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
02
___Ninush: Single Launch Party @ Windmill Brixton £6 - Black Country, New Road’s touring violinist, Nina Lim, steps into the limelight with her own solo endeavour. Ninush draws on the lush instrumentation that BCNR fans are used to, but takes these arrangements in a different direction with cues from noughties singer-songwriter indie pop from the likes of Regina Spektor and Feist. Fans of BCNR will also be pleased to see May Kershaw on the bill, in conjunction with Felix Steven’s (à la Geordie’s Greep’s New Sound band) ‘The Best Believe’ group. tickets
05-12
___Eleni Papazoglou 'Half a second or less' @ Soup Gallery FREE [ART] - Papazoglou’s works are industrial and graphic, looking at her work gives the same feeling as walking down the toy aisle in a gas station, an image fitting, given that her work focuses heavily on overconsumption and waste. ‘Half a second or less’ removes punctuation from any given context, exploring the excess and aesthetics of advertising while at the same time giving way to her own language of symbols. info
05
___Knats @ Rough Trade East FREE - Led by two lifelong mates King David-Ike Elechi (Drums) and Stan Woodward (Bass), the Newcastle ‘Geordie-Jazz’ quintet make their way to Brick Lane to electrify anyone who steps foot into the record store. Unbelievably tight and adventurous, you’re always in the good hands of Knats’ killer soloists. It is no wonder they toured with Geordie Greep’s New Sound band. tickets
06
___Klara Devlin Quartet @ The Jazz Sanctuary £10/15 - BBC Young Jazz Musician 2024 finalist Klara Devlin has been making waves in the young London jazz scene as one of the most unique trumpeters at only 18 years old. Built from some of the most valuable areas of jazz education in London such as NYJO, Tomorrow’s Warriors and J-RAM, she brings her equally talented band of Tom Sheen, Lewis Akira James and Emmanuel Ampong to Twickenham. tickets
07-09
___Soho Connections: Artist Takeover @ Shaftesbury Avenue FREE [ART] - 3 floors over 3 days – expect nothing but range during this event. While there will be standing installations and exhibitions there are also a series of performances, workshops, artist talks, and activations. Check out their site for the full itinerary, as most of the events are drop-in but some need to be reserved! rsvp
07-28
___Alba Schloessingk 'Glacier Holobiont' @ Set Stage Gallery FREE [ART] - Glacier Holobiont invites the viewer to explore the intimacy of environments through speculative fiction. Through sound, video, and text, we are left to witness glacial habitation and scientific study in the years 2033-2039. Set Stage Gallery lends itself particularly well to projects centered around world-building and I doubt this will be any exception. info
08
___Ex-Easter Island Head (in-the-round) @ ICA £21.38 - Liverpool’s experimental quartet clamp down prepared electric guitars and share a drum kit between them, bashing out otherworldly, glistening chords in rolling, slowly permutating rhythms. What sounds effortless, like if Steve Reich was a minimal techno DJ, is the work of four minds each doing three things at once. It is a marvel to see it play out before one’s eyes; Ex-Easter Island Head are perfect to see in-the-round. With the evening show already sold out, make sure you snatch tickets to the matinee pronto! tickets
___Pom Poko @ The Garage £21.43 - Grinning indie-pop with an experimental, noisy edge. The Norwegian quartet have been moving away from the Deerhoof-ness they were closely likened to; although still nerdy and cutesy, they exhibit greater maturity in their 3rd album. tickets
12-13
___Machine Girl @ Heaven £27.25 – An unmissable live act. Unapologetically hyper, the duo have been THE staple act in alternative EDM, with songs that seem to switch micro-genre every minute. Their transition further into the song format of digital hardcore has opened a new door of creativity for the project, and although their new record is not as heavy as 2020’s U-Void Synthesiser, it is still an absolute face-melter. It has been taken for granted how wild their sound design is, and the live drums are just the cherry on top. If the bass doesn’t give you whiplash, the moshing will. tickets
12
___School Fair @ Windmill Brixton £7 - New Zealand band School Fair are bringing their soft touches of lo-fi indie rock to Europe for 3 shows only. Not much is available online about School Fair: in 2021 they released their debut album ‘Gorse on a hill’ which gained some traction with its Dunedin sound and softly spoken, anxious lyrics. At the start of this year they released ‘bird the kid’, a much more atmospheric album that shows a more developed sound moving forward. It is likely they will not play the UK again for a long time, so this is not something to miss. tickets
21
___Kissing On Camera @ The Victoria £6 – With amusing couplets that invoke the emotions and absurdity of young life, Kissing on Camera convert you with their catchy, emo-tinged tunes and the vocal’s sweet Dublin sheen. tickets
22-23
___MYTO presents SOLARPUNK: Decolonisation @ Ugly Duck £12/15/20 [ART] - MYTO presents us with a fluid organism consisting of sculpture, performance, installations, film screenings, workshops, and a panel discussion all surrounding the theme of solarpunk. Day one includes the bulk of performances and the discussion panel while day two takes on a more relaxed feel with a sound bath and film premier. tickets
22
___Häxan with Live Score @ Rio Cinema £11/14 [FILM] - Häxan shall be mute no more! Soundtracked by the droning psychedelia of AUTOHAUs, the 1922 silent horror film is one of the most marvelous outputs of early cinema. IT tackles 15th Century superstitions of witches and the psychology of witch-hunts through a salacious, visually striking and technically progressive tale. Originally controversial and censored, the film is now regarded as groundbreaking. tickets
___Seamus Fogarty performs ‘God Damn You Mountain’ @ Theatreship £18.70 - Playing his 2012 glitch-folk record in full, the Irish songwriter’s mellow tenor voice is centred around a lulling collage of banjo plucks, computer bleeps, and the time-stretching of instruments beyond recognition. Although calming and atmospheric, every stuttering texture is fragile, roughened by digital artefacts. Although guitar and voice take the lead, each soundscape heightens its song’s emotions. tickets
23
___MPTL Microplastics @ Shacklewell Arms FREE - Although young, the sprawling band has already honed an impressive arsenal of bludgeoning songs that stroke you silly with a tension that has to resolve. Surely it must? Ideologically driven, they write songs inspired by sex tourism, the Frankfurt School, and everything in between. Equipped with all the mod-cons of your classic anti-fascist anti-folk collective: a six-string bass, mandola, sampler, and a set of kitchenware, they lace sound with something sick and addictive. You may not be ready. tickets
24
___Pindrop Presents: TBC @ Windmill Brixton £6 - Pindrop are b-b-b-back with a banger this month for our third zine’s launch! Our goal: psych and garage rock. The lineup is so perfect, so groundbreaking, that we have decided to hold off on telling you who we have playing (we need to confirm the lineup). Big things coming soon…
25
___Coco & Clair Clair @ Electric Ballroom £21.79 - Combining cleverly-stupid lyrics with bedroom pop-infused production, Atlanta’s Coco & Clair Clair evoke the simple joys of fucking around with your friends on GarageBand over the summer holiday. Their ironic and playful adoption of a diva persona is infectious and will leave you dancing all night long. tickets
___Jeremy Jay @ Windmill Brixton £6 - The California denizen is regularly recalled on NTS airwaves with deep cuts from his incredibly lo-fi indie-pop discography spanning two decades. Although playing with different nostalgias over his records, his passion for that 60s echoing, guitar sound, along with his rough-around-the-edges Jonathan Richman-style vibrato have remained immutable. tickets
27
___deathcrash @ Black Heart £17.31 - London’s very own slowest band (trademarked) are hitting the circuit again. Due to immense demand, selling out their Limehouse Town Hall gig nearly instantly, an extra night has beeing added over in Camden. deathcrash nail the pain of loss into your heart, like a stake to a vampire, with soft, heartbreaking moments that teeter into heavy, emotional dissonance that’ll make you cry before you’ve realised. Expect slow headbopping, introspection and a night you won’t forget. tickets
___Uncle Junior: Single Launch @ George Tavern £6 - Celebrate Uncle Junior’s debut single “I Love You, Kenneth Copeland” down at Shadwell’s very own George Tavern. Not to be confused with Tony Soprano’s uncle, the trio have been grafting up the London circuit for the past year, and as a result, your ears will be blessed with a ferocious wave of crashing drums and a driving wall of rugged guitar riffs. Make sure to pre-save the single before the gig, or don’t, and find out who Kenneth Copeland is during the set. tickets
29
___Yazz Ahmed @ ICA £27.50 - British-Bahraini flugelhornist and composer Yazz Ahmed is one of the leading figures in fusing Western and Arabic jazz. Her music makes the most of electronic sound design to build an intoxicating psychedelic soundscape. The show celebrates the launch of her new album, ‘A Paradise In The Hold', which celebrates her dual heritage, journeys of self-discovery and the strength of Arabic women. The venue’s state-of-the-art 360° d&b Soundscape system is perfect for further enhancing the depth and beauty of Ahmed’s music. tickets
For even more crucial dates that couldn't fit on the list...
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by MR & MGB
A groovy set by N.O. (who definitely have no connection to Oreglo) leaves a sold-out Windmill eager for the headliner as the house playlist comes back on and the excited conversations erupt again from the crowd. The headliner in question is highly in-demand multi-instrumentalist Kaidi Akinnibi, who although is best known for his work with other artists such as black midi, Tom Misch and Ezra Collective is tonight performing his solo career’s music. The stage is set with half a dozen keyboards, cables and instruments everywhere and Kaidi’s saxophone, sitting and waiting anxiously to be played.
In many ways, Kaidi Akinnibi’s music embodies the sort of genre-bending cross-pollination that typifies much of London music: ostensibly he’s a jazz artist and yet has been a touring member of Windmill favourites black midi. His mastery of the saxophone is evident to anyone who listens, and yet the sonic palette of his solo project delves just as much into the textures of shoegaze as it does traditional jazz influences. He rotates between vocal, guitar, and saxophone with such ease that you forget it’s an accomplishment at all. He plays a mix of released and unreleased material; the first track, an unreleased number, is upbeat and spacious He dips into his released discography with the pleasantly charming and newly released “Texas,” a song which balances Kaidi’s smooth vocals with lush piano and plenty of reverb.
“For All We’ve Done”, which he dedicates to his brother who was injured in a sporting accident, is the peak of the set’s energy, with Kaidi rotating between a smooth vocal performance and the most raucous saxophone solo the Windmill has ever seen. The crowd whoops as Kaidi stands on the stage’s monitors and leans as far as he can into the audience, all while shredding the sax. His keyboardist Jamal Wilson emerges from behind his setup to lay down a freestyle, a goofy little number which is pulled off because of the sheer joy with which it is delivered. Having built the energy of the crowd to such frenetic heights, he brings everything back with closer “Real Enough.” He embraces a more soulful vocal style, which pairs masterfully with ascending saxophone to produce an emotional climax to the set. It leaves the audience with something to think about and to feel on the train home, ultimately evidence of the way that emotions and genres might be more fluid than we initially believe them to be.
by GKA
Export Import are pioneering new definitions with what it means to play a show. The experimental 10-piece London collective split their songwriting into two halves: Import, who have a very washed-out and dark sound with cryptic but introspective lyrics and Export’s more outward, electronic leaning and abrasive sound strewn with off-kilter rhythms akin to an art school Death Grips. Both are vital to each other and their ethos, one can’t exist without the other. When seeing the band, it’s never announced which of the two you’ll see. Descriptions online state their shows are a dangerous place to be, with claims of people being hospitalised over mysterious antics not explained further. The band host baptisms, funerals, and weddings too, with a newfound focus on becoming a 50s ballad ensemble covering all the classics.
With this knowledge, who knew what would happen at tonight’s Windmill? Would a celebration of Slow Dance Record’s new compilation suddenly erupt into blood sacrifice? As the night starts with a set from Wildwood Daddy, it is immediately clear that something seems off. None of Export Import are present. Weird. But as the night continues and bands pencil and Doom Club man the stage, musicians are spotted around the venue practising with broken instruments: a cello, sat up too high for anyone’s comfort paired with a bow, near disintegration, and a bass with 2 strings missing. Is this the band of legend?
As an intro of abrasive ambience swells, a motley crew of musicians approaches the stage. If this is Export Import, they sure look different from their photos. They climb the stage and, after some help from the crowd, plug the guitarist into his amp. The ambience fades and the band starts. A trumpet squeals. The drummer improvises. They rock back and forth while an unplaceable, frantic noise emanates from the speakers, a sound so wild it surely cannot be coming from the band. Wait! With swift realisation, it becomes apparent that the band is only miming. It’s like a damaged VHS tape of a long-forgotten Top of the Pops episode. But the “band” keeps going, undeterred, each track ending with rapturous applause from the crowd. The entire spectacle, from its surreal context to its cudgelling music, sends the crowd into shock. A mosh pit ensues (of course), pints are spilt, arguments start, and two crowd members pull each other outside to fight. Is this orchestrated? Had they been planted in the audience the whole time? The boundary is blurred. Have we all gone mad? Time loses all meaning. After 40 minutes of non-stop intensity, the final song ends, and a masked figure steps from behind the sound desk to reveal himself as Export Import’s frontman, Voth Sioul Blaphate Mc Merlin Hubis Harold O’Dee (say that again??). Tonight has been a performance by Export, “playing” half of the band’s self-titled, debut, double album.
Reading a gig review will usually tell you what you can expect from a particular live act, alas, this one cannot. Export Import produce the unimaginable for one night and one night only, assured in their ideology of chaos that one night is all a certain concept needs. What has their next show got in store? What tricks do they have up their sleeves? Only they know. Will you find out?
By MLT
It’s been an exciting two years seeing this scruffy slacker group grow into easily so many people’s favourite band. The now 5-piece band assumes their position on stage as the crowd crams into the Windmill’s notorious front of house: it’s a sold out show after all, so a squeeze and shove to the front is a must. Drums kick in, synths start flying and guitars are janky and slack, Cole Flynn Quirke and Mimiko McVeigh’s voices blend together seamlessly through glitchy havoc. They count into the wildly fun ‘Melvin Said This’; the syncopated drums matched with the gleeful synth melody will do doubt plaster a smile across your face. The crowd cheers, one person in particular has adopted a scream-queen-esque cheer. “Hey, we’re C Turtle”, Flynn Quirke greets the crowd, and the crowd greets back. ‘Shivers’, an unreleased fuzzy romantic ode to the person who sends shivers down one’s spine. True to C Turtle’s sound, they aren’t scared of using dynamics to contrast their intimate moments to increase the intensity of noise and havoc. There’s never really a slow or quiet C Turtle song because it’ll ultimately end up in an erratic frenzy of tumbling drums. Playing some older songs that you might’ve been lucky to catch during the start of their run as a band, like ‘This is Not Karaoke’ and ‘Tarred & Fucked’. The audience showed their affection for the nostalgia of early C-Turtle.
McVeigh’s voice is deliciously delicate as she coolly delivers the iconic line “This is not karate” alongside the equally memorable guitar riff that jauntily bends over a bed of whirring bleeps and bloops. Microphone feedback sounds absolutely organic in their set. Playing their B-side from the new single, which is actually a Magnetic Fields cover of “When You’re Old and Lonely”, Flynn Quirke summons the power of Stephen Merritt and begins to lament, pleading for a lover to be by their side in their golden years. They play around distorted telephone-like vocal sound effects with a separate microphone, making this song feel like a voicemail. Your body can’t help but sway and jitter, there’s something intoxicating about C Turtle that has fans coming back for every gig. Just as they’re about to rip into the new single, ‘2001’, a technical issue occurs, a guitar string breaks. As the problem is solved, people start shouting out questions – Flynn Quirke claims this is the Jerry Springer portion of the set. Someone’s voice peeps out, “What does the C start for?!”, and in response, Flynn Quirke chuckles, “Uhh…cunt”.
‘2001’ is probably the most addictive C Turtle tune that's been released. It’s utterly cheeky and whacky, going from a single synth line to a chaotic hardcore breakdown before the verse kicks in, which leads you into a bouncy frenzy. “Something’s gone wrong now it’s 2001 / She’s feeling kinda free”. The two vocalists have mastered singing together, and seem to have more songs where they do duet. As they shred through ‘Shake It Down’ the crowd all shouts back, truly one of the best songs to come out of London in the last year. C Turtle never disappoint at a gig, their knack for writing noisy twee rock will always be appealing to those who fancy themselves as true lovers of life and rock music!
GKA
___I Know I’m Funny haha by Faye Webster (2021, US)
___Shame by Low (1995, US)
___Cinderella by Model/Actriz (2025, US)
MLT
___He Needs Me by The Femcels (2025, UK)
___The Ballad of Matt & Mica by Magdalena Bay (2024, USA)
___Professional Widow by Tori Amos (1996, USA)
MR
___All I Need by Radiohead (2007, UK)
___Sunshowers by M.I.A. (2005, UK)
___Strange by Patsy Cline (1962, USA)
SE
___Suzanne by Leonard Cohen (1967, Canada)
___Cashout by Fugazi (2001, US)
___Blue Bayou by Roy Orbison (1963, US)
Pindrop is GKA, MLT, MR, & SE
Contact us at @pindropzine (instagram) and pindropzine@gmail.com (email)