London Zine of Music, Arts and Miscellaneous Happenings. Monthly updates & seasonal physicals.
02
___Lydia Lunch's Big Sexy Noise @ Corsica Studios £22 Baba Yaga's Hut - An extra night added for the No Wave pioneer Lydia Lunch’s group Big Sexy Noise, with support from London’s own noisecore quartet jawharp! Punk blues turned to sludge with amps dialled to 11, slashed at by Lunch’s emphysema snarls and dark, twisted stories. tickets
04
___Test Plan @ Shacklewell Arms FREE Hideous Mink X Fierce Panda - London's noisy post-punk trio Test Plan pummel their audience, their songs centred around crazed chants where you can hear every vocal fold ripple and build up spit alongside cycling, off-kilter drums that hit like a mallet on a Whack-A-Mole (but you’re the mole). The bass does what bass does best, hammering home phat notes and dancing rhythms, while abrasive guitar textures build and build. Check out Mancunian support Martial Arts and their pugacious indie rock. rsvp
___CV Vision @ Hootananny Brixton £6 - Multi-instrumentalist Dennis Schulze makes music that is so unabashedly catchy, it may induce scepticism, but that has such a delicate depth of sound design and songwriting you can’t help but applaud. If you’re looking for something synthy and funky with all that nostalgic, hypnagogic wooze of band like Black Moth Super Rainbow, you’re in luck. Schulze is a devil behind the mixing desk, exploiting the minutiae of sudden bursts of surreal atonal blurs or synth bloops. tickets
06
___Ulrika Spacek: Live & Signing @ Rough Trade East £12.5 / 31 - Ulrika Spacek celebrate the release of their 4th record, EXPO. Known for their indie jangles entwined with mathy guitar riffs, their songwriting formula has grown alongside the changing sonic approach of alt-rock indie-rock. EXPO is an exploration of the bands obsession with meshing analog and digital sounds together, making their own sound bank, from which they essentially “sampled themselves” from. tickets
___Autocamper @ Paper Dress Vintage £13.47 Precious Recordings of London - The fresh-faced Mancunian quartet promise they aren’t twee, “just pop”, but their bowl cuts say otherwise… With naïve chiming chords, a welcome disposition to melody, and no reliance on ‘big’ choruses, their minimalist sound ironically stands out. Even more excitingly, support comes from the late 80’s psychedelic jangle-pop extraordinaires and Cherry Red Records alumni 14 Iced Bears – what a bonus! tickets
07
___The Smugler Song Circle #1 @ New River Studios £5 Smugler - Think; 14 musicians, 3 hours, and improvisation. What more could you want? If you get a kick out of dismantled, borderline chaotic approaches of creating music, this is for you, for those 3 hours will push band and audience into a world of unexpected motion. tickets
06
___Pindrop Presents: Emos For Palestine Fundraiser TBA [FUNDRAISER] @ Windmill Brixton - Some seriously big names to announce, with two of the best acts from London, and two of the best from Crewe... Let's raise some money for MAP!
10
___deer park & Ivy Knight @ Corsica Studios £16.69 Scenic Route - A collaboration that highlights the best from both NY producer deer park and singer-songwriter Ivy Knight. Many Londonites will be pleased to hear deer park’s affinity with the Scandinavian sound: both the Stockholm and Copenhagen schools, alongside his experience producing Fakemink and Ecco2k tracks. tickets
12
___‘I Am Building A House’ by Evelyn Gray & Friends @ George Tavern £8 - Performing the songs written by songstress Evelyn Gray (of Tapir!), ‘I Am Building A House’ portrays the state of abandoned rooms of a building due for demolition. With no clue what to expect, this project sees a group of powerful London-based performers joining forces to create what one can assume to be an experience of true emotional turmoil and passion. tickets
14
___Child of Prague @ Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes £8 Omen Magazine - Dublin outfit Child of Prague are one of the many great bands coming out of Ireland as of late. Saxes and midwestern riffs are scattered around beautiful vocals. Part of Omen Magazine’s “New Idols” series, Child of Prague is a band to keep an eye on and catch early whilst you can. tickets
___BLACK FONDU @ Windmill Brixton £8 Knee Jerk - What better way to spend Valentine’s Day than listening to noisy, maximalist rap from Pindrop’s favourite BLACK FONDU? His bombastic, physical live performances, dotted with uncontrolled Gabba-esque dancing, enthral his audiences. Ultra exciting is the support which comes from a one-off gig by Emil-Lifting, the combination of emos I’m Sorry Emil and junglegaze duo Shoplifting after their 2025 split EP. tickets
16
___Yellow Swans @ Corsica Studios £20 Upset The Rhythm - The return of Oregon’s psychedelic harsh noise duo Yellow Swans has been greatly anticipated. Reuniting in 2023 after a 15-year hiatus, gigs from these guys are few and far between. Droning, flickering distortion, with tape loops and live guitar fed through echoing soundscapes and pulsing rhythms. With one night already sold out, don’t miss out!. tickets
19
___Another Country $$$$ @ Windmill Brixton £11.03 Spinny Nights X FORM - Manchester Based electronic duo Another Country grace the capital to celebrate the release of their new EP Moth. Mixing stuttered and warped vocals with live drums, it can be hard to predict where their songs will go but it’s always in the right direction. tickets
24
___In The Round: Flur & Gal Go @ ICA £19.5 - A double headline from two of London’s most exciting experimental jazz artists. The trio Flur are composed of sax, harp, and percussion, and compose long spiralling stories rather than melody hooks. Harpist Miriam Adefris plays on her own terms: one minute stroking relaxed Alice Coltrane arpeggios, the next plucking dissonant Thelonius chords (not unlike the Bristol post-punk group Minor Conflict). Gal Go, oft reduced to the title of ‘King Krule’s saxophonist’, is a force to be reckoned with. Spiritual and emphatic, the multi-instrumentalist lays it all out there. This time, playing in the round, every bead of sweat will be amplified, every angle made vulnerable. tickets
___Holy Tongue @ Corsica Studios £20 Baba Yaga’s Hut - Pulsating, free-form and wonderfully dubby, Holy Tongue feel like they would have made the perfect soundtrack to The Mighty Boosh in another life. Sparse yet intricately layered instrumentals map out a linear and ever-evolving sonic landscape.. tickets
25
___Long Distance Runner @ Dream Bags Jaguars Shoes £7 Too Bright To See - The final part of their month-long residency at East London’s Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes, Long Distance Runner bring their ambient post-rock instrumentals that are littered with satisfying tension and release. Joining them are London newcomers Maiden with their mix of shoegaze and dreampop. studio20 are also on the bill, whose sound is hard to put a label on: catchy songwriting, glitchy synths mixed with hints of hardcore and emo - you’re not gonna want to miss them. tickets
___Bathing Suits @ The Lexington £11.22 Parallel Lines - Leeds noise-dance quartet and Pindrop favs Bathing Suits play their biggest headline to date, with only a few tickets remaining. Pulsing kicks and guitar freakery lay the grounds for frontwoman Freyja Blevins to chant, dance, and scream while twisting the group’s drum machine into wild industrial noises. The pit will be phenomenal. tickets
26
___KiosK @ Windmill Brixton £6 Private Regcords - The Leeds underground seems to be having its moment right now. While London has been BC,NR-ing and Dean Blunt-ing ad infinitum, the White Rose City has set its eyes on new and diverse sounds. Art pop duo KiosK head from the Yorkshire stronghold to the Windmill with their dance-inflected art pop featuring sweeet bass tones, warbling electronica, and the gorgeous voice of singer Bella Alcock. Joining them are Belfast's Cosign for their debut London show. Arpeggiated pop, with stuttered chords and vocoders galore – their music is truly endearing. If you ever thought Charli xcx needed some overdriven ambience, check these guys out. tickets
___PVA @ Heaven £19.43 Eat Your Own Ears - Taking the deconstructed post-punk electronica sound of their 2026 sophomore album No More Like This to the Westminster gay club, the London project PVA. The record is stripped back, often dominated only by percussion, hushed vocals, and the reverb left behind from moments of synth and bass details. More downtempo and funky than the dancey electro bounce of their first album, it's a good sign that PVA haven’t fallen into formulas. tickets
28
___WOLFGANG VOIGT presents GAS @ EartH Theatre £35.54 FORM - A rare and ultimate audio-visual experience from the pioneer who really put the ‘ambient’ in ambient techno. Carefully delineated from the genre’s captain, Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85-92, which, though fantastic and reverb-drenched, doesn’t compare to the immersion of Köln producer Wolfgang Voigt’s long-time project GAS. Before you even lay your ears on his records, GAS’s album art – heavily processed woodland scenes – already prepares you for a symbiosis of nature and machine. Was that the crackle of leaves or vinyl dust? His compositions, which layer texture and melancholic synth chords, suddenly bend into sinister shapes. The rhythmic hallmarks of techno, 4-to-the-floor kick and galloping hi-hats, are hidden just behind the flora, for you to discover only through meditative focus. This won’t be your typical night at Berghain. tickets
by MGB
Geordie Greep Trio @ Windmill Brixton 26th January
MGB
The Geordie Greep Trio walks on humbly. In this space, feeling at home at the Windmill, Brixton, there is, for once, no signature, silently magnetic Greep ego. On the smaller stage, in arm's reach, he talks more lucidly than ever. Joining the ex-black midi guitarist for this instrumentally stripped-back set are Knats members King David Ike-Elechi on drums and Stan Woodward on bass, as well as special guest Tom Challenger on saxophone. As the music dies down and the band puts down their whiskeys, Greep addresses the emotional tension in the room. It is the first show he has played since the passing of his long-time friend and former bandmate, Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin. Matt’s term with black midi, leaving in 2021 for mental health reasons, is to many the electricity that shocked their minds and indoctrinated them into the band’s cult following. Many patiently waited for his return to the group, to see the same magic he channelled through infamous amateurish frontflips, erratic noise-guitar work, and the criminally understated ‘Years Ago’ off Schlagenheim. Greep addresses that there is context to this set and the time that we are in, but all we can do is think about what has happened. More will be elaborated later, but now it’s time to rock the house.
Greep has a new toy, a Roland G303 Synth Guitar. (Hardly) popularised by Pat Metheny, it gives his guitar playing a new dimension of heavier sustain and electronic texture. After touring for a year and pivoting from his old rock-and-roll style of guitars to increasingly large-bodied jazz guitars, it’s refreshing to see one that is classy but allows for crazy noises, like a combination of his old and new eras. Throughout the extensive jams, he switches from heavy rock riffs to bebop scales to letting the synth pedal speak for itself with digitally touched feedback. The band as a unit feels unstoppable with Ike-Elechi as their engine, never missing a beat, no matter the tempo. With his SG Bass strapped up to his chest, Woodward reflects off Greep’s playing, following his chord and stylistic changes. At every uncertain, building moment, Greep calls the next chord before suddenly exploding at the start of every change. The time the band has spent together, jamming and working on the upcoming Knats album, A Great Day in Newcastle, culminates in a restless set of escalating intensity. Challenger steps in on the more eerie moments of the jam to relentlessly play around a restrained number of notes, setting a sort of drone under the more erratic playing of Greep.
After 40 minutes, the band drops a surprise: a thundering instrumental performance of the early black midi track '953' in tribute to Matt K. Within seconds of the opening riff, the crowd recognises the song, and before they can process its significance, Ike-Elechi’s drums kick them into thrashing stupor, attempting to pogo and mosh in the sardine-tin room. The crowd are allowed to sweat off their grief, catching the first time the track had been played live since maybe even 2023. There is no verse, just improv taking from the sounds of King Crimson’s Discipline-era, black midi’s 'Sweater', and even interpolating Michael Legrand’s ‘I Will Wait For You’. As the song closes in its classic way of slowing down to a slog, the crowd erupts in triumph and excitement of seeing a song that may never be played again. Greep waits for them to quiet down and follows up on the tribute with a touching speech. He reflects on his time with Matt and how, even though he is gone, Matt will be present with him on every stage in the world that he plays. It’s truly impossible to rephrase any more of what he said; his words are best heard directly on a bootleg (Amy Archives has uploaded one to YouTube).
After the audience has enough time to wipe their tears, the band continues to jam even louder now. They play through a couple of Knats tunes, riffs by Black Sabbath and Sleep, and ‘A.I.R.’ by Jan Garbarek (Greep’s love for the ECM school of Jazz is really shining through, especially with the saxophonist). They finally close out the set with two songs from Greep’s The New Sound, the title track and 'Walk Up', going back into improv on either side of each song. While one might be disappointed in only seeing him perform 2/3rds of his songs, the musicianship and talent on stage cannot be denied. To see a man whose career started and revolved around the Windmill, where Greep would stand only a pace away from Matt, play the very same venue to an intimate crowd of 150, is special.
SE
___Habit Of You by Arthur Russell (US, 2004)
___War by Jazz Lambaux (France, 2025)
___Paper Thin Motel by Leonard Cohen (Canada, 1977)
MLT
___No One Will Fuck Me When I Wear Two Different Shoes by The Femcels (UK, 2026)
___If I Was Your Girlfriend by Prince (US, 1987)
___Rock n Roll Star by Kero Kero Bonito (UK, 2017)
EM
___Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple (US, 2005)
___Preto Mídia by Nigeria Futebol Clube (Brazil, 2025)
___This Time Dad You're Wrong by Arthur Russell (US, 2004)
JR
___Home (Live from Brixton Academy) by Pavement (US, 2002)
___Fidelio by fakemink (UK, 2025)
___Long Island City Here I Come by Geese (US, 2025)