strangelights

Man From Uranus

Strange Lights presents 8 tracks of retro-futuristic Moog tunes, avant garde noise and aggressively funky porno-rock from Man From Uranus, on slow-turning, 33.3333333 r.p.m. black vinyl. MFU uses theremin, reel to reel tapes, analogue keys, modular synths, shortwave radio transmissions and other esoterica to produce a lo-fi, loose take on early electronic and experimental music, sci-fi and library sounds, and kraut, psych and space rock. Influences from Jean-Jacques Perrey, Thomas Dissevelt, Bruce Haack, Raymond Scott, to Stereolab, The Fall, Sun Ra, and the cardigan-wearing Karlheinz S.

As a regular performer around London and elsewhere, he can be seen solo, or with his own Psychotropic Carousel band, or with the Stella Maris Drone Orchestra. He's recently toured alongside Felix Kubin in Germany and stopped off at kraut legends Faust's Schiphorst Festival while he was at it.

Strange Lights is a record label in Cambridge, UK set up to indulge the vanity of its owner and so far has hampered the prospects of Um (SL1, "Africa is a Fridge") and Ascoltare (SL2, "Giving Set").

http://www.strange-lights.co.uk/

Harvest Time & Strange Lights present: Brother Danielson and Um

Brother Danielson a.k.a. Danielson Famile frontman and songwriter Daniel Smith (Secretly Canadian). One of only three UK dates for this writer of intense, affecting and frankly strange songs with a spiritual element -- a man whose voice and sound is completely unique.

He is joined by Cambridge's own surreal and arresting one-man movement Um (Strange Lights), who's recently been getting airplay from BBC R1's Rob Da Bank.

£6/5 8:30 kick-off

http://harvest-time-recordings.com/promogigs.html
http://www.strange-lights.co.uk/

http://www.secretlycanadian.com/
http://www.umbusiness.co.uk/

Bad Timing presents Planet Mu: Venetian Snares + Datach'i. Plus Accelra (Loud Leper Music)

The Portland
129 Chesterton Road
Cambridge
Price: £7 (door)/£6 (adv/concs)
Start: 8:00

Since gaining its independence in 1998, Planet Mu (founded by Mike Paradinas (µ-ziq)) has grown into one of the the leading purveyors of electronica with the uncompromising diversity to survive. Now approaching its 100th release the label celebrates with two compilations Children of Mu and the ultra-budget mix CD Ammunition and a European tour with appropriately varied shifting lineups.

Headlining on every date is Canada's Venetian Snares (Aaron Funk). The tour's final UK date brings him back to Bad Timing, the scene of truly stunning sell-out shows in previous years.

Despite origins in and a large following in the breakcore/gabba scene, Venetian Snares's twisted vision renders labels like breakcore or drill'n'bass hopelessly inadequate. His trademark sound is full of dark humour and weirdly successful hybridisations as hyper-tensile jungle breakbeats twist into an impenetrable nightmare mockery of drum'n'bass pseudo-sophistication, before being replaced by an intensive workup of death-funk, mutant pop, splatter beats, and the theme from a certain Manchester soap.

With releases on labels such as Zod, Zhark, Hymen and Sublight, he finds a natural home of Planet Mu alongside artists from Shitmat and Luke Vibert to Hrvatski and Leafcutter John who combine hard and fast breaks and beats with an equally uncompromising range of sonic and stylistic influences from game music to electro-acoustic and anti-folk, as often as not on the same release.

Truly one of the major talents working in (and beyond) electronica today, the full-on experience of seeing Snares in a small venue is not to be missed.

datach'i
(planet mu)

Datach'i is New York's Joseph Fraioli. Recently finding a home on Planet Mu (after time on several other labels), his current material, as evidenced by his first release Mmale and Ffemale, is his best yet. Moving away from the drill'n'splatter sound of his previous albums, Joseph has sharpened his sound and made its still dark textures more pliable and grimly spacious, building on layers of analogue drums with cold slivers of choral and electro-acoustic sounds. His digital sound-world explores realms from the outer limits of tetchy abstraction to hyper-complex beat constructions, with fragmented barbs of subliminal melody.

> http://www.planet-mu.com
> http://www.planet-mu.com/artist32.html

accelra
(loud leper music, klove)

Cambridge/London-based electronic producer who had previously shared bills with Global Goon and Matt Elliot amongst others.