MuleFreedom PR

THE RETURN OF MYSTERY JUICE!

2012-02-02T03:40:00.000-08:00

Edinburgh’s psychotic blues hoods MYSTERY JUICE return with a new four-track EP Eye For An Aye on 7-inch vinyl anddownload only. The EP was recorded in the band’s own studio and features thetracks ‘Hurt You, Hurt Me’; ‘Song For The Rural Dispossessed Of Scotland’; ‘Godtold Adam’ and ‘An Eye For An Aye’. The artwork is classic screenprint designby the amazing Superlectric Industriesand the first 50 copies will be individually handprinted making each one aone-off work of art. The EP is released on their own Red October Recording Colabel, available through Fence Records.

An incredibly vital mix of heavy funk grooves, bluesguitar, searing electric fiddle and machine-gun vocals. Mystery Juice rock thehouse every time they play. The rhythm section of Donald Hay and Joe Peat grabyou by the neck while Donald MacDougall digs guitar licks straight fromthe Mississippi delta. Tim Matthew's fiddle takes the traditional idiom to thenth degree of distortion while his impassioned vocal delivery leaves you in nodoubt that he means every word.

MYSTERY JUICEhave been peddling their particular brand of Scottish breakbeat-blues for anumber of years. They started out running club nights in Edinburgh, which thenspread to a residency in Belfast and tours around the UK. A bizarre connectionwith Russia led to various tours, two Russian-only album releases and manyfestival appearances playing to audiences of up to 100,000. Recently, MysteryJuice headlined at the 40^th anniversary celebrations of Copenhagen’sanarchist enclave Christiania.

Back home, MYSTERY JUICE have been resolutely ploughingtheir own furrow as a cult band with a solid nationwide following. Their recipeof house-shaking grooves, the dirtiest blues guitar licks and howling fiddle,topped off with machine-gun vocals guarantees that they sound like no-one else.
Recently the band have been collaborating with Fife’s Fence Collective, film-makers Ruth and Louis Paxton and graphicartist Superlectric Industries on a number of projects. Tim Matthewis a highly sought-after sound engineer in his own right, putting his sonicstamp on countless live shows by James Yorkston and, mostrecently, King Creosote. He has also recently been playing with thereunification of KC’s ‘90s band, Khartoum Heroes and ex-Milkshake Russ Wilkins’Lord Rochester.

Preview the EP at www.mysteryjuice.bandcamp.comand www.facebook.com/MysteryJuice

NEW YEAR, NEW ALBUM FROM MARK MULHOLLAND

2012-01-04T03:39:00.000-08:00

Following on from a successful digital release earlier inthe year, travelling songwriter Mark Mulholland’s second album The CactusAnd The Dragon receives a full physical release on Monday 6 February. Thefollow-up to his 2008 debut The Devil On Stairs, this is Mark’s firstalbum for Berlin-based Cannery Row Records.

In keeping withMark’s wandering spirit, the album has had a geographically challenginggestation. The initial tracks were recorded in a makeshift studio in Berlin byAustralian engineer Dugald Jayes with the rest of the recordings taking placein studios, kitchens and sitting rooms in Berlin, Paris, Antwerp and SanFrancisco, featuring guest appearances from a wide range of Mark's musicalcollaborators. Finally, Mark brought the disparate elements of the recording toMonobeat Studio in Berlin, where they were mixed and mastered by Stewart Hill.

The songscover a wide variety of styles, from jangling pop-rock on ‘Something New’,through the delicate and intricate folk of ‘Another Falling Star’ and ‘Middle Lane Driver’s boisterous country, tothe full-on psychedelic rock of the title track. Despite the stylisticdiversity, and the varied instrumentation, line-ups and recording environments,the album works as a cohesive whole, reflecting the multiple facets ofMulholland's accomplished songwriting.

Born in Glasgow, Mark has been travelling and playingmusic for more than two decades, both solo and with a number of differentbands. His main band project in recent years has been Two Dollar Bash, anacoustic folk/country/blues group who have just finished their fourth album andhave been touring extensively for the past nine years. Pursuing a solo careerin parallel with the various bands he is involved in, Mark is also in demand asa session musician, having made recordings over the years with Nikki Sudden,Captain Sensible and Phil Shoenfelt among others. After years of splitting his timebetween Berlin, Paris and other European cities, Mark is now based in Haiti,where he is working with young local bands in a cultural centre inPort-au-Prince.

The latest Two Dollar Bash album New Adventures willbe released in the UK in April followed by a joint project with former deUsguitarist Craig Ward.

…a fine collection of bittersweet songs. An inventive,melodic guitarist with a warm and expressive singing voice; flashes of Jansch,Perrett, and Dylan; conjuring long languid afternoons and melancholy drawn-outnights in distant cities. **** R2

…a great late-night reflective collection, incandescentlycandlelit and replete with swirling psych tinges of the early Roy Harper,Robert Wyatt and the desultory poetry of Townes Van Zandt. ****Maverick

www.markmulholland.net

PHIL MARTIN LAUNCHES DEBUT SOLO ALBUM

2011-12-06T06:41:00.001-08:00

West Londonsinger-songwriter Phil Martin steps out from his riverside retreat in the NewYear to give the world his debut album Before We Go To Paradise on thenewly-founded Brentford Records.

Across ten new recordings, BeforeWe Go To Paradise presents us with a selection of Phil’s own originalsongs, alongside the words of some of England’s greatest poets – Shakespeare,Coleridge, Hopkins, Blake – recast and reimagined against the emotive,occasionally quirky, background of Phil’s original music. Why, even that Bardof the Swamplands, US singer-songwriter Tony Joe White gets a look-in, his own‘Rainy Night In Georgia’ relocated by Phil to….. where? But much more thanthis, by incorporating a spare, gentle background of acoustic guitar, keys andsax, Phil has set out to deliver a quintessentially English album dwelling onspirituality, resignation and humour in the modern world.

Having served time on the80s and 90s indie-folk scene with Dr Millar & The Cute Hoors and TheShanakies (Blur’s support band of choice for the Parklife Tour), Phil haslatterly been found among the ranks of Vic Godard & The Subway Sect, JoweHead & The Demi-Monde, The Bitter Springs and The Men They Couldn’t Hang.Influenced as much by Jake Thackray as Marc Bolan, Phil Martin is – in thetruest sense – both languid balladeer and punk demagogue.

Released on 30 January, Phil will be playing twospecial London launches for the album:

27 Jan 2012 TheDocking Station, Brentford

3 Feb 2012 TheBetsey Trotwood, Clerkenwell

www.philmartinmusic.com

MORNING BRIDE RETURN WITH NEW SINGLE

2011-11-07T01:31:00.000-08:00

Outstanding live favourite Blue-eyed Boy is the new single from Morning Bride's long-awaited,forthcoming album, The North Sea (to be released on all formats in spring 2012).Beautifully schizophrenic in subject and delivery, Blue-eyed Boy is a serenade for multiplicity, where pragmatismrules and identity steadily fades; similarly, the song swings from lo-fiminimalism, to folk-orientated duels of violin and melodica, to the very vergeof breakdown, and ultimately to a crescendo of epic intensity. Blue-eyed Boy sees both lead vocalistAmity Dunn and the band as a whole at their most intense and united.

'Blue-Eyed Boy' is available to download from iTunes from 5 December.

"Astonishing.....Every once in a while you stumble upon a band and wonderhow it is that not more people know about them, but you're secretly pleasedthey don't. Morning Bride are that kind of band." THE INDEPENDENT

A brilliant roots rock band with solid gold tunes.... every song is atriumph......the best thing to come out of Hackney since the White Stripesrecorded 'Elephant' there" THE WORD

www.morningbride.bandcamp.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MULEFREEDOM!

2011-10-25T04:29:00.000-07:00

When?

Saturday 12 November 2011 8pm-1am

Where?

The Others, 6-8 Manor Road, Stoke Newington, London N16 (above the pool hall)

Who?

North London avant garagistes Monkey Island
..maybe their imaginative guitar filth will finally get the audience it deserves. A brilliant band. John Robb, Death To Trad Rock

Hackney loungecore elite Luxury CondoA thing of dark, charismatic beauty… With ‘Hit the Strip’, Luxury Condo establish themselves as a highly desirable residence in the Rock’n’Roll marketplace. 9/10 Whisperin’ & Hollerin’

Sweden’s golden-haired wayward fingerpickin’ son Ben Folke Thomas
Captures the spirit of Greenwich Village ca 1965...A convincing calling card
Stuart Lee, The Sunday Times

Snarky Hackney agit-punk-funksters Public Speech (Joe Pollution solo)
With their bratty vocals, twitchy melodies and socially anarchic lyrics, this is one band guaranteed to put a smile upon yer mug Big Cheese

Rare solo performance by two-man power-trio Son Of Buff
It's just a big cathartic noisefest.... R2

Plus, your DJ for the evening, Johnny Clash

There will be surprises, there will be booze, there will be nibbles and much, much more.

Oh, do come!

BETWEEN A NIGHTINGALE'S SONG AND NOW

2011-10-04T02:21:00.000-07:00

The Band Of Holy Joy return with the long-awaited release of their new album How To Kill A Butterfly on Friday 28 October on Jonny Mugwump’s Exotic Pylon label. They wet the album's head the following night with a special launch party at Waterman's Art Centre, Brentford with support from special guests Simon Rivers, Phil Martin and Paul McGrath of The Bitter Springs. The show will begin with a set from singer-songwriter Simon Morgan.

Tickets are available now from http://watermans.ticketsolve.com/shows/126518068/events

Inspired by the historically renowned Observers series of guidebooks, How To Kill A Butterfly comprises a set of rural Northern songs, iridescent and distressed in nature. It is an album of sadness, ignorance and longing.

www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk

MONKEY ISLAND RETURN!

2011-08-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

North London avant garagistes Monkey Island return to the fray this month with the first of their summer festival appearances. On Saturday 20 August they play the Supernormal Festival at Brazier’s Park, Ipsden, Oxfordshire. Tickets available now from http://www.supernormalfestival.co.uk/.

On 13 and 14 September, the band head down to Cornwall where they will be appearing at the St Ives Arts Club as part of the St Ives Festival. At these shows, the band’s set will follow a performance of Botallack O’Clock, a new play about the painter Roger Hilton by Thirdman Theatre. Pete Bennett's other band The Dublo then play a further date at St Ives Arts Club on 18 September, this time following Stalag Happy, a play about Terry Frost.

Emerging out of the 90s London garage scene, Monkey Island’s first few singles were released by early champion John Robb, gaining plaudits in The Guardian, Melody Maker and Metal Hammer and airplay from Mark Radcliffe, Steve Lamacq, Rob da Bank and the great John Peel.

A self-produced third album pulled more mainstream press on board with glowing Kerrang! and NME reviews, and was acclaimed outside the UK in Italy where, several tours later, they have a phenomenal underground reputation. Their recent December dates coincided serendipitously with the failed bid to oust Silvio Berlusconi and soundtracked the resulting demonstrations.

Monkey Island are currently ensconsed in the studio with Part Chimp’s Tim Cedar, where they are preparing tracks for their fifth album, due next Spring. A one-man show of Pete Bennett's paintings is also scheduled for the Spring at L-13 Gallery, Clerkenwell.

http://www.l-13.org/acatalog/Pete_Bennett.html

What Monkey Island have done is to take the form and completely deconstruct it..they’ve added their own spit and polish and created something wholly new. The end result? Something lean, mean and utterly magnificent. R2 magazine (****)

..maybe their imaginative guitar filth will finally get the audience it deserves. A brilliant band.

John Robb, Death To Trad Rock

Rambunctious blues and art-punk attitdude. Shindig!

No feather-capped folksy whimsy in this caustic tirade. Sleazegrinder

www.monkeyislanduk.com

BAND OF HOLY JOY - THE BORDERLINE - SATURDAY 3 SEPTEMBER

2011-08-08T03:25:00.000-07:00

Emerging from their studio cocoon, where they’ve been beavering diligently on a new album How to Kill A Butterfly, the Band Of Holy Joy are honoured to announce a special central London show at the famous Borderline club on Mannette Street, off Charing Cross Road, on Saturday 3 September. Presented by Symptomatic, the band will be joined by their very special guests Avert Francis, Stills and Howling Owl. Tickets are available now from www.theborderline.co.uk .

Inspired by the historically renowned Observers series of guidebooks, How To Kill A Butterfly comprises a set of rural Northern songs, iridescent and distressed in nature. An album of sadness, ignorance and longing, it is scheduled to arrive into the world on Jonny Mugwump’s Exotic Pylon label later in the Autumn.

The Band Of Holy Joy are pioneers of a brutal if beautiful form of Urban Folk. They were formed out of the 80s New Cross Gate art/squat scene by Newcastle émigré Johny Brown. After a hiatus during the 90s they returned in 2002 with the album Love Never Fails on Rough Trade. Since then the band have wilfully explored other media, launching their own internet radio station Radio Joy in 2007, and presenting the plays Troubled Sleep at the Shunt Theatre in London in 2008 and Invocation to William at the Naked Lunch@50 conference at the Sorbonne in Paris 2009. Songs from both plays later formed the album Paramour, which they released on their own Radio Joy label. Johny has also hosted the immensely popular Mining For Gold show on Resonance FM every Friday night since the stations inception.

Although the original wild spirit of the band is fully intact, the Band of Holy Joy remains committed to crafting new songs, creating a fresh sound, and pursuing new visions, yet continue to write about the same outsider concerns with spirit and care.

Forever changing, consistently unique, always the same.

www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk

BLUEFLINT READY NEW ALBUM FOR AUTUMN

2011-08-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

With the success of their highly acclaimed debut album High Bright Morning, and their atmospheric and evocative live performances, Edinburgh’s Blueflint have built a strong reputation and following. Their much anticipated second album Maudy Tree promises to raise their profile even further.

The sound of Blueflint is defined by the sublime close harmonies of Deborah Arnott and Clare Neilson whose voices, both ethereal and warm, interweave in ballads and songs of eerie melancholy and heartfelt charm.

Intertwining banjos, fiddle, double-bass and drums accompany the singers in beautifully-crafted songs that swoop easily from the dark underbelly of folk to buoyant Americana-tinged ballads. Blueflint successfully thwart attempts at musical pigeonholing; their fresh and original sound refuses to sit squarely in any one genre, bringing an unexpected twist to the banjo sound and gaining them fans from across the musical spectrum.

Maudy Tree was recorded ‘live’ as a five-piece band to recreate the energy and emotive texture of Blueflint’s sound. While each song bears its own unique flavour and mood, the tracks weave together into a truly memorable album, with a strong supporting cast of players to take us along the Blueflint way. Opening with ‘Light In the Window’, the album swoops down into the intimate and dark ‘Maudy Tree’, before bouncing into the joyous love song ‘Take Your Shoes Off'. The heart-rending ‘High Country’ sits alongside poignant country-tinged ‘Mary’ which is followed in turn by the the ballad of the murderous ‘Mr Lovealie'..The album signs off with ‘Barren Lands’ as its parting note.

2010/11 saw the band touring throughout the UK and Ireland to festivals and venues including Celtic Connections, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Street Party, The Wickerman, Belladrum. High Bright Morning gained national radio play (BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Scotland), and the band also appeared in a live interview and performance on Scottish television programme The Hour.

The band are touring throughout the UK and Ireland in autumn 2011 to promote the release of the album.

Blueflint are: Deborah Arnott on vocals, banjo and ukulele; Hugh Kelly (Longway) on double-bass; Clare Neilson on vocals, clawhammer banjo; Roddy Neilson (Peatbog Faeries) on fiddle and vocals.

R2 **** The List ***** The Scotsman **** The Skinny **** Daily Express ****

“This is a Scots triumph... excellent songwriting” The Scottish Herald

www.blueflint.org.uk

PUBLIC SPEECH LAUNCH DEBUT ALBUM

2011-07-12T07:22:00.000-07:00

Striking out from the heart of London’s trendy Dalston, agit-pop punkers Public Speech put their words into action with the release of their debut album Publicity on their own P-SPEAK! label.

Fronted by singer and guitarist Joe Pollution, who’s joined by drummer Bill Austin and bassist Kevin Byrne, the band recorded the album at the end of 2010 at Reservoir Studios in North London. Raised on punk, like many an East End teenager, Joe served his time in the fabled Hackney hip-hop wars, under the banner of 3^rd Rok, eventually resulting in 2007 in Small Whisper-Ins, an album of short, sharp observations on global dumbing-down and economic crisis.

Fast forward to now, and these same influences and impulses are brought to bear in Public Speech as the Hackney native goes back to his roots. A refreshing, cathartic mix of ’77 punk energy, whipsmart funk, pop hooks, hip-hop techniques and searing rock licks, the band’s sound provides the perfect base for Joe’s quickfire delivery, a witty and confrontational social commentary, equal parts Strummer, Dury and Ice Cube.

Roadtested in the unfashionable divebars of Dalston and Camden, and on a brief expeditionary foray to the Netherlands, Publicity follows April’s download single ‘Queen’s Speech’, the band’s toast to the Royal Couple on the event of their nuptials. The video for the single has already brought them unwanted attention from London’s finest on duty outside Buck House. Having gained considerable press and airplay, the band now look forward to annoying many more with their debut album. You have been warned.

“We don’t like your negative and offensive attitude.” The Sun

Dates:

28 July Proud Gallery (SAUK Label Launch), Camden, London NW1

21 Aug Supernormal Festival, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire

www.publicspeech.co.uk

www.reverbnation.com/publicspeech

THEE FACTION - UP THE WORKERS!

2011-07-05T05:01:00.000-07:00

Reigate’s Socialist r’n’b revolutionaries Thee Faction introduce their debut studio album on the Soviet Beret label. Up The Workers! follows on from the limited release of their debut live exposition ….At Ebbw Vale.

Allegedly lost somewhere behind the Iron Curtain since 1985, like Dr Feelgood before them, burning a hole in a 70s scene bloated to exhaustion by the pomposity of prog and paving the way for punk, Thee Faction come hurtling pell-mell into a 21^st Century musical climate ripened for agitation by economic gloom and crushing banality.

Recorded with renowned producer and engineer Ian Shaw, Up the Workers! comprises eleven tracks of rattling r’n’b proselytising and anthemic soul banner-raisers. Songs such as ‘Deft Left’, ‘Join The Party’ and ‘Capitalism Is Good For Corporations; That’s Why You’ve Been Told Socialism Is Bad All Your Life’ have already drawn a number of early devotees to the cause, including Nicky Wire, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, comedian Josie Long and Whitbread Prizewinner, Patrick Neate.

Having already established a bolthole with their regular DDR of R’n’B events at The Half Moon in Putney, the band is planning a series revolutionary activities throughout the Autumn. However, in the meantime you can catch them at…

13 Aug...Mods Against The Cuts, Blow Up Club, 4 Denmark St London W1

1 Sep…. Uncle Bob’s Wedding Reception, Upstairs at The Garage, London N5

PRESS:

“Bringing down the Tories one song at a time” The Guardian

“Timely. I love these mad bastards” Simon Price, The Independent on Sunday

“What a cracking record” Paul Brannigan, Kerrang!

“I have always been particularly fond of this lot” Gideon Coe, BBC 6Music

“Dr Feelgood meets Citizen Smith” BBC Sussex

www.theefaction.org www.sovietberet.com

Leigh Folk Festival

2011-06-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

Two MuleFreedom acts, Deferred Sucess and Simon Onions, will be playing this year's Leigh Folk Fest in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on Sunday 19 June. They will be appearing on The Ship Stage (by the railway footbridge) during the afternoon alongside The Lucky Strikes, Danny & The Champions Of The World, The Rev Jim Casey, Steve Hooker and more.

The UK's largest free folk festival, over the course of the weekend the event will aslso play host to sets from Martin Carthy, John Otway, Tom Paley, Nancy Wallace, Jason Steel, O'Hooley & Tidow, Galley Beggar, Lucy Ward, Emily Portman and many more.

http://www.leighfolkfestival.co.uk/

TRENT MILLER & THE SKELETON JIVE

2011-05-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

Following on from his self-released, widely acclaimed debut album Cerberus, Trent Miller now returns with his second collection of arresting country-folk, Welcome To Inferno Valley.

Unlike his debut, …Inferno Valley is very much a band album, comprising songs road-tested and honed at literally dozens of gigs around the London area and throughout Miller’s Italian homeland with The Skeleton Jive. Featuring the combined talents of Anders Dal (drums/guitars/backing vocals), Jim Taylor (bass), Shou Jie Eng (violin) and Jason Collins (ex-The Seers, mandolin/backing vocals), the album draws upon special guest contributions from labelmate Ben Folke Thomas (12-string), Duncan Drury (trumpet), Ruth Jacob (banjo) and Emily C Smith (backing vocals). The album was recorded at co-producer Richard Johnson’s Randomcolours Studio.

Born and raised near Turin, but based in London for some years now, Miller is strongly influenced by legendary 80s performers like Jeffrey Lee Pierce of The Gun Club and Guy Kyser of Thin White Rope (he contributed a version of ‘Timing’ to the TWR tribute album Hidden Desert), while ‘Fear Of Flyin’’, one of the album’s highlights, pays tribute to another hero Gene Clark.

This is the first full-length album release on the re-invigorated Bucketfull Of Brains label, following on from the acclaimed Benjamin Folke Thomas mini-album of last summer. Directly affiliated to the legendary magazine - 32 years publishing and still thriving – the first UK champions of the Paisley Underground and REM – as adept as ever at unearthing and supporting maverick talents.

Miller’s 2009 debut Cerberus received substantial press coverage and airplay, including Cerys Matthews on BBC 6 Music.

Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive will be launching Welcome To Inferno Valley on Tuesday 7 June at The Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3BL.

Press for Cerberus:

These stripped back songs, with just him, his guitar, harmonica and the odd bit of percussion, are mean, moody and magnificent… Folk noir is definitely the new black and Trent Miller wears it well. Bearded

Miller's voice conjures a life lived at the bottom of a whiskey bottle and an unhealthy acquaintance with a draughty boxcar… a perfect complement to the subject matter. R2

It is incredible how a music so dark can warm one’s heart. 8/10 Blow Up

If you wish you could relive the troubadour folk scene days of 60s Greenwich Village, then you'll want to take this three-headed dog walkies. Net Rhythms

www.trent-miller.com

LUCKY STRIKES PLAY FREE SHOW AT NEW HACKNEY VENUE

2011-05-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

Up’n’coming Southend roots rock band The Lucky Strikes play a free gig this Friday (6 May) at CORE, a unique live music venue and arts centre in the heart of Hackney.

The gig serves as a benefit for the venue’ owners, local mental health charity Core Arts, which specialises in supporting individuals with mental health problems through the creative arts. Also featuring Hackney boy/girl folk-pop quartet Troubadour Rose, this is one of a series of monthly events giving Core’s users – including bands, singer-songwriters, MCs and poets - the opportunity to perform before an audience.

Formed in 2008 and fronted by Duke & The King alumnus Matt Boulter, The Lucky Strikes have recently released their third album Gabriel, Forgive My 22 Sins on happening East London label Stovepony to rave reviews in the national press and considerable airplay on specialist radio. Their eponymous debut album is reissued through Stovepony on Monday 9 May.

CORE

109 Homerton High Street

London E9 6DL

Close to Homerton Overground Station. Buses 236, 242, 276, 308, 394, W15

Regd charity no: 104388

www.corearts.co.uk

www.facebook.com/corehackney

www.theluckystrikes.com

www.myspace.com/troubadourrose

LUXURY CONDO RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM

2011-04-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

Hit The Strip, the debut longplayer from LUXURY CONDO out on 4 July, introduces Hackney’s loungecore elite to the wider world. From the brooding instrumental intro of the title track with its seductive, smoky organ’n’vibes combo, they take you on a sunset trip of the bright lights and dark corners of the seedier side of the city, retro-referencing Link Wray, Frankie Laine, and low-budget porn film soundtracks! Across eleven tracks of swing, blues, rockabilly and rumba, the band conjure the faded glamour of Blue Velvet, the beaten-down barroom loser humour of Trees Lounge and the dash-cutting bonhomie of Swingers.

Recorded at the famed Gizzard Studio in East London with Ed Deegan, Hit The Strip features all three of the band’s singles – ‘Don’t Shoot Mr President’, ‘Escalado Man’ and ‘Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla’. The last of these is possibly a nod to guitarist Andy Butlin’s double life as a zookeeper, while ‘Escalado Man’ might be inspired by retro pastime buff and drummer Pinball Geoff, who even has his own pinball museum!

All three singles have received promising airplay, with ‘Gorilla…’ recently picked by Tom Robinson on BBC 6Music.

With a pedigree encompassing such legendary Stoke Newington alumni as Gretschen Hofner, Menthol Weapon, The Bikini Beach Band and King Salami & The Cumberland Three, LUXURY CONDO are completed by bassist Pam Donaldson and organist Jim Bishop. The band have built a strong live reputation over the past few years, gaining plaudits a-plenty for their showstopping appearance on the Lost Vagueness stage at Glastonbury.

LUXURY CONDO play Abney Park Festival, Stoke Newington, London N16

on Saturday 2 July.

www.myspace.com/luxurycondo

www.pinballparlour.co.uk

INTO THE SPRING WITH THE BAND OF HOLY JOY

2011-04-13T03:09:00.000-07:00

The Band Of Holy Joy will be ushering in the Spring with a special show for Easter Week at the venerated St Pancras Old Church in London. The gig coincidentally takes place on the eve of the great occasion of the wedding of our future King and his English Rose, something not lost on frontman Johny Brown who promises “songs of pain and songs of misery, songs of protest and songs of joy, songs that I say must be heard and shared and enjoyed and disseminated virus like through the barren streets.”

The band will be supported by 12-string space-blues pioneer Simon Onions, along with your DJ for the evening, Mr Jonny Mugwump.

The show follows hot on the heels of the band’s latest single, the download-only double A-side On The Ground Where John Wesley Walked c/w The Black Middens released on their own Radio Joy label on 7 April, about which The Mirror trumpeted “This song of highflown yearning featured in lead man Johny Brown's excellent recent radio play The North Is Another Land. The BOHJ's sensitivity allows the song to travel an extra special spiritual mile.****”

Tickets for the St Pancras show are available now from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/108597

The Band Of Holy Joy were formed out of the 80s South London squat scene by Newcastle émigré Johny Brown. After a hiatus during the 90s, where Johny concentrated on various other projects, they returned in 2002 with the album Love Never Fails on Rough Trade. Since then, eschewing the traditional album-tour-album treadmill, the band have chosen to explore other media, launching their own internet radio station Radio Joy in 2007, and presenting the play Troubled Sleep at the Shunt Theatre in London and The Star and Shadow Cinema in Newcastle in 2009. Johny has also hosted the immensely popular Mining For Gold show on Resonance FM for a number of years.

The Band’s 1987 track Who Snatched The Baby? was recently included on a MOJO magazine CD, Panic: 15 Tracks Of Riotous 80s Indie Insurrection. Nearly a quarter-century on, The Band Of Holy Joy are as relevant as ever.

Here comes hope, here comes faith, here comes clarity

www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk

MADAM - LIVE LAUNCH IN LONDON

2011-04-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

MADAM – the group project of singer-songwriter-producer Sukie Smith – announce the first in a series of intimate shows to celebrate the release of their second album Gone Before Morning on Sukie’s own label Shilling Boy, distributed by CARGO.

The band play at The Horatia, 98-102 Holloway Road, London N7 8JE on Saturday 30 April. In a show presented by Ruth Barnes of The Other Woman/6Music, the full six-piece band will be onstage at 9.30pm.

Gone Before Morning was originally given a limited download-only release in April 2009 as part of high-end audio company Bowers & Wilkins’ website-based Music Club, which afforded Sukie and band the opportunity to record at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios. The release was available for one month, and in that time gained considerable praise from Club members and press alike.

But Sukie always believed the work deserved wider exposure and has spent the Autumn of 2010 making final embellishments to the album at Reservoir Studios in North London to make Gone Before Morning what it is now. Sukie has been able to do this thanks to the website www.pledgemusic.com which gives fans the opportunity to provide financial support to artists in return for a unique memento of the project.

Gone Before Morning comprises eight original songs, combining elements of trip-hop, Western gothic and Europop with Sukie’s own expressive widescreen vision. It also includes deconstructed takes on Odyssey’s ‘If You’re Looking For A Way Out’ and Al Wilson’s Northern Soul classic, ‘The Snake’.

MADAM’s debut album In Case Of Emergency was released on the Reveal label in February 2008, to universal acclaim. Later that year Sukie provided the score to the British independent film, Hush Your Mouth, featuring her song ‘Ride The Waves’ as the prominent ‘outro’. The film recently won Best Film and Best Director at the Portugal Film Festival. In April 2010 she collaborated with Italian band Hollowblue on the co-write ‘Wild Dogs Run’, appearing with them in the Europe’s first ever 3D music video, which won the award for Best Music Video at Hollywood’s 3D Film Awards 2010.

Press

“compellingly gritty and haunting” 4/5 Q

“Contender for the noir niche occupied by Hope Sandoval and Chan Marshall… a real find”

4/5 The Guardian

“Madam is a name which should be written in bright neon outside big venues in the swanky part of town” 4.5/5 The Sun

“…head and shoulders above the singer-songwriter masses ,as individual a voice as Cat Power or Joan As Police Woman” The Independent

“An astonishing album of cruel beauty and emotional honesty, an immense talent” 4/5 R2

“Like an imaginary soundtrack to An American Dream, full of desire, sadness and beauty, In Case Of Emergency is a surrealist masterpiece” Gideon Coe, BBC 6Music

www.madam.org.uk www.myspace.com/madammusic www.facebook.com/madammusic

MULEFREEDOM ON THE RADIO

2011-04-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

MuleFreedom is very proud to be involved with NTS, a new online radio station now broadcasting live out of Dalston, East London. MuleFreedom's Sunday Pint can be heard between the hours of 11.00am and 1.00pm every Sunday starting from 10 April. We'll be playing Pub Rock, Country Rock, Garage Rock, Folk Rock, Kraut Rock and Space Rock and pretty much anything else that takes our fancy. Also, if we can get to grips with the technology, we hope to have the occasional guest in from time to time. We hope you enjoy the show, as well as the rest of the great stuff currently being played on the station, which can be accessed at www.ntslive.co.uk

MONKEY ISLAND MAN IN BILLY CHILDISH-CURATED ART EXHIBITION

2011-03-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

Pete Bennett, singer and guitarist with North London avant garagistes Monkey Island has his paintings included in an exhibition curated by Billy Childish, whom Pete met while repairing Billy’s knackered old amps. The exhibition, shared with artist Jeannine Guidi, goes under the banner Unseen Paintings & Drawings and is at the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, 31 Eyre Street Hill, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 5EW from 8 April to 8 May.

Monkey Island’s critically acclaimed fourth album Luxe et Redux has been re-released to coincide with the exhibition.

A fiercely independent attitude and a constant reinvention has kept the band alive where contemporaries have fallen, Bennett reconstituting the band for Luxe et Redux as a fresher more feral outfit with two new collaborators, whipsmart drummer Sam St Leger and rigidly grooving bassist Andrew Speakman.

Luxe et Redux was re-released by Imprint Records via Cargo on 21 March 2011.

http://bardofthemarshes.wordpress.com

www.monkeyislanduk.com

MONKEY ISLAND ALBUM RELAUNCH & ART EXHIBITION

2011-03-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

North London avant garagistes Monkey Island are relaunching last year’s Luxe et Redux album with a free gig on Friday 11 March at vintage clothes emporium Paper Dress, 114-116 Curtain Road in the heart of London’s Shoreditch. They’ll be supported by Cabaret Scene and Clicky Bones with a guest spot from rapper Nu2ral.

The relaunch coincides with an exhibition of singer/guitarist Pete Bennett’s paintings, curated by Billy Childish, whom Pete met while repairing Billy’s knackered old amps. The exhibition, shared with artist Jeannine Guidi, goes under the banner Unseen Paintings and is at the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, 31 Eyre Street Hill, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 5EW from 8 April until 8 May.

A fiercely independent attitude and a constant reinvention has kept the band alive where contemporaries have fallen, Bennett reconstituting the band for Luxe et Redux as a fresher more feral outfit with two new collaborators, whipsmart drummer Sam St Leger and rigidly grooving bassist Andrew Speakman.

Luxe et Redux is available on Imprint Records distributed by Cargo.

www.monkeyislanduk.com
www.bardofthemarshes.wordpress.com

BAND OF HOLY JOY - NEW DOWNLOAD SINGLE RELEASED 7 APRIL

2011-03-02T04:54:00.000-08:00

After the slaughter the fields stood silent, empty and silent, the footpaths and bridleways closed

The Band Of Holy Joy follow up January’s Oh What A Thing, This Heart Of Man single with the download-only double A-side On The Ground Where John Wesley Walked c/w The Black Middens on their own Radio Joy label, again drawn from the six-part radio play The North is Another Land broadcast on Resonance FM last Autumn.

A double racket of rural northern punklore that harks back to other spaces, other times, whilst speaking most presciently of the state of mind of this land as it is right now and all the while serving as a savage prayer for better brighter days to come.

To celebrate the release, the Band Of Holy Joy will be performing a special show for Easter Week at the venerated St Pancras Old Church in London on Thursday 28 April.

The Band’s 1987 track Who Snatched The Baby? was recently included on the MOJO magazine CD, Panic: 15 Tracks Of Riotous 80s Indie Insurrection. Nearly a quarter-century on, The Band Of Holy Joy are as relevant as ever.

Here comes hope, here comes faith, here comes clarity

www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk

www.radiojoy.co.uk

2011-02-16T02:35:00.000-08:00

Italian roots band Lowlands fly in for three UK dates in March, in support of their new album Gypsy Child. They'll be playing....

Friday 11 March..........................The Brickmakers, Norwich

Saturday 12 March......................The Meze Lounge, Newport, Wales

Sunday 13 March........................The Apple Tree, Clerkenwell, London

They will also be recording a session for Barry Marshall-Everitt's House Of Mercy radio show.

BETSEY’S WINTERLUDE 2011

2011-01-31T10:24:00.000-08:00

AN ALE & MEAD FUELLED MUSICAL MID–WINTER REVEL

THE CONWAY HALL, 25 RED LION SQUARE, LONDON WC1 4RL

SATURDAY 19 FEBRUARY 3:00-11:00pm

Famously cosy Clerkenwell pub venue The Betsey Trotwood once again branches out for its much-anticipated mid-winter away day! After a tremendous response to the inaugural Winterlude in 2009 (with a headline set from The Magic Numbers) The Trotwood events team have once again opted for Holborn’s beautiful wood panelled, 500-capacity Conway Hall as the venue for 2011. The one-day festival will feature 6 of The Betsey’s favourite acts, with an emphasis on Folk-rock and Americana. The wonderful country–soul–folk collective Danny and The Champions of The World head the bill, along with the recently reformed original UK country-rockers The Rockingbirds and legendary loopy performance artist John Otway, young Swedish troubadour Benjamin Folke Thomas, The Treetop Flyers and The Cedars.

The Betsey Trotwood will be putting in their own bar, including a selection of Kentish real ales, real cider and medieval mead. Pies, pasties and sausage sarnies are on the menu as well as a tea and cake stand where there'll be special guests performing accordion driven French chanson, ’40's female a capella and oboe-fronted hippy harmony music.

Tickets are £17.50 available at The Betsey Trotwood 56 Farringdon Rd, EC1R 3BL,

http://www.thebetsey.com/events and via WeGotTickets.com.

LOWLANDS - GYPSY CHILD

2011-01-31T03:24:00.000-08:00

Italian roots band LOWLANDS are set to release their new album GYPSY CHILD in the UK in May. It follows on from 2008’s critically acclaimed debut THE LAST CALL and five-track EP Vol 1. Prior to the release, the band will be playing a handful of UK dates in March.

Shifting slightly from the Western-shirted alt.country of their debut, GYPSY CHILD presents eleven original songs by mainman Edward Abbiati, pitched somewhere between the blue-collar anthems of Springsteen and the emotive folk-rock of The Waterboys, exemplified by Chiara Giacobbe’s sweeping fiddle.

Formed in 2008 in Pavia outside Milan by British-born singer-songwriter Abbiati, LOWLANDS quickly established themselves in mainland Europe, and have made a number of friends on the international scene. Those lending a hand on GYPSY CHILD include Tim Rogers of Australia’s You Am I, in-demand Atlanta session man Joey Huffman, and ex-Green On Red organist and ‘paisley underground’ legend Chris Cacavas, who also mixed the album.

GYPSY CHILD has already been widely praised in print and online media in Europe and the US and has now begun picking up airplay on specialist radio shows in the UK.

LOWLANDS are available for ‘phone and email interview now.

DATES:

Friday 11 March..........................The Brickmakers, Norwich

Saturday 12 March......................The Meze Lounge, Newport, Wales

Sunday 13 March........................The Apple Tree, Clerkenwell, London

PRESS:

This band could have a very bright future…. 9/10 Americana UK

Stunning…. **** Maverick

Minor masterpieces in small-town atmospherics….. Net Rhythms

Drawing on the sublime aspects of Nebraska-era Springsteen and the country-dabblings of Green On Red…. It’s a cracker! Miles Of Music

www.lowlandsband.com

GREEK JOY!

2011-01-20T04:50:00.000-08:00

Having had time to recover from the overwhelming reception that greeted their one-off date in Athens in November 2009, the Band Of Holy Joy return to Greece for three dates at the beginning of February.

The Band make a long-awaited visit to the city of Thessaloniki on 11 February where they will be playing at Gaia. They then head off to Larissa where they play Stage on 12 February before a joyful and most anticipated return to Athens and Club Tiki on 13 February.

www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk

www.radiojoy.co.uk

MADAM - GONE BEFORE MORNING TO RECEIVE FULL UK RELEASE

2010-12-31T02:25:00.000-08:00

MADAM - the group project of singer/songwriter/producer Sukie Smith – are to make their acclaimed sophomore album Gone Before Morning available as a full release on CD and download via Sukie's own Shilling Boy label, distributed by CARGO.

Gone Before Morning was originally given a limited download-only release in April 2009 as part of high-end audio company Bowers & Wilkins’ website-based Music Club, which afforded Sukie and band the opportunity to record at Peter Gabriel’s Real world studios. The release was available for one month, and in that time gained considerable praise from Club members and press alike.

The completion of the project was celebrated with a performance at King’s Place, London on 21 January. The album will be released on Monday 2 March.

MADAM’s debut album In Case Of Emergency was released on the Reveal label in February 2008, to universal acclaim. Later that year Sukie provided the score to the British independent film, Hush Your Mouth, featuring her song ‘Ride The Waves’ as the prominent ‘outro’. The film recently won Best Film and Best Director at the Portugal Film Festival. In April 2010 she collaborated with Italian band Hollowblue on the co-write ‘Wild Dogs Run’, appearing with them in the Europe’s first ever 3D music video, which won the award for Best Music Video at Hollywood’s 3D Film Awards 2010.

Sukie is available for interview.

Press

“Contender for the noir niche occupied by Hope Sandoval and Chan Marshall… a real find”

4/5 The Guardian

“Madam is a name which should be written in bright neon outside big venues in the swanky part of town” 4.5/5 The Sun

“…head and shoulders above the singer-songwriter masses ,as individual a voice as Cat Power or Joan As Police Woman” The Independent

“An astonishing album of cruel beauty and emotional honesty, an immense talent” 4/5 R2

“Like an imaginary soundtrack to An American Dream, full of desire, sadness and beauty, In Case Of Emergency is a surrealist masterpiece” Gideon Coe, BBC 6Music

www.madam.org.uk www.myspace.com/madammusic www.facebook.com/madammusic

ADVANCE FUNDING FOR DEFERRED SUCESS

2010-11-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

Southend folk-punk collective Deferred Sucess [sic] have found a way to beat the economic gloom by inviting fans to contribute to the recording of their album.

The band, fronted by singer-songwriter Paul ‘Doozer’ Short have set up a web page at http://helpfundouralbum.bigcartel.com where fans and benefactors can choose from various options to donate money to the process, from as little as £10 to £200.

On the strength of last year’s 5-track House Parties EP they’ve appeared at numerous festivals, including Bearded Theory, Beautiful Days and Endorse it in Dorset, as well as touring across the UK and mainland Europe, and supporting the likes of The Levellers, Carter USM and Zounds.

www.myspace.com/deferredsucess

BAND OF HOLY JOY ANNOUNCE NEW SINGLE

2010-11-23T02:10:00.000-08:00

The cheap poundshop mystic visionary is back amongst us with a timely snapshot of the current mood and a wayward prophecy of how things could, would, should be, if all was right in our hearts and on our streets, this is the lie of the land indeed.

The Band Of Holy Joy begin the new year with a new download-only single on their own Radio Joy label. Oh What A Thing, This Heart of Man is the first of a series drawn from The North is Another Land, a radio play written, produced and performed by the band that was recently serialised over six weeks on Resonance FM.

The song, featuring flautist Clive Bell and cellist David Barbenel, was recorded at North London’s Reservoir Studios, where the band have also been working on a new album, due for May release. The band will launch the single with a special gig at The Bull and Gate, Kentish Town on the official release date, 7 January 2011.

Johny is available for interview.

DATES

Friday 7 January The Bull & Gate, Kentish Town
with The Bitter Springs and Andrew Clarke

http://www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk/

http://www.radiojoy.co.uk/

MONKEY ISLAND ITALIAN TOUR

2010-11-17T02:30:00.000-08:00

FRI 10/12 - GROOVE - PORTO POTENZA PICENA
SAT 11/12 - EX FILA - FIRENZE
SUN 12/12 - CANTINA MEDITERRANEO - FROSINONE MON 13/12 - LALLA CLUB - PESCARA
TUE 14/12 - PAO LONG BEACH - SAN BENEDETTO DEL TRONTO

MONKEY ISLAND to reissue LUXE et REDUX ahead of Billy Childish-curated art show!

2010-11-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

Nearly a year on from its original limited release, North London’s ‘math garage’ trio MONKEY ISLAND are to relaunch LUXE et REDUX in March, prior an exhibition in May of singer-guitarist PETE BENNETT’s paintings organised by and at the invitation of Kentish garage-punk luminary Billy Childish.

Rightly praised by John Robb in his essential text Death To Trad Rock, on LUXE et REDUX, MONKEY ISLAND bring together the low-end production aesthetics of 60s garage-blues, the unholy riffs of 70s metal, the edgy funk and breakneck rhythms of 80s artpunk, and the bawdy lasciviousness of 16^th Century tavern songs. All across 16 rampant tracks in little more than half-an-hour.

Emerging from the North London garage scene in the mid 90’s, the MONKEY ISLAND’s first few singles were released by early champion John Robb, gaining plaudits in The Guardian, Melody Maker and Metal Hammer and airplay from Mark Radcliffe, Steve Lamacq, Rob da Bank and the great John Peel.

A fiercely independent attitude and a constant reinvention has kept the band alive where contemporaries have fallen and after their third album, Bennett reconstituted the band as a fresher more feral outfit reminiscent of their first album with two new collaborators, whipsmart drummer Sam St Leger and rigidly grooving bassist Andrew Speakman.

Longtime fan Tim Cedar (Part Chimp) offered to record the band at his Drop Out Studio in Camberwell and a single day’s work south of the river reaped dividends with 16 brand new tracks to good old-fashioned tape, the result being latest album – LUXE ET REDUX.

Dates

Tuesday 21 December The Lock Tavern, Camden NW1

..maybe their imaginative guitar filth will finally get the audience it deserves. A brilliant band. John Robb

MONKEY ISLAND – LUXE et REDUX on IMPRINT RECORDS distributed by CARGO

Release date: 21 March 2011

http://monkeyisland.bandcamp.com/

http://www.monkeyislanduk.com/

http://www.myspace.com/monkeyislanduk