Freq Presents: Overground – an N16 music radio show
Overground
There is no Underground in N16 – the only way to get there on public transport is by overground train, or by bus – but Stoke Newington has a diverse musical history. In a one-off special, DJ Tango-Mango of the Kosmische Club and the Drones Club explores by way of an audio collage and soundscaped interviews an area rich in music and musicians.
The radio show was broadcast as a Clear Spot on Resonance 104.4FM in London between 8-9pm on 13 March 2008. An archived MP3 of the show is available for download here, and can be streamed in the player below:
Individual musical tracks in this recording are copyright by the artists involved.
Artists and other participants on Overground:
Thanks are due to the following, who contributed (in order of appearance) to the Overground broadcast:
The Forum, London
17 December 2009
'Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the Forum, not a creature was stirring apart from that seething, thronging mass of goths, punks, crusties and beardy CAMRA-men that only New Model Army seem to be able to unite into one celebratory whole. And the
Southern
From early avant-garde releases on the legendary Crass records as Annie Anxiety, to guest slots with artists as varied (and awesome) as Coil, Nurse With Wound, On-U-Sound and Collapsed Lung, to her current incarnation as Little Annie, Annie Bandez has been nothing if not prolific, apart
The Institute for Contemporary Arts, London
30 January 2008
Here is my ATP festival experience. I always seem to miss the bands that I wind up liking the most. So, having missed Fuck Buttons at The Nightmare Before Christmas I wasn't going to miss them again when they came to Ithe CA, and they mor
Meltdown 2007
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
18th June 2007
The smoke and glitter which characterises Chrome Hoof's performance at Meltdown 2007 is something of a wonder to behold. Unleashing a brain-boggling riot of progtastic disco - complete with intoned disclaimer for any responsibilty for t
Earache
This isn't what I'd expect from Earache at all. Cauldron are a "traditional" metal outfit from Canada. Not a hint of Grind Madness here. Maybe Cauldron are a sound of things to come. Growling and evil has dominated metal for quite some time now. Yeah it can be great fun, but its a lit
ULU, London
23 April 2008
Ah, what better way is there to celebrate St George's Day than to avoid all the jingoistic flag-waving nonsense and go and see a band who come from the other side of the world? Probably none. None whatsofuckingever.
First up we get Growing, who I heard described by s
The Barbican, London
27 April 2002
Part of the Only Connect series of live events, tonight was self-described thus: "The history of computer games has also been a parallel history of the development of electronic music . . . this evening's performances are less illustrations of these sounds and
Klangbad
Faust were the most radical and baffling of all the 70s German groups to acquire the 'krautrock' label. Their music was only tangentially related to the likes of Amon Düül, Can, or NEU! - on the group's early albums, musique concret, tape loop experiments, folky guitars, parping saxoph
Barfly At The Monarch, Camden, London
9th August 2001
OK, so it's a promotional gig for (the once-proud, now suckers of corporate cock) Xfm. OK, so the other bands are yer average guitar malarkey. Fair enough. But if 2nd Gen's on, then why the fuck is no-one dancing? Huh? Answer me that and win
The Metro, Chicago
11th November 1998
There I was, freezing my proverbials off outside the Metro club here in da windy city. My cigarette was burning ridiculously quickly as the icy north breezes fanned it and made me all annoyed... but say la vie (as the French c'est). I was waiting in line to
The Astoria, London
18 April 2004
First up, Pink Grease. I've been holding off on reviewing these buggers until I could manage the supreme effort of will that is not being so drunk while watching them that I couldn't tell whether they were wonderful, or really shit. Happily, I can tell you it's
(Applebush/Easy Action)
The collections of ‘rare’ T. Rex material to have appeared in the years since Marc Bolan’s death in 1977 by now dwarf the official output released during his lifetime. Although much of them are deeply inessential, and sometimes indeed unlistenable, carefully sifting
Pop Montréal,
Ukrainian Federation, Montréal
3 October 2009
The gathering krautrock-keen fans filled both levels of the seated, community-centre vibe auditorium known as the Ukrainian Federation which has hosted the likes of Patti Smith, Joanna Newsom, Loudon Wainwright III, and A Silver Mt.
The Union Chapel, London
21st January 2001
Back at the Union Chapel for another of its most appropriate events, A Silver Mt. Zion playing their coolly Classical and most definitely Goth set from the album "He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms". Union C
The Underworld, London
2nd December 2000
What was supposed to be a World Serpent presents show with Sol Invictus, Sorrow, and Ostara turned out to be a lot less/more, depending on how you look at it. Due to illness, Tony Wakeford and Sol Invictus were forced to cancel, and due to lateness(my ow
Tufnell Park Dome, London
2 September 2001
A history lesson... Everything you think you know is wrong. The last ten years never happened. Mrs. Thatcher's still in power, The Dome's still standing (Tufnell Park that is... not the Big Tent), and Conflict are still gigging. We are ruled by a bunch
Invada
David Wrench received an epiphany while trapped in the worthy nu-folk purgatory of the Green Man Festival last year. Surrounded by polite and twee young indie kids who had discovered acoustic instruments and woolly jumpers, he despaired at how a once radical and iconoclastic social force h
The Festival of Central European Culture
Queen Elizabeth Hall,The South Bank Centre, London
10th July 1998
Across between political rally, religious service and Thrash Metal gig, tonight's appearance in the centre of High Art's temple of culture simultaneously enthralls and overpowers with meta
(Babel)
The sleeve notes to By Proxy quote Aldous Huxley: “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” But what Partisans express is not the arcane or ineffable but rather a straightforward affection for a rather uncontroversial jazz, probably circa whenev
The Kosmische Club
Upstairs at The Garage, London
25th March 2000
When consumer electronics expanded sufficiently to include musical intruments at relatively affordable prices for the average band to use in the Eighties, the result was synth pop, unfortunately with some quite dire results. Then
The Tape-beatles - Synthety No. 5: Good Times
Label: Staalplaat Format: CD
Stepping to an appropriately martial, mechano-deconstructed beat, The Tape-beatles' Good Times weaves a mix of political speech snippets, training-film educational banalities deleivered with the wooden certitude of a rigi
Ui - The Iron Apple
Label: Southern Format: 12",CDS
Named in respect of the vitality of the 103-year old owner of the cider house in Pennsylvania where Ui rehearsed for many years, The Iron Apple shows the band in further abstracted territory from their "post-Rock" roots. As ever, the combinat
South Bank Centre, London
27-29th May 2000
Now semi-permanently established at the South Bank for the past few years, the LMC Experimental Music Festival has become one of the fixtures of the London Improv and New Music scene, struggling through into something approaching mainstream cultural acc
Irregular
The Africa Centre, London
2nd July 1998
Having sat throught he absence of promised DJ Holger Hiller - and hence a repeated digi-dub tape instead - the appearance onstage of two-thirds of Pan Sonic presaged the arrival of Alan Vega. Strutting with his customary swagger, and dressed li
18 Kingsland Road, London
7 March 2001
18 Kingsland Road is not a squat, but looks a bit like one, or that it once might have been. It's now an art gallery and occasional music venue, with steep leg-endangering staircases twisting into the depths of the improvised cellar bar among the salvaged c
Royal Festival Hall, London
12 October 2001
Given that this appearance by Faust marks both their 100th live performance since the group's reformation in 1993 and possibly their final show, it's somehow appropriate that the emergency services soon became involved once again. Part of the reason
Bush Hall, London
27th May 2007
It's raining. Not just raining, but absolutely pissing it down. The streets are running with water, and my eyes are so full of rain it takes me fully half an hour longer to find the venue than it should otherwise have done, meaning that by the time I get in, Mr Ha
The Scratch Club
The Scala, London
25th March 1999
First of all, the venue; once upon a time, The Scala was both the worst and best of London's independent cinemas - terrible seats, ropey sound and a generally scuzzy atmosphere, saved by the murals, the cat and a programming selection which i
The Mean Fiddler, London
27 April 2003
I'll be honest: I went for Peaches. Her 93ft East show last year was one of the most bacchanalian gig experiences I've had in recent years, a benevolent riot of loud, fired sexuality and abandon. But, truth be told, I'd really enjoyed the lyrical audacity /
Thrill Jockey
Are Tortoise feeling their age? Beacons of Ancestorship, their sixth album and first album proper in five years, is littered with references to age. Ancestorship is a reasonable pointer, with Tortoise being the ancestors of course. And the title "Prepare Your Coffin" is pretty expli
Beyond Baroque, Venice, California
29 June 2001
(15 in attendance)
Consolidated Lint
Guitar, Pro One and toy spun over the head of the person furthest right. Pitch shifts and the bowing starts. Chattering, like automotive idling, wells up and fills the room. Much bowing, and it's as if the
Pica Disk
The Monroe Doctrine is the March edition of Jazkamer's 2010 monthly abum series. This CD is a 30 minute track with full on noise rock free jazz improv beat hysteria. Performers are the regular four piece of Gross, Hegre, Marhaug and Drønen. Beautiful artwork by José De Diego.
To ma
Pure Pop For Now People
Along comes the latest release from PPFN, the label run by Joachim Gaertner of German psyche/kraut powerhouse group S/T, and it's another that explores the territory somewhere on the borders of electronica and a peculiar concept of pop music. As with most of PPFNs releases
Royal Festival Hall
South Bank Centre, London
19th September 2000
For their third live performance in a year after the seventeen of build-up, Coil arrive onstage dressed in unlaced grey strait-jackets, backed by a neon sign proclaimng the title of the night's performance, Persistance Is All. Th
FatCat
In a music world where the past is ever present, remarketed and remastered for future generations, The Twilight Sad seem to have chanced upon the dusty old trunk marked "The Eighties" and gleefully plundered its contents wholesale, though highly discriminatingly. Luckily, these resourceful S
Kosmische @ The Spitz, London
5 June 2003
When the Acid Mothers Collective come to town, a few things are certain - extended improvisations, guest appearances (tonight's honourable psychonaut is none other than Daevid Allen), antics and japes at the keyboards, and hair. Lots and lots of hair: no
Xinli Supreme - All You Need Is Love Was Not True
Label: Fat-Cat Format: 7"
Short description: Xinli Supreme sound something like the Japanese Flying Saucer Attack.
Longer review: Xinli Supreme sound from time to time like Flying Saucer Attack when they were so much more lo-fi than recently.
Ambolthue/Synesthetic Recordings
Apparently this is the debut CD of Torstein Wjiik, which is really hard to believe when you look at his discography, where you can find lots of MP3 and CD-R releases. Wjiik is the alias of Norwegian experimental artist Kjetil Hanssen. Knowing that this young man h
The Spitz, London
24 March 2004
A bit like starting a notebook backwards, I rush in after taking a stupidly slow and expensive cab ride, barely in time to see the last beautiful few moments of Rothko. Their's is a sound I can recognize from way down the stairs as I run up and through the doors.
After The Deluge
29th May 2000
Jean-Hervé Péron is best known as the former de facto front man for Faust, a group he sometimesseemed to embody the group's chaotic lunacy for in his onstage antics with chainsaws and naked painting sessions. Following his traumatic personal split with the band a
T & C, Leeds
17th April 2000
So this is what gigs look like these days. It's been awhile. Last time I was here I got thrown out for pogoing atop the right-hand side speaker stacks on, if I remember rightly, a combination of mushrooms and speed. This time I sit quietly on the stairs overlooki
Calexico - Even My Sure Things Fall Through
Label: Quarterstick Format: CD
Spanning most of the musical history of Calexico, a band highly reminiscent of duo Joey Burns and John Covertino's previous bands, Giant Sand and especially Friends Of Dean Martinez, this EP combines unreleased tracks wit
The Underworld, London
5th November 1999
Back at The Underworld for the second time in six months, follwowing on from an absence from their founders' homeland of six years, The Legendary Pink Dots bring home their unique format of intense live musical performance at the tail end of yet another w
Khan
Kosmische
Upstairs @ The Garage, London
23 June 2001
I'd never heard of Khan (aka Can Oral) before hearing about this gig a few weeks back, but his odd background (Finnish mother, Turkish father, grew up in Germany) and his array of current collaborators (Kid Congo Powers, Diamanda Gala
Aalfang Mit Pfederkopf - Mezethakia Mukabalatt
Label: Aalfang Format: CD
Bit of a weird one, this - even by the usual standards. It consists of two tracks, the first ("Geschwärtzte Milch" - blackened milk) lasting four minutes long and sounding a bit like late Swans in strummy guitar instrument
Irregular #5
The South Bank Centre, London
8th-10th April 1999
The last five to ten years have seen an exponential rise in the number of intriguing events at London's premier Arts Council-funded cultural centre on the South Bank of the River Thames, thanks to an innovative booking policy and th
Featuring the films of Jean Painleve (1902-1989)
Only Connect @ The Barbican, London
20 April 2002
Although Yo La Tengo are most often described in terms of the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth and Can, you only have to take a look at a setlist from one of their annual fund raising "request" sho
Bablicon - The Cat That Was A Dog/A Flat Inside A Fog
: Label: Pickled Egg Format: CD
This is an album which contains a wealth of ideas, some of which I hope will be developed further in future work. Their instrumental combinations are inventive as are the range of collage and improvisational te
Easy Action
While a 4CD set of murky cassette recordings of the same set from four different Stooges shows during Spring 1971 is clearly only of any real interest to hardcore Stooges fans, why would anybody not be a hardcore Stooges fan?
The three holy relics that have sustained the Stooges' r
Bobby Conn;
The Sex Hunter
Shim Sham Club, New Orleans
12th November 2000
Again, a third way around the world and this time for Bobby Conn. This is the Shim Sham Club, 615 Toulouse Street. A round of jokes on that one and 19,000 Heart Association convention goers available to egg it on ("Why a
The Spitz, London
21st April 2006
Akron/Family are not from Ohio, nor are they apparently related to each other. They are also sometimes Michael Gira's band Angels Of Light. Tonight at The Spitz they might be themselves, though along the way they play up a storm of other identities, genres and m
93 Feet East, London
9 July 2001
"Bosses, They're all cunts, pricks wankers and shits - does anyone here like their boss?" Well, those were similar words to the ones I muttered when Simon Breed nearly trampled me in his stampede to the bar pre-showtime. He was allegedly referring to his boss,
The Others, London
12th November 2005
Saturday night and The Others is jam-packed- what was a freezing, damp, stone-walled building scant minutes earlier has become a furnace, as the great and the good of Stoke Newington come together to celebrate the launch of the debut single from local heroes
Pacou - Symbolic Language Remixes
Label: Tresor Format: 12"
Once again, we can rely on Tresor to der the goods. Think Jeff Mills, think Adam Beyer. Pacou is in that vein, with a slab of tough minimal techno. Symbolic Language Remixes is a belting EP, nasty hard and fucking groovesome. It sweats
The Underworld, London
15 July 2008
The first time I came across Part Chimp, a few years back, they were tipped as The Loudest Band in London, but now that the reanimated corpse of My Bloody Valentine has reclaimed that title with its rotting, maggoty fingers, Part Chimp have mellowed a little.
93 Feet East, London
8 March 2002
Kitty-Yo hit London, taking over the snazzily labyrinthine 93 Feet East venue on Brick Lane for an evening of the label's quality acts and a host of guest DJs from Berlin, London and further afield, one of whom seems to be playing Generation X's "Dancing With M
Monotonix - Body Language EP
Drag City
Israeli rock bands – I’ll bet’cha can’t name two. I’ve got a theory that countries with compulsory military service always have rubbish music scenes, because there just aren’t enough bored kids hanging around to start bands and go to gigs
Mind Your Head
Royal Festival Hall, London
1 October 2002
Following an introduction which emphasizes the psychedelic nature of the selection of musicians and bands from Glenn Maxx, the South Bank Centre's mastermind for the Mind Your Head season, Coil emerge on stage bathed in UV light, their
Denovali
Available on both heavyweight vinyl as a proper double-sided split LP and the more prosaic, though no less lovingly-packaged CD edition, this record serves partly as yet another waypoint on Nadja's seemingly unstoppable mission to collaborate with every possible combination of drone/doom
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
25 February 2001
The present-day composer refuses to die, according to Edgard Varese, a man with legendary eyebrows. He also influenced the guy whose music an eager bunch of resurrectionists revived in the Paul McCartney Auditorium. The Liverpool based-ba
David Pajo;
Robin Guthrie;
Pole;
Labradford
Queen Elizabeth Hall
South Bank Centre, London
24th June 2000
This year's Festival of Drifting sees each participant playing all in one night as a national tour, as opposed to the previous two years when performances were spread out over the cours
Pica Disk
The May edition of Jazkamer's monthly series starts with an almost twenty minute long drone track. It's very deep dark and with mellow synth sounds to start with, moving about in my headphones, almost without recognising it, the track creeps upon me, moving more, being more intense and
Drifting Falling
London bliss-rockers Kontakte continue their journey into the outer reaches of motorik rhythms and chimingly elevated guitar work with an EP which works around the theme in differing ways. "Superbug" itself boils over with tightly-wound energy, surging from twinkly psychedelic gu
ULU, London
26th May 2005
Okay, here's the usual disclaimer. I'm not going to be objective. In the slightest. Michael Gira's been a hero of mine for many years now, and this was the first time I got to see him live. So forgive me if I don't give it the whole fair and balanced thing in the follow
Overground
There is no Underground in N16 - the only way to get there on public transport is by overground train, or by bus - but Stoke Newington has a diverse musical history. In a one-off special, DJ Tango-Mango of the Kosmische Club and the Drones Club explores by way of an audio collage and s
Corsica Studios, London
2nd May 2007
Looking like refugees from several different bands who all met up in a jail cell after a drunken night gone horribly wrong, it's north London's finest pirate bar band Owlls, and they really should be playing in Tortuga in the 17th Century rather than Elephant &
The Klinker
The Sussex, London
20 September 2001
Well, The Klinker was its normal inchoate self: the irrepressible Hugh Metcalfe yelling "We start in ten minutes" as a half dozen apparently unrelated machine operators tinker with toy tape recorders, laptops, bits of wiring, large wineglass
Komedia, Brighton
22nd February 2000
First round on a rare night of electronic experimentalism in Brighton, held in the converted supermarket cabaret venue Komedia and hosted by Semiconductor was Lucky Kitchen, an electronic duo between Alejandra Salinas and Aaron Bergman (AKA Alejandra and Unde
(Load)
The centrepiece of the recent All Tomorrow's Parties documentary is a clip from a Lightning Bolt set at the festival back in 2006. The band, true to form, is set up on the floor of the venue and the crowd is jostling around Brian Chippendale's drumkit in a claustrophobic huddle of beards a