Live music listings: April 2007

Doors 7.30
£6 via WeGotTickets
£7 door

"The band creates a night-time world of turbulence and beauty in equal measure" [Kerrang! 4KKKK]

Priestbird is a new group comprised of the former members of the instrumental prog trio Tarantula AD. Following a vicious break-up, the three members of Tarantula AD parted ways and set out on their own, individual paths. One member left for Argentina to join a tango band, another became a semi-professional Soccer player in Italy, and the last retreated to the Himalayas to seek refuge in Shiva.

"...sure to draw comparisons with Godspeed You! Black Emperor" [Uncut]

After a year, the three members reconvened in New York City. In the midst of a brawl, typical of their past, they picked up the instruments in the room and began to play. What they played was not what they had known of each other in the past. It was something new. So inspired by what they heard and felt, they decided to work together again – but this time with a new sound, a new direction, and a new name.

"Epic? Most of it makes Radiohead's 'Paranoid Android' sound like Babyshamles. With guest vocalists such as Devendra Banhart, it all adds up to an intriguingly freaky kind of trip." [Q]

They now call themselves Priestbird. The name makes reference to a character in one of their songs that looks after the bird spirits on the afterlife. It was as if a steady fog had finally lifted. They realized that Priestbird was their true name all along. With this new beacon of light they developed a new sound that is doused in creativity yet makes reference to the familiar. It harbors a lyricism and visual quality that characterizes the artists’ former work in Tarantula AD yet is more approachable.

They explore a psychedelic and pastoral realm reminiscent of early Syd Barret Pink Floyd, offset by a hard-hitting bombast evocative of Led Zeppelin’s third album. There are also references to the work of guitar mystic, John Fahey, the exploratory production of the Beatles, and the melancholic textures of Debussy. Lyrically, Priestbird constructs verse that explores otherworldly travel – things that we all know yet do not all see.

Priestbird called upon the mastery of Black Crows’ engineer, Chris Ribando, to record their new album, entitled In Your Time. Saunder Jurriaans played the double-neck (both guitar and bass), sarod, and sang. Danny Bensi played cello, violin, piano, guitar, bass, organ, banjo, and sang. And Gregory Rogove played drums, percussion, piano, organ, flute, the forks, and sang.

The same kind of explosiveness, raw energy, sensitivity to space, and dynamism found on this record is palpable in Priestbird’s live show. They are a musical force to be reckoned with. This past year Priestbird toured the US and Eastern and Western Europe when not working on this new album. They have performed with an array of incredible musical groups during their career, including: Pearl Jam, Devendra Banhart, The Sword, Medeski Martin & Wood, Marc Ribot, Tim Fite, CocoRosie, Dungen, Grizzly Bear and more. Priestbird’s new album, In Your Time, will be available April 2nd 2007 on Kemado Records.

Main support comes from London quartet kontakte, who've been causing ears to prick up across the capital of late. Bringing together passions for distorted beats, transience and star-scraping melodies, kontakte create a sonic soundscape taking in post-, drone-, space- and kraut-rock.

Opening the show are the inimitable Fuck Buttons. A duo from London and Oxford, the pair pile up their equipment between them and duel to combine towering, distant and beautiful drone ambience with sky-splitting noise, unidentifiable animal calls and tribal, organic echoes. The result is a perfect match of the celestial and the bestial.

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