituality in the historically undignified, employing an endless stream of fast, cack-handed tapping and fingerwork to create an a mesmeric, drone-like blur. "No one is doing more for the future of the guitar as sonic reducer in the UK than Nick Mitchell" - David Keenan
New quartet comprised of long-term sparring partners on the fertile Manchester underground scene David Birchall (guitar), Andrew Cheetham (drums), and Otto Willberg (double bass), alongside London based saxophonist Colin Webster. The quartet came together for the first time in the loft space of the Islington Mill in Salford to record their debut album ‘Night Streets Of Madness’ which was released on Tombed Visions in September... “Even in the realm of free improvisation, music rarely sounded this brutally physical. Each of these four virtuoso instrumentalists is given the space to produce some of their best individual improvisations and solos to date, but Night Streets Of Madness works best when they play as one single instinctive entity, somehow twisting punishing impulsiveness into densely textured long form (spontaneous) compositions.” – Tristan Bath, The Quietus
