London Zine of Music, Arts and Miscellaneous Happenings. Monthly updates & seasonal physicals.
/ˈpɪnˌdrɒp/
1) adjective describing the silence produced when a performance leaves the audience speechless (ie: one could hear a pin drop)
2) verb to indicate the location of a particular happening
BRAND SPANKING NEW Issue No.1
02
___ Pindrop Zine Launch Party @ The Windmill £6 - A shameless plug! Alongside the release of our first physical issue (interviews, profiles, reviews & exposés that won't be found online!!), we present a night of infectious grooves from headlining dark electro-punks Body Horror, Manchester’s experimental hyper-club artist BUFFEE and Leed’s industrial dance band Bathing Suits (akin to a Gen Z Throbbing Gristle). And no Windmill night worth its salt would be complete without a post-headline superset from Danny himself. They’ll provide the bangers, you just have to be prepared to dance! tickets
03
___Black Country, New Road @ The Lexington £25 - Fresh from three sold-out night shows down in Cornwall, BCNR are back on home turf with a one-off works-in-progress show. Expect new, unreleased material and their signature virtuosic blend of art rock…if you can wangle a ticket. tickets
04
___O. @ Rich Mix £15.82 - The fiery duo of face-melting baritone sax and intricate drumming conjure deep rhythms and dense unexpected walls-of-sound of dub-echo wails, pitch-shifting synths and snapping percussion. Bass-face is obligatory. tickets
06
___Cornelius @ Barbican £28.56 - The Shibuya-kei pioneer is back in the UK after his 2023 album Dream In Dream . Since the late 90s, the “Japanese Beck” has been producing eclectic and moving electronica-pop. Support from the brilliant folk composer Ichiko Aoba. Reduced pricing for under 25s! tickets
___Meatraffle @ The Fox & Firkin £8.54 - London’s leftist groovesters return to the capital after their UK tour. The comrades’ cynical but honest take on pop music uses warped synths, guitars and drum machines as a canvas for frontman Zsa Zsa Sapien’s political and personal lyrics and cornet playing. tickets
07
___ Laetita Sadier Source Ensemble @ Jazz Café £17.6 - Best known as the vocalist and songwriter of motorik avant pop surrealists Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier continues to sneak existentialism and staunch politics into songs under the guise of her gently astute voice following the release of her fifth solo album, Rooting For Love, earlier this year. tickets
08
___For Peter Bellamy: Shovel Dance Collective & Goblin Band @ MOTH Club £13.6 - Another iteration of Broadside Hacks' series celebrating the long and winding careers of folk legends, the two London folk powerhouses play a night in honour of ye-olde singer Bellamy and his group The Young Tradition. Expect plenty a harmony of bleating vibratos, accordion and fiddle! tickets
13
___MM'99 @ The Windmill £6 - Building on catchy electronic loops, MM’99 answers the question “what if a choir went hyperpop?” Ethereal vocals meet pop perfection. Be sure to check out openers Silk Armour and Avice Caro as well. tickets
14
___Robyn Hitchcock @ EartH Hackney £34.12 - Credited with accidentally breeding jangle pop from psychedelic folk rock, the former frontman of Cambridge’s The Soft Boys returns to London for a solo set beyond compare. Ever defying definition, expect eccentric English nihilism, understated wit and a healthy helping of surrealist monologues. (Special guest Stewart Lee shall also be there if you want to hear an attempt of these elements, but without the accompanying melodies.) tickets
18
___OREGLO @ The Lower Third £13.47 - Acculturated by London’s jazz scene and developing their sound in a tiny room broadcasted on TikTok, the quartet take on the classy Denmark Street basement, celebrating the release of their debut EP Not Real People. Tight, highly syncopated drums; creative, virtuosic piano; atmospheric guitar and tuba run through guitar pedals is not your orthodox jazz group. tickets
19
___Honeyglaze [LIVE & SIGNING] @ Rough Trade East £15< - With a blend of soft spoken words and surf rock guitars, Speedy Wunderground and Windmill alumnus Honeyglaze show off their new album Real Deal at this in-store and signing. tickets
___M X L L Y @ Third Man Records £10 - The new alter-ego from Ash Kenazi, “OG drag Jewish Princess from North London” and drummer of Hank. From what has been teased, we can maybe, possibly, expect fabulously operatic arias mixed with hyper-pop club tracks. tickets
21
___DEADLETTER [LIVE & SIGNING] @ Rough Trade East £11.5< - After a couple of EPs over 4 years, DEADLETTER are finally releasing their highly-anticipated debut LP. Angular guitars and hooky saxophone melds with swagger-filled spoken-word delivery to produce energetic and danceable tracks. tickets
___Oscar Jerome @ 100 Club £28 - Ultra-groovy jazz-funk from South London’s finest. Jerome’s simultaneous control over his smooth vocals and chorus-drenched jazz guitar allows for sweet melodies that twist and grab your attention. Like Still Woozy mixed with Berlioz’s ‘Jazz For Ordinary People’. tickets
22
___Thurston Moore [LIVE & SIGNING] @ Rough Trade East £15< - Sonic Youth’s guitarist-stroke-giant is back to celebrate the release of his new record, manipulating indie guitar music with the same creativity he’s renowned for. A legend of extended guitar technique, he’s honed his craft for the last 40 years. Moore has dipped more than his toe into the avant-garde yet now, he pulls back to reveal a fresh reverence for melody. tickets
23
___A Place To Bury Strangers @ Shacklewell Arms £27.56 - No band destroys waveforms and gear like America's APTBS. They return to the Shacklewell Arms, after nearly 11 years, with their brutal post-noise-punk sound. You can’t find a better gig to blow your eardrums out at! Why not go down early to The Factory, Dalston to check out the 20 Years of Shacklewell Arms Exhibition (on Sep 21-26): photos and posters documenting gigs throughout its history? tickets
25
___Crack Cloud @ KOKO £24.47 - The Alberta based multimedia-collective are bonkers! With a stage filled with as many people as they seemingly can fit, Crack Cloud masterfully blend egg-punk, 80s synth pop and art-rock with strong narratives and even stronger music videos. Art school kids, take notes. tickets
27
___Melt-Banana @ Dingwalls, Camden £25.01 - Channelling energy even stronger and faster than contemporaries like Lighting Bolt and Boredoms, Melt-Banana have been blowing speakers with the silliest and wildest noise rock songs for 3 decades. Their abrasive joy, packed into shitposts, is bound to make you smile while simultaneously throwing you into a mosh pit frenzy. tickets
28
___African Head Charge @ Fox & Firkin £20 - Revered as one of the greatest dub acts in history. The legendary group have been blending roots reggae, 21st Century electronica and psychedelic dub since 1981. Highly percussive, full of classic echos, plate reverbs and chord jabs – dub-heads must not miss it! tickets
For even more crucial dates that couldn't fit on the list...
Add Septembers's Recommendations to your calendar: Click Here
by SE
The Shack has been on fire, metaphorically speaking. As a celebration of their 20th Anniversary, they've been pulling out all the stops to put on possibly the greatest run of gigs the scene has seen recently. Tonight is no exception. For the stupendous price of nish, one can witness a religious experience. The mysterious opener ,,ppppppp” takes the stage, turning out to be a secret set from London’s high-in-demand Ebbb. With their electronica wizardry and machine gun drumming loud and enveloping, catchy falsetto lilting carves through the air. The walls heave under the sheer air pressure, enveloping the crowd. Cascading layers of bagpipes in their closing track, conveniently named ‘Bag Pipes’ flits around our heads in a dizzying array. They didn’t draw the crowd that is usual for them, or quite one they deserved.
Next, 2/3s of Avalanche Kaito (perhaps the ‘Avalanche’ aspect) make their way onto the stage. A drop-tuned baritone guitar improvises vicious riffs and ambient swirls as bludgeoned sticks (two cut-off pieces of a broom handle) rattle around the drum kit, triggering synth samples and instilling rhythm into the audience. All of a sudden, deep behind the dense crowd, a lone voice fills the room. Kaito Winse, the Burkinabe griot (oral historian), wades his way to the front as he belts from the bottom of his lungs. Singing in Mooré, Samo, the occasional French and the intermittent injection of English, he conjures repetitive melodies that stain the psyche. The majority of the room can’t understand a word he says; nevertheless, he captures their attention.
Winse is a conduit of pure energy: dancing, jumping, popping and locking, whistling on peul and toutlé flutes, thwacking at a mouth bow, creating call and response chants with the crowd in tongues they do not know. His intensity and sincerity are what is so gripping; even in the midst of their sophomore album tour, Winse’s devotion to showmanship knows no end. His performance makes everyone feel fully present, while at the same time, the cycling drums and booming octaved motifs create a fugue state. Noise rock bohemians, local teens, Hackney hippy mums, spiritual rastafarians; all move in synchrony. The unrelenting groove does not discriminate!
by MR
With excellent supporting sets from Minor Conflict and Tony Njoku, Bristol’s favourite krautrockers-turned-post-punkers presented the audience with 45 minutes of pure energy, even giving the often-requested-but-rarely-played ‘Houseplants’ a spin. Of course, it was all for a good cause, with the centrepiece being a speech from the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and an associated raffle which raised over £1,000 for the cause.
The best part of any Squid set isn’t really the distinct songs themselves, but rather the interstitial synth rhythms that tie everything together. There’s a trance inducing feeling to their motorik beats which is especially evident on tracks like ‘Broadcaster’. In a small–and often dark–venue like MOTH Club, the feeling is akin to inhabiting a sacred cave where the chanting monks have been replaced with minimalist techno from the 80’s (Manuel Göttching's E2-E4 anyone?). The syncopated synth arpeggios and odd time signatures somehow combine into a groove which produces something that can only be described as a flow state.
Some live acts are good because they produce a particular kind of raucous energy in the crowd (like contemporaries Shame). Others produce a world of lush instrumentation that is fascinating to watch musicians traverse (e.g. Black Country, New Road). Squid’s live appeal is slightly different, but perhaps of even greater value. The members are all already on the same page, already inhabiting the stage with a particular sort of quiet showmanship so that all that is left is cohesion and flow between members, the performance driven forward by tempo and drive more than raw energy.
Having a drummer as your vocalist is a risky move as a band, but it’s one that Ollie Judge is always able to pull off in a live setting. While Ollie is often the centrepiece, this gig presented a new side of Squid, one emphasising the presence and chemistry of the other members more. This energy benefitted the live set as a whole, with Ollie coming up from behind the kit every so often in a manner that never failed to amuse. Squid are gearing up for a China tour in September, and it’s certainly exciting to see where they will take their sound and live act next.
by SE
It’s the 5th night of Geordie Greep’s sold-out residency at MAP Studio Cafe and the tiny Kentish Town attic is rammed. He announced only hours ago that tonight would be the first night he will ever have played solo. An exciting proposition, but tension reeks in the humid air. Why? It’s the first gig since the sudden black midi breakup that shocked the world. The world’s most acclaimed think-tanks have been manufacturing non-stop conspiracies relating to the art-rock rupture. The crowd shivers with antici………pation. Questions seem to hang on their tongues, will Greep comment on London’s hysteria? An army of bootleggers, with their arsenal of gimbals, tripods and handheld recorders, wait for something to kick off. It's like a black midi breakup press conference.
There’s bittersweet humour in opening the set with ‘The Defence’, a track off black midi’s final album, 2022’s Hellfire. Although it has since become a standard in Greep’s solo repertoire, playing the song on acoustic guitar in this new context lends the song nostalgia. Beside Greep, a notebook is set against a music stand but remains unused as he instead, spontaneously creates the setlist. Between songs, Greep improvises Bacharach chord progressions as a stream of consciousness. He dances across the strings, finding surprising tensions, falling upon the chords of another black midi track, ‘Dangerous Liaisons’. Eyes screwed tight, Greep flicks the sweat from his face with dramatic excess as his controlled vibrato fills the room. Even as he pulls back from the microphone, his screams and whelps glance off every wall. ‘The Magician’, the theatrical super-ballad that has been in live circulation for the last two years if not more, is performed in all its 8 minute glory.
After asking the crowd how long he has left, Greep makes his way to the piano that is slotted into the corner of the cramped stage. Tinkling the ivories, he plays the first unexpected chords of 2021’s ‘Marlene Dietrich’. The crowd’s collective heart jumps in reaction and they whisper Greep’s lyrics back to him. Tonight’s gig has been a respectful terra to the songs of his past. In this new direction, with no chef outfit or arrays of absurd guitar effects, Greep remains gimmickless, yet still effortlessly charismatic. Welcomed back to play a rendition of McCoy Tyner’s ‘Passion Dance’ with headliners, jazz quartet OREGLO, Greep picks up his electric guitar for the first time this evening. Against the simple and calculated playing of OREGLO’s guitarist, Greep’s playing is erratic, whammying, dive bombing, jumping and falling angularly. His improvisatory language is still as creative and mind-bending as always. With an album on the horizon, it will be exciting to see how Geordie Greep blends the eclectic stylisations that pull him in all directions into one comprehensive project.
DR
___ZOOT KOOK by SANDII (1980, Japan)
___Me and Parvati by Slapp Happy (1974, Germany)
___There Is Something in My Heart by Ghetto Brothers (1972, US)
GKA
___Of Schlagenheim by black midi (2019, UK) [rip]
___godmademespecial by doris (2024, Australia)
___09-15-00 by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (2002, Canada)
MR
___Kate Spade by Coco & Clair Clair (2024, US)
___Storm and Stress by Bloc Party (2004, UK)
___Girl VII by Saint Etienne (1991, UK)
SE
___When The Shit Hits the Fan / Sunset Blvd. by Todd Rundgren (1973, US)
___Himmel by Ebbb (2024, UK)
___S.T.S. [Save The South] by BOSS (2020, UK)
Pindrop is DR, GKA, MR, & SE
Contact us at @pindropzine (instagram) and pindropzine@gmail.com (email)