Pickled Egg Records, in association with The Phoenix Arts Theatrepresent:

Eggstock! 2006

Sat Nov 10th
Phoenix Arts Theatre, Leicester
2pm to 11pm. Prompt start!
£15/£13(concs)
Tickets on sale now from the Phoenix box office: 0116 255 4854

Fulborn Teversham (2:55pm)
The Big Eyes Family Players (8:50pm)
Nalle (10:15pm)
Now (6:35pm)
Zukanican (5:50pm - performing a live soundtrack to avant garde short films)
Suzy Mangion (George) (4:25pm)
Dragon or Emperor (2:25pm)
a.P.A.t.T. (9:35pm)
The Doozer (8:05pm)
Black Carrot (3:40pm)
The Family Elan (5:05pm)
Oddfellows Casino (7:20pm - performing a live soundtrack to 'The Seance' short film)

Leicester-based Pickled Egg Records is one of the most sharp-eyed, adventurous independent labels around, releasing some of the best music of any label, anywhere. Eclectic to a fault, and firmly out of step with current trends, since it's inception in 1998, it has dedicated itself to redressing the world’s musical balance in favour of quirky genius, bent tunefulness, noisy playfulness, jazz turmoil, inventive retro-futurism and downright emotional heart-on-sleeve belief, hope and passion. In a world in which the musical balance is already, irretrievably, weighted down on the side of corporate flatulence, labels like Pickled Egg are so a priori unnecessary, and yet so a posteriori essential.

"Any label can attempt to be the strange kid, signing a bunch of oddballs with "diversity" in mind, but Pickled Egg isn't just in it for the gimmick. These miscreants deliver entire selves in their work; the only lame part of the deal is finding enough time in the day to absorb each of these wonderful bands and check out all their music" [Spendid Ezine]

"Since 1998, Pickled Egg and its artists have represented a very rewarding, particular form of eccentricity. There's so much to dip into - an embarrassment of riches, a cornucopia of found sound, Beefheartian rhythms and soulful singer-songwriters - that it's difficult to know where to start. Think of Pickled Egg as a primer to the more radical side of Plan B's musical coverage: oblique but still very accessible" [Everett True, Plan B]

"With the music world struggling to find its next wave or trend, Pickled Egg has created a label that lives up to its own promotion and standards of avoiding trend and carving out its own niche of the highest artistic order. Rarely is art so listenable and experimentation so approachable" [gullbuy.com]

This showcase celebrates the brilliance and diversity of the label's roster

Fulborn Teversham is the mindblowing new group of Seb Rochford, the extraordinarily in-demand and prolific drummer/composer, two-times Mercury Music prize nominee (with Basquiat Strings in 2007, and Polar Bear in 2005), and winner of BBC Jazz award for Rising Star 2004. The group pursues a more eclectic, less overtly jazz direction than Polar Bear, or indeed Rochford and Pete Wareham’s other acclaimed group, Acoustic Ladyland, incorporating elements of electronica, Henry Cow-style prog and post punk. With clever balancing of cosmic and acoustic sounds, Seb Rochford (drums), Nick Ramm (Nord synthesizer), Pete Wareham (saxophones), and Alice Grant (vocals), deliver an intimate and thrilling improvisational punk jazz chamber music.

"Alan Freeman used to play the most extraordinary music on BBC radio in the late 70's, once mixing the Slits with Henry Cow and classic rock cuts. He might have gone big on Fulborn Teversham, as they sound like a cross between these groups in places. Fascinating and vital" [The Wire]

"Since his Mercury Music Prize nomination with Polar Bear in 2005, drummer and composer Seb Rochford has dragged jazz in ever-more diverse, inclusive directions. With his new band, Fulborn Teversham, Rochford sneaks like a cat burglar through generations and genres, stealing and fusing influences along the way. A punky debut of virtuoso performances, inspired by a madly engaging imagination" [Flavourpill]

Nalle is a Glasgow-based psyche/folk trio, formed in 2004, by Hanna Tuulikki (vocals, kantele, flutes), Aby Vulliamy (viola) and Chris Hladowski (bouzouki, clarinet). All three group members have performed with the free-folk/jazz ensemble, Scatter, and Chris and Aby also play in The One Ensemble of Daniel Padden (from Volcano the Bear), and have performed with the Glasgow Improvisors Orchestra. Nalle makes primitivist psychedelia that resonates with African, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Northern European folk traditions. The group’s naïf music is almost pre-modern in its sensibility - an off-kilter hybrid of the Incredible String Band and The Wicker Man soundtrack, wrought with an array of string and wind instruments (oud, acoustic guitar, kantele, clarinet, viola, bouzouki, flute). Hanna Tuulikki's idiosyncratic, strangely phrased vocals give the impression that words are novel to her (think of Björk as an idiot savant); these fragile, eccentric songs, which evoke music's earliest ritual and communal functions, likewise captivatingly childlike. Nalle have performed at numerous prestigious festivals, including the 2006 Greenman, the 2006 Latitude, the Alter Schlachthof festival in Germany, as well the 2005 and 2006 Pickled Egg showcases. Pickled Egg released their debut album, ‘By Chance Upon Waking’, in 2006, and their follow-up album is scheduled for release later this year, on the highly-regarded US label, Locust Music (Espers, Michael Hurley, Lau Nau, Josephine Foster). 'By Chance Upon Waking', was described by Brad Rose in Foxy Digitalis magazine as "easily the best thing I've heard in 2006 thus far, and I reckon it's going to be hard for anything to come close"

Starting from a cupboard with a piano & a drumkit in it, Durham City, England, Suzy Mangion began her public music-making as one half of school boy-girl band George in 1994. George released a number of acclaimed secret pop records on vinyl collector labels Earworm & Bad Jazz in the late 90s, and eventually released their debut album ‘The Magic Lantern’ on Pickled Egg in 2003. An EP, ‘All Good Things’, was released in Spain on Lejos Discos, and the 2005 George album ‘A Week of Kindnes’s was jointly released on both labels. Suzy also appeared on the Piano Magic album ‘Writers Without Homes’ (4AD), and has recorded 2 albums with Arbol - an eponymous debut (Indus Sonica), and ‘Dreams Made of Paper’ (Lejos Discos). Last year she made a guest appearance on the Big Eyes Family Players's ‘Do The Musiking’. Her first solo album, ‘The Other Side Of The Mountain’ was recorded in Jan-July 2006, and will be soon be released on Pickled Egg.

a.P.A.t.T. officially began with the completion of a full C90 minute cassette tape back in 1998. It was decided from the off-set that the way the music was formed on this tape (disjointed, non- specific, omni-style) was to influence the revolving multi- instrumentalist approach and dictate the 'anti-hierarchical' line-up of the act. If you listen to Frank Zappa, Mr Bungle, Need new body, Cardiacs , The Residents, Henry Cow, Prince, The White Noise or Slayer, then chances are you may like a.P.A.t.T.

"Oh I don't know… there are no words for this. a.P.A.t.T are so easy to listen to when they really shouldn't be; it should just be a mess. They're a band - don't go thinking this is some wise-ass cut-up studio nerd; a whole gang of them in masks and anti-radiation suits or something like that. Hey look, if you want something challenging, something beautiful, something different, something violent, something soothing, something like you never heard before then this is where you need to go" [Organ.com - Eclectic Music Magazine/webzine]

"a.P.A.t.T. are a motherfucking experience. Probably the only UK band i can think of to come up with their vision of the dark, vicious and fuck me, rather scary vision of the ACID PUNK dropped onto us from the visions of Gibby from the Butthole Surfers. We love them. You need to hear this. It’s insane" [Alan Mcgee, Creation Records]

The Doozer builds. He has previously built stone houses and wooden ships. He is currently building music. Raised around the Fenlands of Cambridgeshire, in the arse end of nowhere, the city drew closer and closer, the lights brighter and the time shorter. The city informs his music. His music informs the city. Songs evolve around watching and talking, buying and borrowing. Characters pass by, situations are imagined, colours are added and the resultant is a forming song.

His debut album, ‘Sheet Music’, was recorded mainly on Saturday mornings, bright and early. The songs weren’t complete until the recordings were complete. The spaces always changed. Instruments and voices were layered. Pop music was the aim; pop music isn’t quite the result. Pop music is The Doozer’s music, only filtered through all of the colours and sounds you’ve imagined when walking through the street or down your lane or when your batteries died.

Big Eyes was started by James Green in 1999 as an experiment in playing classical music with little knowledge of the genre or classical theory. A five/six piece group was put together, and between 2000 and 2004, Big Eyes released four albums on Pickled Egg, and performed regular live shows, highlighting the group’s love for eastern-European traditional music, folk and modern classical. After the last Big Eyes album, 'We Have No Need for Voices...', James and co-pilot David Jaycock decided to call it a day with the 'group' dynamic, and plough their interests into experimenting with classical/folk arrangements and collaborating with artists they admire. This new project - under the name of The Big Eyes Family Players – came to fruition with the release of the 29-track 2006 album, Do The Musiking’ featuring contributions from such luminaries as James Yorkston, Jeremy Barnes (A Hawk and A Hacksaw, Bablicon), Rachel Grimes (The Rachel's), James William Hindle and Suzy Mangion (George). The album is a heady orchestral spin through klezmer, drone, balladry, folk and modern composition. This show will be the first live appearance from TBEFP.

Liverpool-based Zukanican have been likened to an unholy hardcore collision between Can, The Soft Machine and Art Ensemble of Chicago. Theremin battery, skippy keys, s-bending bass, drill pattern drums, siren organ in continuum, other pulses muscling in on the action, a diversion into free-funk with sci-fi white noise cutting across. The line-up comprises James Pagella on drums, Tom Sumnall on bass, Dr Harry Sumnall (electronics and percussion), and Phil Lucking on Spanish trumpet. Their free-flowing improvisations, Krautrock grooves and jazz flourishes, paint a huge aural canvas with thick layers of colours inspired by such luminaries as John Coltrane, Sun Ra and Bablicon. Zukanican's debut full-length album, 'Horse Republic', was released on Pickled Egg in 2006. And they happen to be one of Seb Rochford’s (Polar Bear, Fulborn Teversham, et al) favourite bands.

Noware an east London based ensemble, who fuse elements of krautrock, free jazz, lo-fi, synth pop and music from various ethnic sources, to create their own unique, highly inventive sound. If art-pop is a term with any currency, Now would be somewhere between Pollock and Kandinsky – free-flowing yet structured, vivid yet soothing, bold yet with numerous untold hidden depths. Musically, they’re all over the shop, yet manage to steer clear of sounding like a mere mesh of disparate influences badly thrust together – seemingly because they not only have a great understanding of the rhythmical heart in everything (all music is dance music, etc), but can apply it to their own restless, driving sound. Depending on mood, whim and venue, Now pursue a range of styles, from experimental improvised sounds to rhythmic, dance-y, driving pop music that often transforms into extended percussive jams, in which the audience sometimes participates. Now could be described as catchy, contemporary, inventive, exotic, melodious and harmonious 21st century pop music. The group released their debut album, ‘Frisbee Hot Pot’ on Pickled Egg in June 2006, and made a big impression on Leicester audiences throughout 2006 and 2007, with fine performances at Summer Sundae and Eggstock.

Oddfellows Casino perform a live soundtrack to 'The Séance', a short film by Brighton filmmaker, Toby Amies. Filmed in black and white, 'The Séance’ follows the demise of legendary Victorian freakshow host, Ambrose Oddfellow, as drink, tragedy and the advent of picture-houses force him to host phoney seances for the gullible aristocracy of Brighton. But who knows what can happen when dabbling with the forces of darkness... The cast includes former Salvador Dali model Drako Zarhazar (as Ambrose Oddfellow), Michael Attree (the world moustache championship holder), Dave Mounfield (portly comedian and nice chap) and the legendary Heidi Heels. Oddfellows Casino make some of the most swooningly harmonic melodic pop-as-art being recorded today: lush, dreamy intimate constructions made from a mixture of folk, jazz, avant garde pop, show tunes, bright acoustic and electronic textures, with classical flourishes, all employed with great empathy and tenderness. They have released two albums on Pickled Egg.

Dragon or Emperor "are a bass and drums punk/jazz/metal powerhouse, with a spontaneous feel that frequently threatens to spill over into hysteria. This is partly down to Stewart Brackley’s monstrous distended fuzz bass riffs, but has more to do with his wild evocation of what it might sound like if Yamataka Eye found himself trapped inside the body of David Thomas" [The Wire]

"You call it Lightning Bolt. I say I have no conception of what such tight-knit formation drumming mans, and go for older - the James Brown-insired yeh-yeh groove of The Make Up, given a metal makeover. Someone mutters 'math rock', but I flinch, indicate that no way are these frenetic twists and turns, these plum-in-mouth spasm vocals humourless. 'Formerly Volcano the Bear, you know', you smugly remark, 'and Songs of Norway'. I shrug, and rave about the way this enormous, near hallucinogenic duo remind me of prime '76 Pere Ubu, thus indicating my overbearing age once more. Sigh. Fucking seriously mighty" [Everett True, Plan B]

Black Carrot: as febrile and hostile as Van Der Graaf Generator, as pounding and grainy as Faust, as instinctive and mercurial as Can, this is one far-out combo. Formed in early 2000, ploughing the lonely field that is new wave/jazz/dark oddness, Black Carrot have achieved much. Released in 2005, their critically-aclaimed debut album “Cluk” managed to attract the attention of BBC Radio 3’s ‘Mixing It’, they have worked with storyteller Nigel Parkin, filling the theatre in their native Market Harborough with nerve-jangling improvisations around the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and performing their own unique interpretation of Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’. Recently supporting the Fall and appearing at Leicester’s Eggstock, these three ultra-talented musicians are demanding, intimidating, frenetic and mental. Frankly, you wouldn't dare make them up. A crisp and sharp trio, comprising drums, both double and electric bass, electric piano and tenor sax and assorted woodwind instruments. Dedicated to the virtues of improvisation, it is hard to actually categorise them easily – which is to the good. This is music that has the rigour of improvisation done well but also is accessible via the jazzy rhythms, at times they reminiscent of a New York-style band like Defunct or James Chance and the Contortions from the punk jazz/loft side of the no-wave days.

From Glasgow comes The Family Elan, weavers of raw folk magic. The Family Elan is Chris Hladowski - bouzouki, vocals, guitar, baglamas, fiddle, gimbri, clarinet, thigh slapping, and an unknown Chinese Lute – and Hanna Tuulikki - metal flute, wooden flute, wooden recorder, plastic recorder, voice. Both players have been involved in critical UK groups such as Scatter, Nalle and One Ensemble, they release their debut album on Chicago’s Locust Records in late 2007.

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