Susannah Stark & Band w/ Minimum Wage Immanence Unit

Very excited to have Night School and Stroom alumni Susannah Stark & Band with us in July!

"Supernatural, spellbinding reframing of Gaelic folk with modular synth, field recordings, and deliciously creaky instrumentation by some of Scotland’s finest, including a duet with Cindy Sharp aka Cinder, whose work with 4AD staples The Cocteau Twins & This Mortal Coil is surely a nearby trig point, as are Aaliyah Enyo, Lankum, Brìghde Chambeuil, Lucy Duncombe, even Jon Hassell.

On ‘Minor Gestures’ Glasgow’s Susanna Stark tactfully and daringly tends to her Gaelic heritage with an extended folk session in mystical locations around the Govan stones, river Clyde & underground streamlets. Accompanied by players from the city’s renowned experimental music milieu - Laurie Pitt (drums), Caroline Hussey (accordion), and Philip Cardwell (trumpet) - plus legendary figure Cindy Sharp (Cocteau Twins, TMC, Cindytalk), Stark cuts a striking figure in the mix. It’s a decisive departure from the adult contemporary pop of her previous, which was more comparable to Laura Groves or Elaine Howley, and perhaps better aligned with the latter’s cues from Mary Black, with Gaelic vocals floating above and around the band and her bed of harmonium drone, meshed with textured location recordings and modular tones, navigating chthonic and above ground currents of olde world musick with fresh imagination.

Bound to be received with open arms and ears by folk fantasists and anyone who can join dots between folk, jazz, to 4th and other world dimensions, the LP plays out a transfixing dream sequence masterfully heightened by the deftest grasp of illusory mise-en-scene. It’s in sublime effect on an opening passage of running water and squirrelly synth chirp depicting a supine Stark in ‘Caochan’, and throughout the record, from woozy elision of Hassellian brass and almost seasick drums ’n drone in ‘Dithis phrìosanach’, or ghost poet delivery of ‘Ordinary Day’, whilst registering a standout in the stately air ‘Ceistean gun freagairtean’. And it all comes together most supernaturally in ‘Mu choinneamh, ri taobh’, braiding modular and flute contours to underline her Cinder duet with sepulchral subs and weeping angel chorales, and beautifully bringing the séance to a close with the unanswered call of a title piece bending dawning light into the mix." - Boomkat

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Minimum Wage Immanence Unit

Manchester's Minimum Wage Immanence Unit comprises Adam Fairhall on accordion/harmonium, David Birchall on guitar/banjo and Michael Perrett on bass clarinet.

They improvise music that draws as much on English folk song as it does the timbral integrations of European spectralism and the free drone excursions of Pelt.

Writing in The Wire, Daniel Spicer described their debut CD as "sounding as if Terry Riley had gently commandeered the Bitches Brew sessions before nodding off in the corner”.