Ah, Camden. The home of britpop, fluorescent streetwear, bong fumes and – experimental music? Unlikely as it may seem, a mere stone’s throw from such bastions of landfill indie as The Barfly and The Monarch, artists collective Zero Wave have spent the last few months quietly been putting on some of the most exploratory and unusual music in London.
Previous Zero Wave Clubs have included the likes of improvised sax and turntables duo Colin Webster & Graham Dunning, radiophonic tape fiddlers The Langham Research Centre, dada pogo jazzers Blurt as well as performances of compositions by John Cage, Christian Wolff, Helmut Lachenmann, and Iannis Xenakis. But the party may soon be ending – without your help!
Weird music has always been something of a niche pursuit and Zero Wave’s venue the Fiddler’s Elbow (on Malden Road, a mere hop and a skip from the Chalk Farm Road) know full well they could pack their place to the rafters if they went with one more night of indierock. So Zero Wave have been given one last chance to bring the attendance figures up before they pull the plug.
How can you help? Why, simply by turning up.
The next Zero Wave Club will take place tomorrow night (June 16). Live performances will come courtesy of Pere Ubu synth player Graham ‘Dids’ Dowdall doing his solo electronica thing as Gagarin; award-winning composers’ collective Bastard Assignments; melodeon, sax, and “objects” improvisers Browne/Thompson/Sanderson; plus outerspace atmospherics from Far Rainbow.
The whole thing kicks off at 8pm, with live music promised to be over in time for the last trains out of nearby Kentish Town West and Chalk Farm stations. So do your bit for the stranger end of the sonic spectrum and roll on up.
