Apologies for huge gaps in updates… Alter Clef is proud to announce that our first physical release has now been exposed to the world. In co-operation with The Lime Green Yellow Recording Company we present a seriously limited edition version of Placement’s ‘Collected Locations’, housed in an American Oak veneered case that honestly smells wonderful. Placement is the duo of Giles Jacobs and Simon Baker who create lush, shimmering, sometimes unsettling but always weirdly exotic ambient music, informed by the well trodden drone and field recording routes but with an unmistakable character.

The special edition can be purchased here and downloaded for free here.

Listening: Journey To Ixtlan (Aurora Borealis)
Next: Slumberwood / Twinsistermoon / Corrupted

The Ginger Light

A collaboration between celebrated London poet Jeremy Reed and electronica artist Itchy Ear. The Ginger Light fuses the beguiling, deeply moving poetry of Jeremy Reed (much-admired by the likes of Bjork, Pete Doherty, Marc Almond) with beautiful digitial symphonics, rendered in real-time response to the rhythms of Jeremy’s delivery.

http://www.jeremyreed.co.uk/gingerlight.html

Stuart Warwick

Formerly known as Jacob’s Stories, the renowned Brighton singer-songwriter brings his introspective, keening tenor and teasingly beautiful songcraft to one of Brighton’s most intimate venues. Having played huge shows with artists such as Beirut over the last year, a chance to catch him in a much smaller setting.

http://www.stuartwarwick.com/

Nick Hudson

A solo set from the literary Brighton singer-songwriter whose shifting, dynamic work has been acclaimed by figures such Julian Cope, David Tibet and Xiu Xiu. Founding member of The Academy of Sun and Hexenverfolgung, Nick’s solo shows are commandingly spare.

www.soundcloud.com/nickhudsonmusic

Me With Others

A solo set of acoustic guitar and (stunning) voice from the extraordinary Dave H-S, member of drone creature, Plurals. With elements of Jeff Buckley and John Frusciante to his work, Me With Others promises high-energy vocals and superbly-constructed songs.

http://mewithothers.bandcamp.com/

In addition to a venue, Bombanes is also a restaurant, serving very high quality food in gorgeous surroundings. The proprieter, Jane, has asked us to emphasise that all meals must be booked beforehand by contacting:

01273 606400 or by e-mailing – janebombane@yahoo.co.uk

DOORS: 7:00pm
ADMISSION: £4 on the door.

Many thanks for reading, and we look forward to seeing you there,

Clef AV’s own Nick Hudson has been making music under his own name for a number of years. After a nomadic upbringing, he has settled in the south of England and formed his ensemble The Academy of Sun, to realize his explorative, dynamic compositions. His work has enjoyed accolades from Julian Cope Current 93’s David Tibet, Meredith Monk, and performance artist Franko B, amongst others. Classical piano tuition commenced when Nick was aged six, and he has since added guitar, vocals, percussion and production/arrangement duties to his arsenal of tools.

His new record ‘My Antique Son’ addresses Nick’s uncommon fetishes for Victorian opiates, visionary dead poets, and ghosts-as-memories via progressive song-writing that at once invokes Jacques Brel, Pink Floyd, Kayo Dot and the compositional drone-doom of Asva and Sunn O))). in a record that defies categorisation as much as it compels repeated listens. A visionary, psychedelic British pop record in the lineage of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds of Love’ and Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit of Eden’, Nick’s record has been already highly acclaimed by Current 93’s David Tibet, who has contributed a foreword to the liner notes.

His band, The Academy of Sun, have taken ‘My Antique Son’ and Nick’s recent composition ‘Dead Souls’ and become one of the tightest and most dynamic live outfits currently performing in the UK, displaying virtuosoic flair across a large range of instruments and genres, and twisting between extreme states of emotional terrain with compelling ease.

Nick also composes for film; his most recent score, for the recently completed ‘Godland’ by director Michael Joseph Salerno which will be released on Kiddepunk Records in the not-too-distant future..

This event is in celebration and preparation for the 28th March 2011 release of the album on Vivid Records…

£5 on the door
8pm, March 23rd
Hector’s House, Brighton

Listen to the full album

Vivid Records

Facebook event

NY-based compositional-rock ensemble Kayo Dot bring their through-composed visionary splendour to Brighton, alongside related outfit Tartar Lamb II, Nick Hudson’s theatrical avant-prog project and clarinetist Jeremiah Cymerman.

In 2010 Kayo Dot released ‘Coyote’, a virtuoso goth-infused melee that alluded to Herbie Hancock, Miles David and The Drift-era Scott Walker whilst being utterly singular, as well as ‘Stained Glass’ a s…ingle-track EP of glistening malleted percussion, electric piano, sideways hymnal and fierce-in-the-red guitar.

Tartar Lamb, formed by Toby Driver and featuring many Kayo Dot members, pursues a different set of compositional strategies. They’re second album will be released imminently.

The Academy of Sun, Nick Hudson’s avant-prog-neofolk ensemble will be performing rearranged passages from last years ‘Dead Souls’ and debuting new compositions that will feature on TAOS record, to be completed this year.

Jeremiah Cymerman has amassed a wealth of recordings and collaborations since 2002, bleding extended clarinet techniques with subtle analog enhancements.

DOORS – 7:30
TICKETS – £7 advance/£8 on the door
AVAILABLE FROM www.gigantic.com
and EDGEWORLD RECORDS, Kensington Gardens, Brighton.

Hope to see loads of you there.

An unmissable TST/Clef AV event.

Thank-you for reading.

This pot has been bubbling still, and now that the new year has removed it’s coat and is settled around us like not the fearsome stranger it was but like an increasingly trustworthy friend, ‘with a beard and a pipe’, things can proceed. The pace is undetermined and the plans part stone and part hazy mush. But that’s the way we’re used to it, so let’s swallow both with the gusto of a child with ice cream and sweets.

Today’s listening:
- Pärson Sound
- Aless
- Expo 70

And loads more.

At first there were two, and now there are more than two… four:

PANTALEIMON

Andria Degens is the artist behind the magical and trance-like Pantaleimon. She is a multi-instrumentalist and immersive minimalist , with a penchant for drones and psychedelia. Andria is known for her heartbreakingly gorgeous voice and for the powerful simplicity of her meditative sound.

http://www.myspace.com/pantaleimon

NICK HUDSON

Brighton’s mercurial avant-gardening songstrel Nick Hudson here delivers a rare solo set of largely new material – including tracks from the upcoming Alter Clef Records release ‘My Antique Son’, as well as a selection of older tracks, many of which never before aired in public. In contrast to the spaced-out church-melting grandeur of The Academy of Sun, this solo set promises to be one of hushed intimacy.

http://www.myspace.com/nickjackhudson

HEXENVERFOLGUNG

Teutonic enigma Hexenverfolgung plays a rare UK show, splaying the air with their doom-laden cathedral sonics. Anyone who has witnessed Hexenverfolgung (German for witch-persecution) will have the memory of these projections seared across their aural retina forever.

ALFIE BERNARDI

Local songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Alfie delivers a hardline lesson in melancholia via his beautiful voice; an instrument drenched in a deep understanding of matters-of-the-heart, his guitar expertly manipulated to tease-out the most ravishing accompaniment across songs that will move you in every way imaginable.

£5 on the door.

(Coachwerks, being a volunteer-run space with its own bar, strongly discourages BYO alcohol.)

We’re very proud to be presenting on October 23rd – Pantaleimon/Nick Hudson (solo set) – Coachwerks, Brighton – £5

Andria Degens is the artist behind the magical and trance-like Pantaleimon. She is a multi-instrumentalist and immersive minimalist , with a penchant for drones and psychedelia. Andria is known for her heartbreakingly gorgeous voice and for the powerful simplicity of her meditative sound.

Also:

The Academy of Sun featuring members of TYSARC and Plurals performing

‘Dead Souls’ – an extended composition incorporating elements of psych-rock, neo-folk, drone, doom, jazz, prog and everything either side. ‘Dead Souls’ has been described by its galactical author as:

“A meditation on those not ready to die, on those who won’t be punished or rewarded, those who feel a general displacement and disconnect within society’s cage of artifice; on keeping aflame the soul-torch of those gnostic saints to whom we owe our intellectual and spiritual freedom, and to celebrate Joy Division’s, Crowley’s and Gogol’s invocation of the interminably potent ‘Dead Souls’ meme; and in its method of production to celebrate how one can be as many and many as one. An oneiric prog-jazz-doom narrative, soon to be released in a very limited edition box-set on Alter Clef Records.”

To be performed on the following dates:

September 20th – Hector’s House, Brighton – w/ Aidan Baker

October 3rd – Bar and Co, Embankment – Ship of Fools Club, w/ Pantaleimon

October 29th – The Hobgoblin, Brighton – Halloween Show w/TYSARC/Hexanverfolgung and many more.

We will also be playing with Pantaleimon in Brighton on October 23rd (full-moon!) at Coachwerks. Nick Hudson will be performing a medium-rare solo set, rich with lycanthropic tremors.

These shows are gonna rip new fissures in the fabric of spacetime – see you on the upshot.

Thank you for your spacetime….

CLEF AV

xoo

I was looking for a job and then I found a job…

On September 8th, The Friend’s Meeting House in Brighton’s South Lanes area will be the setting for another fantabulous Clef AV event, this time inviting local free-form post-rock / jazzmospheric jammers Tysarc to headline. Last seen performing at the Coachwerks, they create a hypnotic, multi-layered shift of guitars, keys, brushed and hushed drums and ambient washes.

In addition to them is Nick Hudson and The Academy of Sun, of our very own Alter Clef Records. The concept of the traditional song is stretched to the extremes of time, place and timbre here in tracks that are at once beautiful, devastating and unique, brought to life via a range of instruments and graceful, cinematic orchestration.

Finally, we present the wonderful acoustic musings of Me With Others, a one man foray into Frusciante-esque songwriting with irresistable sincerity, unbelievably hooky licks and true prettiness sparkling round every musical corner. His songs are the kind that are so infectious you would swear you’d heard them before.

The show will be commencing early, at 6:30pm and will be ending at 9:30, so please arrive promptly so as not to miss anything. In addition to the music there may well be tea, music available to buy / take for free and various other trinkets.

It’s gonna be scanned and feature in the sleeve art for my new record ‘My Antique Son’.

I’m mainly listening to Kayo Dot and Asva right now – two bands very much each governed by a chief composer, respectively Toby Driver and Stuart Dahlquist. Having been wilfully intoxicated by the wild alchemy that pours from the hearts, minds and fingertips of these guys, almost daily, for the past year, I’ve concluded that compositionally*, these canny fuckers are at least as visionary and deserving of park-bench-plaque-in-the-gardens-of-the-pantheon recognition as the ‘modern masters’ of the ‘classical’ world. Potentially even more so, given their anarchistic synthesis of traditional AND contemporary metal/rock/electronic instruments+ into two bodies of work that truly sound like nothing else….

Except for perhaps…

…like a spaceship has landed on earth and decided it’s a church.

Incidentally, for those prompted to wonder –

Yes, I’m totally allowed to be contentious, dogmatic, reductive, bloated with superlatives, choked on hyperbole, fevered with admiration. These guys kick ass until its red raw. Toby Driver sings on the new Asva record, ‘Presence of Absences’; a chymical wedding so exactly correct, it’s like having all the trauma punched out of your soul; a violent healing.

*in terms of orchestration, explorations of harmony/rhythm, arrangement, and general writing – plus production – apparently now inseparable from ‘composition’ itself (Joe Meek, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, etc)

+ See, Gramophone Magazine – the electric six-string guitar is valid – name me one sound-making object that isn’t valid, and I’ll forge cute, flickering microbeats from of the sound of your incinerating pages. Pooface.