These are a few shots from when The Slowest Lift supported Thurston Moore at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. Such an awesome night! Cheers to John McMahon and Andy Wild for the photos.
BONNACONS OF DOOM:
This elusive and constantly-evolving Liverpool collective harness the ritualistic and cathartic power of repetition, monstrous riffs and squalls of atonal noise in their unique take on rhythmic heavy psych. Blending vocals that range from hypnotic mantras to explosive psychic outbursts with brutal rhythmic pummelling and glacial electronics.
Bonnacons have been making waves in the UK underground through a series of explosive festival shows and site-specific performances.
Their debut album will be released on Rocket Recordings in 2018.
“Liverpool’s black caped & mirror-masked Bonnacons of Doom incorporate death trombone drones into their massed mantras and psychic wailings” (Mojo)
“Taking more of a Swans approach to sonic worship than swirling acid trips, the Bonnacons are monolithic in delivery” (Dazed)
“As far as occult AV freak-outs go, Bonnacons Of Doom are hard to beat. If GOAT swapped in their feral acid-afrobeat for lurid drone and crushing motorik drum-fire, and traded tribal feathers for hooded capes and reflective masks, you might be part way there… vocal outbreaks erupt like the gothic exorcism of Patti Smith’s ghost.” (Clash)
“Volume. Exhilaration. Sensory overload… This is molten heaviness at its most graceful… versatile enough to survive collaboration with Liverpool Cathedral choir, yet packing a muscular punch that’s guaranteed to leave you reeling” (The Skinny)
plus support from SHERBET TRIPOD
New energetic trio from Leeds comprising of members of Guttersnipe, Cow Town and Beards. “Sherbet Tripod is a troublesome twirlybird triage of fulminating femmes armed with chromatic clank, siren-shrill syrupvox and particle accelerated sandbox-jamboree camouflage cartoonality, always ready, never prepared, a three headed harpie sputtering raver-coherent conversation, each climbing in front of the other, but to build a pyramid of neon hoo-hah! Tread softly!”
Downstairs at the Golden Lion, entrance is free but donations of around £5 would be appreciated to pay the bands.
Broadcasting a special Tor FM episode tonight on NTS Manchester. Listen in here https://www.nts.live/shows/livefrommanchester between 7 and 8pm!
I’m going to be doing a trombone demonstration at this event here in Todmorden. Ali Robertson of Usurper is awesome so try and come to this pls. Click on image above to buy tickets and note early start time of 5 – 7pm, 27th Jan 2019
Hello everyone…
I wanted to write a little sum up of my musical activities this year in a blog form so here we go. I’ve had a good time generally which is pretty good considering my zen has been seriously messed with by politics. I was happy to spend a bit of time performing in Europe while it is still possible and easy to do so.
I had a great time this year performing other people’s music which is something I use to do a lot of when I was younger so it’s been brilliant to get back into the swing of it. Performing in ‘Landscape’ by Trevor Wishart and Mick Banks was really fun as was playing trombone and singing in my first opera (a micro one!) for Rebecca Lee and Nastassja Simensky (see pic below). I also had an amazing time joining a few people in Leeds for a one off show covering songs from 1968 for The Scalarama Film Festival. Turned the sax solo in Donovan’s ‘Get thy bearings’ into a way better slide trombone version.
I was invited over to Rotterdam’s Worm to lead an Iron Maidens workshop, as always, I was amazed by what the group could produce in one day. Teaching for Rhythm Time has been as fun as ever! I’ve been working in Sure Start Centres teaching pre-school aged kids basic music theory and it’s fascinating what they can pick up. I also worked with teenagers at the Sound and Summer school for the second year running as assistant composer for the cross cultural composition group. Hear a podcast about the school here if you’re interested.
Delphine Dora and I released ‘Divine Ekstasys’ in April, played two shows in The Netherlands and were lucky enough to perform with Wolf Eyes in Paris – crazy evening.
Had a wild time with The Slowest Lift involving much time in a car. Our mini tour with Richard Youngs and Noel Meek was really fun. Think my fave gig with Julian this year was at The Spit and Sawdust skate park in Cardiff. We have 2 gigs booked for next year and a record almost completed.
Solo music wise, I’m back on the guitar song writing and am working on a new record with the working title ‘Goodbye Gemini’. Hoping to have that finished before summer.
Tor Festival at The Trades Club was a blast, hoping to do something there again next July. Tor FM continues each month on Camp Radio.. https://www.mixcloud.com/mysofcalledlife/
Can’t think of anything else right now. Cheers for reading, coming to gigs we do as Tor Bookings or any I play round the country.. and if you’ve purchased anything from me this year thanks for that as well. Have a lovely, stress free, holiday season.
Sof x
The latest Tor Fm has a 40 minute interview with Christina Carter with a little interject from Tom towards the end. Also a fair chunk of their Charalambides show we hosted at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. Listen in!
The Golden Lion had a feature on Vice Magazine recently.. the video they made is such a sweet documentary and you even get to see a bit of Tor Beers at one point. Check eet out here.
Hello! I’ve put up a recording from a solo guitar gig I played last month in Huddersfield onto my Bandcamp page.
Have a listen x
