Fri 10th Feb
LEWES, the Needlemakers, (West Street, BN7 2NZ)
with Crayola Lectern and Duot.
8pm, £6 (NB no advance ticket sale).

Sat 11th Feb
BRISTOL, the Cube Cinema, (4 Princess Row, Avon, BS2 8NQ)
with Dogface Sockets and Motes
8pm, £6.50 advance/£8 on the door. Tickets from

http://bristolticketshop.co.uk

Sun 12th Feb
SHEFFIELD, the Riverside, (1 Mowbray Street, Neepsend, S3 8EN)
with the Big Eyes Family Players
7pm, FREE (or donation)

Mon 13th Feb
BRADFORD, the New Beehive, (169-171 Westgate, BD1 3AA)
with Behla Hutchinson and the Kontiki Expedition
8.30pm, £4/£3 concessions

Tues 14th Feb
NORWICH, Norwich Arts Centre, (St. Benedict’s Street, NR2 4PG)
with Sunday Driver and Cakes and Ale
8pm, £10/£8 concessions. Tickets from

http://norwichartscentre.co.uk/mary-hampton-cotillion

Wed 15th Feb
HARWICH, Electric Palace Cinema, (King’s Quay Street, Essex CO12 3ER)
with Burning Glass
8pm, £8. Tickets on 07786744789

April 2: CARDIFF – 10 Feet Tall   | Last.fm | Songkick | Tickets | with Winter Villains
April 3: BRISTOL – The Fleece  | Last.fm | Songkick | Tickets | with Laish & Emma Gatrill
April 4: NORWICH – Arts Centre  | Last.fm | Songkick | with Laish & Emma Gatrill
April 5: LONDON – Hoxton Bar & Grill  | Last.fm | Songkick | Tickets
April 7: BRIGHTON – The Haunt  | Last.fm | Songkick

Further details to follow. Also check out the facebook event here. Here’s some information on the tour and upcoming album…

SONAA are back on the road and will be releasing a brand new collection of songs this year – their second long player, Knots. The band’s sophomore album sees them breaking away from the acoustic roots of their debut album which lead them to tour twice with Mumford & Sons and support Laura Marling at Royal Festival Hall.

The Sons’ immersion in folk music was always more informed by guitarists like Dave Pajo, David Grubbs and Jeff Parker than by traditionalists. These influences, rooted in the city of Chicago’s pre-millennial post-rock, jazz and avant-pop scenes, are explored on Knots resulting in an album much closer to the band’s live sound.

The duelling fingerpicked classical guitars are still there, but they’re put through cranked up, needle-in-the-red valve amps. There’s still a bit of banjo, but it’s played with an e-bow and a slide so it sounds like a haunted Hammond organ. And there’s plenty of actual Hammond, giving the track “Come Run Fun Stella Baby Mother of the World” a kind of fairground darkness borrowed from Liars or Captain Beefheart.

Elsewhere the fragile strings of “Black Side of the River” evoke the still sadness of humanity epitomised by Arvo Pärt augmented by the weighty piano chords of Earth; “Big Bad Bold” sounds like These New Puritans started an earthquake in a burning symphony hall; “Cathy Come Home” demonstrates the band’s love of drone, unison and extended guitar techniques and ends up sounding somewhere between Tortoise and the scores of Danny Elfman; and aching closer “Heroine” sounds like Robert Wyatt sped up a track from Twin Peaks for Will Oldham to sing over.
At times soft and orchestral, at times crass and loud, Knots is always infused with beauty and tenderness: soulful, taunt, honed and with a new found love of kosmiche experimentation.

Knots’ expanded sonic tapestry is marshalled and woven with growing stature by SONAA’s chief song-writer, Jacob Richardson, whose meditative lyrical concepts and melodic craftsmanship mark him out as musician of genuine depth and gravitas whilst remaining as arcane and beguiling as Palace.

Rejecting notions of a fixed line-up, Sons of Noel and Adrian is more of a sprawling musical whirlpool centered around a few key members than a traditional band – a bit like Broken Social Scene, with whom two Sons toured last year as their horn section. The band members make up most of the renowned Willkommen Collective that spawned The Leisure Society, and the various members lend their talents freely to everyone from Damo Suzuki to the Laura Marling, with one Son, a full time contributor to her band and as many as four playing with her on certain shows including last year’s Glastonbury Festival Pyramid Stage performance.

Such selfless creative interdependence is at the heart of the Willkommen Collective and Sons of Noel and Adrian. The results of their musical co-operative have yielded a sophomore effort that transcends their debut and positions them as one of 2012’s most unique and thrilling propositions: Knots see SONAA charting new, unexplored aural terrain as immersive an experience on stage as it on record.

The wonderful Hamilton Yarns have uploaded a typically unique Christmas song which you can get for free from here. The band play at the Needlemakers in Lewes with Kristin McClement on December 20th.

Laish have done the same and their track can be heard here. The band play tomorrow, Wednesday 14th December, at the Proud Ballroom in Kemp Town, Brighton with The Magic Lantern. Tickets are available here. Then the two bands then play at Old St Mary’s Church in Stoke Newington, London on Friday 16th December. Tickets for that one can be purchased here.

The songs are written about and during Rowan’s stay in Paris. He’s now over in Vancouver for a while, so get in touch with him if you live in the area on rowancoupland(at)gmail.com.

The band have two sold out cathedral dates left in support of Laura Marling before playing at the Barbican with the Heritage Orchestra on December 8th – tickets here.

Laish have published a video for live favourite “She Is Clever”, made by the incredibly talented Matt Dreyer.

The track is available as a free mp3 download from the Laish page at Bandcamp from 5th December, the first single from the forthcoming album, Obituaries, due for release in May 2012.

Go and see them support Peggy Sue at The Haunt in Brighton tomorrow.

The band lineups are changing all the time and there are plenty of connections missing, we had to draw the line somewhere or it would have spiralled out of control. Also missing are a few solo artists who don’t play in any of the more well known bands, but it’s a pretty good place to start if you’re confused about who plays with whom.

You can see more of Joe’s work here.

Just a quick note to recommend some great gigs coming up this weekend.

On Friday our friends at Shhh! promotions are putting on a Fence Collective double header at The Hobgoblin in Brighton featuring Withered Hand and Rozi Plain. Further details are all here.

Then on Saturday Rachael Dadd is playing at the annual Apple festival at Middle Farm near Lewes. Rachael plays at midday and then you can tuck in to the cider for a few hours.

As if that were not enough, Mary Hampton is launching her exceptional album Folly in London on Sunday at Cecil Sharp House. The Brighton launch show was phenomenal so don’t miss this – plus you get Rachael Dadd supporting. You can hear the debut single from the album using the embedded YouTube video above.

You can stream the album on Alessi’s Facebook page, visit Bella Union US to buy hard copies or visit Amazon or iTunes to download it.

Alessi has two dates left in America supporting Laura Marling before a few European dates:

27th Sept: WASHINGTON DC, MY: Sixth & I Historic Synagogue with Laura Marling
28th Sept: NEW YORK, NY: Webster Hall with Laura Marling
3rd Oct: Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS: Paradiso – Small Hall
4th Oct: Ghent, BELGIUM: Café Video
5th Oct: Brussels, BELGIUM: Witloof Bar @ Botanique
7th Oct: Paris, FRANCE: La Fleche D’Or Paris, Ile-de-France

The exhibition is curated by Patrick Lawrence of Sons of Noel and Adrian and Laish on behalf of Oxfam.

Where: The Strand Gallery, 32 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6BP
When: 15-19 November 2011 11am – 7pm
Further information: at the Oxfam website

The new improved Laish are playing Norwich Sound and Vision Festival this Thursday, 29th September, at the Bicycle Shop. Tickets can be purchased in advance here from WeGotTickets. For further information visit Laish at WordPress.com.

A brief note of explanation, from Danny Green, Willkommen Collective:

What better way to feel honoured as a songwriter than to have a respected co-conspirator sing one of your songs? I asked everyone I could possibly think of to choose a song by someone else in the collective and record it before Willkommen Foxtrot, the festival in Brighton on 11th September. I only gave them 3 weeks. The response has been amazing.

They are a beguiling mix of studio recordings, four track documents and dictaphone style room recordings. I’m enjoying hearing these voices sing something totally unexpected.

So, we’re all up in time for the Foxtrot preview night ECHO at the Caxton Arms on Saturday 10th, and FOXTROT on 11th at Stanmer House.

Tickets for both events are here: www.wegottickets.com/willkommen

* * * * *

On the charitable side:

The other reason to do this compilation is to draw attention to the fact that almost all of the Willkommen Records stock went up in flames at the PIAS warehouse during the riots. We have a few spare albums albums kicking around in a box under the stairs but that’s about it. It is time to raise funds for the LabelLove PIAS/AIM fund which is helping labels to continue to release great music during the fall out.

£10 seems like a fair amount to ask for such an undertaking. The download itself will be free (otherwise we run the risk of getting into all sorts of legal trouble), but we ask that you make a £10 donation to the fund which you can do by directly transferring funds from your account to the fund with these details. This way ensures 100% of funds go to the cause and there are no merchant/transaction fees creaming off the top.

AIM/PIAS EMERGENCY FUND BANK DETAILS
Account Number: 07699611
Sort Code – 18 00 02
Swift code – coutgb22
Iban – GB91COUT 18000207699611