Pop Mutations presents:
YHWH Nailgun
+ Special Guests
Sunday 26th October
The Flying Duck
18+

The quartet of Zack Borzone (vox), Jack Tobias (synth), Sam Pickard (drums), and Saguiv Rosenstock (guitar) display an innate ability to translate a primitive spirit into a modern form. Born during the lockdown as an experimental project between Borzone and Pickard in Philadelphia, the group expanded as the two moved to New York, adding Tobias for their debut self-titled EP, which was produced by Rosenstock, who was then integrated into the band. That first collection is one of self-discovery, of finding the tools necessary to make songs within the band’s own ecosystem. They honed in on their own world and their collaborative, close-knit writing process, discovering the essential structures and feelings that make YHWH Nailgun

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
No Joy
+ Special Guests
Monday 20th October
The Glad Cafe
18+

Since first arriving on the scene in 2009 with blistering inversions of shoegaze, Montreal’s No Joy has always found formidable ways to reinvent itself. Now solely composed of musician Jasamine White-Gluz, No Joy has evolved over four studio albums and five EPs, defying expectation and genre, and cementing itself as something rare: a band without a category.

Over the years, No Joy has conjured an effortless mix of sound, achieving new heights in the more traditional confines of the shoegaze genre, while veering into heavy metal and even EDM. On the band’s most recent & acclaimed LP Motherhood (2020), we saw No Joy at a fearless crossroads, pulling from every corner the band had mastered before while rocketing itself into another level; a staggering, melancholic tapestry of fuzzy, 90s/early 2000s nu metal and trip hop, faithful shoegaze, and bold lyricism with blunt meditations on femininity, fertility and mortality all while maintaining a sense of humor.

Following the two recent sister releases, No Joy was invited to perform at festivals like Levitation (with Boy Harsher & Drab Majesty), Desert Daze, and notably to acclaimed performing arts festival FME in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, where White-Gluz presented the full string arrangements live. No Joy also headlined in the US/Canada and supported artists like DIIV, Nothing, and Preoccupations.

No Joy’s forthcoming 2025 album, Bugland, brought in collaborator Fire-Toolz as a co-producer.  Touching on respected, familiar genres and sounds while attempting to advance one’s own isn’t easy, but Bugland manages to. What genre is it anyway?  Is it even shoegaze when it could live happily on a shelf next to Boards of Canada and Autechre? The right answer is ‘yes’. What a lovely shelf ‘twould be as well.  A marble shelf, with cyberpunk elements. Bugland‘s a testament to White-Gluz’s evolution and her ability to channel a wide variety of tastes into something cohesive that can descend into fine-tuned chaos, then out of that chaos with ease.

Pop Mutations presents:
3L3D3P
+ Tamanaramen
Monday 20th October
The Flying Duck
18+

LA Native 3L3D3P is a swim in the ocean with an anchor chained to your foot - a barrage of sound clashing its way to the surface in a slick, chaotic fashion.
Now a key member of the Vada Vada collective alongside The Garden, Cowgirl Clue, and more, 3L3D3P has built her reputation with a steady stream of singles and hyper-chaotic, batshit live performances. Fresh off a world tour with stops in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, London, and NY, she capped it off in LA by opening for The Garden to a sold-out Shrine Auditorium.
With her long-awaited debut album dropping later this year, the rollout is already underway, kicking off with its first single, ‘>>> (FWD)’. 3L3D3P is continuing to push the new punk-electronic movement to new heights, proving she’s not just a part of the scene, she’s shaping it.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Ryder The Eagle
+ Roy Molloy
Tuesday 14th October
The Glad Cafe
18+

DIY hero, fallen Romeo, karaoke weirdo — the Mexico-based French balladeer is everything (and nothing) you might expect from an art-rock divorcé chasing dreams at your local dive bar.
With lo-fi synthy soundscapes, lyrical melodies, poetic songwriting, and cathartic one-of-a-kind performances, Ryder The Eagle tells his history with love more than his love stories - coating romantic despair with a chiseled wit that’ll transport you straight into a Kaurismäki movie soundtracked by a caffeine-driven Leonard Cohen.

Pop Mutations & Night School present:

Molly Nilsson 

+ Lady Neptune

Monday 13th October

Beech Avenue Social Club

18+

Molly Nilsson is a Swedish born artist, producer and songwriter residing in Berlin since 2005. Nilsson first started composing in 2007 and made her first live performances in Europe around the same time. In 2008 Nilsson self-released her first album, These Things Take Time, on CD-R. In 2009 she founded her own label Dark Skies Association with which she would continue to publish her work together with UK based record label Night School Records. Nilsson is known for her productive pace in releases, averaging on one album a year, as well as publishing self directed music videos.
Molly Nilsson has performed more than 500 live shows, mainly headlining, in Europe, North America, South America, Oceania and Asia. Her 2015 release Zenith was followed by a sold out European tour and received critical acclaim in independent media and has been re-pressed 3 times. It was nominated to the Manifest Music Awards 2016 for Best Pop Album. In 2016 she performed at the
20 000 capacity festival Field Day Festival in London. Her song “I Hope You Die” has as of today 7.1 million views on YouTube. Her music has been featured in various films, TV series, fashion and skate videos, is frequently played on international radio stations such as BBC, NPR and KCRW, as well as national radio in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and France. 2018 Molly Nilsson supported American band MGMT on their sold out European tour as well as their parts of their US tour.
Her latest album Extreme was released in January 2022 was followed by headlining tours of Europe and US. The album made number 10 on Fader’s list of Best Albums of the year. The single Pompeii was named Best New Music by NPR. 2022 she was awarded a songwriting award from Swedish composers and lyricist organization. In 2024 she was granted the Villa Aurora residency stipend in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles where she recorded the conceptual album Un-American Activities. She is currently working on her 12th full length album.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Dharmacide
+ Special Guests
Friday 10th October
The Flying Duck
18+

Dharmacide are known for their eclectic fusion of genres,
combining elements of shoegaze and dreampop. Their sound
is characterized by intricate guitar riffs, powerful drums,
and deep, soulful vocals that create a unique atmosphere.
The band has grown since its inception, and some of its members
are also part of other projects, such as Depresión Sonora,
Alcalá Norte, TourJets, and San Marino.

Their latest singles have been produced, mixed, and mastered
by Mark Gardener of Ride.

To date, they have appeared on the lineups of BBK LIVE,
Primavera Sound, Eurosonic ESNS, The New Colossus Festival,
Vida Festival, Tomavistas, and Monkey Week, among others.
In addition to opening for international bands such as Tess Parks,
Bodega, and Just Mustard on their visits to Madrid.

Pop Mutations & The Glad Cafe presents:

Milan W.

plus Tristanne

Wednesday 8th October

The Glad Cafe

18+ show

In the cobbled streets of Antwerp, where shadows play and the wind whistles through ancient walls, Milan W. (aka Milan Warmoeskerken) has become a cornerstone of the Flemish experimental scene. Whether as a member of semi-cult bands like Flying Horseman and Condor Gruppe, as an electronic composer on the late Ekster and JJ Funhouse labels, making synthpop with Mittland och Leo, and wading through playful Schlager with Gerard Herman.

Under the Milan W. moniker, he crafts music that is intimate yet expansive. Traditionally electronic-oriented, his latest work meanders through guitars, saxophones, and heartbroken crooning. Milan W. is a testament to an artist who ceaselessly ventures beyond the horizon, pushing musical boundaries with a wink, a nod, and the quiet laughter of the uncharted.

Under her stage name Tristanne (formerly known as Tristan), Isolde Van den Bulcke makes

music she defines as sitting in a ‘grey zone’. By valorizing self-reliance and learning as much as possible from the get-go, the musician and producer hasn’t let hardship nor pursuing a niche genre hold her back. She studied jazz vocals for 8 years, released 2 ep's before her debut album 'Wellif' in 2022.

‘Sexy Tears’ is a bold departure from Tristanne’s critically acclaimed pop-jazz debut ‘Wellif and let you veer into uncharted territory, from the first tone the bittersweet and hauntingly violin tones fade in on opener ‘Steady Mouth’. In a split second Tristanne let you vanish in a dazzling matrix deep down a rabbit hole A place where Piero Umiliani’s 70’s sleazy giallo era sensually resonates with Oneothrix Point Never goldwave frequencies.

With a whisper of panting tension, her soothing voice and sonic subliminal temptation she

unravels her own lush love secret domain, unlocking deeply hidden lost emotions and mutated feelings.

While mellifluous harp chords in ‘If Only’ set a scene for a tantalizing new world utopia the

percussive clutter of ‘Whordus’ syncopes and mutate this future dream with a chiastic slide into a videodrome for a jilted generation.

With the help from her musician friends Elisabeth Klinck (violin), Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė

(kanklès), Kaat Vanstralen (flute) and Gert Malfliet (drums) Tristanne’s ‘Sexy Tears’ will hit

you straight in the heart, like a modern-day Cupido with a well aimed dazzling sonic arrow. Ready to stay there forever.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:

British Birds

+ Special Guests

Wednesday 1st October

The Glad Cafe

18+

The apocalypse is coming and British Birds, hatched via tape loops and cheap nylon stringed guitars, are providing the soundtrack. But not in the wretched way you might think. No- disco bass, thumping drums and earwormy vintage synth bolster frontman Bobby’s staunch, stylistic guitar and theatric, cathartic lyricism- the sort of soundscape that’ll get you out of any end-of-world scenario alive and hopping.

It’s in the dreary, normally drizzly, market town of Chorley this four-piece meticulously crafts their psychedelic racket, all from within the soundproofed walls of their makeshift art-house-apocalypse-bunker. From the outside, it's an inconspicuous canal-side garage but inside is a nucleus; all wonky and botched up.

British Birds were formed in 2023 after the closure of frontman Bobby Mambo’s DIY venue Brock n Broll HQ which hosted acts such as Burger Records’ Boytoy of New York, Salt Lake City’s Max Pain & The Groovies, Castrovalva of Leeds, Manchester-based Fruit Tones, and Hannes Ferm from Stockholm. Bobby proceeded to piece together his new space with screen printing facilities and a recording studio which is largely built around his love of analogue equipment. This place provided the anvil and hammer to British Birds’ debut LP In Search of Mr Rykyn, a self-reflective, self-made, self-released record, released in February 2024, full of swirling melody, nostalgic sensibility and unshakable melancholy.

Since then, the four-piece band made up of frontman Bobby Mambo, bassist Ellie Winstanley, keyboard player Emma Townson and drummer Mike Ainsley, have hit up and packed out major venues including London’s Islington Assembly Hall, Junction 1 in Cambridge, Cluny in Newcastle and The Crescent in York, during tour support slots for the likes of DIY legends The Lovely Eggs, garage rockers The Bug Club and prolific shoegazers Pale Blue Eyes.

British Birds have since released a high-energy and off-kilter six track EP, Sucking Funny, which serves as a demonstration of their noisy, wild, mad-cowbell infused live performances.

Both their releases, along their their multitude of standalone singles, have gained them kudos and airtime globally, most notably three coveted live sessions on BBC 6 Music’s Riley & Coe show, spots on Emily Pilbeans monthly BBC Introducing Mixtape, and plays across the water on world famous stations such as KEXP and WFMU. Louder Than War’s Nathan Whittle gave the album a ⅘ star review, and William Wolstenholme from BBC Introducing Lancashire, who selected “My Bar” to showcase the band on his BBC Radio 2 live show with Jo Whiley.

A bountiful 2025 lies ahead for British Birds, with their first twelve-date headline tour to look forward to in Autumn, to celebrate the release of their second album Silence Daedalus, self-made and self-released as ever, and out on the 15th June 2025. 500 vinyl copies will be available via bandcamp and in select record stores across the UK. 

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
GEE TEE
+ 1-800 MIKEY

+ Fruit Tones
Wednesday 1st October
The Flying Duck
18+

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:

Modern Nature

+ Special Guests

Monday 29th September

The Old Hairdresser's

18+

When Modern Nature toured their last album, 2023’s

No Fixed Point In Space

, it became apparent to Jack Cooper

–

the band’s main creative force

–

that they were already pulling away from the free, open

-

ended approach they

had spent five years working

towards; almost as if the music had become so abstract and elasticated, it now had

to snap back towards something more structured. As they found themselves naturally locking into more fixed

grooves, he realised a new direction had been set. Their new album

–

The Heat Warps

–

is the triumphant

manifestation of where that new direction took them.

In the aftermath, Cooper’s songwriting, which had become increasingly impressionistic, found a new focus and

the idea of making an album that followed a similar pat

h to the last two increasingly seemed obtuse. The purpose

was to forge a radical change. The core trio of him, Jim Wallis (drums) and Jeff Tobias (bass guitar) were

augmented by a new guitarist

–

Tara Cunningham.

Modern Nature’s recent records have refle

cted an insular life. Cooper had moved out to the countryside in 2021

and had, in his words, been “hibernating” while he started a family. He felt this new band was a symbol for his

reawakening and the perfect vessel for him to continue to explore themes t

hat he’s sung about with Modern

Nature

–

collectivism, our relationship with the natural world, the weight of consciousness

–

but with more

directness and purpose. The key was the new dual guitar sound.

“I’ve always been drawn to bands where two guitarist

s work as a unit to move around and colour the rhythm

section,” explains Cooper. “I’d been listening to the demos Television did with Brian Eno in the day and then that

night I played with Tara for the first time at an improvised music show. We have a very

similar approach to the

guitar and that extends to the way we sing, so it gives the music an interesting balance.

“What we do is mirrored; a symmetry on either side of what Jim and Jeff are doing in the rhythm section. We’ve

played with lots of amazing m

usicians who continue to orbit around what we do, but Tara joining the band felt

like finding the other side to the square. Previous records have been performed by upwards of fifteen people but it

was apparent the four of us could achieve something more po

werful and more direct.”

In the time Modern Nature has been a band, the world has undoubtedly changed. The words Cooper had been

writing previously were somewhat ambiguous but it had started to feel like he was sitting on the fence and that

was something

he needed to address.

“Every day we’re confronted with a confusing and scary world,” he says. “Making music and creating things can

feel flippant or unnecessary, but my own world view was defined and influenced by art and artists who weren’t

afraid to hig

hlight and offer solutions: Public Enemy, The Smiths or a wider American counterculture.”

“The community we’ve built our life around

–

artists, musicians and the people who gravitate to these things as

way of communicating

–

are struggling to reconcile ho

w they fit into an increasingly cruel world. This album, the

themes and the lyrics are directed towards them because I think there are still reasons to be optimistic. There are

amazing things happening all around us and it’s up to communities like ours to

double down on the things we

believe in. It feels as if being part of a group like Modern Nature and making an album that’s open, optimistic and

ambitious is in itself part of the solution.”

As the new band started to play together more, the energy, excit

ement and telepathy between them gained

momentum and it became clear they needed to make a record that captured that. They locked into a process

where they booked a couple of shows, directly followed by four days in the studio (the all

-

analogue Gizzard

Rec

ording in east London). They’d spend two weeks living in each other’s pockets

–

a very condensed rush of

creativity.

“It’s rare to hear a recording of a band playing in a room together,” adds Cooper. “And that interaction, the

discrepancies in timing, syn

ergy, in pitch, that’s where the magic really is, I think, and that’s what we wanted to

capture.”

Modern Nature - bio.docx

One additional (and slightly unlikely) influence on the record was Andrew Weatherall. Before he passed away,

he’d played Modern Nature on his NTS show and Co

oper was thrilled that he liked them. He made it an aim to

make a record Weatherall might have played to his friends late at night. His motto “Fail we may, sail we must” is

what the Can

-

esque track

Pharaoh

is about.

“It’s difficult to stay aware of the w

orld around you without becoming despondent,” says Cooper. “

Pharoah

makes

the case for finding a personal philosophy and trying to live a life that might inspire others or at the very least not

hurt them.”

Elsewhere,

Radio

touches on the contempt capitali

sm has for the natural world. The line “there’s a fire all around”

offers a kind of gallows humour. Cooper adds that recently they played the songs on a day that the news was

showing footage of the Los Angeles fires. It occurred to him that it was perhaps

an insensitive subject to be

singing about but there again

–

in his words

–

he feels it’s “important not to turn away from these things.” The

same desire not to shy away might also be attributed to

Source,

which touches on the recent riots in the UK

direct

ed towards asylum seekers, inspired by misinformation spread online.

For all this wrestling with the grimmer realities of 2025,

The Heat Warps

is ultimately not a record entirely

consumed by anxieties. Its frequently beautiful sounds offer consolation and

a wide

-

eyed optimism amid all the

upheaval. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the transcendent album closer,

Totality

. As Cooper explains: “It

was fascinating spending time in America as the country geared up for the 2024 solar eclipse. The news stati

ons

covered the event in the same way they’d cover a big football game or the Oscars. Everywhere I went, people

were talking about the eclipse and for a few days it really seemed to capture the public’s imagination.

“My friend’s dad had organised a huge

party and had obviously done his homework. When he was running us

through his preparation and how the day was going to go down, he said, ‘We’re hoping for totality,’ and it blew

my mind.

“The day of the eclipse I was driving through New Mexico and we stop

ped by the side of the road with hundreds of

other people gazing up to the heavens. It felt exciting to be part of something that clearly resonated with people

on such a profound level. It’s a fitting album closer and somewhere in there is a philosophy; a

romantic nihilism.”

And at its heart, right there is the core of Modern Nature’s appeal. Never more so than on this new record.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
The Wants
+ Special Guests
Saturday 27th September
The Flying Duck
18+

An adversarial network of ideas, The Wants welcome the possibility that embracing friction can give rise to something cathartic and unexpected. Formed by Madison Velding-VanDam and Jason Gates in 2017, and with the addition of Yasmeen Night in 2021, The Wants’ sound is defined by the push and pull of its members’ processes: floating rhythms upheaving grounded songwriting, pulsing synths overwhelming live instrumentation. Their new record, Bastard, is an evolution of many of the seeds planted in their debut record, Container (2020), with a refined sense of acerbic emotional urgency and sonic experimentation.

Pop Mutations presents:
Sean Nicholas Savage
+ Special Guests
Thursday 18th September
The Flying Duck
18+

Cult songwriter Sean Nicholas Savage is known for a tremendous output of heartbreaking
ballads of an amateur or naive expression. Each new record is an adventure in sensitivity and nuance.

His music is about more than just tunes — it’s about exploring deep emotions and big ideas. As The Fader put it, he’s “a singer-songwriter, madcap philosopher, and all-around scene-pillar.” His work connects with listeners on both a heart and mind level.

Sean Nicholas Savage has been with Arbutus Records since 2009, where he’s become a key figure in the label’s bold, experimental approach to music. Playing Neil Young’s song with Mac DeMarco on stage in Paris, live show barefoot at Primavera, or a concert at CTM Festival – Sean remains the artist with an open heart that always stays true to his listeners.
Recent years have seen Savage writing and performing musicals, and releasing more stripped down recordings with a cinematic influence. Savage’s live shows are minimalist and captivating, due to a raw space created, and paired with hyper intimate and driven performances of his larger than life classical songbook.

Sean Nicholas Savage is coming back to Europe presenting his new album in Summer – Fall 2025.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Tall Juan
+ Special Guests
Sunday 14th September
The Old Hairdresser's
18+

In San Antonio de Padua, Buenos Aires, Argentina, a six-year-old boy picks up an electric guitar for the first time. He feels the sharp steel strings and smells the wood while playing his first chords. This moment sparks a lifelong passion for music.
Raised in an inner-city environment, his childhood was half on the streets and half playing music with friends. At an early age he started experimenting with drugs and also playing in local bands. Soon, drugs became a problem and he started feeling a lack of motivation and self esteem. He eventually leaves his hometown for New York City at the suggestion of his sister, in an intent to save him from a deep depression.
In Rockaway Beach, Queens, Juan Zaballa becomes Tall Juan and begins his music career with the support of his New York friends, releasing albums that reflect his personal growth and experiences. His first album, 'Olden Goldies', reflects his English language learning journey and pays homage to his early punk music influences, showcasing his simplistic yet powerful songwriting while 'Atlantico' reconnects him with South American rhythms, displaying his musical growth.  
His latest release, 'Raccoon Nights', showcases his evolution as a musician and producer, exploring psychedelic-pop with a blend of synthesizers and new wave overtones. Throughout his music, Tall Juan expresses his emotions and experiences, evolving his sound while maintaining his authentic voice inviting a diverse group of collaborators to join him on his journey.

Pop Mutations presents:
Aya Gloomy
+ Mahne Frame
+ Pearling
+ VLURE (DJ set)
Sunday 14th September
The Glad Cafe
18+

Self-produced and from Shinagawa, Tokyo, Aya Gloomy, has been conspicuously world-building in the Eastern hemisphere since 2018. Her wildly hooky pop melodies and distinctive fashion proclivities have garnered attention throughout Japan and beyond. She has performed alongside Mykki Blanco, Yves Tumor, and Kedr Livanskiy in Asia and Australia. Aya’s debut album was released on Japanese tastemaker label, Big Love. Since then she has self-released 2 LPs, Tokyo Hakai (“Destruction”) and Riku No Kotōu. Her most recent singles are on Australian imprint 21 N FUN, a label run by Aya’s perennial collaborator, artist Mahne Frame.
Aya was on the cover of IN Magazine in 2020 and has been featured in Vogue, i-D, and Sabukaru Magazine. In 2021, she guest starred in several episodes of Kiko Mizuhara’s Amazon series, Kiko Kikaku. She is also the subject of Francesca Allen’s sold out photography book entitled “Aya”. Aya also operates a trailblazing vintage shop, Pompom Shop, which has a cult following both online and in pop-ups.
Her new EP “u are the moonlight” is out on 21 N Fun August 2025.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Daddy Long Legs
+ Special Guests
Wednesday 10th September
Stereo
18+

DADDY LONG LEGS, New York City’s most diabolical Rhythm & Blues street gang,
release their eagerly anticipated fourth studio album Street Sermons on March 17 on
Yep Roc Records. The album is a testament to triumph over adversity. Written &
recorded in the height of the pandemic against a backdrop of political tension , riots
in the streets and an uncertain future. In dark times DLL shine their light- Street
Sermons is an album of the times, for the times by a band of the people. 
DLL fled the madness of the city to record Street Sermons at Old Soul Studios in
Catskill, NY with Oakley Munson (Black Lips/Nude Party) producing. Cutting 12 killer
tracks , the trio morphed into a quartet with Oakley stepping in on keyboards and
piano. The LP also features guest appearances from John Sebastian (Lovin’
Spoonful) and Wreckless Eric of “Whole Wide World” fame. 
The album kicks off with Street Sermons, a statement of intent. Lead howler & harp
blower Brian Hurd beseeches his troubled urban congregation to “ Work with one
another/ Not against each other”. On this track DLL evolve into a Brooklyn chain
gang that sounds like it’s emanating through the cracks of a hot & sticky Bedford
Avenue.
“Nightmare” was released as a teaser single in late September last year. During the
depths of the pandemic lockdown Brian experienced a terrifying dream and awoke in
a cold sweat. To exorcise the terror he immediately scribbled down his memories of
the dream that then became “Nightmare” – Kinda a horror version of Yesterday!
A scream worthy rocker about dealing with a world gone wrong…. “We’re livin’ a
nightmare and this world is condemned; I’ll see you if this nightmare ever ends”
shouts frontman Brian.
“Harmonica Razor” is a dangerous R & B instrumental throwdown which shows off
Hurds prowess on the harp. It’s easy to see why Hurd has just won a coveted &
justly deserved endorsement from Honer Harmonicas. “Star” proves the band can
cool things down and deliver a country blues ballad of the highest order when the
time calls for it
Over the last decade these fine gentlemen have burned down dance halls the world
over with their explosive fire ceremony and have amassed a cult like following all
their own with an unbeatable reputation for being one of the finest  live acts on the
road today. The boys recently returned from their first tours in Australia and New
Zealand where they unveiled their new killer 4 piece format with Dave Klein on Piano
who joins the original lineup of Hurd, Aktürk & Styles. 
Their previous album Lowdown Ways (Yep Roc 2019) reached number 4 on the
billboard blues charts and received 4 stars from rolling stone magazine who called it
“Chicago blues fired at the moon played by the demented children of the pretty
things” and you we can certainly expect good things to come from Street Sermons. 
Their earlier output heralded two classic albums “Evil Eye On You and “Blood From
A Stone” on the legendary mom & pop label Norton Records founded by NYC record
boss Billy Miller and his wife Miriam Linna who was a founding member of The
Cramps.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band
+ Special Guests
Saturday 6th September
The Flying Duck
18+

At the frayed bottom-edge of Indiana – just a moderate bike ride north of Louisville, Kentucky – multi-instrumentalist, artist and songwriter Ryan Davis’ Americana-noir soundwaves have been emanating for years in a myriad of forms. But not until late-2023's rich and glowing double-disc Dancing On The Edge, the debut breakout release as Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, was his creative presence so widely acknowledged by press, fellow contemporaries and fans alike, commonly deeming the record an instant classic of idiosyncratic American songwriting greatness. Spring 2025's UK/Ireland tour gave Ryan and band the platform to affirm speculation with a series of intensely passionate shows –– founder/author of UNCUT Allan Jones citing the band's Kilkenny Roots Festival show as 'intense, amazing, an emotional exorcism with lyrics unfolding like a fever dream'.

May 7 this year saw the announcement of their second album New Threats From The Soul and with it the release of a titular single that was immediately pinned as 'Best New Track' by Pitchfork, Jeremy Larson stating '[the song] feels like a dam break, a flood of sublime, witty, and dryly devastating lyrics that count among some of the best I've heard this decade'. As Ryan's fellow Louisville contemporary Nathan Salsburg muses – the new album reckons mightily with the perplexities of human efficacy and agency in an absurd and debased world. This probably sounds hopelessly plodding and severe. It is not—not remotely. It’s a shit-ton of fun. The songs are all earwigs; the arrangements genuinely thrilling, enlivening efforts by the crackerjacks that comprise the sprawling Roadhouse Band. Each trip through the record reveals more of the depth and breadth and tangle of its tapestry. New Threats From The Soul is a masterclass in reducing the sublime to the prosaic, immensity to infinitesimally, and vice versa [the trick can only work both ways].

With the new full-length slotted for July 25th via Tough Love [UK/EU] and Sophomore Lounge [USA] backed by main stage appearances at UK's End of the Road and Moseley Folk & Arts Festival, more support shows with MJ Lenderman and a staggering 30-something date UK/EU tour this August and September, this dense sharing of Davis' canon is set to further connect a worldwide audience at rapid pace, his lyrical craftsmanship arresting listeners with its playful sincerity and surrealistic view of a broken planet backed by a group of skilled players that are as musically woven into the cloth of the songs as the writer himself is their words.

Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band: You will not soon forget this name.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Gulp
+ Special Guests
Friday 5th September
The Glad Cafe
18+

Gulp are Guto Pryce and Lindsey Leven. They are joined by Gid Goundrey
on guitar, Stu Kidd on drums and Chris Geddes on keyboards to enrich a
sound which has been described as a musical manifestation of the road trip;
the landscape and events along the way - from the sun-squinting, flickering
saturation and lens flare of the Californian desert to the gloamin of rural
Welsh and Scottish homescapes. Expect fuzzed-up guitars, dream-pop
vocals, acoustic and electronic drums and synths.
 
Guto is a founding member and bass player in Super Furry Animals.
He’s been seen playing with Sonic Boom’s Spectrum and more
recently Das Koolies and The Pictish Trail. Lindsey creates mixed media
prints that often accompany the music she has created with the band.

Gulp's debut LP Season Sun was released in July 2014 on Sonic Cathedral
(Europe) and Everloving Records (US). Gulp were last spotted on stage in
2017, before releasing their second album All Good Wishes in May 2018.
2025 marks an exciting return for the band, with a new album Beneath
Strawberry Moons due for release in August 2025.
 
"a thing of eyeball popping beauty that deserves to have psychotropic palm
leaves wafted at its feet (and then, ideally, eaten)"
Artrocker 5 stars *****
 
"(Game Love's) spooked demeanour suggests The Wicker Man getting fresh
with Nancy Sinatra. That's Gulp: easy to swallow, hard to forget" Guardian
Guide Pick of the Week

"It's an amalgam of 21st-century electronic squiggles and vintage airy psych-
folk, as contemporary as video games and as old as the hills"
Spin.com

Pop Mutations presents:
Hayden Pedigo
+ Special Guests
Thursday 4th September
Mono
18+

FADE IN:
EXT. SPARSE LANDSCAPE – DAY
A topography difficult to imagine in more than two dimensions; ocher
and cerulean in a 50/50 horizontal split.
A kaleidoscopic son of cowboy country — no trendy pretender, but
truly sprung from the sky and soil of the Texas panhandle — steps
into frame, wearing chain mail or a pinstripe suit or at least ten
gallons of hat. HAYDEN PEDIGO narrows his eyes, furrows his brow and
flexes the fingers and pick-ringed thumb of his right hand, before
grabbing for the grip of a dueling pistol which is actually a water
pistol, a balloon sword, or an inflatable guitar.

*

So run the reels of The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored, Pedigo’s sixth studio album (and second
for Mexican Summer) in the cinema of your ear; its script written in steel-string, its starring
director a 28-year-old performance artist, politician, model, and fingerstyling maestro whose
talent is as irrepressible as it is undeniable.
Pedigo has lived many lives, having been homeschooled in Amarillo, Texas by his truck-stop
preacher father; run for Amarillo City Council in 2019, aged 25—as documented by Jasmine
Stodel’s SXSW-premiering, PBS-acquired film Kid Candidate—and struck up pen-friendships
and collaborative partnerships with the likes of Terry Allen, Charles Hayward (This Heat),
Werner “Zappi” Diermaier (Faust), and Tim Heidecker. A move south from Amarillo to Lubbock
in 2020 put a spark to the powder keg of his creativity. “It’s even more flat, desolate, windy and
dirty – like being on Mars,” Pedigo observes. “It’s pushed me to create more because there’s
not really much to distract.” The move produced not only The Happiest Times and its
predecessor Letting Go, but also an Internet presence that showcases a panoply of ever-more
outlandish outfits and an effortless deadpan wit. Both the former and the latter helped parlay
him into the fashion world, too, having walked the runway for Gucci and been photographed by
Hedi Slimane.
Inspired by the tragicomedic legacy of National Lampoon co-founder Doug Kenney (in whose
notes the line ‘These last few days are amongst the happiest I’ve ever ignored’ was found
following his mysterious and untimely death), Pedigo embarked upon The Happiest Times with
a no-shit aim: to create “the best instrumental acoustic guitar album of the past twenty years.”
Though canonical works of comedy and music show their influence—the mournful beauty of
Nick Drake, the puckish abandon of John Fahey—Pedigo by no means places their creators on

pedestals; if anything pulling them from their plinths, smashing the alabasters, pocketing some
pieces, gluing others back together upside down, or leaving them floating free.
How might Fahey have played in a Midwest emo band? Pedigo posits on “Nearer, Nearer,”
while the specters of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn float somewhere above “Signal of Hope”
– “the most British-sounding thing I’ve ever written;” an echo in an empty church. Pedigo flits
through the cycle of songs, coiling and uncoiling like the mechanism of a clockwork bird on
“When It’s Clear;” rambling, a tiny speck in the landscape, on “Elsewhere.” “Then It’s Gone”
stands as stark as a leafless tree, guitar spilling a somber tale in its truest voice – and nowhere
more than on the title track is Pedigo’s playing more affecting: regret and optimism balanced
on intimate, intricate arrangement, as carefully poised as raindrops on guitar strings.
Citing a “rigid relationship with guitar” in which he has only slices of time to adequately express
himself (“I have a five minute window to do something meaningful, and if it doesn’t come within
five minutes, then it goes back in the case”), Pedigo wrote each song separately, start to finish,
one by one. When an album’s worth of songs had been written, he undertook an intense
regime of rehearsal, playing and replaying The Happiest Times on a loop, testing his technical
ability, always striving for tighter, purer and more concise iterations.
In June 2022, Pedigo transported the limbered-up record to Pulp Arts in Gainesville, Florida,
where the relentless practice paid off: he played the core acoustic compositions in track order,
beginning to end, and by the evening of the first day, realized he’d essentially nailed the record
in one go. After tracking the main narrative of the guitar, a studio team of producer Trayer Tryon
(Hundred Waters, Moses Sumney) on synths and bass, Luke Schneider (Margo Price, Orville
Peck) on pedal steel, and Robert Edmondson on electric bass and piano painted in a sunset of
sound behind the acoustic parts, lighting them with a warm glow while allowing them to remain
front and center of the scene.
If the rolling strings of Letting Go planted and germinated the seeds, then The Happiest Times
sees Hayden grow the flowers, admire their ruffles, and take newly sharpened scissors to the
stems; turmoil and perfectionism and the gods of chaos driving the hand that holds the shears.
“I want to create something very melodic, and then put it behind a barbed wire fence,” Hayden
reflects. “If you’re gonna get this pretty thing, then you might get cut up trying to get to it.”
Pedigo’s particular brand of barb comes in a variety of shapes: the carousel of internet
personas that prod and jest (one day a 1970s car salesman, the next perhaps a Burger King
attendant or gogo-booted knight); beautiful yet uneasy technicolor album artworks that place
him incongruously corpse-painted at a gas station or glowing in ultraviolet on the parking lot of
a flaming Walmart; or, in the music itself, pauses which verge on the uncomfortably long while

the well-mannered audience member shuffles in their seat, trying to work out whether to clap
yet or not.
At their most profound, Pedigo’s spacious, pristine soundscapes communicate an essential
truth about the pursuit of artistic perfection. Creating The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored was,
he surmises, a process akin to “the dog chasing the mail truck – what do you do when you
catch it?”

*

BACK TO
EXT. SPARSE LANDSCAPE – SAME
As HAYDEN wields his weapon of choice, PAN OUT to reveal that his
dueling partner is his double, standing in mirror image. One laughs,
one cries, each dampening the dirt with a single tear. He is a lone
star in multiple; challenged and challenger both.
FADE OUT.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:

R.M.F.C 

+ Special Guests

Wednesday 3rd September

The Flying Duck 

18+

ROCK MUSIC FIGHT CRINGE
What is modern music writing without the opening descriptor “long awaited”? To describe most records as being awaited is ridiculous. Nobody today has the patience to wait for a text or a tram or a traffic light... and yet... there is something here, I have a point to make...
Please resist cringe – I will not cringe, cringe is the mindkiller – I assure you, I never use words like “long awaited debut” in polite conversation and avoid those who do by general rule.
But.

ROCK MUSIC FINESSE CLASS
The imminent arrival of the R.M.F.C. long awaited debut means rules must be broken, tablets must be shattered, sacred pigs must be slaughtered...
In our age of media saturation and attention deficit, where every band has side project with a triple LP catalogue before they’ve played a show or had opportunity to tease or tantalise, there’s a lot of easy music being created... and forgotten... look back over the past decade and see how many hype bands you’ve forgotten, how many redundant “long awaited debut” ended up
ashen within a month. Nobody is waiting for more easy music. We are waiting for the R.M.F.C.
Club Hits LP. Anyone paying attention to underground Australian guitar overdose would relate: the R.M.F.C. Club Hits LP has been the culmination of five years of work, patience and discipline. If you’ve heard these songs live at any of their shows over the past couple of years you’ll understand – the wait is over and the result is exhilarating.

ROCK MUSIC FANATIC CONVULSIONS
To your average German the sound of Bach made them reverent with Lutheran frenzy, and for the average rock music fan the sound of R.M.F.C. makes them catatonic with guitar overdose. To your exceptional German composer that came after Bach, the sounds of Bach inspired genius invention, and for the generation of exceptional rock music creators that come to Club Hits, a great deal of easy listening rock music has become redundant and this is a new
standard: the craft of these songs is precise, the flow of this record is masterful.
Club Hits is one of those rare records that sounds absolutely of its time without evoking depression, despair and disgust – for we live in times of desperation that most rock music bands are adorning with insipid, tedious tunes that couldn’t make most people put their phone down let alone believe in R.M. – but with the benefit of 80 years of ROCK MUSIC to draw on, there’s a lot of mistakes that Buz learned from and hasn’t replicated here.

ROCK MUSIC FOOTBALL CLUB

I like music and I like football. I like physicality, sweat, blood, I like music with guitar and drum...
I like to experience being in the presence of violent movement that is graceful and produces goals or songs...
Great live band this R.M.F.C. Kicking goals, making songs.
If not for the experience of watching them play these club hits live, I don’t think we would be “awaiting” this record. Which is to say, on record FC President Buz takes on all duties: songs written, songs recorded and songs mixed by the Commander In Chief Clatworthy.
If this was the extent of it, if we couldn’t SEE and FEEL the rock music in R.M.F.C., if it was RECORDED MUSIC FAN CLUB - I’m sure you understand me – Buz has managed to make a solo bedroom project into a rock music band of great quality, and hearing these songs develop and stick in your head for days and weeks and months after the show, festering and waiting to
be unleashed on the world this coming November 3rd.

ROCK MUSIC FAN CLUB
For those who read these things without listening first, you might ask: what does this R.M.F.C. sound like?
Let’s stay with the overused descriptors – I think R.M.F.C. is rock music band, more specifically a post-punk band. Indulge me.
If you could say anything about post punk it means post-Wire, who were past punk before punk had an opportunity to codify and become everything brilliant and stupid that we’ve spent 40 years unpacking.
Wire unpacked punk immediately and spent three perfect albums mapping what comes next – their “long awaited debut” came after a pub rock punk phase... and entered into the world of angular guitars and arctic ice feel.
Wire’s opening Pink Flag jab – Chairs Missing straight – and 154 hook knockout has haunted the mixing desks of ambitious post-punk bands since, and every major city in the western world has at least one Pink Flag band, one Chairs Missing band, one 154 band. Few bands manage to sound like all 3 records, but R.M.F.C. are rock music fan club...

ROCK MUSIC FREAK CLUB
One day when I listened to the Velvet Underground ‘What Goes On’, I thought: this is a perfect song. I could listen to this song for hours on end. I did this – I listened to live versions, multiple ten minute plus jams, alternate mixes, and then back to the album. Over and over again. The song continually delivered new revelations, I saw a golden path leading through a dark cloud of
misery, surrounded by spite and resentment, a golden path leading toward something better...
and in Club Hits, I hear that same obsessive nature, I could imagine you understand this too, I know I am not alone in listening to rock music like I am encountering the sacred sound of a new religion... you must be obsessed to make music like this, and you must also respond with true passion and devotion... our times need the Club Hits...

Pop Mutations presents:
Lily Seabird
+ Nightshift

+ Cormac Nagle
Tuesday 2nd September
The Glad Cafe
18+

Since 2023, Lily Seabird’s life has been in perpetual motion, spending nearly half of that time on the road performing her own music and as a touring bassist. While she thrives in transit, back home she is anchored by “Trash Mountain,” a pink house surrounded by other artists situated on a decommissioned landfill site at the back of Burlington’s Old North End. Here, Seabird has found belonging, friendship, and inspiration. It’s a place that hosts artists, puts on shows, and has been passed along in her friend group for the better part of the decade. It’s a symbol of transition and stability: something always evolving and growing but never losing its soul. It's only fitting that Seabird named her new album Trash Mountain, as it also contains its namesake's qualities. Over nine delicate but sturdy tracks of intimate folk rock, she pares her songwriting down to its most resonant essentials. It’s an album of unwelcome exits and uncertain futures, but there’s resiliency and hope at its core.

Where Seabird’s previous records—2024’s Alas, and 2021’s Beside Myself—were written over the course of a year, Trash Mountain practically poured out of Seabird: three months of songwriting in spring 2024, followed by four days of tracking with Kevin Copeland (Hannah Frances, Lightning Bug, Allegra Krieger) in his Southern Vermont studio in the summer. While the grief that enveloped Alas,, which dealt with her best friend’s suicide, still lingers, it’s settled into healing and reflection on Trash Mountain. On “It was like you were coming to wake us back up,” Seabird vividly paints a brief moment of seeing a person outside her house who bears an uncanny resemblance to her dearly deceased. Rather than mourning, she finds comfort and healing in the vision. “In the past, I used to come to songwriting when I was in crisis,” admits Seabird. “Only recently have I come to songwriting when I am feeling other things beyond emergency and disruption."

The album’s arrangements are markedly sparse and intentional, a shift from the layered Alas, and Beside Myself, allowing Seabird’s writing to soar and stand starkly centered. Only three songs feature her longtime touring band in guitarist Greg Freeman, bassist Nina Cates (Robber Robber), and drummer Zack James (Dari Bay, Robber Robber). On the stunning “How far away,” she’s backed only by a piano played by Sam Atallah which makes for elegiac catharsis. “I've finally accepted that I'm a singer-songwriter,” she says with a shrug. “Not everything has to be some big rock song.” Seabird cites Elliott Smith, Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen as influences on Trash Mountain, and much like the latter, her evocative, emotionally potent lyrics find her looking for cracks in the darkness where light comes in.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
GNOD
+ Special Guests
Sunday 24th August
Stereo
18+

Since their inception, Gnod’s musical trajectory has been one of constant fluctuation borne out of an incessant need to discover new sonic worlds. Beginning life as a shamanic drone ensemble, at times fitting up to 15 members on stage, these early rituals informed the core ideals that have come to define the group in their years of activity; community and trance-inducing repetition. Throughout a discography that has amassed dozens of CD-R’s, cassettes and vinyls for labels like Rocket Recordings, Trensmat, Krokodilo (Blackest Ever Black) and their own Tesla Tapes imprint, a restless yet organic need mutate their music into new realms has had critics clawing for comparative touch stones. Acts as far ranging as Hawkwind, Popul Vuh, Pan Sonic, Sunburned Hand of the Man and Pharaoh Sanders have all been referenced in attempt to pinpoint their output, one that has historically never aped any genre but with each record furthered their own unique place in truly independent music. It is the exact same dedication to the live arena that has seen Gnod become one of the most celebrated live bands in the UK and secured them multiple tours and festival appearances throughout Europe. In these times of cash in hand ‘glory days’ reunions and bands simply rehashing their recorded material pitch perfect live, Gnod are a stark and welcome anomaly. Already moving on from the barley released and universally acclaimed epic ‘Infinity Machines’, the current live incarnation of the band is characterised by a crushing, cataclysmic new protest music whose call to arms gravitas offers a meaningful defiance to Cameron’s Austerity Britain. Gnod have taken their very namesake and charged it with bludgeoning new edge that is as euphoric as it is nihilistic. It is one that stridently attests to the group’s spiritual center, one of community that is inclusive and respectful of its audience yet will never placate to their expectations. Instead, Gnod offer a gateway to an aural black hole and along with firm guiding hand, the opportunity to dive head and body first into a powerfully new psychedelic maelstrom full of possibilities.

Pop Mutations presents:
Jackie-O-Motherfucker
+ Special Guests
Friday 22nd August
The Glad Cafe
18+

Jackie-O Motherfucker was founded by Tom Greenwood in the mid 90’s, the group has had more than forty members over the years drawn from the U.S. experimental scene, notably Natalie Mering, who now records under Weyes Blood, briefly on bass. The current line up is a 4 piece lead by Tom
Greenwood.
Jackie-O Motherfucker's music draws from a variety of subgenres including various folk musics of the world, drone, free jazz, psychedelia, and noise rock, and is heavily improvisational in its nature.
The group has had recordings released by many different labels including Fire Records, Ecstatic Peace, Feeding Tube Records, ATP Recordings and their own U-Sound Archive and has been on several international tours including several performances at All Tomorrow's Parties Festivals by way of Sonic Youth. The band played the 2002 and 2004 festivals curated by Sonic Youth and the 2007 festival curated by Thurston Moore

The Glad Cafe & Pop Mutations present:

RobinAugust

plus The Zebecks + Kim Logan & The Silhouettes

18+ show

RobinAugust is a pop-rock artist and songwriter from Nashville, TN. Her influences are as unruly as her wild red hair, ranging from Radiohead to Lana Del Rey to Joan Jett. Her songs are characterized by her smoky vocals, big choruses, larger than life emotions, and lyrics like a knife sharpened to cut ex-lovers. With songs written to be performed on stage, she is romance and hysteria wrapped in a fur coat, demanding to be heard! In the UK for her first ever tour outside of the United States, RobinAugust and her band will play additional shows in Bristol and at Third Man London.

The Zebecks are carrying the Scottish Indie torch for the next generation. Originally from Elgin, the band uprooted their small-town lives to pursue a shared musical dream in Glasgow. 2024 saw three singles, a King Tut’s headline, a sold-out hometown show, and a BBC Introducing Stage performance at Tenement Trail, where they brought the festival’s headliner Declan Welsh onstage to perform their collaborative single ‘Life Advice.’ This year brings an exciting new chapter for the band with BBC Radio Scotland naming them in their “25 Scottish Artists to Watch in 2025” and another live set at Tenement Trail in October.

Kim Logan & the Silhouettes make alternative music about alchemy and politics, primed for our current time of societal collapse. Their sounds are fused from origins in the American South and the industrial cities of the UK, bringing a new blend of rock music for life on the brink of a collective new age. Kim Logan's collaborations have included Vance Powell, Brett Orrison, Low Cut Connie, Dominic Davis, Rex Roulette, Barrie-James O’Neill, Ade Omotayo, Tyler Bryant, Nikki Lane, and many more. Recent and upcoming shows include Great Escape 2025, Dash the Henge (London), and Montmartre Festival 2025 in Paris.

Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
HONK
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 19th August
The Glad Cafe
18+

Honk are a genre-warping six-piece that are here to rewire your idea of country music. It’s called “Trashcan Country" - a raucous, rough-edged twist on twang. It’s been dragged through the back alleys of punk, doused in garage-rock grit, and left to dry in the blazing sun.

At the core of Honk is their electrifying live show - equal parts hoedown and meltdown - which has earned them support slots with trailblazers like Meryl Streak, Delivery, and Being Dead, as well as consistent backing from BBC 6 Music’s Marc Riley.

With The Real Red Foley, Randy Harrison, Chubby Hellrat, Yeehaw Culhane, L.E. Steel, and Stanley Knife at the helm, Honk delivers a sound that’ll make you stomp your boots — or knock them clean off. As their debut album, One Star, prepares to drop this May on Swish Swash and chrüsimüsi Records, the buzz is building into a full-blown roar.

*Rescheduled show. Original tickets remain valid.*

Pop Mutations presents:

Chris Cohen

plus Simone Antigone

Tuesday 29th July at The Glad Cafe

18+ show

Chris Cohen was always a quiet kid. In fact, this introversion was one reason he began playing music as a toddler—to communicate without speaking to identify with others without the direct representation of words. It has worked, too, with Cohen’s terrific stint in the mighty Deerhoof and his own captivating art-rock act The Curtains, preceding production and session work for the likes of Weyes Blood, Kurt Vile, Le Ren, and Marina Allen. Somewhere along that long way, Cohen started writing lyrics. He found that, though it didn’t come naturally, the process offered a new sense of self-discovery and reckoning, a way to see himself and the world from unexpected angles. His three twilit albums of casually complicated pop during the last decade radiated these epiphanies: handling family strife, navigating advancing age, and understanding social woes.

But Cohen has never had as much to sing so directly as he does on Paint a Room, his first album in five years and his debut for Hardly Art. If Cohen’s meanings have previously lurked inside the tessellated musical layers he built alone, they are newly clear and resonant here, animated and underscored for the first time by a band playing in real time. There is the endless miasma of state violence on the subversively melodious opener “Damage,” the existential exhaustion of modernity on the horn-traced jangle “Laughing”: this is Cohen communicating with friends not only through his deep understanding of groove, harmony, and hook but also with his listeners through songs that croon of our uneasy little era.

In the past, Cohen made records in spells of isolation, phases when, as he puts it, he would “try to make my world a lot smaller.” He would play any of a dozen or so instruments until he stumbled upon something interesting, then slowly build upward and outward upon the idea. The method was solitary and stepwise, an act of accretion and deletion.

Cohen, though, has been playing live with bassist Davin Givhan, drummer Josh da Costa, and keyboardist Jay Israelson in some fashion for the better part of a decade. This time around, then, he built demos in the dusty garage of the suburban Altadena rental that smelled like old wood and gasoline and tried something new—he took the songs on tour with that crew, yielding total control by letting them fill in or flourish their own parts as they saw fit. They came back home and began recording as a band.

Cohen even called in a few friends to help, with Jeff Parker contributing the fluttering horn arrangement on “Damage,” and Parker collaborator Josh Johnson (who produced Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy-Award-winning album The Omnichord Real Book) supplying flute, sax, and clarinet arrangements throughout the record. It felt a little bit like producing someone else’s records, with Cohen given the chance to step back and evaluate others’ contributions to his own songs rather than scrutinize every little bit he made himself. This was a longtime ambition realized, another way of relating to others openly through sound.

Cohen, really, has never sounded so assured on a solo album, gliding above or sinking into this band that boasts a preternatural sense of feel. On “Damage,” as he surveys the way we lord power over people with less of it in most every walk of life, his voice lifts above Johnson’s horns like he’s looking for a way out. Cohen wrote “Sunever” for a transgender child in his life, while considering the violence that hard-and-fast categories can create. This song reminds us that we are “always in between,” that transitions are just a part of life. With the hook, he sweetly sings his vow: “You’re gonna find a way.” Cohen is tender and vulnerable in the lead, his voice cracking with feeling as the tune presses forward toward a better future. Written by cutting and pasting phrases from the unemployment form he filled out at the pandemic’s start, the frolicking “Physical Address” considers what it is we all want for our lives, how we untether ourselves from the past in the present. On Paint a Room, Cohen’s music feels like a warm spring breeze, easy to love and gentle to feel. But it’s often carrying something heavy, as if blowing in from some unseen storm cloud.

Cohen had another hobby as a kid: transcendental meditation, a practice his parents taught him when he was six. It’s still part of his life, a window into observing his thought processes, habits, and relationship to the rest of the world. Making music—and, turns out, writing lyrics for it—works in a similar way for Cohen, as he’s able to understand and then articulate notions that wouldn’t be so easy with the absolutism of mere words. Paint a Room both reckons with reality and conjures an alternate one, where nighttime walks and a neighbor’s wind chimes offer endless escapes for the imagination, space for the mind to roam. Sublime and sunlit, these 10 songs consider dreamy new ways out of old predicaments, clearly stating the problem and dancing and singing their way somewhere new.

Simone Antigone is a Glasgow based project fronted by Simone Wilson - exploring composition through realms of voice, strings, (Jack Mellin, Loup Havenith) percussion (Christopher Wallace) and woodwind (Georgia Harris). Drawing from myth, transformation and swampy emotional terrain, they together create a sound that is dreamlike and ever-changing.

Pop Mutations & Monorail Music present:
Autocamper
plus Radhika
Sunday 13th July at The Glad Cafe
18+ show

Manchester’s Autocamper are the perfect pop antidote to the city’s predictable post-punk machismo. Like a Northern kitchen sink rendering of The Vaselines’ call and response motif, vocal duties are shared by Jack Harkins and Niamh Purtill—their world-weary reflections on bedroom tiffs and hungover misdemeanors capture the jangle pop spirit of the ‘80s without the C86 revisionism.
Autocamper were formed on a crisp, autumnal evening in October 2022; via a combination of mutual friends, anonymous internet ads and chance encounters at an Umbrellas’ gig (future Slumberland Records label mates). Honing their sound across the ever-dwindling practice spaces of the city, much of the album was thrashed out between the backrooms of pubs, half-constructed studio spaces, and a (now demolished) disused commercial kitchen unit. Though a true DIY sensibility permeates the music and ethos of the band, their debut LP sees them step up a level from previous self-recorded releases.

Radhika is a Glasgow based artist of Indian heritage. From an early age, she has been exposed to all forms of music in her creative home. Having spent her younger years immersing herself in the lyrics on the sleeves of her father’s record collection, this is what inspired her to start writing her own songs at the age of ten. She has performed at a variety of venues/festivals including Celtic Connections, The Poetry Club, Glad Cafe, Glasgow Mela and King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut.Her main inspirations are Nick Drake, Cocteau Twins and Strawberry Switchblade.

Pop Mutations presents:
Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham
+ Special Guests
Sunday 13th July
The Doublet
18+

As colleagues in the UK group Modern Nature, Tara Cunningham and Jack Cooper play measured music that never feels constrained. The same can be said of their first duo album together, Pond Life, which is even more minimal than the work of their other project. Across ten tracks named for various aspects of the album’s title (e.g. “Fern,” “Koi,” “Great Crested Newt”), the pair gradually pluck their strings, leaving lots of space in between each sonic motion. Everything always seems to be fading out of view; the mesmerizing pace evokes Loren Connors’ sparse abstractions. But the mood Cunningham and Cooper create, one of reverence and exploration, is all their own.

For fans of Bill Orcutt, Bitchin’ Bajas , Taku Sugimoto and Jim O’Rourke