Ellen Poliakoff - bass, violin, viola, balalaika, piano, vocals
Influences
Each one of us has our own very different influences but some we agree on are Sonic Youth, Mogwai, Throwing Muses, Velvet Underground, Pixies, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Love, Godspeed You! Black Emperor....
The new Stray Light album 'Waves Broken' is out now (released January 2009) - a numbered, hand printed limited edition of 200. You can order these via the Doubtful Sound website for £6 including postage:
http://www.doubtfulsound.net/
Or just £5 if you see one of us in person!
It is our most diverse collection of songs yet and we've also branched out a bit instrumentally with the addition of flute, viola, balalaika, and some slightly unorthodox piano amongst other things, to the usual line-up. There are two tracks here and some more tracks on our website. We also hope to book some more gigs in the coming months… Do get in touch if you are interested in putting us on.
Stray Light formed in late 1997 and since then the band has developed an ethos of collective composition and improvisation. Given this, and the band's disparate and eclectic musical tastes and influences - from experimental noise to Russian folk music - a highly original approach and sound has resulted. Playing shows in Manchester (supporting bands such as Bardo Pond, Stars of the Lid, and Do Make Say Think) developed the material that would be recorded in 2000 for our first CD - Mile 7 - a disparate collection of songs, improvisations and soundscapes unified by a subtle melancholia, influenced by a millennial roadtrip across the open deserts of Nevada and Arizona. In contrast, the bulk of our second record, Careers, was conceived, finalised, or improvised in a single week of recording in the wilds of deepest Sussex in September 2002. Careers was released on our own label (Doubtful Sound) and can be purchased from our website.
We're also happy to announce that Dan Chadderton has joined the band as our new drummer, and we'll be back to playing live in the summer once he has been fully initiated into our arcane ways! The 19th June at the King's Arms will be the first show with the new line-up.
“Stray Light are all about slowburning intertwined guitar melodies, bolstered by sweet violin drone and skittering drums” – Brainwashed
Svarte Greiner (Deaf Center/Miasmah/Type) explores deep into a dark, mysterious and disturbing universe. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Earth, Volcano the Bear, David Darling & Deathprod, the music is draped in Lynchian mysticism and horror film cinematics. "The music of Svarte Greiner is practically perfect. It's like that sound in our heads we've been imagining for ages but had never actually heard." - Type Records.
The Sight Below (Rafael Anton Irisarri/Miasmah/Immune) draws as much on modern genre progenitors like Brian Eno, Robin Guthrie and My Bloody Valentine as it does from the more historic traditions in neo-classicism from Erik Satie and Olivier Messiaen. His album Glider has appeared on Thom Yorke's radar in making the Radiohead's lynchpin's top ten playlist.
His debut album Navigare soon to feature on the Miasmah label, Simon Scott (former Slowdive) is set to be a household name in conceptual music. Simon is the former Slowdive drummer, co-producer of Televise, producer of Seavault, and owner of KESH Recordings label.
Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top When the wind blows, the cradle will rock When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall And down will come baby???? cradle and all
NLF3's music has been described as "a kitsch This Heat" by The Wire, and compared for its rhythms to a 2009 version of the Ege Bamayasi-era of Can. The Guardian even spoke of them as "a Radiohead seduced by the idea of live improvisation". The members of NLF3 - F.lor, Mitch and Don Nino - name influences as varied as Pierre Henry, Fela Kuti, Steve Reich, Ennio Moricone, as well as Syd Barrett, Zappa, Fantomas, Aphex Twin, and Sonic Youth. Strange gurus indeed, for a music that, after all these comparisons, still sounds unique. NLF3 is the story of three music lovers – two brothers in blood and a third in spirit – united by the same passion: to make music, record it and take it all around the world. In that regard, their kinship with Battles and Animal Collective, with whom they have toured, seems perfectly natural - they all belong to the same generation of musicians and have the same desire to discover new territory, to explore new possibilities and to bring together past and future. It comes as no surprise either that the brothers F.lor and Don have lived in Germany as well as the US, and have spent some time in Nigeria where their father introduced them to the great Fela Kuti and others like the sculptor Twin Seven Seven. www.myspace.com/nlf3
People of Manchester – we’re playing the delightful, Moho Live on Thursday 21st May. Their will be jugglers, taxidermy, colouring in, advanced sock puppetry…In fairness probably just music – but we may pull a few shapes! So get down! X
Machinefabriek is amongst the finest experimental/electronic artists of today. His ultra-prolific back catalogue showcases his ability to perfect classical ambience, organic drone soundscapes, electronic minimalism and cathartic noise. He is hailed as one of the most interesting new experimental musicians by the Wire magazine.
Xela is the shady, underworld atmospheres and improv horrors of John Twells, owner of Type Records. "Xela has always been able to pre-empt the shifting tides of electronic music and deliver a statement that's definitively of its time” (Boomkat).
His debut album Navigare soon to feature on the Miasmah label, Simon Scott is set to be a household name in conceptual music. Simon is the former Slowdive drummer, co-producer of Televise, producer of Seavault, and owner of KESH Recordings label.
We've never been able to quite pin down exactly how the The Hunter Gracchus are going to play on any given occasion, which is a wonderful thing. A shifting unit with Syed Kamran Ali, Fiona Marshall and Jon Marshall at the core, they have recently settled into a fairly stable unit of six, but it's hard to know how long that'll last. Still, while it does, it's producing all manner of magical and highly unexpected performances. The one captured here was recorded at the band's practice room cum gig space, Fagin's Hideout/The Furniture Makers and is a less blistering freakout than some of their recent output, preferring to quietly explore every nook of tonal space. It simmers rather than erupts and, the longer you become immersed in it, the less aware you become of the passage of time. It's a recording that feels like it should go on forever and, when it does come to a close, the silence is shocking. In a time when it's all too easy for a group of improvisers to just go full-tilt in some euphoric pursuit, the Hunter Gracchus provides us with a glowing alternative that draws us slowly in and drowns our senses. This is truly awesome.
Peeesseye I Woke Up and Drank a Bottle of Cheap Kojak CDR
Peeesseye made the scene at Dylan Nyoukis's Colour Out of Space festival last summer and hopped over to Manchester to play a show at the Town Hall Tavern, the recording of which forms the content of this incredible slab of dense droning harmonium, scraping, buzzing, subtly soloing guitar and pulse-free, scatter-drumming. We can't recommend this enough.
This beautiful super-heavyweight LP, which comes packaged in a sweet full-colour sleeve reunites the UK's premier free drummer Alex Neilson, who's played, amongst others, with Motor Ghost, Directing Hand, Trembling Bells, Tight Meat Duo, Josephine Foster, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Jandek, MV&EE, Richard Youngs, Baby Dee and Alastair Galbraith, with Nmperign member Greg Kelley, whose reinvention of the trumpet is as crucial now as Anthony Braxton's reinvention of the sax was 30 years ago. A screeching, soaring, scattergun array of noises come maniacally out of Greg's horn, unlike anything we've ever heard and, with the addition of random stabs of electronics, he successfully straddles no wave, concrete and free jazz in a way that makes those genres seem like trite pigeonholes.
