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THE PHANTOM BAND + De Rosa + Angil & The Hiddentracks

Wed 1st Apr 2009

Chemikal Underground, The Luminaire and Secret Knowledge presents
THE PHANTOM BAND
+ De Rosa
+ Angil & The Hiddentracks
+ Chemikal Underground DJs

£9 door

7.30 Doors
8.15 Angil (30)
9.05 De Rosa (35)
10.00 Phantom Band (45)

Glasgow's esteemed Chemikal Underground label breaches the M25 for the first time in years with a multiple band bill of aural magnificence. Featuring The Phantom Band, De Rosa, Angil and The Hidden Tracks (St. Etienne, France) and very Special Guests, this April Fools Special will include DJing and the chance to purchase various Chemikal ephemera.

The Phantom Band - this mysterious Pan-Scottish sextet - present their debut album 'Checkmate Savage', where Beefheart meets Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, where Neu! meets Nick Cave, with Paul Savage of cult Glasgow band The Delgados serving as producer, engineer and guiding force. The end result is truly special, bringing to mind the beat savvy of The Beta Band, the other-worldliness of Super Furry Animals and the mood of Hallowed Ground-era Violent Femmes.

"An early bid for debut album of the year" (Mojo)

"Fearlessly ambitious" (The Times)

"A dizzyingly abstract debut" (Observer Music Monthly)

"Like a psych-folk-toned TV On The Radio with a Scottish Bonnie 'Prince' Billy on vocals" (Time Out)

"Were they from Brooklyn, 'Checkmate Savage' would already have been acclaimed as a benchmark album for 2009" (The Guardian)

"Thrilling and accomplished...a brilliant debut" (NME)

"Fascinating. has the spiky consistency of the Magic Band" (The Independent)

Main Support are De Rosa, whose second album, 'Prevention', is due for release on March 2nd and has caused many a brow to be fevered in anticipation. Their 2006 debut 'Mend' attracted a swarm of critical praise and the band's live shows are earning a reputation all of their own.

Their new album features Mogwai's Barry Burns who seems to have embarked on a personal mission to convert as many people to the De Rosa cause as possible: "It can be quite worrying when you place the new album by a band you're totally besotted with into the CD and press 'play'. Never has this anxiety been stronger than with 'Prevention': it's not that I didn't think they would make a great record as such, it was more, "How could they improve upon such a great debut?" As it turns out, I needn't have bothered my arse worrying because I realised, after playing it twice in a row, that it was a distilled and perfectly developed rendering of what they had been all about in the first place. I seriously count it as one of the biggest honours of my career to have been asked to play some piano on this sublime recording." - Barry Burns, Mogwai

Praise for 'Mend':

"The kind of parochial majesty you might encounter if The Pixies reworked The Go-Betweens' Before Hollywood for a documentary about the social history of Lanarkshire. Yes, that good." - Mojo, 4/5

"Their debut album is an absolute treat…an atmospheric effort mixing itchy twitchy off-kilter vocals, ragged riffs and dark melodies twist, turn and build into thrillingly blustery crescendos. Mend is intensely compelling and will break your heart over and over again." - The List, 4/5

"All too rarely you stumble across a band that stands head and shoulders above the crap and leaves you gasping for breath, De Rosa are one of those bands." - The Fly, 4/5

Crossing The Channel especially for this show are St. Etienne's Angil and The Hidden Tracks, who will be performing for the first time in our nation's capital. Following their Chemikally released album 'Oulipo Saliva' in November last year, the band's frontman and guiding force Mickael Mottet has enjoyed a wave of critcal acclaim across the UK, Europe and America with 'Oulipo Saliva' being hailed by Uncut as "a twilight world where Robert Wyatt and John Coltrane rub shoulders with Why? and Vernon Elliot. Mad, but quite magical."

With shows planned throughout Europe and North America later this year, Chemikal Underground are delighted to be presenting this amazing collective before a London audience for the first time.

Praise for 'Oulipo Saliva'...

"...an ingenious undertaking, simultaneously brave, silly, whimsical and thoroughly satisfying." - The Fly, 4.5/5

"Consumed by sheer artistic madness, Ouliposaliva will have you flipping chaotically backwards and forwards through the booklet, whilst its metaphysical philosophy will leave you ruminating on more than just the music. Mottet deploys verbal poetry like Soul Coughing's M. Doughty and, like Javier Bardem in 'No Country for Old Men'; he's almost always a step ahead of you. This truly is an album you can't just dip into, it's a winning concept. And though it may not win millions of hearts, for those with time, it's a truly rewarding experience." - Drowned in Sound, 8/10

"...this jazzy French pairing generate warmth from horns, vocals redolent of Robert Wyatt and a wonky piano that may well have been boozing with Tom Waits. Its aim is to charm, not alienate, and it largely succeeds, in its oddball, slow-burning fashion." - The Independent

"...Mottet has constructed a record that carries plenty of intrigue and interest. Pleasingly, it's more wonky than wacky, its wordplay, oddball jazz inflections and Mottet's vocals often echoing the work of Robert Wyatt. This means it's remarkably easy for its unbalanced attractiveness to envelope you." - Word

As if that isn't enough there will be other Special Guests to be added to the lineup nearer the time. Chemikal Underground are descending, en masse, for a full-blown rammy and expect you all, yes, all of you, to be in attendance...

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