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 A Hawk and a Hacksaw make a
welcome return to Leicester, following their rapturously received show in July, also at Bar
Nova. AHAAH is the latest in a long line of incarnations for Jeremy Barnes, who may be best
known as the drummer for Neutral Milk Hotel, but who has also carried the idea of avant-garde
percussion and improvisation to amicable new heights with Bablicon. AHAAH draws on influences
as diverse as Eastern European folk music to Pierre Schaeffer to Spike Jones & his City Slickers.
With such a heady mix of styles on display in the music, it’s of little surprise that AHAAH’s
live show is a force to be reckoned with, displaying Barnes’ multi-instrumentalist virtuosity
in all it glory - playing accordion, vocals and percussion (simultaneously!), and now
accompanied by Heather Trost on violin, glockenspiel and melodica. It's a musical journey
across the most varied of terrain, that dips in and out of modern composition and American
and Eastern European folk traditions in Barnes’ own inimitable style. Pickled Egg release a
7" single by AHAAH early in the new year, featuring an extended and re-recorded version of
"Our Lady of the Vlatva" from the Leaf album, "Darkness at Noon", backed with an exclusive
new Romanian Hora and Bulgar..
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George are two old friends & rivals, Suzy
Mangion and Michael Varty. Both of them play the instruments no one else wants - keyboards &
organs from Christmas in the Eighties, from charity shops, corners at parties. They add the
combined highlights of the percussion trolley, mixing in a collection of sounds made around
the house, a delight in choral singing and harmony groups. Privately sound-tracking a film
without leaving the room. Their haunting anachronistic sound, heard in 2003’s resoundingly
successful debut album ‘THE MAGIC LANTERN’, resurfaces from its own very distinctive musical
world. The duo’s adventures in bricolage gather strength in their recently released 2nd album,
‘A Week of Kindness’ (also on Pickled Egg), a coherent miscellany of bric-à-brac electronics
and clockwork melody. It proffers to the listener the saddest, prettiest songs about early
surgical cinema, living in memory or a fearful search for joy, that they will hear for a long
time. "An antiquarian's magpie methodology...songs that beautifully capture a sense of
perpetual loss through the passing of time itself" THE WIRE; "Nothing less than mesmerising.
Very special" SLEAZENATION; "The results are never less than mesmerising" UNCUT; "Deliver
beautifully what their early EPs promised" CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES; "So intimate and yet so
delicately deceiving that you’ll think the word elegant was made for it" LOSING TODAY; "An
enchanting album from two immensely gifted songwriters" CITY LIFE; "One of the most beautiful
pieces of music I've heard in a while" PITCHFORK MEDIA; "This year’s most distinctive and
downright magical debut" DELUSIONS OF ADEQUACY;
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 Nalle
formed in the summer of 2004 and is based in Glasgow.
The band features Hanna Tuulikki (vocals, kantele, flutes), Aby Vulliamy (viola) and Chris
Hladowski (bouzouki, clarinet). All three group members also perform with Scatter and The
One Ensemble of Daniel Padden, amongst other projects. NALLE is like a children's toy - a
transition object between us and the world. Fused with magic, the haunting songs and sprawling
melodies speak of our relationship with the sun, the mountains, and ravens. Through Nalle, we
waver on the wobbly branch dividing light and dark, only to fall back at the last minute onto
beatific harmonies and sunshine. Pickled Egg Records release their debut album in January.
"Nalle play a relaxed and explorative set which works its way through a stunning amalgam of folk,
psyche, improv and drone. Slow-strumming, madrigal-esque folk mutations, somewhat in the vein of
Fursaxa, long notes hanging suspended in the air like mean, mystical old albatrosses. A
masterclass in drone, teasing blissful feedback textures from bowed bouzouki, clarinet, and a
fine array of pedals" [Ben Haggar, Plan B Magazine]
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