The electronic music imprint, Bomb Shop, have announced that they will be following up a successful run of Bomb Shop Sessions across Europe with a session tour of the UK this summer.
Across May and June, the line-ups for the sessions will include experimental field recordist Rough Fields, Petrels (recordings of whose previous live appearances for Bomb Shop have been warmly received by tQ – read our review here, Survival Skills (the deep techno project of Acoustic Ladyland/Trio VD’s Chris Sharkey), drone/noise duo Ambrosia(@) and ADULT MAGS, a collaboration between Rough Fields and DMC finalist, Dr Weevil.
We caught up with Bomb Shop’s James "Simmons" Birchall for a chat about the upcoming tour, the European sessions and the label’s plans for the next few months.
You’ve been running Bomb Shop Sessions across Europe for some time now. What has prompted you to arrange this run of UK dates?
James "Simmons" Birchall: To be honest I’m not entirely sure why it’s worked out that way round. We used to put Bomb Shop parties on fairly regularly when we were based in London, but since we went north and opened Fuse Art Space our engagement with live music in the UK has been pretty much totally taken up with that – it’s a fairly intense schedule.
But having said that, the people we meet, the music we hear and the connections we make through the gallery have all definitely contributed to putting this tour together. It’s been an inspiring couple of years, some of the people who’ve played shows have completely blown my mind, made me look at the whole idea of presenting music in a live environment in a different way.
Have your experiences of the continental shows informed your approach to curating this tour? If so, how?
JSB: Playing shows in Europe has definitely informed how we do things in the UK, without a doubt, both in terms of how we organise Bomb Shop shows, and how we run the music side of Fuse Art Space. The venues we play in Europe usually have an ex-squat vibe, particularly in the Netherlands and Germany – places like OT301, Extrapool, ACUD, TAUT in Stuttgart – all great venues, really positive collectives running things, good sound systems and friendly crowds, and most of them have an apartment somewhere in the building for you to stay in.
That sounds like a pretty basic thing to be happy about, but it really doesn’t happen that much in the UK. So yes, when it came to choosing venues for this tour we definitely tried to find places that reflect in some way those beautiful DIY places in Europe.
What else can we expect from the Bomb Shop imprint over the coming months?
JSB: We’ve got some really special releases scheduled for this summer – new stuff from Flying Ibex, YTAC, more Fuse Editions tapes, and I’ve got a Rough Fields album almost ready to go. I’m also working on an interesting split release with Jorge Boeringher (Core Of The Coalman) – he’s been doing this amazing Pd stuff synthesising natural sounds, and I’ve been recording natural sound and processing it to sound synthesised – the two approaches work so well together, we had to do it.
What else… we started an environmental sound label called Language, dedicated to natural sound with encoded meaning, ie. not just wind in trees or wave sounds, stuff with deeper implications or backstory. There’s a ton of new material currently being sifted through for that – some really interesting recordings.
In terms of live shows, we’re in the early stages of planning shows in France (late summer) and Canada/East Coast USA (November). I’m really enjoying playing records out at the minute, too – there’s so much intensely brilliant music coming through Fuse and into my inbox. Looking forward to firing some of it out at UTR’s Karen Gwyer/Container/Giant Swan show in a couple of weeks.
For more information, head over to the Bomb Shop website and check the list of dates below.
Bomb Shop Sessions UK Tour
May
21st – Cube Cinema, Bristol
25th – Fat Out’s Burrow, Salford
27th – Old Hairdressers, Glasgow
29th – Old Police Station, Gateshead
31st – Fuse Art Space, Bradford
June
2nd – MK Gallery, Milton Keynes
5th – DIY Space For London, London
6th – Green Door Store, Brighton
