Ancienne Belgique

Exquisite triple bill with performers linked to the hot Brooklyn label Olde English Spelling B run by Todd Ledford. Many of the Olde English… releases are tagged ‘hypnagogic pop’. Le...

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Exquisite triple bill with performers linked to the hot Brooklyn label Olde English Spelling B run by Todd Ledford. Many of the Olde English… releases are tagged ‘hypnagogic pop’. Ledford on that: “indeed, a lot of experimental artists started embracing this 80's pop aesthetic and incorporating it into their work”. That is not only the case for label owners like James Ferraro, Stellar Om Source, Autre Ne Veut and Rangers but also for Ducktails, Julian Lynch and Big Troubles. Before, between and after: The turntables will be manned by the gents from Ghent's KRAAK.

8:00 pm - Big Troubles (us)
New Jersey's Big Troubles recently debuted with ‘Worry’, a song that immediately threw us back to the early nineties at the time of ‘Loveless’ by My Bloody Valentine. Just call it noisy shoegaze, even though Big Troubles pays more attention to mainstream songs. Leading mag Boomkat about that: “There's an overwhelmingly fizzy, treble-some recording style here which imbues the whole thing with a hazy, nostalgic quality that reminds us of everything from My Bloody Valentine to The Jesus and Mary Chain to Dinosaur Jr at their very peak - making for one of the standout lo-fi pop record of the year bar none.”

9:00 pm - Julian Lynch (us)
Another New Jersey resident, Julian Lynch debuted with his (first non-CDR) album ‘Orange You Glad’ on Olde English..., an album full of ‘folky collage pop’. His latest album ‘Mare’ immediately received an exceptional 8.5 score from the prominent Pitchfork mag. Just call it the ‘Best New Music’ category in which other fine folk like Nicolas Jaar or PJ Harvey have housed over the past months (rightly so too). You can hear echoes of drones, noise, and African percussion aside traditional pop and rock on ‘Mare’ but most especially a strong dose of country and folk. The latter is unsurprising though, as Lynch once worked for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and also studies music-ethnology.

10:00 pm - Ducktails (us)
Ducktails is the psychedelic one-man (pop) project of guitarist Matthew Mondanile (see too: Real Estate). His latest album ‘Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics’ immediately became album of the week in the London's Rough Trade shop and was also labelled with the term hypnagogic pop. This New Jersey resident opts for the lo-fi approach too, interlaced with a dash of folk, country and surf-pop.

BIG TROUBLES "BITE YR TONGUE" from OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE on Vimeo.