We’re pleased to announce that This Is Tmrw are welcoming Malcolm Middleton to the Hare & Hounds this December. The Scottish guitarist and songwriter is best known for his work with Aidan Moffat in Scottish rock legends ARAB STRAP, and has since established himself as a solo artist in the indie genre with six albums, releasing music under his own name as well as the alias HUMAN DON’T BE ANGRY. His most recent album, Summer of ’13, included singles such as ‘Steps’, and his forthcoming album ‘BANANAS’ will be released on 28th September on Triassic Tusk Records.

On ‘BANANAS’ Malcolm has teamed up with the acclaimed not-jazz trio JEANSY, JONES & SMILLIE (David Jeans DRUMS, Stevie Jones DOUBLE BASS and Graeme Smillie PIANO) to produce an album that is both scathing and nice. With new songs like “BUZZ LIGHTYEAR HELMET”, “LOVE IS A MOMENTARY LAPSE IN SELF-LOATHING” and “PISS OFF LIFE, JUST KILL ME NOW” (that last one is a joke), Malcolm continues to report back from the depths of the everyday whilst attempting to monetise HELL. Adding a dose of saccharine to the mix, the Samaratinesque choir of Kenny Anderson (KING CREOSOTE), Jenny Reeve (BDY_PRTS) and Dan Wilson (WITHERED HAND) courageously manage to pull Malcolm back from the brink of many a teetering jont just as he’s about to disappear up his own proverbial.

Check out ‘Devil & the Angel’ from his live set here:

Tickets on sale this Friday at 9am here.

We’re pleased to announce that Jigsawmusic will be celebrating 15 years this September, and will be welcoming Manchester legend Luke Unabomber to help with the proceedings.

Luke Unabomber and DJ partner Justin Unabomber founded the Electric Chair club night in Manchester some time after the middle half of the 1990s. The night was, in part, a reaction to the strict house music sound that had dominated Manchester’s clubs since the late 1980s, but had veered off course musically since the spirited days of acid house and was burdened with associations to gang violence.

Electric Chair ripped up the rule book. It wasn’t the first club night to offer an eclectic soundtrack, but alongside Manchester contributors like Mr Scruff, the Fat City connected nights and others, Electric Chair helped establish a fresh, new Manchester club sound that was at the time unique within the UK.

As resident DJs, The Unabombers had their own special way of building a night’s soundtrack with this multi music format. It took in hip hop and other breakbeat music and generally built in tempo to cover funk, soul, disco and house music.

With such a free music policy they were able to invite incredibly varied guest DJs to join them, some known as specialists in reggae or hip hop, others for techno, house or disco. They, in turn, could sometimes offer at Electric Chair a wildly different set from their usual shows, let loose on the furthest reaches of their record collections thanks to the club’s anything (good) goes music policy.

From Electric Chair the duo expanded their portfolio. They took on international DJ dates and founded a clandestine, sporadic and nomadic sister party the Electric Soul events. Luke joined Justin, who had long been associated with music making as a bass player (most notably in New Fast Automatic Daffodils) and later as solo artist Only Child, in the studio.

The fruits of their studio efforts were a series of re-edits on their own label, several well received mix compilations and original music produced under the Elektrons guise, the latter being released by Wall Of Sound (below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASubdpCbGW0

Tickets are on sale now for just £5 and can be picked up here.

Filling the Mercury prize’s notorious jazz slot are Sons of Kemet for Your Queen is a Reptile, their first nomination. “It’s great to know that our music and our ideas will have the chance to resonate with as wide an audience as the Mercury nominations permits,” said Sons of Kemet leader Shabaka Hutchings. “Our aim is to merge the music and ways of perception associated with histories of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora to the developments happening within the London music scene and propel the results outwards to the world as a force for good.”

You can catch Sons Of Kemet at Hare & Hounds this October as part of Leftfoot & THSH Jazzlines’ UK Jazz season. Tickets available here

We’re pleased to announce that Live Nation will be welcoming American all-female indie power-pop band The Aces on Wednesday 14th of November.

Playing shimmering indie pop with an electronic edge, The Aces are an all-female quartet hailing from Provo, Utah. The group was formed in 2008 by singer and guitarist Cristal Ramirez, guitarist Katie Henderson, bass player McKenna Petty, and drummer Alisa Ramirez (Cristal’s sister). The members of the group were longtime friends, and it didn’t take long for them to click as songwriters and musicians. They began performing under the name the Blue Aces, and were soon performing at teen events and school assemblies. As their popularity grew, they made their way into Provo music clubs (aided by the fact that many venues in the area don’t serve alcohol, making them open to teenage bands), and their reputation spread across the state as they issued a seven-song EP in 2012. The online magazine Provo Buzz named them one of the city’s ten best bands, and Paste Magazine included them in their feature ’10 Best Utah Bands You Should Know.’ They shortened their name to the Aces in 2016 and struck a deal with Red Bull Music, which released the single ‘Stuck’ in March of that year. ‘Stuck’ racked up more than two million plays on streaming services, and gave them their first taste of national success. A second Aces single from Red Bull, ‘Physical,’ followed in April 2017. February 2018 saw the release of the single ‘Lovin’ Is Bible’ in anticipation of the arrival of their full-length debut, When My Heart Felt Volcanic, which arrived later that April.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOlVELlP2jk

Tickets go on sale Wednesday 25th of July and can be picked up here.

We bloody did it! After a tense win over Colombia last night, we’re through to the quarter-finals of the World Cup. On Saturday afternoon at 3PM we’ll face Sweden, and as usual we’ll be showing the game on the big screen in the main venue for FREE!

Doors open at 2PM so get down early to reserve a seat. COME ON ENGLAND, BRING IT HOME!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va6nPu-1auE

We’re delighted to announce that we will be welcoming Philadelphian rock band NOTHING to Hare & Hounds on Monday 10th of December!

NOTHING return with their third installment, Dance On The Blacktop. The next chapter of NOTHING’s story pulls from all corners of life in its contents. Stories of self loathing, self destruction, and a general disdain for humanity and its, “insignificant” role in Domenic Palermo’s vision of the universe are met with his poised amusement and tranquil hysteria being one himself. All of this told through the eyes of a recently diagnosed Palermo suggesting he is dealing with the early stages of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), a neurodegenerative disease found in people with serious head injuries. And as they packed themselves in a coffin-sized NYC apartment for 23 days to demo songs it became clear that the ripple effect left upon his psyche from dealing with these newfound symptoms would leave its mark on the material.

NOTHING sought out celebrated producer John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr, Breeders, Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile) to help accentuate the band’s love for all sounds 90s, from rock to shoegaze to pop realms and on both sides of the pond. The next month was spent tracking at the historical Dreamland Studios in Woodstock, NY with newly appointed bassist Aaron Heard. As days moved by, Palermo spewed songs of heightened confusion, anxiety, paranoia, depression, and chronic battles with physical pain- a result of his unstable past and more recent illness. These themes, spoken in a lush angelic language are juxtaposed against the band’s now signature apocalyptic, reverberating wall of shimmering sound, all captured beautifully by Agnello and the open room.

“Zero Day”, the album’s lead single, debuted today via Stereogum who caught up with the band to discuss the making of the album, its themes, concepts and more for their most recent Cover Story. Palermo further explains “Zero Day refers to the amount of difficulty a person faces when attempting to close the door on all sense, meaning, or value when thinking on our existence is hard to put in words, but to me it has always been the latter. I’ve laid awake countless nights contemplating human life, its hostile uselessness, and why I’m one of the few who choose to see it that way yet manage to move onward. So I suppose in that sense Zero Day is a song of paradoxical enlightenment”.

Palermo first discovered Dance On The Blacktop’s title, taken from ancient prison slang meaning a fight or hit during outside recreation, in the works of urban fiction writers Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim. Known for their popularity throughout the prison system, Palermo became acquainted while he was incarcerated, later finding it to be a symbolic interpretation of the album’s philosophy. “I’ve learned to bask in the absurdity of it all- in the chaos,” preaches Palermo. “There’s beauty in the confusion if you can learn to hold its hand.”

The story of NOTHING began in 2010 with a simple demo tape in a Philadelphia apartment. The project, which started as a therapeutic outlet solely for Palermo, snowballed into a polished machine with a chance meeting with guitarist/singer Brandon Setta and the eventual addition of Kyle Kimball on drums. Sharing a musical bond, the trio weaved melancholic tales of imprisonment, broken bonds and lost youth as the centerpiece for their 2014 debut, Guilty Of Everything. The world post Guilty served as the focus for the entirety of 2016’s Tired Of Tomorrow – painting a Schopenhauerian tragedy in vivid color and sound.

While sticking to the sound that has now become their own, you can still hear the band testing their boundaries and creating a plethora of genre-bending, yet widely accessible songs. As a band, NOTHING manage to muster a smile in the face of the illogical, and there is no denying that Dance On The Blacktop is a brave walk into the absurdity.

Dance On The Blacktop will be released on Relapse Records August 24th. There will be a limited run of a 2xLP, deluxe version. The core album will be on LP1, pressed on tri-colored vinyl with an exclusive second 12″ picture disc featuring 4 bonus tracks. The album includes artwork directed by Mark Mccoy (Youth Attack Records, Charles Bronson), Domenic Palermo and shot by Ryan Lowry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJhkZo5OCHE

Tickets are on sale now and can be picked up here.

We’re delighted to announce that we will be welcoming one of house music’s most important founding fathers, Marshall Jefferson, on Friday 31st August!

A key player in the Chicago house scene from the start, Jefferson’s releases like ‘Open Our Eyes’, ‘7 Ways to Jack’ and the immortal ‘Move Your Body’ had an undeniable impact on the development of house music as we know it today. Jefferson’s releases on the iconic TRAX Records helped establish the label as one of Chicago’s best, and he has continued to put out some of the most widely-acclaimed music in house music history.

Over the years, Marshall has had a hand in house music’s evolution, spearheading the acid house movement with his work on the seminal ‘Acid Trax’ with DJ Pierre in 1987. He also turned his hand to deep house, most notably on ‘Open Our Eyes’, released in 1988 on Big Beat, which connected emotionally and physically with listeners.

As well as growing the genre in his hometown, Marshall Jefferson was integral to house music’s growth worldwide. The DJ headline the first House Music Tour of Europe in 1987. After a brief hiatus in the early 1990s, Marshall began his legendary five-year residency with the Tribal Gathering and Big Love Events in London, during which time he released his 1997 studio album Day Of The Onion, which is considered one of the best house full-lengths of all time.

Today, Marshall Jefferson continues to release original productions and extended mixes, alongside his standout DJ shows around the globe. House music truly wouldn’t be the same without him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cuTVGoi9ec&t=136s

Tickets are on sale now from just £12.50, grab yours here.

We’re pleased to announce that The MJR Group will be welcoming Swiss folk-metal three piece Cellar Darling to Hare & Hounds on Sunday 24th March 2019!

Cellar Darling formed in the summer of 2016 out of the split of Switzerland’s most successful metal act to date, the chart-topping Eluveitie. The trio consisting of Anna Murphy (vocals, hurdy-gurdy), Merlin Sutter (drums) and Ivo Henzi (guitars & bass) therefore already looks back on a decade of touring the world, in 45+ countries on 6 continents. The winners of the 2014 Swiss Music Award as ‘best live act’ have experienced much together, forming a bond that can overcome any adversity.

After the split with their former band in June 2016, Anna, Ivo and Merlin quickly realised their musical journey was far from over and instantly began working on their own songs. What quickly developed was a unique and fresh combination of grand and heavy riffs, powerful drumming and a unique voice, with the signature folky, earthy tones of the hurdy gurdy, confidently fusing heavy alternative rock with strong fokly influences and poetic lyrical tales, creating what you may very well call a New Wave Of Folk Rock.

After a summer of intense songwriting sessions, Cellar Darling self-released their first single, ‘Challenge’ along with a bonus track ‘Fire, Wind & Earth’, in September 2016, to overwhelmingly positive reactions from around the world. Signing to Nuclear Blast Records in January 2017 was swiftly followed by 3 subsequent single releases, all met with a staggering support from the ever growing fanbase. Cellar Darling’s debut album ‘This Is The Sound’ was released on June 30th 2017.

Lyrically, Cellar Darling are storytellers. They want to carry you away into their world of music, awaking the spirit of the stories our parents told us before going to sleep, painting pictures with melodies, metaphors and poetry. Melodize the adventures of the human spirit, with all its mysteries and emotions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWMiBj0yDJg

Tickets go on sale Friday 29th July at 10AM and can be picked up here.

We’re pleased to announce that This Is Tmrw & Leftfoot will be welcoming cosmic space funk band Mildlife to Hare & Hounds on Wednesday 12th of September!

Mildlife take the musical canvas, rip the lids off the paint tins, and throw vibrant slashes of colour into kaleidoscopic jams. Old friends, the four-piece bonded over the desire to push musical boundaries, developing tight live shows bolstered by wild improvisation and a debut record that mines jazz, psych and disco for its irresistible groove.

Taking cues from pioneers Can and Herbie Hancock, creating a Mildlife song is a constant process of teasing and tugging, expanding and refining. Occasionally, they start with an individual idea, but most often, they come from moments of spontaneity, jamming together in the studio to find the seed of a strong notion, plucking it out of the session, and nurturing it to see where it grows. Some of those seeds were planted as far back as the beginning of the band, forgotten and rediscovered in the process of defining this album.

But Mildlife are adamantly not a studio band. Between 2014 and 2015 they took a year off playing shows to figure out how they could produce as much of their music live as they possibly could without losing its complexity. “It makes the performance, the composition, more malleable,” says guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Adam Halliwell. Bassist Tom Shanahan adds “It feels more authentic. The energy can be in the song rather than sitting on top of it. We wanted to leave a lot of room for improvisation.”

It’s that energy and excitement for the live show that drives the band. With their background in improvisation, those stories change in the retelling. Bringing the songs alive on stage is a process of transformation, the audience moulding the songs, the songs moulding the audience. Sharing bills with the likes of Krakatau and Harvey Sutherland,these beguiling sets have developed a reputation for drawing crowds through an epic journey. But this isn’t just music for the head -their emphasis on rhythm, led by Shanahan and drummer James Donaldworks its way into the bones, Mildlife casting themselves as the cosmic funk house band for a party at the edge of the universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB5FS6c7218

Tickets are on sale now for just £8 and can be picked up here.

Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) and Hare & Hounds presents SOMEWHERE OVER THE GALAXY by Grandmaster Gareth with Robin Hood Academy, All Saints Youth Group, The Springfield Project and The Ashiana Community Project.

Grandmaster Gareth and his sound explorers have sampled sounds from all corners of the Hall Green District. This performance features members of Misty’s Big Adventure and includes sounds featuring strange strings, homemade instruments, field recordings, local butchers and Pakistani Fairy Tales.

Click here to book tickets.