Psychedelic rockers Wooden Shjips have signed to Thrill Jockey, who will release the four piece's next record West, on 15 August. A European tour follows. End Of The Road Festival (2–3 September), London Scala (4), Leeds Brudenell Social Club (5), Liverpool The Kazimier (6), Tallinn Rock Cafe (8), Helsinki Korjaamo (9), Copenhagen Loppen (10), Paris Cafe De La Danse (15), Rouen Le 106 (16), Tilburg Incubate Festival (17), Vienna B72 (20).
Three books will be launched this Friday by L’Oie De Cravan. C'est La Guerre is a collection of Byron Coley's early writings from 1978–1983, which includes letters and writings, an introduction by Minuteman Mike Watt and silkscreened cover art by Simon Bossé. Launched with Coley's collected writings is Holy Moly, a book of drawings by Jeff Ladouceur, and The Words To The Songs Of Michael Hurley, a book of song lyrics calligraphed by Hurley, hand stitched by Julie Doucet, and with a foreword by Byron Coley.
Coley will be reading at the launch, accompanied by Loren Mazzacane Connors. A musical tribute to Michael Hurley is also planned, with performances from Black Ox Orkestar members Gabriel Levine and Jessica Moss, plus Thomas Hellman, Keiko Devaux, Nadia Moss and more. Montreal Sala Rossa, 6 May, 8:30pm.
EDIT: Loren Mazzacana Connors has pulled out of the launch due to illness. In his place Glenn Jones will accompany Byron Coley's reading.
An archive aiming to document feminist bands of the 1970s and 1980s in the UK and Ireland has launched. The Women's Liberation Music Archive, put together by Dr Deborah Withers and Frankie Green, collates cuttings, recordings, photography, memorabilia, and oral histories from those involved. The focus is on grassroots musicians who were part of the Women's Liberation Movement (although contemporaneous female artists and groups, and those who achieved considerable success have also been included).
Green and Withers said in a blog post: "The archive has always been seen as a work in progress and once the process of networking, gathering material and mapping women’s music during the 1970s and 80s began, we realised how much there is to document, and that this is – hopefully – just the beginning!"
Listen to a track from the archive by Amy And The
Angels below:
Amy and
the angels - I hate being in love - komplett by DeborahM
Holger Hiller, former member of Hamburg-based artpunk group Palais Schaumberg, exhibits work created with painter Albert Oehlen. Nine single edition prints by Oehlen are framed with a vinyl record of compositions by Hiller, which sample eurotrash group Scooter, computer game music and 20th century composers. While the framed vinyl means the audio cannot be heard in the gallery, samples of the audio can be heard on Hiller's site. Berlin Galerie Max Hetzler, 29 April–2 July.
Photographer and filmmaker Shaun Bloodworth has been documenting bass scenes on both sides of the Atlantic since 2005. His first solo exhibition, Underground, contains over 200 images and video shot at FWD>>, DMZ, and Sonar. Collaborative work created with GiveUpArt, HumanStudio, Peter & Paul and the Bleep project North/South/East/West will also be shown.
Bloodworth says: "Most of the subjects are of a different generation to me, a group who are much maligned by the media – accused of being lazy, consumer-driven and selfish. However, I consistently find the opposite to be true… nothing has inspired me more than those featured in Underground." Sheffield Bank Street Arts, 28 April–14 May.
The next offering from Ian Hodgson's Moon Wiring Club is a royal wedding commemorative album: Somewhere A Fox Is Getting Married. The record announces "the marriage of her Royal Highness the Princess Jackie and Lord Regis Lechmere at Clinkskell Abbey on Friday 31 April 1911". This isn't a cut and dry Kate and William tribute, this is a spectral wedding that's taking place in a parallel time zone with the real world wedding, and instead of 31 April 2011, Clinkskell hosts its union on 31 April 1911.
Somewhere A Fox Is Getting Married is the follow up to A Spare Tabby At The Cat's Wedding, released earlier this year. The tale goes, from one album to the next, that Lechmere has won the hand of Jackie in a card game, and now there's going to be a royal wedding. The album is LP only, and comes with colour commemorative poster. Read the poem above for hints and riddles as to the rest of the festivities taking place in Hodgson's ghost town. Pre-orders are open at the Blank Worksop giftshop now. Watch the video for "Sly Gavotte" below:
Adventures In Modern Music this week digs in the crates with the Numero Group. The Chicago label, founded in 2003, is dedicated to unearthing obscure, overlooked and lost recordings the world over. Numero has shed light on musical ecosystems which persisted, even thrived, outside the parameters of the mainstream record industry from the middle of the century onwards: the salsa of Puerto Rican immigrant communities on Chicago's West Side; studio and label set-ups run by local entrepreneurs from Beaumont, Texas to Ecorse, Michigan; panglobal funk from Belize to the Bahamas which spawned in the aftershocks of the the American R&B boom. Derek Walmsley will be spinning a selection of music from Numero's seemingly endless archives, and dialling up Numero HQ in Chicago to discuss the art of capturing lost music.
Every Thursday 9pm–10:30pm (BST), 104.4 FM for Londoners, streamed live at resonancefm.com and archived at soundcloud.com/thewiremagazine
A clutch of South African Shangaan Electro groups tour Europe from June, including the clown-masked Tshetsha Boys who graced the cover of last year's Honest Jon's release. Madrid CA2M (16 June), Barcelona Sonar (18), Geneva L'Usine (21), Lyon Grrrnd Zero (22), Toulouse Les Siestes Electroniques (23), Paris Point Ephemere (24), London Rich Mix (25), Manchester Islington Mill (26), Brussels Les Ateliers Claus (28), Rotterdam Worm @ Heidegger (29), Berlin Berghain (30), Roskilde Festival (1 July), Lisbon Gulbenkian Foundation (3).
Wire contributor Greg Tate is launching a print on demand magazine called Coon Bidness with musician LaTasha N Nevada Diggs. The magazine is named after the Julius Hemphill album of the same name, and describes itself as "an edgy African American visual arts and literature journal containing artwork, essays, fiction and poetry".
Issue one, The Critical Ass Issue, promises to "hang out dirty laundry and celebrate a renegade African cosmopolite spirit in a well-woven series of surreal short stories, Facebook threads, poems and scintillating visuals." More info on MagCloud, where you can order a print copy of the mag for $21.55 or a digital version for $10.
Completing the series that started with Vrioon, Ryuichi Sakamoto and alva noto are set to release their fifth collaborative album Summvs on Raster Noton on 9 May. The album contains two cover versions of the track "By This River" from Eno's Before And After Science, one in slow motion and one at normal speed. Tracks from the album will be performed for the first time as part of the Short Circuit festival at The Roundhouse on 12 May, after which the duo will tour Europe.