Friday 18 March 2016, 8pm
Two artists working in and around (and often spilling over the edges of) traditional song structure, with songwriter – and recent Sleaford Mods support – Mark Wynn travelling down from the Scottish coast, and restlessly shifting band The Pheromoans marking the release of new album ‘I'm On Nights‘ on the Alter label.
“The same grey fucking cloud that followed me now hangs above him. He's got it!” – Jason Williamson (Sleaford Mods) on Mark Wynn
“Pheromoans mark their ninth year of existence with the release of fourth album, I’m On Nights, out on the 12th of February.
A largely electronic affair, this new ten-track LP - recorded in Manor House, north east London - refracts vocalist Russell Walker’s stony poeticisms through a lens of analogue synths, while etching drum machine clicks and spaced out keyboard ditties into the bigger picture. Guitars and bass still make an appearance – helmed by Christian Butler, Alex Garran and James Tranmer – but they’ve mostly been eclipsed by the scrappy, artificial beats which now underline Walker's diary-like, ennui-soaked rhymes.
Album opener 'Wizard’ – with its blocky, Bizarre Love Triangle-esque intro and unnerving pins and needles crackle - jolts you awake with charges of experimental noise. Then there's the plaintive synth pads on the LP’s eponymous, stripped back tear-jerker and the acid squelch of ‘Depressed Wobble’. Because, with 'I'm On Nights', musical touchstones take on a myriad cult guises, from the downbeat minimal wave of Solid Space or Absolute Body Control, to a hypothetical vision of Dan Treacy crooning caustically over ‘Mari’ by Martin Rev. That's not forgetting, of course, the outlier crop of new wave-y post-punk bands which this time around see the likes of Datblygu and Young Marble Giants step up to the plate. And, as always, there’s the requisite nod to all things DIY and Messethetics.”
“Like a little girl in the library saying 'I'm an Angel' over and over, Mark Wynn is sat here trying to writing this artist biog thing for the gig and finding it so very taxing on his rock and roll soul. He hates doing these things, but is going to try, because the people are paying him the money, and that money is something he is wanting.
Oh fuck it, I can't be arsed; there's a man next to me and he's on about not putting the bins out this morning because there was hardly anything in them - library life. Here is a smart arse biog thing I wrote for End of the Road festival in September. I will move a few of the words around, and that can be the bio for the gig at Cafe Oto, Dalston, 18th March.
'Mark Wynn is from York (but now lives in an old care home on the coast in Scotland). He doesn’t really do the music anymore, but is doing some gigs in September March because the NME said something about him and it seems to have made people offer Mark Wynn more money than he used to get for doing gigs. This isn’t to say that Mark Wynn won’t do his best to play the uncaring pop-end – oh no, he will give it full on can’t-be-arsed – it just means that if he gets bored half way through his set and looks off into the middle distance he is probably thinking “[fee redacted]!? baby, good lord have the mercy: [fee redacted]!” … Mark Wynn is aware that he is coming across as a smart arse in this, but he doesn’t care (even now as he rehashes it and the man next to me is watching a video on how to use a drill - beats on max); he has written too many of these bio things before and they always sound how they sound so sod it… Please, understand that by not giving a toss I am probably giving a toss more than I’ve ever given a toss, ever. Is probably a lie. Is the end of the biography. (Is probably going to lose me [fee redacted]) at the gig at Cafe Oto, Dalston, 18th March.”
“Not content with releasing his first nine albums in 2011 alone, Pat Murano has since gone on to issue another nine that we can count. That doesn’t even allow for singles and other such oddities released here and there, but either way you can’t help but think it’s a little tough on the dedicated fans out there. As one lost and lonely Discogs commenter puts it, “which one of these should I get?” As well as issuing some of the works on his own Kelippah label, these Decimus LPs have also made their way on to Digitalis, NNA and Opal Tapes. Aside from this relatively new and prolific venture, Pat Murano has been a productive artist for many years prior as part of Harlem-based outfit No-Neck Blues Band, not to mention pairing off with Matthew Heyner and Mythopoeikon as Malkuth for a run of albums on Hospital Productions back around 2007.
After releasing Decimus 10 on Further back in 2013, Murano has a new album of material for the Seattle label, and strangely it’s called Decimus 7. It’s been a good year for Further, with albums from Jonas Reinhardt, Strategy, Donato Dozzy and label boss Raica all adding to the clout the imprint carries these days. “Few people in music today provide a more immersive alternate reality on record to combat our own horrible one than Decimus,” the press release proudly claims, going on to explain that this latest installment is, “part of a series of 12 LPs dedicated to the zodiac of Decimus Magnus Ausonious.” The album is made up of two continuous long form tracks which can be streamed in full below and deals in more of the abrasive abstraction that Murano has built his name on.”
