Crushing Death & Grief

Commemerating 20 years of solid sounds in Cambridge.

Tickets: 3 days £55 // Fri £14 // Sat £26 // Sun £26
All available from here and here

About the acts:

The Breedling
The Breedling takes the resistance, dread, dampness, the grim, of semi-amphibious Fen life to transmogrify digital sheen into raw, primordial grit. Better known as Chris Spalton, the man behind artwork for notable UK characters like Hey Colossus and Part Chimp, The Breedling is a project of the untamed sounds of now, resulting in a fiery collision of The Bug, Godflesh, and Doom II: Hell on Earth.
https://thebreedling.bandcamp.com/

C Joynes
The 21st Century Histon giant, C Joynes is a relentless digester of a globe’s worth of distinct musical traditions who re-assembles those sounds into exquisite new sonic thrills via the medium of some of England’s gnarliest guitars. A regular presence on CD&G bills, 2005 also sees the 20th anniversary of Joynes debut album, 33. Don’t expect some kind of Don’t Look Back style re-run – the Fahey of the Fens will shred for your delight, but only in forward gear.
https://cjoynes.tumblr.com/

Cowtown
Leeds’s 365 party-punks Cowtown have been a reliable source of frenzied hi-viz spudcore for over two decades. Loved by everyone in the know since forever, their overstimulated econo-jams give out 100% positive vibes at breakneck speed, combining taut beats, insistent riffs, and goofball twang. Needlessly fun live, cramming countless good times into 150 second tunes at 150 mph, Cowtown keep it to the point, on point, all the time.
https://cowtown.bandcamp.com/

Edwin R Stevens
Straight outta Llanfairfechan, Edwin Stevens previously inhabited guises including The Web Of Lies and Irma Vep to pose as vessels for his singularly inscrutable songworld creation. In stories that are equal parts profane and profound Stevens reveals a self-deprecating take on the absurdities of humanity.  Dripping with regret, disgust, fascination, and pathos, his metafictional tales of the grubbier side of Britain sneak in via a melodic approach that has pleasing similarities with Cambridge’s own Syd Barrett. Absolutely committed to mixing sincerity with chaos, he’ll make you wince and feel elated all at the same time.
https://edwinrstevens.com/

Immersion
Immersion are Malka Spigel and Colin Newman – best known for their work as part of Minimal Compact and Wire, respectively. The project emerged in the early 1990s and has always prided itself on a diversity in approach and an ability to be both self-contained and a vehicle for collaboration.They remain obsessed with combining musical machines with an unquenchable flame of humanity, creating sounds that are spontaneous and irresistible. 
https://www.immersionhq.uk

Kiran Leonard
This prodigious Mancunian has exuded an array of sui generis tunes over the past decade or so that seem both simultaneously meticulously constructed and intuitively arisen. His is a grandiose vision of how adventurous music that is rooted in DIY rock can be when married with a broad palette of artistic approaches, including graphic scores, aleatory, chamber composition, and an aversion to choruses. All the ambitiously ostentatious pop groups currently making it big right now owe KL everything.
https://kiranleonardhtmlwebsite5555.co.uk/

Mohammad Syfkhan
Kurdish/Syrian singer and bouzouki player Mohammad Syfkhan started playing music with his Al-Rabie Band which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria. Following the outbreak of war in 2011, and the tragic murder of his son by ISIS, Mohammad and family fled to Europe. Now settled in Ireland, he has continued to use his take on the ecstatic musics of the Maghreb to create an atmosphere of joy, love and happiness, one that has seen packed rooms of metalheads transformed into frenzied dance parties, utterly captivated by an irresistible and unique spirit.
https://nyahhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/mohammad-syfkhan-i-am-kurdish

Mother Nature
Informed by Discharge, Killing Joke, Black Flag, and My Bloody Valentine, Leeds punk lifers Mother Nature bring walloping hardcore that lurches queasily and oozes psychedelically.  It’s gonna get ugly, but in a totally head-spinning and cryptic way.
https://mother-nature.bandcamp.com/

Necro Deathmort
Across the 2010s, the prolific duo of AJ Cookson and Matthew Rozeik created a significant and compelling library of heavy electronics, delighting in changing tack repeatedly, making pigeonholing nigh on impossible. Slabs of cosmic misery might meet collapsed dancefloor throbbings, becalmed synths, or vast cinematic possibilities.  Geographical alterations have resulted in their appearances and recordings becoming relative rarities so who knows what superdense sounds may emerge.
https://necrodeathmort.bandcamp.com/

Pete Um
Cambridge’s own poet laureate, clown prince, and digital sage all-in-one. The relentless, hyper-prolific doyen of micro-bangers and nano-anthems, the hoarder of self-aware electronics and defunct technologies, the grist-utilising glum social commentator, Pete Um is the gigantic turtle upon whose back the Cambridge music scene travels through the multiverse. Behold our hero and yours. 
https://peteum.bandcamp.com

Quade
Bristol quartet Quade have created some of the most fascinating explorations of rural Britain, using the medium of oft-maligned term post-rock, that we’ve encountered over the past few years. Their patient, twisting, approach is ambivalent to the standard rock band format, focussing on finding the essence of where the strange beauty of the Welsh landscape collides with man’s creations. Expansive delicate creations pivot to direct emotional cannonballs.
https://quadebanduk.bandcamp.com/

Rattle
Rattle is an exploration into subtle rhythmic fluctuations, tonal space, and minimal melodics. Their setup of two singing drummers seems unlikely, but Katharine Eira Brown and Theresa Wrigley use the limitations of their arrangement to create pieces of intertwined, flowing, textural percussion and threading sublime melodies through the gaps. Their elongated pieces conjure up images of trance-based ceremonies and elemental practices powered by compulsive movement. Embrace it, and get rapture-ready with Rattle!
https://upsettherhythm.co.uk/rattle.shtml

Shake Chain
Blurring the lines between performance art and art rock, Shake Chain toy with and befuddle the audience, tumbling into the crowd in ways that upend expectations and induce unease. Absurdist, atonal, and feral skewerings of the interests of the mediocore and pretentious are driven home by a musical battering ram. Unhinged cathartic thrills suitable for the terminally paradoxical.
https://upsettherhythm.co.uk/shakechain.shtml

Sly & The Family Drone
DIY noise wrecking crew Sly & The Family Drone have spent over a decade rejecting stages, exclusivity, and their own personal safety to create epiphinal noise experiences. Sly break down music to its base elements and reconstruct as cathartic rituals of amplifier worship, communing with the audience-as-congregation by everyone getting right up in there, into the heart of the chaos. They come to bludgeon you with cacophonic joy and camaraderie, oscillating your body and modulating your mind into triumphant submission.
https://www.familydronenoise.life/

The Horse
Wry but mournful slow-folk behemoth relocated from the Fens to the Thames. Taking a starting point of Bill Callaghan and then rolling with it towards a second hand Kranky collection this youthful crew are turning it down to drag you under. 
https://thehorseuk.bandcamp.com

Visit Me
Wandering organ, lurching loops, and processed buzzing vocals. Devotional hauntology drifting between Cambridge and Cornwall. Most interesting recent addition to the Cambridge musical milieu? We reckon so…
https://visitme.bandcamp.com/