Immersion - Colin Newman (Wire) + Malka Spigel
Pop Mutations presents:
Immersion - Colin Newman (Wire) + Malka Spigel
+ Special Guests
Sunday 24th November
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Immersion are Malka Spigel and Colin Newman best known for their work with Minimal Compact and Wire. The duo’s work as Immersion provides an outlet for their ongoing fascination in crafting enthralling, unique musical
soundscapes.
The project emerged in the early 1990s and has always prided itself on a
diversity in approach and an ability to be both self-contained and a vehicle for collaboration. 1999’s Low Impact & 2018’s Sleepless cover very different aesthetics.
More recent work has seen Immersion collaborating with the likes of Tarwater, Laetitia Sadier, Ulrich Schnauss , Scanner, Thor Harris, Cubzoa in their ongoing Nanocluster series of events & albums
“Immersion manages to achieve a strong sense of human connection between these inseparable post-punk legends and other creative beings” The Quietus
"A chrome-plated dive into synth pop futurism"; - Clash Magazine
"One of our records of the year. Total swooner" Monorail 2024
“They’ve created an extreme, something to be spoken of alongside the great
albums of the century, and something that utterly holds its own with the sui
generis work of Post Punk’s purest and most quality-minded act, Wire” Rock N Roll Globe
"Thanks to panoramic production and Newman's deluge of melodic hooks,
Sleepless is, as per the band name, like a lovely warm bath for the soul" - 4/5 Q Magazine
TREMOURS + Ceremony East Coast
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
TREMOURS & Ceremony East Coast
+ Special Guests
Monday 25th November
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
TREMOURS -
TREMOURS formed in Los Angeles in 2021 by the duo of Lauren Andino and Glenn Fryatt. Late night jam sessions in the midst of lockdown uncertainty slowly transformed into TREMOURS creative partnership, driven by the tension between Andino’s hazy, drifting guitars and Fryatt’s urgent, pulsating drums.
South Carolina-born Andino has played with LSD And The Search For God and most recently L.A. Witch as a touring guitarist. Fryatt hails from Portsmouth, England, and has toured as a drummer for artists such as Cherubs, The Montrose Avenue and Ten Benson.
TREMOURS sees them each newly harnessing and exploring their own creative impulses, inspired by everything from shoegaze to jazz to electronica to literature to looking out at the sea. “Most of our songs center around loneliness. Not necessarily sadness, but the comfort that you can find in being lonely,” says Andino. “It’s when I feel most calm.”
On the back of their 2023 Little Cloud Records EP Affectations, TREMOURS have undertaken three full US tours and garnered a following across North America and Europe. TREMOURS have also headlined Canada’s Cherry Cult Fest and have a full-length album and a host of tour dates slated for later in 2024, along with their first UK tour.
“Live, we have been told that it can be intense,” Fryatt says. “I have no choice but to let go and trust Glenn when we are playing. This is the only band where I've had to do that, and I think that's where our intense stage dynamic comes from -- focusing and trusting one another,” Andino adds.
Ceremony East Coast -
Ceremony East Coast is John and Sandra Fedowitz. Both are currently part of A Place to Bury Strangers.
John is also a former member of the well-known 90s shoegaze band Skywave. After alternating band
members John was joined by his wife Sandra in 2017. The two-piece makes you dance with an intense live
show: Drone bass lines, white noise guitars, savage drums and intense vocals. Nothing polished, highs and
lows. Each live show and record is raw, real and Ceremony style: #lovesongswithdistortion
Port Sulphur - Album Launch
Pop Mutations presents:
Port Sulphur - Album Launch
+ QUAD90
Saturday 30th November
Stereo
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Port Sulphur -
Port Sulphur was formulated upon Douglas MacIntyre recording tracks as a member of Sexual Objects with Boards of Canada producing. The fusion of the BOC electronics with the SOBS’ Velvets’ drones became a sonic template for early Port Sulphur recordings. Another influence was Bowie’s 1977 game-changing album, ‘Low’.
META GURU is an album collection of new material and reworked/remodelled older songs. MacIntyre’s book Hungry Beat (published by White Rabbit) about the Fast Product ignition of Scotland’s post-punk independent scene is another touchstone. Artists associated with the Hungry Beat period contributed heavily to the album - Vic Godard (Subway Sect); Paul Research (The Scars); Davy Henderson (Fire Engines); James Kirk (Orange Juice) - with all being involved in the writing and recording process.
Side 1 of the META GURU is largely instrumental with Side 2 featuring vocal performances. The final track on the album is a cover of Josef K’s ‘It’s Kinda Funny’, which is fitting as their guitarist Malcolm Ross produced the only single by MacIntyre’s teenage group Article 58 (who also supported Josef K on a short English tour in 1981). The album was recorded at Green Door studio in Glasgow. META GURU is modern music.
QUAD90 -
QUAD90 is vocalists Amelia Lironi and Naomi Mackay, who met at Riverside Music College and started working on QUAD 90 while at university.
They are working with a range of musicians to record an album with producer Samuel Joseph Smith at Green Door Studios in Glasgow.
QUAD 90 are producing tracks with an avant-disko / brutalist-funk feel - think Chic if they were produced by Martin Hannett on Ze Records!
ballboy & THE SMASHING TIMES
The Smashing Times & ballboy
plus Count Florida
Saturday 30th November, 8pm
MONO
18+
The Smashing Times are your new favorite MOD heart throbs.
Is there REALLY a new Merseybeat Revolution?
How many times can you really REALLY watch The Blow-Up alone in your room?
Why don't you venture out the front door and take a bite of the real thing?
The Smashing Times are a mainstay in the indie pop underground.
The group mistrals the new modern life perfectly,
the sharper world.
collaged with 12 string guitar and mallet on the floor tom.
Featuring Thee Jasmine Monk and Zelda-Anais (The Smashing Times, Midden Heap) as well as scene stalwarts Britta Leijonflycht (Almond Joy, Children Maybe Later, Linda Smith), Paul Krolian (Expert Alterations, Linda Smith), Blake Douglas (Corduroy, Midden Heap, Linda Smith)
“When you call your band Smashing Times you can’t help instantly getting the flavour of the Television Personalties and Dan Treacy but on their second album, the band deliver that and so much more. This really is a fusion of psychedelic, twee and freakbeat that will make your heart skip and your head smile. The guitars shimmer, strum and jangle whilst the vocals float effortlessly on top of the efficient rhythm section. Every song is a bundle of energy with hooks that come both instantly and after multiple plays. Without doubt, if it had been recorded in the 80’s would have been released on Whaam or Dreamworld but luckily for you pop kids this 2023 and K have the honor of releasing it.” (Sean Forbes)
ballboy Favourites of the late John Peel, who invited them to perform five sessions for his BBC Radio 1 show 2000-2004 as well as featured them many times in his Festive Fifty chart, ballboy are a cult indie-pop band from Edinburgh whose warm, whimsical and savagely witty speak-sung songs about bored sex, DIY drugs, civic shame and polar bears helped to define a generation of fiercely independent Scottish music around the turn of the millennium.
Much of ballboy’s most evocative and enduring work was captured on a trio of EPs – Silver Suits for Astronauts (1999), I Hate Scotland (2000) and Girls Are Better Than Boys (2001) – later collected on the 2001 compilation album Club Anthems 2001. Lost Map Records are excited to work with ballboy on a reissue of Club Anthems 2001 – available to pre-order now – which will see the album released on vinyl for the very first time. This anniversary edition of the record comes with tracks from the follow-up EP, All The Songs On The Radio Are Shite (2002).
ballboy are Gordon McIntyre, together with Nick Reynolds (bass), Gary Morgan (drums), Alexa Morrison (keys, vocals), and Katie Griffiths (synths). Evoking shades of The Wedding Present, The Field Mice, Arab Strap and Billy Bragg, Club Anthems 2001 helped to break ballboy to an international audience and saw the band go on to tour widely around the US and Europe, as well as release four full-length albums – A Guide for the Daylight Hours (2002), The Sash My Father Wore and Other Stories (2003), The Royal Theatre (2004) and I Worked on the Ships (2008). In parallel, Gordon has released solo records both as ++Money Can’t Buy Music and under his own name. In 2008 Gordon co-created the Traverse Theatre Company production Midsummer [a play with songs] together with David Greig. Following a critically acclaimed run in Edinburgh that year, it has since gone on to be performed around the world. The debut Gordon McIntyre solo album titled Even With The Support Of Others was released on Lost Map in 2022 to much acclaim.
The 21st anniversary reissue of Club Anthems 2001 marked a much-anticipated return to full-band activity for ballboy after the best part of a decade’s stasis. It has also offered the chance for Katie Griffiths to rejoin the band for shows making ballboy a twin-keyboard 5-piece band at present. They are currently writing and recording, with plans to release brand new music soon
Television Personalities + Cult Figures
Pop Mutations presents:
Television Personalities
+ Cult Figues
+ Big Lanes
Saturday 7th December
Mono
18+
Television Personalities -
Television Personalities were created in 1978 when singer/songwriter Dan Treacy borrowed some money from his mum – and together with best friend Ed Ball, recorded and pressed a couple of hundred copies of two singles, 14th Floor and Part Time Punks. John Peel played both extensively. The songs perfectly captured the post-punk zeitgeist and Treacy had to get many more copies pressed to keep up with demand.
Over the next few decades the line-up of the band changed many times, but they would go on to release a large catalogue of beautifully crafted songs about love, war and the human condition that would endear them to many - and influence an ever-growing number of musicians and those in the music business including Kurt Cobain, MGMT, Alan McGee and Evan Dando.
After suffering from an aneurysm in 2011, Dan Treacy was confined to a nursing home unable to perform.
In 2018, several former band members got together to perform a series of benefit gigs and now four of those former members, Dave Musker, Jeff Bloom, Mike Stone and Lee McFadden continue to perform as Television Personalities to showcase the amazing songwriting talent of Dan Treacy. Dan is still a member of the band in his absence and as such a proportion of band earnings go towards his medical care and/or a charity of the choice of his family.
Cult Figures -
Cult Figures were formed in Birmingham as a duo in 1977 by Gary Jones and Tim Wilday. Gary could sing and play guitar – and Tim became the drummer by default when Rick Buckler gave him his drumsticks backstage at a Jam gig. Tim lasted only a short while before the band realised that being given a pair of sticks doesn’t make you a drummer – and Gary carried on fronting the band with a conveyor belt of pals (including a certain Roger Taylor who later found obscurity in Duran Duran) before teaming up with Roger’s school pal, Jon Hodgson.
Gary and Jon resumed the original duo set up of Cult Figures and became friends with legendary post-punk noise merchants Swell Maps – who offered to release their first single “Zip Nolan” in 1979 and play as their backing band (although this wasn’t revealed at the time). That single is still revered by punk fans to this day and was a regular John Peel favourite.
The follow-up single in 1980 – “In Love EP” – another Swell Maps label release – unveiled a full four-piece Cult Figures – including Martin Hughes on bass and Alan “Jock” Rodger” on drums (just after a stint with Spizz Energi). Swell Maps broke up shortly after the record’s release and for a time, Cult Figures were left rudderless. A document of this time was later released as a live album – “Live At The Cedar Club 6.5.80” – a tragi-comic recording of a band playing to an audience of GBH fans that barely acknowledged them. The band inevitably split.
A full 35 years later the 4-piece reformed – recording and releasing the “War On Fun” EP – 4 songs originally played live during 1979/80. The band made their live comeback in May 2016, but by the following July Martin Hughes made way for Lee McFadden on bass. Barney Russell joined the group on guitar and Omnichord the following November, and at the beginning of 2017 Jock Rodger decided to step down to be replaced by Stuart Hilton.
This line up (including Jock on some tracks) recorded the group’s first album – “The 166 Ploughs A Lonely Furrow” – more re-recordings of songs written and played live during 79-80. Once this line was drawn the band released “Deritend” in 2021 – a whole set of new material that at least equalled – if not surpassed – the older familiar tracks – and was widely critically acclaimed – Stewart Lee named it as one of his albums of the year. Barney Russel left the band in December 2021, and tragically, founder Gary Jones succumbed to cancer in March 2022. 4 months earlier, knowing that he couldn’t continue, Gary suggested offering the singer’s role to friend and fan, Fraser Gillespie – who at this point had never played a gig in his life. Steve May became the new guitarist in January 2022.
The line up of Jon, Fraser, Lee, Steve and Stuart released the third Cult Figures album “Between Us And Heaven” and have received plaudits and BBC6Music airplay courtesy of Riley & Coe. Their releases are available on bandcamp and are ready to play anywhere near you!!!
Cult Figures. It’s A Thing.
Jack J
Pop Mutations present:
Jack J
+ Support TBA
Tuesday 10th December
The Flying Duck
18+
Advance tickets available at: https://ra.co/events/2011153
As one half of Pender Street Steppers and a founding member of the seminal Mood Hut record label and studio he has lent a steady and influential hand in shaping the sound of Vancouver music for over a decade. His early releases, includiing »Something (On My Mind)« and »Thirstin« were named amongst the best dance music of the 2010’s.
In 2022, Jack expanded the scope of his artistry with Opening The Door an introspective album encompassing bittersweet pop-rock, dub, boogie and ambient jazz. 2024 will see the release of a new LP on Mood Hut Records.
ADULT. + Spike Hellis
Pop Mutations presents:
ADULT.
+ Spike Hellis
Thursday 13th February
Stereo
18+
ADULT. -
With over 23 years working and a sprawling discography to show for that labor, Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus have spent their entire career as ADULT. obscuring any defined genre or style, writing and recording albums as art for life’s sake. On their latest album, the group are back at it with some discordant, doom dance sludge to mark their 9th studio album Becoming Undone. Written between November 2020 and April 2021, the album might be the bands most non-conformant yet. Sure there’s plenty of dance bangers, but ultimately the album is riddled with impermanence, loss and looping dissatisfactions.
A brief history of ADULT.
In 2020, ADULT. released Perception is/as/of Deception on DAIS, an anxiety fueled cyclone of pandemonium that only ADULT. would know how to harness. While This Behavior (2018) was recorded in the isolated snow-covered woods of northern Michigan, Perception is/as/of Deception was given life in a temporary space the duo created by painting their windowless basement entirely black, with the sole intention to deprive their senses, question their perceptions, and witness the resulting ramifications. The pieces that make up Perception is/as/of Deception might be perceived as their most punk-infused and introspective work to date. The elements of frustration and apprehension that have consistently woven throughout their material are at full mast, although augmented by a strident and more “head-on” approach.
Bill Pearis of Brooklyn Vegan writes “The synths, drum machines and vocal delivery all feel more intense, with tracks like “Second Nature” and “Total Total Damage” hurtling you through a strobe-lit tunnel with a cinderblock on the gas pedal, the brake line cut, and doors have been welded shut.”
In September of 2018, ADULT. released their seventh album, THIS BEHAVIOR on DAIS. Called “…one of the best records of their career…” by Ryan Lathan of Pop Matters, the album began as 23 demos written and recorded in a remote cabin in the woods of Northern Michigan during the dead of winter. In total isolation, and with a reduced amount of gear (a modified version of their live setup) on the cabin’s kitchen table, the duo were completely immersed in an incessant, inescapable studio of their own making – looping, repetitive analogue sequences grinding away day and night.
In 2017, ADULT. released their sixth album entitled “Detroit House Guests” on MUTE Records. This project was funded through a Knight Arts grant which allowed them to collaborate with six guest artists: Dorit Chrysler (NY Theremin Society), Shannon Funchess (Light Asylum), Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (Lichens), Michael Gira (Swans), Lun•na Menoh (Les Sewing Sisters) and Douglas McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb). Philip Serburne for Pitchfork writes “On their first album in four years, the electro duo curate a highly collaborative record that is richer and stranger than anything they’ve done before. It’s unusually electrifying.”
ADULT. have released five other full length albums on Ghostly International, Thrill Jockey and their own label founded in 1995; Ersatz Audio. They also released their first live album in 2017 on Jack White’s Third Man Records. ADULT. have remixed the likes of LIARS, John Foxx, Barry Adamson and Death in Vegas, to name a few. They are currently working on a collaboration 7” with Planet B – members Justin Pearson (The Locust) & Luke Henshaw.
Spike Hellis -
Los Angeles based electronic duo Spike Hellis comprises of Cortland Gibson and Lainey, who got their start on Halloween of 2019. They self-released their first full-length, self-titled album in. April 2022, under their imprint Over-Pop.
The album chaotically shifts pace back and forth; the songs running into one another with no time in-between. The record opens with “Control (Rage)”, a layered, firm-handshake body-music track designed to hijack the amygdala. The kick drum resembles the steady flash of a panic button. You press it, but nothing happens—no relief. The irregular placement of snare matches Chang’s cries of dysregulation, spiraling red-eyed after having lost command asking, “Will I regain control?” While presented as a song of despair, optimism and determination shine through in the final line as the question is taken back and turned into a statement, “Watch me regain control”. This is a theme that permeates throughout the album: Taking challenging times of despair and coming through the other end with hope and optimism. Spike Hellis (S/T) was made with the intention to feel jolting. Techno-tinged “Flight” is an SH-101 track wherein lyrical instructions for escaping a dream are chanted over the iconic rubber band sound, with the claps paying homage to Charlie’s “Spacer Woman”. “Slices” is the funky first single which leads into its supplementary counterpart, “Stitches”. Footsteps grow louder until it opens into a dark waltz. Samples of William S. Burroughs cackling ring out over Emulator arpeggios until we arrive at “Teardrops (Kisses)”. While it is perhaps the most light-hearted track on the album sonically, themes of social punishment and isolation push through the surface to reveal conflict at its core. Chang and Gibson trade off cries of shame and humiliation while distorted synths, swirling in polyrhythms, close out Side A.
Side B continues with the song “Help”—a straight-forward, freestyle number with a pinch of synth-pop. The disjointed “Cause of Death” may be the most challenging song on the record. Floating between major and minor scales and heavy handed sampling, this track takes Spike Hellis from the dance floor to the speedway. Lacing each verse with the line “I never rush, but I like to speed”, a nod to taking risks and enduring hardships in favor of triumph in the long run. Arguably the biggest cut from the record is the closing track “Mouth”. This minimal track winds it’s way through a four-verse build. Chang’s pitch-shifted voice softly narrates a catch-and-release scenario in which baiting fish is used as an allegory for manipulation. “Baby look at you, setting your hook in my mouth – Reel me in, rip it out”.
Since finishing the album, Spike Hellis has hit the road hard with zero hesitation—completing two full US tours and a handful of smaller runs within the span of one year. They’ve performed in good company with fellow artists and friends such as ADULT., Kontravoid, Choir Boy, Soft Kill, Portrayal of Guilt, Plack Blague, Pixel Grip, Twin Tribes and many others. They have also been invited to play at festivals including Cold Waves, Substance, Sanctum, Sound and Fury, Verboden and Vampire’s Ball.
Blasting their bleak outlook and spreading their gospel of disenchantment and sarcasm, Spike Hellis announces their arrival.
MAQUINA
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
MAQUINA
+ Special Guests
Friday 14th February
The Flying Duck
18+
Advance tickets available at https://www.citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations/
The dynamic trio from Lisbon, comprising João (guitar), Tomás (bass), and Halison (drum + vox), made a significant impact on the Portuguese music scene with the release of their debut album on January 27, 2023. With their energetic performances that blend dance culture with heavy-hook songcraft, the band quickly gained a reputation among audiences.
Drawing inspiration from repetition/minimalism-centered styles such as Krautrock and Industrial Techno, MAQUINA. fearlessly explores the boundaries of these genres by incorporating elements of rock and electronic music into their distinctive sound. The album
"DIRTY TRACKS FOR CLUBBING" showcases a mix of pulsating beats, scuzzy bass riffs, and noisy guitars, challenging norms and pushing the limits of conventional music. They have successfully carved out a distinctive identity in the music scene.
One of the standout features of MAQUINA.'s live performances is their commitment to authenticity and musicality. Unlike many electronic acts that heavily rely on machines and programmed beats, this trio challenges convention by excluding the use of machines and
clicks during their concerts. Instead, they embrace the raw power of live instruments, providing an electrifying experience that resonates with the audience on a deeper level.
Rats On Rafts
Pop Mutations presents:
Rats On Rafts
+ Special Guests
Friday 14th February
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Rats On Rafts return with brand new music since 2021’s acclaimed album, ‘Excerpts Of Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths’.
Currently preparing for the release of their fourth album set for release in 2025, Rats On Rafts’ new single ‘Hibernation’ is a rain-soaked lament to nature’s battered mortality, a monochrome snapshot of the
landscape played out in beautiful cold wave delay.
Finding joy in self-isolation, “I noticed that I could feel really comfortable with songs that can feel really heavy and isolated,” says Fagan “ If you listen to a Joy Division record for example, for a lot of people they’re
really downcast. But for some people it’s like stepping into a really warm bath, because you can really identify with that music. I think that’s also what’s going on with “Hibernation”. I could identify with the
coldness of the atmosphere, and that languid feeling of that song.”
Contour
Pop Mutations presents:
Contour
+ Special Guests
Monday 17th February
The Glad Cafe
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
The Charleston, South Carolina artist Contour's body of work is evidence of a restless curiosity that culminates on his latest album and debut for Mexican Summer, Take Off from Mercy. Starting off as a beatmaker, Khari's vision has broadened over releases like Onwards (2022, Touching Bass), Love Suite (2021, Good Question) and Weight (self-released/Purple Tape Pedigree, 2021), spanning from noirish, sample-driven R&B to covers of Strawberry Switchblade. Take Off from Mercy eschews samples in favor of guitar-driven songwriting, positing a singular take on the blues, Tropicalia, hip hop, post-punk and indie rock, establishing Lucas as an exemplary lyricist and broad collaborator, working with the likes of Saul Williams, Mndsgn and his co-producer, Omari Jazz.
Following the pandemic, Lucas toured relentlessly, recently opening a US run for Erika de Casier and appearing at Pitchfork Festival (Chicago) and Le Guess Who? Beyond his prolific solo output, recent collaborations include Black Decelerant, an ambient duo with the aforementioned Omari Jazz who just released their self-titled debut on RVNG Intl. Lucas also collaborates with the operatic baritone singer Davóne Tines as part of a band called THE TRUTH on ROBESOИ, a performance released by the venerable Nonesuch Records.
Contour is a key member of a distinct cohort of young artists weaving the traditions of Black music into thoroughly modern, avant-garde songcraft. Within his work, genres and disciplines collide. Lucas's radio show for Dublab, Footprints in the Dark, took stock of the deep discographies of foundational figures like Gilberto Gil and Georgia Anne Muldrow. Meanwhile, Lucas has organized readings with the likes of Harmony Holiday and screened films from Black Audio Film Collective director John Akomfrah, and completed artist residencies with NTS Radio and Brooklyn's Pioneer Works.
Within all this activity, Lucas's sound and voice are immediately recognizable, his flow and declarative honesty heavily influenced by rap. Lucas's recent live shows with the likes of Billy Woods and Bilal featured him roving the stage singing and rapping over samples before sitting at the piano for downcast, Bill Withers-style ballads. Take Off from Mercy is a document of hard-earned lessons learned while on the move. Omari and Khari worked on the record in Charleston, Portland, NYC, London, Paris, Georgia, LA and Houston, feeding into the album's themes of transformation through migration. Lucas will follow the fall release of Take Off from Mercy with expanded live tours through the US, UK and Europe in fall 2024. As this flurry of activity suggests, there will inevitably be more records, shows, tours, readings and screenings in the near future. The urgency of Contour's vision is palpable in this myriad of pursuits.
Being Dead
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Being Dead
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 25th February
The Glad Cafe
18+
Being Dead — the Texas-based trio of best friends Falcon B*tch, Gumball, and Ricky Moto — announce their debut album, When Horses Would Run, out July 14th on their new label home Bayonet Records, and share the lead single/video, “Muriel’s Big Day Off.” When Horses Would Run propels listeners into vivid landscapes: desert planes, dirty basements, lush rolling hills. Being Dead is here to create worlds where we can soak in stories of carefree shoplifters, wayward cowboys, and the final moments of a lonely Buffalo on the range. Merging surf rock, freak pop and frantic punk, Being Dead’s eclectic influences and energetic pull swells on their excellent debut album.
The Tubs
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
The Tubs
+ Special Guests
Friday 21st March
The Rum Shack
18+
London-based Welsh band The Tubs announce their debut album, Dead Meat, out 27th January via Trouble in Mind. Owen “O” Williams and George “GN” Nicholls, the primary songwriters from the group Joanna Gruesome, formed the band in 2018 following a trip to Llawr-Betws caravan park.
The Tubs are also 3/4s of the “evil” Sniffany & The Nits, as well as the decidedly less evil Ex-Vöid. Despite three bands' sonic differences, there's a similar derangement at play beneath The Tubs' jangle. The Tubs make music that incorporates elements of post-punk, traditional British-folk, and guitar jangle seasoned by nonchalant Flying Nun pop hooks and contemporary antipodean indie bands.
Pure Adult
Pop Mutations presents:
Pure Adult
+ Special Guests
Monday 24th March
Stereo
18+
Pure Adult is an experimental rock band from Brooklyn, NY. Originally a solo project of
multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Snyder, Pure Adult later expanded to be a collaboration between
him and contemporary dancer and visual artist Bianca Abarca. They have toured internationally
with Gilla Band, Mdou Moctar, Bambara and Thank, shared bills with A Place To Bury Strangers
and Mclusky as well as headlining their own shows in both the US and UK.
In 2023, they released their first LP, II, on Fat Cat Records, two years after self-releasing their
first EP, I.
“Pungent chaos that serves no pomp, instead it throws around dark innuendo like a rag doll to
the cadence of fury and fucking. The best album I’ve heard in ages. The best band you haven’t
seen. Go dig, it’s beautiful at its worst.” - Joe Talbot, IDLES
“A furious piece of work.” Steve Lamacq
“Blown-out, hyperactive, aggressive, and danceable rock informed by punk and post-punk.” –
Brooklyn Vegan
Mekons
Pop Mutations presents:
Mekons
+ Special Guests
Sunday 11th May
Stereo
18+
Sonic adventurers, punk rock fundamentalists, exuberant luddites, willing outcasts.
“The Mekons are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock ‘n’ roll” – wrote rock critic Lester Bangs
The genre-defying Mekons formed in Leeds, England in 1977. Born from the emerging British punk scene, they progressed from art students with no musical skills to the prolific, raucous progeny of Hank Williams. This current classic line-up has remained intact since the mid-1980s, continuing to regularly tour and release new music through to now. Theirs is an improbable history – a surprising and influential embrace of folk and country music with occasional forays into the art world. They have always worked collaboratively and collectively with all work credited to the band, never to individuals. Their mind-boggling output consistently blurs the lines between high art and low and has included exhibitions in the UK and US, a deranged pirate musical recorded and staged with Kathy Acker, an art performance with Vito Acconci, and several books including the unique art catalog/unfinished novel Mekons United. "Revenge of the Mekons", a documentary about the band received nationwide release in 2015 on Music Box Films. The Mekons continue to make bold, unpredictable music while staying true to the punk ethos. Their mind-boggling output consistently blurs the lines between high art and low and they remain one of the truly great live bands.
Their last album "Exquisite" was recorded completely remotely during the early months of lockdown and released on Bandcamp in June 2020. The band are working with Fire Records on their new album which comes out in 2025. The single from that album "You're Not Singing Anymore" will be released on Fire Records in early November 2024.
Melenas
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Melenas
+ Special Guests
Monday 18th November
The Glad Cafe
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Melenas are an indie garage fuzz kraut pop reverbcore group from Pamplona, Spain who will make fans of The Feelies, Neu!, Stereolab and classic C86 jangle pop fall for their infectious synths, shimmering guitars, sweet melodies and driving rhythms. They also add a touch of sun-kissed, soft focused psych to their kraut-rock influenced sound. Brilliant melodies, fresh bass lines, acid keys and a Lindy Morrison drum style are adorned with fuzz and phasers and surrounded with heavenly vocal harmonies.
After touring their two first albums (released via US label Trouble In Mind) worldwide with shows at Primavera Sound, SXSW (twice), Eurosonic, Levitation France, Bilbao BBK, all over the UK and France and even at the New York Fashion Week (where they performed at the Ulla Johnson runway), in 2021 they won the MME Award at the Eurosonic festival, a prize that has been previously won by Rosalia, Hinds, Fontaines DC or Dua Lipa.
Also in 2021 they released their celebrated cover version of the classic tune Eisbaer by Grauzone, and in 2023 they released their third album to widespread critical acclaim. In 2024 they’ve toured extensively in Europe, with sold out shows in Madrid, Paris, London or Berlin, and have released ‘Ahora Remixes’, an EP featuring reworks of their songs by the likes of Peanut Butter Wolf, Tim Gane (Stereolab) or Hidrogenesse.
The Serfs
Pop Mutations & Sentinel present:
The Serfs
+ Memorabilia
Saturday 16th November
Stereo
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Emerging like a missile from some surreptitious silo in southwestern Ohio, The Serfs are a deliberately nebulous and incidentally industrialist gang of dance-floor hymners-- perturbed and tranced-out troubadours whose sound and musical ideology seems to be a causal manifestation of their immediate environments--hard-wired and hypnotic synthesized melodies propel alongside churning and scraping percussion of every metallic tonality--with temperamental and eremitic words and voices dictating the forlorn venture. Like their Ohio predecessors, The Serfs seem askew from the art that surrounds them, and proud of it.
Chris Cohen
Pop Mutations presents:
Chris Cohen
+ Simone Antigone
Friday 15th November
The Glad Cafe
18+
Chris Cohen was always a quiet kid. In fact, this introversion was one reason he began playing music as a toddler—to communicate without speaking to identify with others without the direct representation of words. It has worked, too, with Cohen’s terrific stint in the mighty Deerhoof and his own captivating art-rock act The Curtains, preceding production and session work for the likes of Weyes Blood, Kurt Vile, Le Ren, and Marina Allen. Somewhere along that long way, Cohen started writing lyrics. He found that, though it didn’t come naturally, the process offered a new sense of self-discovery and reckoning, a way to see himself and the world from unexpected angles. His three twilit albums of casually complicated pop during the last decade radiated these epiphanies: handling family strife, navigating advancing age, and understanding social woes.
But Cohen has never had as much to sing so directly as he does on Paint a Room, his first album in five years and his debut for Hardly Art. If Cohen’s meanings have previously lurked inside the tessellated musical layers he built alone, they are newly clear and resonant here, animated and underscored for the first time by a band playing in real time. There is the endless miasma of state violence on the subversively melodious opener “Damage,” the existential exhaustion of modernity on the horn-traced jangle “Laughing”: this is Cohen communicating with friends not only through his deep understanding of groove, harmony, and hook but also with his listeners through songs that croon of our uneasy little era.
In the past, Cohen made records in spells of isolation, phases when, as he puts it, he would “try to make my world a lot smaller.” He would play any of a dozen or so instruments until he stumbled upon something interesting, then slowly build upward and outward upon the idea. The method was solitary and stepwise, an act of accretion and deletion.
Cohen, though, has been playing live with bassist Davin Givhan, drummer Josh da Costa, and keyboardist Jay Israelson in some fashion for the better part of a decade. This time around, then, he built demos in the dusty garage of the suburban Altadena rental that smelled like old wood and gasoline and tried something new—he took the songs on tour with that crew, yielding total control by letting them fill in or flourish their own parts as they saw fit. They came back home and began recording as a band.
Cohen even called in a few friends to help, with Jeff Parker contributing the fluttering horn arrangement on “Damage,” and Parker collaborator Josh Johnson (who produced Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy-Award-winning album The Omnichord Real Book) supplying flute, sax, and clarinet arrangements throughout the record. It felt a little bit like producing someone else’s records, with Cohen given the chance to step back and evaluate others’ contributions to his own songs rather than scrutinize every little bit he made himself. This was a longtime ambition realized, another way of relating to others openly through sound.
Cohen, really, has never sounded so assured on a solo album, gliding above or sinking into this band that boasts a preternatural sense of feel. On “Damage,” as he surveys the way we lord power over people with less of it in most every walk of life, his voice lifts above Johnson’s horns like he’s looking for a way out. Cohen wrote “Sunever” for a transgender child in his life, while considering the violence that hard-and-fast categories can create. This song reminds us that we are “always in between,” that transitions are just a part of life. With the hook, he sweetly sings his vow: “You’re gonna find a way.” Cohen is tender and vulnerable in the lead, his voice cracking with feeling as the tune presses forward toward a better future. Written by cutting and pasting phrases from the unemployment form he filled out at the pandemic’s start, the frolicking “Physical Address” considers what it is we all want for our lives, how we untether ourselves from the past in the present. On Paint a Room, Cohen’s music feels like a warm spring breeze, easy to love and gentle to feel. But it’s often carrying something heavy, as if blowing in from some unseen storm cloud.
Cohen had another hobby as a kid: transcendental meditation, a practice his parents taught him when he was six. It’s still part of his life, a window into observing his thought processes, habits, and relationship to the rest of the world. Making music—and, turns out, writing lyrics for it—works in a similar way for Cohen, as he’s able to understand and then articulate notions that wouldn’t be so easy with the absolutism of mere words. Paint a Room both reckons with reality and conjures an alternate one, where nighttime walks and a neighbor’s wind chimes offer endless escapes for the imagination, space for the mind to roam. Sublime and sunlit, these 10 songs consider dreamy new ways out of old predicaments, clearly stating the problem and dancing and singing their way somewhere new.
Simone Antigone is a Glasgow based project fronted by Simone Wilson - exploring composition through realms of voice, strings, (Jack Mellin, Loup Havenith) percussion (Christopher Wallace) and woodwind (Georgia Harris). Drawing from myth, transformation and swampy emotional terrain, they together create a sound that is dreamlike and ever-changing.
YHWH Nailgun
Pop Mutations presents:
YHWH Nailgun
+ Pretty V
Friday 15th November
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
The quartet of Zack Borzone (vox), Jack Tobias (synth), Sam Pickard (drums), and Saguiv Rosenstock (guitar) display an innate ability to translate a primitive spirit into a modern form. Born during the lockdown as an experimental project between Borzone and Pickard in Philadelphia, the group expanded as the two moved to New York, adding Tobias for their debut self-titled EP, which was produced by Rosenstock, who was then integrated into the band. That first collection is one of self-discovery, of finding the tools necessary to make songs within the band’s own ecosystem. They honed in on their own world and their collaborative, close-knit writing process, discovering the essential structures and feelings that make YHWH Nailgun.
Langkamer (Edinburgh)
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Langkamer
+ Buffet Lunch
Friday 15th November
Leith Depot
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Langkamer’s third album ‘Langzamer’ stands tall as their most restrained, mature, and sincere album to date. Produced in the dusty vaults of the Cornish Bank by Ben Woods of The Golden Dregs, the album takes Langkamer’s heart-on-sleeve slacker rock to new heights. Rich with wry reflections on life and loss, Langzamer jumps between buoyant pop singalongs and mournful folk balladry, propelled throughout by dexterous, infectious melodies.
Prodigiously gigging over the last three years, the Bristol quartet have played sold-out rooms across the UK and Europe, as well as playing support slots for Mystery Jets, Jeffrey Lewis, Juan Waters, Ratboys, Willie J Healey, Fenne Lily, and Opus Kink.
The news of their third album comes following press and radio support from the likes of Uncut, Brooklyn Vegan, BBC Radio 6Music (Huw Stevens, Mark Radcliffe, Steve Lamacq, and Tom Robinson), Radio X (John Kennedy), So Young, Rough Trade Counter Culture, Blogotheque, Morning Star, Wax Music and Clunk.
Langkamer (Glasgow)
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Langkamer
+ Hound
+ Monday Soutar
Thursday 14th November
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Langkamer’s third album ‘Langzamer’ stands tall as their most restrained, mature, and sincere album to date. Produced in the dusty vaults of the Cornish Bank by Ben Woods of The Golden Dregs, the album takes Langkamer’s heart-on-sleeve slacker rock to new heights. Rich with wry reflections on life and loss, Langzamer jumps between buoyant pop singalongs and mournful folk balladry, propelled throughout by dexterous, infectious melodies.
Prodigiously gigging over the last three years, the Bristol quartet have played sold-out rooms across the UK and Europe, as well as playing support slots for Mystery Jets, Jeffrey Lewis, Juan Waters, Ratboys, Willie J Healey, Fenne Lily, and Opus Kink.
The news of their third album comes following press and radio support from the likes of Uncut, Brooklyn Vegan, BBC Radio 6Music (Huw Stevens, Mark Radcliffe, Steve Lamacq, and Tom Robinson), Radio X (John Kennedy), So Young, Rough Trade Counter Culture, Blogotheque, Morning Star, Wax Music and Clunk.
Tara Clerkin Trio
Pop Mutations present:
Tara Clerkin Trio
plus Duncan Marquiss
Wednesday 13th November
at Mono
18+ show
Tara Clerkin Trio are Pat Benjamin, Sunny Joe Paradisos and Tara Clerkin, three musicians involved in a number of cult Bristol bands over the years before confidently settling down in triangle formation. They are inspired by and borrow from jazz, trip hop, electronica, psychedelia & minimalism, twirling the non-pretentious strands of these threads together into a trippy green winged-cloak, adorning Arthur Russell and dripping in blue jam.
Duncan Marquiss (The Phantom Band) combines electronic guitar manipulations with wandering acoustic to create kosmiche-folk instrumentals.
“He draws a thread between the resonant bass of guitarists such as Bert Jansch or Jim O’Rourke, and the gasoline groove of Cluster or Neu! The result is a filmic album of wide landscapes and wider inner spaces.” The Quietus
LustSickPuppy + Izzy Spears + GoreShit
Pop Mutations presents:
LustSickPuppy
+ Izzy Spears
+ GoreShit
Tuesday 12th November
Stereo
18+
Advance tickets available at https://www.citizenticket.co.uk/events/pop-mutations/
Blending elements of punk, gabber, drum b bass and rap, they deliver warped melodies over hyperactive beats at breakneck speed. Equal parts glitter and blood, their shows are raw and unpredictable, a live rave liturgy taking audiences by the leash while offering the ride of a lifetime. Following their debut EP Cosmic Brownie and a collaboration with Machine Girl’s Matthew Stephenson, 2022 saw LustSickPuppy releasing their sophomore EP As Hard As You Can, featuring collaborations with Bonnie Baxter of Kill Alters and Andy Morin of Death Grips. On their latest single, »might b«, they further expand their style by anchoring abstract drum n bass leanings with sparkly, sun-drenched harmonics and an irresistable hook. „The smiley face paint represents me existing as a black queer person having to smile my way through this fucked up world. It’s the idea that if you can’t see past this face, you will never be able to connect with me deeply.”
Party Dozen
Pop Mutations, Freakender & 432 present:
Party Dozen
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 12th November
The Hug & Pint
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Sydney’s *Party Dozen *(saxophonist Kirsty Tickle and percussionist
Jonathan Boulet) are back with a new album *Crime In Australia**, *the
follow-up to 2022’s *The Real Work*. *The Real Work *proved to be an
international breakthrough for the group. Tracks such as the *Nick Cave-*featuring
“*Macca The Mutt*”, the radio-friendly skronk of “*Fruits Of Labour*” and
the epic string-drenched beauty of “*Risky Behaviour*” won fans far and
wide, enabling the group to take their wild and intense live show across
four continents.
Uranium Club
Pop Mutations, Sentinel & Static Shock present:
Uranium Club
+ Kaputt
Tuesday 12th November
The Flying Duck
18+
Daddy Long Legs
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Daddy Long Legs
+ Special Guests
Sunday 10th November
The Flying Duck
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
New York City’s most diabolical rhythm and blues street gang aren’t back, they never left. In dark times, DADDY LONG LEGS continue to shine their light everywhere they go, leaving a piece of themselves on stage every night because it’s in them and it’s got to come out.
Now the sharp-dressed trio-turned-quartet make their post-pandemic return to the studio to present their latest LP: Street Sermons (Yep Roc, 2023). An album of the times, for the times, by a band of the people. Written and recorded against a backdrop of political tension, riots in the streets and a deeply uncertain future, these 12 new tracks are a testament to triumph over adversity.
In the first moments of Street Sermons, DADDY LONG LEGS beseech their troubled congregation to “Work with one another/Not against each other” as the Brooklyn band evolve into a chain gang that sounds like they’re emanating through the cracks of a hot and sticky subway station.
During the depths of the lockdown, frontman/harpman Brian Hurd experienced a terrifying dream and awoke in a cold sweat. To exorcise the terror he immediately scribbled down his memories of the dream that became the album's first single, “Nightmare,” a scream-worthy rocker about dealing with a world gone wrong: “We’re livin’ a nightmare and this world is condemned; I’ll see you if this nightmare ever ends.”
Meanwhile! “Rockin’ My Boogie” lets the listener know that when it’s our time to go, DADDY LONG LEGS will be the band leading the funeral parade. “Harmonica Razor” is a dangerous rhythm and blues instrumental which shows off Hurd’s prowess on the instrument, and “Star” proves guitarist Murat Aktürk and drummer Josh Styles can cool things down and deliver a country blues ballad of the highest order when the time calls for it.
DADDY LONG LEGS fled the madness of the city to record Street Sermons at Old Soul Studios in Catskill, NY with Oakley Munson (Black Lips/Nude Party) producing and stepping in on organ and piano. The LP also features some guest appearances from John Sebastian (Lovin’ Spoonful) and Wreckless Eric of “Whole Wide World” fame.
Over the last decade these gentlemen have burned down houses the world over with their explosive fire ceremony and have amassed a cult-like following all their own with a tough to beat reputation for being one of the finest live acts on the road today.
The boys recently returned from their first tours in Australia and New Zealand and their previous album, Lowdown Ways (Yep Roc, 2019), reached #4 on the Billboard Blues Chart. The band has received high praise from Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke, who calls DADDY LONG LEGS’ sound “Chicago blues fired at the moon played by the demented children of the Pretty Things.”
Cindy
Pop Mutations presents:
Cindy
+ Special Guests
Wednesday 6th November
The Glad Cafe
18+
Cindy is a key part of the San Francisco/Bay Area dream pop, fog pop, lo fi scene. Led by Karina Gill, members of the touring band include Will Smith of Now, Staizsh Rodrigues of Children Maybe Later, and Oli Lipton of Now and Violent Change. The songs are hazy and nostalgic pop-craft with lyrical backbone.
Powerplant + Middleman + The Strongest Tool
Pop Mutations present:
Powerplant
+ Middlemen
+ The Strongest Tool
+ Kute
Saturday 2nd November
The Flying Duck
18+
Powerplant occurs somewhere in the shadows of synth and post-punk that produces music to be listened to only at night. Once a solitary bedroom project of Ukrainian Theo Zhykharyev, that found its footing on the Internet and grew meat around the bone, becoming a full animated live band with members of London experimental electronic and hardcore scenes.
Powerplant’s sound is ever evolving, stretching from early lo-fi garage-punk recordings, straight synth-punk ‘People in the Sun’ LP to post-punk ‘A Spine / Evidence’ EP and 2022’s unexpected hour-long dungeon synth release ‘Stump Soup’. PP is back to its electronic roots with the latest ‘Grass’ EP that is out now on Static Shock Records.
With Powerplant, any time of the day, you are guaranteed to smell the sizzle of synthesisers, hear fast precise drums - 100% live, jumpy giddy bass and a little guitar to go with unintelligible, yet mesmerising oral performance! This could be just your kind of thing!
To better days!
Tyvek + Comfort (as the Sh*te Stripes) + Radio Banter
Mono and Pop Mutations present
Tyvek
The Sh*te Stripes
Radio Banter
Thursday 31st October
8pm
18+
Throughout perpetual, necessary shifting, Detroit's Tyvek have remained a singular force. The group was formed somewhere in the mid-aughts by songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and sole consistent band member Kevin Boyer, who enlisted various friends to cultivate a raw, rudimentary punk sound that manages to get back to basics while at the same time presenting abstract perspectives and weird concepts not normally explored by your everyday garage band. There have been mutations over the years as the band toured regularly and released a run of solid albums with labels like Siltbreeze and In The Red, but with every reformation, Tyvek still didn't sound quite like anyone else.
Their new album, the self released Overground (Ginkgo, 2023), stays true to their reputation for delivering hit after hit of blistering punk and remains tightly wound until it unspools into the dreamlike title track, an extended post Velvets plea for human decency. Tyvek's current line-up of all-stars guarantee an intense live show: Shelley Salant (Shells, XV), Alex Glendening (Deadbeat Beat), Fred Thomas (Idle Ray), and Emily Roll (XV) channel the high-energy rock'n'roll of Detroit's past while side-stepping the cliches to push forward into an uncharted future.
The Mall
Pop Mutations presents:
The Mall
+ Special Guests
Thursday 31st October
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
The Mall is music for punks who dance. In the suburban wasteland of middle America, malls exist as decaying artifacts of conspicuous consumption–forgotten tombs haunted by the ghosts of capitalism’s failures. Using sequencers and analog synths, the Mall’s Mark Plant raises the dead to get glamorous amidst decay. Fusing the shimmering, plastic qualities of 80s dance electronica with the punishing, visceral energy of midwestern hardcore, the Mall soundtracks the liminal space between beauty and anger, celebration and cynicism, resilience and destruction. Performances are as ephemeral as kisses in a movie theater in 1987–and more lethal than radiation fallout from a space probe. The Mall experience is spasming, ecstatic technical disaster.
-Micco Caporale
FOYER RED
Pop Mutations presents...
FOYER RED (USA, Carpark Records)
Plus support from Dancer and Onat Onol
30th October 2024
The Flying Duck
18+
Foyer Red
https://foyerred.com
https://linktr.ee/FoyerRed
Brooklyn’s Foyer Red makes sweet yet abrasive songs that careen into delightfully unexpected places. They bounce between time signatures, boast bass lines and guitar riffs that clang and shimmer, and feature vocals that seamlessly crisscross over each other. Whenever the songs feel like they might dissolve into near-chaos, they’re reined in by earworm hooks and masterful leftfield pop songwriting. It’s organized clamor.
The band started as a trio with singer and clarinetist Elana Riordan, drummer Marco Ocampo, and singer/guitarist Mitch Myers. The three would email each other song ideas and record the ones that stuck. In 2021, they started playing music together in the same room and immediately came out with the Zigzag Wombat EP, which Pitchfork raved about, writing, “They make fuck-you crayon rock. At its best, their debut is a little bit freaky and more than a little bit funny.” Though they had been a band for only a few months, their self-recorded and charming debut proved that they had hit the ground running almost fully formed with a distinct, tongue-in-cheek, deconstructive take on indie rock.
Discovery Zone
Pop Mutations presents:
Discovery Zone
plus Goodnight Louisa
Live at The Glad Cafe
Monday 28th October
18+
Discovery Zone is the experimental pop project of New York / Berlin musician and multimedia artist JJ Weihl. After the slow-building but undeniable fervor around her debut album Remote Control, Discovery Zone announced her second album Quantum Web due out March 8th via RVNG Intl. and Mansions and Millions (GSA). Inspired by the omnipresence of advertising and corporate culture as much as the potential of cybernetics and neural networks, Discovery Zone plunges into an uncanny valley with Quantum Web, where the distinctions between the earnest and the ironic blur in tandem with the border between the human and the post-human. Discovery Zone explores a widescreen pop sound speckled with luminous vocal performances and baroque instrumental flourishes. On stage, she utilises a laboratory of instruments and 3D visuals to explore the universe as a source of information.
Louise McCraw, known musically as Goodnight Louisa is a Scottish musician, songwriter and producer. Her music and production has been praised for its "cinematic, raw and uncompromising" qualities. Her self-produced debut album “Human Danger” which was written in a converted warehouse in Þingeyri, a small village in the Westfjords of Iceland and was released in 2022, receiving great acclaim from Clash Magazine, and BBC Introducing Scotland. Since relocating to Glasgow in 2022, McCraw has been finishing a new record. For fans of Hot Chip, The Knife and early Madonna.
Freak Heat Waves + Jaakko Eino Kalevi
Pop Mutations presents:
Freak Heat Waves
+ Special Guests
Saturday 26th October
The Glad Cafe
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Since dropping their self-titled debut in 2012, Freak Heat Waves have been an ever-evolving musical force, delivering a steady output that defies easy categorization. Comprising Steve Lind and Thomas Di Ninno, the duo delivered their most alluring output to date with their latest LP, 2023's Mondo Tempo. Released via Vancouver's Mood Hut label and landing on numerous best of lists, this fifth album is a tasteful infusion of dancehall grooves, ambient textures, trance mantras and midi smoothness -- a heady cocktail that seamlessly blends elements of post-punk, psych, dub, ambient, house, and techno. Once again, the Freaks have reaffirmed their reputation as one of the most unpredictable and exciting acts around.
Jaakko Eino Kalevi -
Jaakko Eino Kalevi is the Finnish musician whose body of work spans two decades and covers a wild range of styles informed by jazz, reggae, metal, electro and pop. Since 2013 he has released his music through the British label Domino. His sixth album ‘Chaos Magic’ came out last November and features collaborations with Jimi Tenor, Alma Jodorowsky, Faux Real. Flaminia Veronesi and Vilunki 3000. The record is in part inspired by his new home in Athens. Live, expect lots of new songs and hits such as Flexible Heart, Macho and I Wanna Win. This year, his 'Chaos Magic' tour has taken Jaakko across Europe, into the Arctic, and all the way to China.
DUCK & COVER
Bum Notes & The Flying Duck present :
DUCK AND COVER (Drag Me to Hell 3)
That's right! Our annual COVERS BAND HALLOWEEN BALL is back again!!
After a looong hiatus we return to the Duck for a 3rd helping of incredible star power!
Expect a night of unparalleled entertainment from Glasgow's most uninhibited karaoke night!
Two rooms of tricks and treats!
Hosted by International super-nobody Pink Pound!
Come down from 7pm to catch live bands featuring some of the most treasured musicians on the Glasgow scene giving thier best Stars In Their Eyes impressions! Full sets from :
Alanis Morisette
Busted
Pavement
Yarasure (Yazoo/ Erasure mash up)
And from 10 you can enjoy incredible drag performances and KARAOKE from Bum Notes!
It's getting HOT in here!
£8 advance tickets available now!
More on the door/ once they're gone!
18+
26th October!
The Flying Duck!
mui zyu
Pop Mutations & The Glad Cafe presents:
mui zyu
Thursday 24th October
The Glad Cafe
18+
As mui zyu, Hong Kong British artist Eva Liu searches for a portal, wandering between nothing and everything in her pursuit of peace.
On her second full-length album 'nothing or something to die for' she looks outward, embracing the chaos with each tentative step. With an eye to the absurd, it asks: how do we find the hole in the wall––the portal––to the path we all crave?
mui zyu’s debut album Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century (Father/Daughter Records) saw her explore her heritage, as she dived inward to find acceptance and healing. Now, instead of searching for answers from the inside, Liu raises her head to look at the world around her.
As she attempts to understand the complexities and significance of human existence, she observes apathy alongside overwhelming chaos; the technological advancements of connection with the lack of meaningful bonds and the frustrations of upholding standards set by others.
'nothing or something to die for' tries to decipher these juxtaposing truths, holding both the weight of those trying to destroy the world with the utter futility of it all.
LICE
Pop Mutations, Freakender & 432 present:
LICE
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 22nd October
The Hug and Pint
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Formed in Bristol, LICE have become one of UK experimental rock’s most inventive, ambitious outliers. Newly signed to AD93, they will release new music in 2024.
LICE’s 2021 debut album WASTELAND: What Ails Our People Is Clear arrived to international acclaim from BBC 6Music, BBC Radio 1, KEXP, The Quietus, Financial Times and CRACK, who called it “a welcome lease of life for British avant-rock.” This led to shows at Reading & Leeds, Green Man and End Of The Road, an extensive EU tour supporting Sleaford Mods, and headline tours in the UK and EU. Prior to this, their double EP It All Worked Out Great was released on their champions IDLES’ label Balley Records, leading Loud & Quiet to declare them “the most exciting, inspiring and genuinely deranged new guitar band in the country.”
Billiam & the Split Bills
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Billiam & the Split Bills
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 22nd October
The Flying Duck
18+
Advance tickets available at https://www.citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations/
Billiam has been putting out records, both self released and on labels like Goodbye Boozy, Erste Theke Tontraeger, Warttmann Inc, Under The Gun and Legless Records since 2020 jumping back and forth between endless sounds of drum machines, blown out synthesizers and screeching vocals
telling tales of Sonic The Hedgehog, Cardboard Boxes and Autism Spectrum Disorder. He records and plays everything himself out of sheer boredom and terror in a mad scientist fashion in order to keep his specific brand of “autismcore” going
His most recent LP, Animation Cel, is his most fully formed yet with an endless barrage of idea after idea moving out of step with itself trying to get to the next sound quicker than the last blown out with fuzzy warmth and harsh feedback in a soup that’s aroma can be smelt two states across with an equal amount of songs about figuring out your brain and Knuckles the Echidna Billiam & The Split Bills formed on New Years Eve 2022 as a ragtag group of early 20s degenerates with the only goal of making a lot of very stupid noise as fast as they can, blowing out the sound of the
records to Mach 51 speeds, blasting through song after song with only breaks for strange improv and an endless barrage of brechtian alienation.
They’ve played with the likes of Snooper, The Meanies, Split System, Ghoulies, Civic, The Cavemen and Electric Chair and have gone all over Australia playing in any state that will let someone get on
stage and yell about Hall And Oates. Their debut European/UK tour is brought to you by Wild Wax Shows and Budget Living and will take place from September 27th to October 31st
Saloon Dion
Pop Mutations & 432 present:
Saloon Dion
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 8th October
The Flying Duck
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
A product of lockdown, Saloon Dion have honed their songwriting to match their energetic and uncompromising live performance.
It would be difficult to suggest that these five musicians are making music for anything other than the love of it.
Their passion has taken them across the world to appearances at SXSW in Texas and New Colossus in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Regulars alongside the likes of Big Special, Grandmas House, Courting, Opus Kink and Getdown Services, the band is ready to take their music further than it has ever taken them before.
Saloon Dion are the sum of their parts; Taryn McDonnell, Ben Molyneux, Luke Mullins, Tom Simpkins and David Sturgess.
A Place To Bury Strangers
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
A Place To Bury Strangers
+ Stella Rose
Sunday 29th September
Stereo
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Fans all over the globe know: Oliver Ackermann always brings surprises. The singer and guitarist of New York City’s A Place To Bury Strangers has been delighting and astonishing his audience for close to two decades, combining post-punk, noise-rock, shoegaze, psychedelia, and avant-garde music in startling and unexpected ways. As the founder of Death By Audio, creator of signal-scrambling stomp boxes and visionary instrument effects, he’s exported that excitement and invention to other artists who plug into his gear and blow minds. In concert, A Place To Bury Strangers is nothing short of astounding — a shamanistic experience that bathes listeners in glorious sound, crazed left turns, transcendent vibrations, real-time experiments, brilliant breakthroughs.
And just as many of his peers in the New York City underground seem to be slowing down and settling in, Ackermann’s creativity is accelerating. He’s launched a label of his own: Dedstrange, dedicated to advancing the work of sonic renegades worldwide. He’s also refreshed the group’s lineup, adding bassist John Fedowitz and drummer Sandra Fedowitz, and the band has never sounded more current, or more courageous, or more accessibly melodic. The Hologram EP is the first release from the new lineup — and the first on Dedstrange — and it’s no overstatement to say that the reaction has been ecstatic. Ghettoblaster wrote that the band’s racket outpaced everything to emerge from New York City in the past decade. Brooklyn Vegan praised Ackermann’s “terrific, emotive” singing, and lauded the group’s recent commitment to foregrounding its melodies and lyrics. Pitchfork, Flood, AllMusic: they’ve all lined up to call Hologram an example of the best work of a tireless band with a deep discography and an unquenchable drive to create challenging, unprecedented music. A Place To bury Strangers released their highly anticipated sixth album See Through You February 4, 2022 to on their newly formed label Dedstrange to critical acclaim.
Jadasea
Jadasea is a crucial fixture in the local hip hop scene of South London - where he was born and raised. He first gained attention as a member of Sub Luna City, alongside his bandmates King Krule, Jesse James Solomon, Rago Foot, and Black Mack. Jadasea is an important bridge between London and New York City through his collaborations with rappers such as Wiki and MIKE (both of whom he has toured with). He has released a collaborative project with MIKE titled Old Earth, and more recently released The Corner: Vol. 1, a collaborative project with NYC producer Laron.
Through a steady stream of solo releases, such as half-life (entirely produced by King Krule), LOOKALIVE!, and time will tell, Jadasea has carved a unique sonic lane for himself. He has an impeccable ear for a kind of murky production that melds seamlessly with his ultra laid back cadence, making it so the beat and vocals on his tracks weave in and out of each other.
GABO (The Glasgow African Balafon Orchestra) - Album Launch
Pop Mutations presents:
GABO (The Glasgow African Balafon Orchestra) - Album Launch
+ Special Guests
Saturday 21st September
Stereo
18+
Advance tickets available at https://www.citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations/
The Glasgow African Balafon Orchestra (GABO) is a cocktail of musicians of all different backgrounds, bringing together the distinct flavours of the world through the joy of orchestral music. It is a unique blend and fusion of musicians, folklorists and storytellers representing the best musical flavours and stories of our shared humanity.
The infectious energy of GABO is built around Ambatarian Philosophy—a past-present which is secretly woven and embedded in Jang-da—the traditional African wooden xylophones. The Jang-da tradition – a folklore and oral convention of passing messages of hope within the stories of everyday life through the vortex of music – is an almost forgotten ancient African philosophy that teaches us to celebrate life as an endless opportunity of eternal joy.
GABO’s philosophy is sharing the ripple effects of joy in communal music, storytelling and group bonding—a great source of mutual energy exchange that brings people together on a fair playing ground where every soul’s desire can be fully realised through music. In Gabo’s world; no one is left out feeling isolated, unappreciated, unrelated or unloved. We are never alone because we all belong to a shared experience of music.
GABO believes that there is more love in the world today than hatred, and we are inspired by this belief. We focussed our best creative healing energies on sharing the love of Afrobeat, global jazz, soul, funk, and some traditional tunes from rural Africa and other parts of the world that have not been previously heard by the rest of the world.
Gum Takes Tooth
Pop Mutations presents:
Gum Takes Tooth
plus Lugas Europ
The Old Hairdressers
Friday 20th September
18+
“Straddles club and noise to perfection. Brutal. Can’t recommend it enough.”
LOUDER THAN WAR
As Gum Takes Tooth, the duo of Thomas Fug and Jussi Brightmore plot an adventurous, idiosyncratic and willfully unpredictable trajectory. Continuously exploring and mutating with an ever more nuanced approach while maintaining a staunch commitment to non-conformity, the band formed in East London in 2009 with wild gigs across the East London underground music and art scene. Early material coalesced primitive DIY Silver Apples electronics, blast beat mayhem, and experimental noise with explosive avant-punk energy.
Now marrying an unflinching beat-driven assault to a questing and transformative vision, their fourth album RECOVERY POSITION (2023)
represents a clean slate for Gum Takes Tooth at a time when this ever shifting and morphing entity sheds its skin once again, revealing a lean, formidable and precise new form.
Recalibrating their signature enmeshing of drums and electronics they landed on a propulsive all-electronic delivery that stubbornly eschews
genre constraints while maintaining the duo’s clear affinity for the rattle and rumble of bass bins under duress. Thus was birthed a unique amalgam of industrial grime aerobics, sci-fi mutant 808 protest music and hands-in-the-air rave bangers.
The album documents the tumultuous years of personal and worldwide upheaval since its predecessor. Yet the duo have alchemically transcended their circumstances, channelling the personal and political into salvation. True to form, what’s emerged is their most singular and potent work to date, simultaneously their most pop-adjacent and their most extreme.
Lugas Europ, a sonic polyglot and dedicated community servant, is best known as one half of the Glaswegian synth-pop transcendentalists FREE LOVE. Over the past several years, he has been a central figure in Glasgow's vibrant DIY music scene, working and producing at the heart of La Chunky Studios while also establishing the Glasgow Library of Synthesized Sound, a community-based electronic music library. Now, Lugas presents his own dance-pop blend of naturally-fermented analog synthesis, drawing inspiration from artists like YMO, Japan, Alexander Robotnick, and Anna Domino.
Pyrex
Pop Mutations presents:
Pyrex
+ Special Guests
Monday 9th September
The Flying Duck
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
Brooklyn based band Pyrex have made waves after releasing a handful of well-received singles and tapes and touring the US generating significant buzz. They deliver driving, scrappy hardcore-leaning post-punk that sounds like a mix between a lost KBD artifact and an Eastern European post-punk unknown. The trio's debut s/t LP that is equally unchained and artful. "PYREX" is a wholly well-crafted, frenetic, dialed-in, oven-safe, microwavable, and collectable modern punk record with infinite playability. - Sims Hardin
Jimmy Whispers
Pop Mutations presents:
Jimmy Whispers
+ Special Guests
Wednesday 4th September
The Glad Cafe
18+
Advance tickets available at citizenticket.com/events/pop-mutations
A lot has changed for everyone in the past few years, and especially for Jimmy Whispers. In another lifetime, he was that sweet kid from Chicago who stole our hearts with his aw-shucks Midwestern attitude and his knack for writing catchy old-time melodies, who legendary critic Jessica Hopper once called the city’s “greatest new homegrown musical enigma”. As for today, Jimmy Whispers is alive and well in Los Angeles. He's still making music—quite a lot of it. He's got a blossoming new career as a music video director and filmmaker. He’s become a co-writer for others including Drugdealer and Dent May. He’s got a side hustle as a valet parking attendant, a 1988 Buick Reatta, and a new commitment to making life-affirming art.
Mary Lattimore + Walt McClements
Pop Mutations presents:
Mary Lattimore
plus special guest Walt McClements
Wednesday 4th September
at Mono
18+
Mary Lattimore is a harpist and composer living in Los Angeles. She experiments with her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand harp and effects. Her solo debut, The Withdrawing Room, was released in 2013 on Desire Path Recordings. Lattimore also writes harp parts for songs and recordings, performing and recording with such great artists as Meg Baird, Thurston Moore, Sharon Van Etten, Jarvis Cocker, Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Ed Askew and Fursaxa.
Her 2014 record Slant of Light with guitarist/synth player/producer Jeff Zeigler was released by Thrill Jockey, which was followed by the two collaborating on a track for Ghostly Swim 2. Mary and Jeff also composed a score to Philippe Garrel's 1968 experimental silent film Le Revelateur, and debuted it in Marfa, Texas along with the film. Her debut solo record for Ghostly International, At The Dam, was recorded during stops along a road trip across America and released in March 2016. The next year, she compiled sounds from her past life in Philadelphia for a cassette tape titled Collected Pieces. Following an appearance at Moogfest, she was invited by Sigur Ros to perform at their festival, Norður og niður, in Iceland. During a break from those events, she was awarded a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where she recorded Hundreds of Days.
Released in May 2018 to acclaim from the likes of NPR, Pitchfork, and The New Yorker, Hundreds of Days presented an expression of mystified gratitude for the natural world. She capped off the banner year — which included international tours with Iceage and Kurt Vile, a performance with Harold Budd at Big Ears Festival, and an appearance on Billboard’s New Age charts — with two collaborative albums released on Three Lobed Recordings, one with Meg Baird and the other with Mac McCaughan. In January 2019, she shared Hundreds of Days Remixes, a collection featuring reworks by Steve Moore, Jónsi, Julianna Barwick, Alex Somers, Paul Corley, and others.
Silver Ladders, her third LP on Ghostly, sees Lattimore arriving at her most confident work to date, expanding her style of instrumental storytelling with the help of producer and guitarist Neil Halstead (Slowdive, Mojave 3). Recorded in Halstead’s studio near an old English surftown just before lockdown, the songs on Silver Ladders reflect Lattimore’s vivid memories against the gloom and glimmer of the ocean.