DUCK & COVER
Bum Notes, Mono & Pop Mutations present :
DUCK AND COVER 2026
Bum Notes’ annual COVERS BAND HALLOWEEN BALL is back from beyond the grave!!
We may have lost our hallowed grounds of The Flying Duck but tonight, Matthew, we're going to be at Mono!
Catch live bands featuring some of the most talented musicians cutting about Glasgow giving their best Stars In Their Eyes!
Full sets from :
Charli XCX
The Cranberries
The Cure
The Mountain Goats
The Pixies
The Replacements
Yo La Tengo
And from 11pm you can expect demonic drag and killer karaoke from Bum Notes hosted by Pink Pound!
No tricks, all treats!
£10 advance tickets available now!
More on the door/ once they're gone! We will be raising funds this year for FiveforFive (Materially supporting trans women and transfem folk).
18+
Saturday 31st October
Mono
Delivery
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Delivery
+ Special Guests
Saturday 31st October
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Melbourne’s Delivery have made a name for themselves with their brand of caustic, mutant garage-punk that sounds like the sun-baked desert vistas that populate Mad Max films
(according to Brooklyn Vegan at least).
It’s been a hot sec since they returned to the EU/UK, and even longer since their last release - 2025’s “Force Majeure” via Heavenly Recordings, which plays like its title suggests; an unstoppable force of an album that hits like a battering ram and doubles as a calling card from your new favourite rock’n’roll band.
If their electric live show is anything to go by, Delivery aren’t ones to sit still for long, and with a run of sweaty bandroom shows on the cards it’s a safe bet to assume they’re up to something... what exactly that is remains to be seen.
Wendy Eisenberg
Pop Mutations presents
Wendy Eisenberg
plus special guest
Wednesday 4th November at The Glad Cafe
Wendy Eisenberg has spent the past decade as a fixture of independent music and an artist of inspired multiplicity. As a singer-songwriter, improviser, and virtuoso guitarist, the coordinates of their artistry are ever-shifting, from art-rock to jazz to blistering free improv and eloquent folk. On catalog highlights including 2020’s Auto and the 2024 free-jazz sprawler Viewfinder, they’ve made a signature of ambition. After spending the past five years experimenting in different bands, genres, and creative challenges, and following a period of self-confrontation that they liken to a personal exorcism, Eisenberg has arrived at a milestone. The poetic and formally daring folk songs of Wendy Eisenberg comprise their most certain vision yet.
The songs began to take root in 2020 when Eisenberg moved from Western Massachusetts—where they’d lived for a few years after attending Boston’s New England Conservatory—and relocated to Brooklyn. Longing for the pastoral feel of their former home, Eisenberg gravitated towards the warm sounds of country and folk. For an already renowned guitarist, these classic songwriting practitioners (John Hartford, Michael Hurley, Gillian Welch, John Prine, Willie Nelson) and what Eisenberg called “weirdo country interpreters” (Richard Dawson, the Mekons, Joanna Newsom) offered other kinds of timelessness and virtuosity, as did Eisenberg’s immersion into pop-folk orchestrations (Judee Sill, Jimmy Webb, Van Dyke Parks). “The songs are genuinely folk songs,” Eisenberg says of their record. “The production is less about seeing what the guitar might be capable of and more accepting the inherent strangeness of the languages it has spoken for the last century and a half.”
A personal reckoning between 2023 and 2024 imbued Eisenberg’s new music with evermore sturdiness, clarity, conviction, and beauty. “I had this weird, semi-mystical experience,” Eisenberg says. “I remember walking around for hours alone, having given up on some kind of straight love, straight performance. Much of what I thought I wanted felt totally irrelevant. The part of me that felt like I had to be legible to appease imaginary people finally needed to die.” On Wendy Eisenberg, the artist creates their own paradigm with a tight-knit circle of longtime friends and collaborators—including bassist Trevor Dunn, drummer Ryan Sawyer, and co-producer Mari Rubio, who handled pedal steel, synth, and string arrangements—recording often at Eisenberg’s home and bringing a gorgeous ensemble texture to each note. “I was finally around people who accepted me,” Eisenberg says. “Many of the songs on this record were written in that new feeling. I wanted it to be incredibly comforting as it describes some massive changes in self-understanding and self-regard. It’s about relief.”
Eisenberg explores this epiphany explicitly on “Old Myth Dying,” singing in a fevered register, over polyrhythmic guitar playing, about knowing what you can and can’t control. That renewed feeling is in the pedal-steeled lucidity of “Will You Dare,” a bracing tune about love and the passage of time, which “has a funny way of laying you bare,” they sing. “It pulls you and scares you and tangles your hair/Asking: will you dare?” Opening with inquisitive chords before blooming into visceral, baroque-pop grandeur, “Meaning Business” was written following David Lynch’s death—favoring the late filmmaker’s “alien sense of Americanness” over a codified “Lynchian” sound. “Vanity Paradox” evokes how self-examination in artmaking can paradoxically blur one’s self-image. A tension between unresolvability and a longing for steady ground abounds; as Eisenberg sings on “The Walls,” “I wondered, when I was younger/If I would feel this way forever/Or if this world would finally settle into something solid.” The boon of such solidity rings out between each player. “Working in a very homegrown way was essential—these songs came out very delicately and were allergic to false steps,” Eisenberg says. “This is the first record I’ve made with an extensive backlog of songs, and I chose these because they felt spiritually the truest to how I have been moving through this new world right now.”
The dreamlike centerpiece “Another Lifetime Floats Away” traces the sweep of a life, how the past inhabits us and tends to flood back at will. Its bittersweet ease remarkably describes the nature of time, which can never turn back, in a succession of vivid images—their mother making breakfast; their dad working; their adventurous 20s, touring Northeast highways—while also describing the present moment from which the song was crafted. “It situates me as my own parent now,” Eisenberg says. “It’s emotionally overwhelming to grapple with the feeling that you are now the person who witnesses and occasions your own life, like your childhood home or your parents.” It is possible to imagine people singing it forever.
The song that follows, “It’s Here,” is about “the consciousness afforded by true love,” of people and songs and learning to trust in both. The conditions of Eisenberg’s life have steadied since the “exorcism” from which they wrote, and the recording reflected these shifts. Eisenberg became a full-time assistant professor of songwriting and they live now with Rubio, their girlfriend. “These things being true have changed my songwriting voice. It’s just as urgent as always, but slightly more spacious,” they say. “I’d spent my life trying to wrestle things into existence. These are songs that honestly just emerged, miraculously.” Calling back to that lifetime of devotion to song, and the negotiation towards a realized self that is likely to last as long, Eisenberg ends with “The Walls,” originally penned for their free-jazz trio Darlin’:
A memory: when I was twelve, or thirteen,
I’d write songs close to midnight
And some of those would sound a bit like this one, even back then
I seem to be consistent
If rootless in this half-guarded impulse
I cannot find the walls
I trust that that’s a good thing
Sometimes I’ll need convincing
Maria BC
Pop Mutations & Divided By Language presents:
Maria BC
plus special guests
Thursday 5th November at The Old Hairdresser's
18+ show
Ohio-born, Oakland, CA-based artist Maria BC (they/them) has slowly opened up their process over the years, moving from the one-room recording process of 2021 EP Devil’s Rain—careful not to disturb their roommates or neighbors—to the untreated apartment wanderings of Hyaline (2022, Father/Daughter) to the home of a family friend featuring an out-of-tune baby Steinway piano where they recorded their Sacred Bones debut, Spike Field.
Hyaline, was a 2022 ambient-folk highlight. It found the singer-songwriter crafting haunting tracks that played like they were beamed from the heart of some mystical, cobwebbed attic. Spike Field pushed their gauzy formula into increasingly manicured terrain, capturing the sound of a young artist who has quickly honed a singular voice. Strings, plucked guitar and buzzing swells accompany their classically-trained mezzo-soprano voice soaking their arrangements in a denser and more kaleidoscopic way than any of their previous work. Maria BC describes it as “filling out the sonic space,” as Spike Field builds on the intimacy of Hyaline through liberating instrumental embellishments.
In 2026 we will see the return of Maria BC with their third studio album, and sophomore Sacred Bones release, Marathon. Born from a sense of urgency, masochistic determination and endurance, Marathon reflects what it means to keep going whether you’re resisting or just surviving, you’re in it for the long haul. On this record, Maria BC delves into themes of resistance, environmental ruin, personal disruptions and destruction, all entwined in musical grit and drive.
Beau Wanzer
Pop Mutations presents:
Beau Wanzer
+ Special Guests
Thursday 5th November
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Chicago-based producer Beau Wanzer makes dark, gritty electronic music
inspired by early industrial, house/electro, and minimal synth. Often consisting of zombified vocals croaking over hypnotic machine rhythms, his music is eerie, grotesque, and a bit sleazy, but it always contains a crucial element of twisted, macabre humor. As a DJ his sets are an eclectic mix of these things but with an off-kilter approach...throwing in old punk, noise, and everything in-between.
He has had a long history in the American Underground Noise/Electronic music community. Starting with a monthly in 2006 (that's still currently active) focussing on the fringes of electronic music and hosting over 200 lives acts showcasing the darker, seedy elements of the underground. Prior to releasing his first solo output in 2014, Wanzer collaborated with many different artists. Most notably TRAXX as the duo Mutant Beat Dance. Eventually working with other artists, including Rezzett, Maoupa Mazzocchetti, and Steve Summers. Releasing on multitude of diverse labels including Dark Entries, Mannequin, L.I.E.S, Trilogy Tapes, Minimal Wave, Ninja Tune, L.A Club Resource, as well a his own self-released imprint Wanzer has built a diverse catalog of slimy scum covered tunes for the mutant basement dwellers. His output still continues to maintain a consistent flow for the freaks and chicken head eating geeks.
Calvin Love
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Calvin Love
+ Special Guests
Friday 6th November
The Glad Cafe
18+
Calvin Love is a Canadian singer-songwriter whose music lingers in the shadows of nostalgia and noir. With a signature croon and a sound that fuses psych-folk, cinematic longing, and romanticism, he’s built a world both
vintage and strangely timeless. The press has called his work “a crestfallen soundtrack of near-escape... like Chris Isaak trapped in a David Lynch film.”
An artist of quiet intensity and prolific output, Love has carved a singular space on the fringes of indie music— shaped by introspection, lyrical depth, and a restless, DIY spirit. Influenced by the pulse of rock ‘n’ roll and the
bruised glamour of 1980s balladeers, he’s crafted a sonic universe entirely his own.
Known for live shows that blur the line between concert and dream sequence, Love approaches each song like a method actor—dissolving the boundary between persona and performance with slow-burning precision.
Whether standing alone with a 12-string guitar or fronting a seven-piece ensemble, his performances radiate a magnetic stillness: immersive, nuanced, and emotionally resonant.
With multiple albums and international tours behind him, Calvin Love has spent the last decade quietly shaping one of the most distinct and haunting voices on the outer edges of indie music.
J. Zunz
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
J. Zunz
+ Special Guests
Friday 13th November
The Glad Cafe
18+
Coming from Ensenada in Mexico, Lorena Quintanilla aka J. Zunz has been steadily, and without much unnecessary buzz, carving her own path in electronic music’s most adventurous trails. With albums on Rocket Recordings, home to ritual rock deviants like Gnod or Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, J. Zunz has that rare ability to insinuate herself among electronic music heads, noise/drone stoners and open-minded rockers through a psychedelic prism. ‘Del Aire’, released last year and recorded during a strict lockdown, is a confident assertion of Quintanilla’s vision, capable of embracing synthesized ambient passages, vocal meditations, noise rubble and martial rhythms that can be as enveloping as they are turbulent - a reflection of those times of juxtaposition between the calm intimacy of the home and the world outside on the verge of collapse.
POP MUTATIONS x TINY CHANGES
POP MUTATIONS x TINY CHANGES 2026
13-14 November 2026
The Old Hairdressers • Mono • The Glad Café • Stereo
Ten artists. Four independent venues. One weekend celebrating music, community and creativity.
Tara Clerkin Trio (matinee)
Pop Mutatons & The Glad Cafe presents;
Tara Clerkin Trio (matinee)
plus special guests
Sunday 15th November
at The Glad Cafe
Suitable for ages 12+ (under 18s must be accompanied by an adult) / Standing show
If – in some parallel universe (or perhaps a not-so-distant-future version of the one we’re already sentenced to living in) – the evil overloads of artificial intelligence were actually successful in their attempts to create convincingly enjoyable “original music,” more specifically tasked with wholly encapsulating my own personal tastes by data-chugging some cocktail of – oh, I don’t know – the posters on my wall, the records in my “most listened to” pile, the mixtapes I made for others, intensive physical scans of my auditory cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, heart strings, whatever else they have splayed out on their autopsy table with the intention of generating one all-encompassing “perfect band” based on the fruitful sum of their findings – that band, for me, would be (or would at least sound exactly like) the Tara Clerkin Trio. It is, quite simply, without exception, the music I wish to hear.
Formed in Bristol UK (where none of them are from yet all of whom are deeply engrained) in 2020, the Tara Clerkin Trio – as it somewhat democratically exists today, despite the singular authority implied by its name – consists of the titular Tara Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos, and Sunny’s brother, Patrick Benjamin. I’ll confess, I don’t know what their respective roles are within the operation and there’s only a very small part of me that cares to learn, as one of my favorite qualities in an objective listening experience is the mystery of who is playing what, which sounds are “authentic” versus synthesized, which chunks are performed “live” in a room together versus meticulously Frankenstein’ed from measure to measure, or how exactly the overall sound is so (seemingly) effortlessly achieved. Though, I suspect, if and when I do witness a live performance by this band at any point, my enjoyment of the music will not be lost in my better understanding of it.
With two extraordinary mini-albums – In Spring (2021) and On The Turning Ground (2023) – making a splash on London’s formidable World of Echo label in wake of their self-titled 2020 debut, this upcoming Somewhere Good LP is, in many ways, the band’s most realised work. In running their usual gauntlet of idiosyncratic (*an overused adjective for which here there is regrettably no sufficient alternative) approaches, Clerkin & co. color in and outside of compositional lines over the course of 40+ celebratory minutes - never wallowing, despite inherently somber subject matters of self-defeat, disease, displacement, restlessness, gentrification - allowing their arrangements and improvisations ample space and time to situate, stretch out, breathe, cross-pollinate, and ultimately take deeper hold on the listener’s imagination – all while somehow sounding more like themselves than ever before.
Of course, there are traceable influences herein, if one felt that such comparisons were necessary to properly examine and enjoy this music (they aren’t)… Being the big dumb American from the small boring town that I am, cornfed on ‘90s alternative radio with the enchantingly exotic sounds of Maxinquaye and Mezzanine emanating from my chunky tube television, I can’t help but to make a blatantly obvious reference to a “Bristol sound”, ie the whole trip-hop trip, the pastoral crooning over the suggestive urban grime of cracked electro/piano treatments, the digitally-yet-primitively reconstructed James Bond soundtrack string-beats, etc.. But the Tara Clerkin Trio is so infinitely much more than that. There are elements of avant-pop, modern classical, kraut-folk, audio verité, dare I say indie rock (and not of the beer guzzling, masturbatory fuzz-flex variety but perhaps more like a Trish Keenan-fronted Faust, Adrian Sherwood at the mixing desk of If You’re Feeling Sinister, or – in expanding on our alternate reality – a world in which High Llamas cut a full-length for Warp Records with Andrew Weatherall on coffee duty).
The hazy, unmappable skyline-mirage of droning harmonium, upright bass, peculiarly accentuated wind instruments, acoustic guitar, hushed yet literally mighty keys combine to hypnotizing effect. The band may make underlying nods to jazz, sure, but it’s not appropriation, it’s that they have the actual chops to build it out. Beneath the janky samples and oddball percussive embellishment lies actually great drumming. Beyond the manipulated vocal witchery and woefully reflective plain-spoke moments are Tara’s subtly inspired melodies, sung with what might honestly be the glue to the whole crazy equation. A calming consistency throughout the otherwise unpredictably dynamic, boldly intuitive, uniquely British exploration of this (their own) universe in song. – Ryan Davis (Chicago, February 2026)
Poison Ruïn
Pop Mutations presents:
Poison Ruïn
+ Special Guests
Sunday 15th November
Stereo
18+
Building off the strengths of their critically acclaimed works, POISON RUIN return with their new album, Hymns From the Hills. The Philadelphia Punk band have developed their signature approach to grim mythmaking and scythe-swinging aggression in bold new directions, offering up a new body of songs that strike one as equal parts natural, undeniably of this world, and phantasmal.
The band's vision has grown substantially, pushing well past the tales of peasants and serfs that stood as allegories for contemporary alienation in their previous work. On this newest offering, their previous stories of toil and dispossession are revealed to be but one chapter etched upon a bleaker tapestry- One populated by spirits traversing sunless deserts and wilted hillsides, demonic torture objects limning the edges of the psyche, bodies transfigured into Luciferian snakes, Sadean prisoners bound to the screaming silence of abandoned castle towers. The record is at once a forceful restatement of POISON RUIN's trademark sound and a departure from it- The crackling, cassette-dubbed darkness and crushing rhythms listeners have become accustomed to are buttressed by a carefully sculpted mosaic of new textures, from flourishes of Killing Joke hacksaw primitivism and blast-beats worthy of the Relapse catalogue number to crisp analog synth lines and ambient serenades reminiscent of Scott Walker and The Durutti Column. Like a serpent moving ever outward with spiraling circularity, Hymns From the Hills expands POISON RUIN's sonic landscape in imaginative new directions while maintaining its center of gravity firmly in the band’s already established mythos.
Hymns From the Hills is meticulously composed. Much like the rest of POISON RUIN's body of work, this LP was self-recorded without the use of professional studio equipment. To meet the greater sonic demands of Hymns From the Hills, however, mastermind Mac Kennedy relocated to a private practice space, retiring from his previous routine of squeezing in tracking sessions around the rare moments that the band’s shared practice space happened to be vacant. “Having added time to breathe and really get things right felt crucial this time,” he remarks. “The stress of having to work quickly and at chaotic intervals used to feel productive, in that it instilled a sort of rough, energetic ethos into the recordings, but I began to feel that those working habits were blocking me from pursuing certain ideas that required a more measured, methodical approach.” To best serve the record’s grander ambitions, the band enlisted the mixing prowess of Jonah Falco (Fucked Up, Career Suicide) and the mastering of Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Trapped Under Ice, Cavalera, Integrity), who helped to elevate the record’s teeming variety of sounds to new heights of self-assured fidelity. Kennedy lent a second hand to the mixing process, splicing in grittier tape recorded segments in order to maintain a certain tonal continuity with the band’s previous work, creating a rich structure of unconventional frictions, crystalline flashes of polish ripping through abysses of hissing low end only to shatter against the whipping sting of rusted chains moments later.
Lyrically, Hymns From The Hills extends both the cynicism and the defiant bravado of POISON RUIN's established fantasy aesthetics. While the record continues POISON RUIN'S tradition of employing medieval-inflected fantasy imagery, Kennedy does not intend for these figures to be read as historically accurate. “I’m not very interested in conveying the historical facts of medieval culture. If we are to make sense of the present, we need to employ a more mythic mode of language and symbol to reach beyond the spiritual malaise that envelopes us. A mythic truth resonates within any time, but it’s echos call from outside of time. Medieval and fantasy imagery are simply effective personal starting points for tapping into that mode of communication.”
With Hymns From The Hills, POISON RUIN have accomplished a feat of creative labor which few have the courage to entertain, much less the capacity to execute so effectively. Hymns From The Hills ambitiously rewrites the very rules of what punk is capable of achieving, pushing POISON RUIN's sound into expansive new terrains without sacrificing an ounce of the bleak symbolism and uncompromising aggression that first established them as an urgent new voice in the world of extreme music.
Tara Clerkin Trio
Pop Mutatons & The Glad Cafe presents;
Tara Clerkin Trio
plus special guests
Sunday 15th November
at The Glad Cafe
18+ show
If – in some parallel universe (or perhaps a not-so-distant-future version of the one we’re already sentenced to living in) – the evil overloads of artificial intelligence were actually successful in their attempts to create convincingly enjoyable “original music,” more specifically tasked with wholly encapsulating my own personal tastes by data-chugging some cocktail of – oh, I don’t know – the posters on my wall, the records in my “most listened to” pile, the mixtapes I made for others, intensive physical scans of my auditory cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, heart strings, whatever else they have splayed out on their autopsy table with the intention of generating one all-encompassing “perfect band” based on the fruitful sum of their findings – that band, for me, would be (or would at least sound exactly like) the Tara Clerkin Trio. It is, quite simply, without exception, the music I wish to hear.
Formed in Bristol UK (where none of them are from yet all of whom are deeply engrained) in 2020, the Tara Clerkin Trio – as it somewhat democratically exists today, despite the singular authority implied by its name – consists of the titular Tara Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos, and Sunny’s brother, Patrick Benjamin. I’ll confess, I don’t know what their respective roles are within the operation and there’s only a very small part of me that cares to learn, as one of my favorite qualities in an objective listening experience is the mystery of who is playing what, which sounds are “authentic” versus synthesized, which chunks are performed “live” in a room together versus meticulously Frankenstein’ed from measure to measure, or how exactly the overall sound is so (seemingly) effortlessly achieved. Though, I suspect, if and when I do witness a live performance by this band at any point, my enjoyment of the music will not be lost in my better understanding of it.
With two extraordinary mini-albums – In Spring (2021) and On The Turning Ground (2023) – making a splash on London’s formidable World of Echo label in wake of their self-titled 2020 debut, this upcoming Somewhere Good LP is, in many ways, the band’s most realised work. In running their usual gauntlet of idiosyncratic (*an overused adjective for which here there is regrettably no sufficient alternative) approaches, Clerkin & co. color in and outside of compositional lines over the course of 40+ celebratory minutes - never wallowing, despite inherently somber subject matters of self-defeat, disease, displacement, restlessness, gentrification - allowing their arrangements and improvisations ample space and time to situate, stretch out, breathe, cross-pollinate, and ultimately take deeper hold on the listener’s imagination – all while somehow sounding more like themselves than ever before.
Of course, there are traceable influences herein, if one felt that such comparisons were necessary to properly examine and enjoy this music (they aren’t)… Being the big dumb American from the small boring town that I am, cornfed on ‘90s alternative radio with the enchantingly exotic sounds of Maxinquaye and Mezzanine emanating from my chunky tube television, I can’t help but to make a blatantly obvious reference to a “Bristol sound”, ie the whole trip-hop trip, the pastoral crooning over the suggestive urban grime of cracked electro/piano treatments, the digitally-yet-primitively reconstructed James Bond soundtrack string-beats, etc.. But the Tara Clerkin Trio is so infinitely much more than that. There are elements of avant-pop, modern classical, kraut-folk, audio verité, dare I say indie rock (and not of the beer guzzling, masturbatory fuzz-flex variety but perhaps more like a Trish Keenan-fronted Faust, Adrian Sherwood at the mixing desk of If You’re Feeling Sinister, or – in expanding on our alternate reality – a world in which High Llamas cut a full-length for Warp Records with Andrew Weatherall on coffee duty).
The hazy, unmappable skyline-mirage of droning harmonium, upright bass, peculiarly accentuated wind instruments, acoustic guitar, hushed yet literally mighty keys combine to hypnotizing effect. The band may make underlying nods to jazz, sure, but it’s not appropriation, it’s that they have the actual chops to build it out. Beneath the janky samples and oddball percussive embellishment lies actually great drumming. Beyond the manipulated vocal witchery and woefully reflective plain-spoke moments are Tara’s subtly inspired melodies, sung with what might honestly be the glue to the whole crazy equation. A calming consistency throughout the otherwise unpredictably dynamic, boldly intuitive, uniquely British exploration of this (their own) universe in song. – Ryan Davis (Chicago, February 2026)
Gigi Masin
Gigi Masin is 70 and making his most courageous move yet. A trail-blazing composer and multi-instrumentalist whose sound has evolved through landscapes of ambient, jazz and electronic dance music, Masin is confounding expectations on a new album that looks back with pride and forwards with renewed purpose. “It may seem a little strange that I have made a record called Movement, ” Masin says, “in the same year that I am celebrating 40 years of my debut, Wind. ” But change is natural and this time, Movement is for the feet and the heart. In the end milestones are just points on the same road, even if sometimes you don’t see the junctions coming.
That was certainly the case for Masin. Self-released in 1986 and given away for free, Wind was meant to be both his introduction and his farewell to music. Masin thought he’d made a jazz record, others called it ambient, but few really listened. Three years later he released Les Nouvelles Musiques De Chambre Volume 2 with This Heat’s Charles Hayward that would go on to be sampled by Björk and Nujabes, but at the time it hardly registered. No matter. Masin had moved on, working as a postal manager, living with his wife and kids and making music at the edges of the day for theatre productions and poetry readings.
Then in 2014, Masin was approached out of the blue by Amsterdam-based label Music From Memory to release a compilation of his music – selections from Wind and the handful of recordings from the intervening decades that displayed the breadth of his talents, from zither and trumpet to synthesizers and radio sampling. When Masin listened back to the tapes hewas surprised to hear how much his voice had changed. He has always been sensitive to the passing of time, aware of the gains and losses along the way.
Talk To The Sea, as the collection was called, changed Masin’s life. Widely celebrated, his music caught a wave of renewed interest in the origins of ambient music and helped push forward the form among younger producers and musicians drawn to the spectral melancholy of his compositions – the sense of space, like an expanse of water, not cold like so much environmental music, but generous, open-hearted, unafraid of its emotions.
A fresh swell of opportunities followed. Alongside Jonny Nash and Marco Sterk he formed Gaussian Curve, a trio of likeminded artists who became friends through shared musical language, bringing new shades to Masin’s inherently Mediterranean sensibility.
“When I was on the radio or in the theatre I worked alone, ” he remembers. “But I am very open, I love to work with other people, because you have something to learn from others. It's not even about music, it's about the human touch.”
Perhaps this is why Masin’s music speaks to so many people. Although often described as ambient, his influences are as wide as the ocean. In the 1980s, Masin knew Brian Eno only as the keyboard player for Roxy Music. He listened instead to John Martyn, Nick Drake and
John Coltrane, blasted Motown in the car, and developed an obsession with history that has surfaced at times in the origin myths of tracks and albums. Throughout, his sound has been grounded in this fundamental humanity, a belief that even in darkness there might be light.
By 2017, Masin had begun working with his now close confidant and manager Alessia Avallone, quitting his day job to focus on music full-time. “Sometimes in life you have to make a decision in two, three minutes, ” he says, ignoring those around him who thought he was being reckless. Masin saw it otherwise. “It was one of the best moments of my life.”
BULL
BULL
With Autocamper
Count Florida
& DJ Antonio
Saturday 21st November
18+
Bull are a 5 piece band from York, UK. Formed in 2011 as school friends, they self released their a bit poppy bit punky debut ‘She Looks Like Kim’ (redacted) in 2014. In 2018 they toured the US, selling second, scrappy long EP ‘America’ (bootleg). In 2020 the band signed with EMI in conjunction with York record label Young Thugs. In 2021 they released their debut (proper) Discover Effortless Living.
They received some airplay from Radio 1, 6 and Elton John. The band toured the album in 2021, played at Leeds and Reading festival, and supported Pavement the Rock band at the O2 academy in Leeds in 2022. They released a follow-up EP ‘Stuck Between the Virtual and Physical World’ in 2022 and sophomore album ‘Engines of Honey’ in 2024 which they toured. Bull are returning to playing live shows and have mostly completed the recording of their third album in Spain, April 2026. They plan to release new singles over the summer and later the album.
The Wants
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
The Wants
+ Special Guests
Sunday 22nd November
The Glad Cafe
18+
The Wants is the New York City band founded in 2017 by songwriter, guitarist, and producer Madison Velding-VanDam alongside drummer Jason Gates. The group operates as an adversarial network of ideas — grounded songwriting playfully colliding with unstable rhythms, mutated electronics, and live instrumentation.
After signing with London-based Council Records, The Wants released their debut album, Container (2020), named after their shipping-container-turned-rehearsal space in a Brooklyn parking lot. The album’s anxious songwriting, hypnotic interlocking rhythms, and aggressive live show drew acclaim from outlets like NME, Brooklyn Vegan and The Line of Best Fit before its touring cycle was cut short by the global shutdown of March 2020.
That interruption opened a five-year period of experimentation. Written by Velding-VanDam, Gates and synthesist Yasmeen Night, and recorded by Peter Katis, Bastard (2025) pushes Container’s physical-electronic tension into something darker and more acerbic. Widely commended as beguiling and enigmatic, the record was followed up by remixes from Factory Floor, Broken English Club and Gorgonn.
During this time, Velding-VanDam also founded STTT, a record label committed to creative friction, experimentation and independence. STTT supports a growing international roster of artists including Content Blocks and Sin Clair.
The Wants is currently finishing their third album.
PROBLEM PATTERNS & LANDE HEKT
Spite House and Pop Mutations present… A Gig Isn't Just For Xmas!
We are absolutely thrilled to be hosting 2 terrific touring acts plus 2 laudable locals and DJs
PROBLEM PATTERNS (Belfast)
LANDE HEKT (Bristol)
PINK POUND
CLEAN SLATE
18+
Mono is an accessible venue including toilet facilities.
★ SPITE HOUSE ★ Inclusive queer and feminist collective. 🦄🔗💅
Whenever possible we put on all ages and accessible events in Glasgow. Since 2014.
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Tomorrow Syndicate
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Tomorrow Syndicate
+ Special Guests
Saturday 5th December
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Tomorrow Syndicate blend analogue synthesisers, ambient guitars and melodic songwriting into a distinctive sci-fi inspired sound. Influenced by krautrock, classic pop and cinematic soundscapes, the band have spent the last decade building a catalogue of immersive and atmospheric music.
Returning to the stage after selling out The Glad Cafe earlier in the year, (their first live show in six years), Tomorrow Syndicate will perform songs from Future Tense, Citizen Input, Higher Resolution and their upcoming album Full Capacity Breathing
Downtown Boys
Pop Mutations presents:
Downtown Boys
+ Special Guests
Thursday 10th December
Stereo
18+
Downtown Boys have pushed relentlessly forward as an artistic and political project since their founding. Singer Victoria Marie and guitarist/singer Joey La Neve DeFrancesco first met at union meetings while working together at a hotel in Providence, RI, writing many of the band’s early songs about labor organizing and exploitative workplaces. The quintet is completed by Joe DeGeorge (sax/synth), Mary Jane Regalado (bass), and Joey Doubek (drums). Over years of touring and three acclaimed albums, including Full Communism in 2015 and Cost of Living, their Sub Pop debut in 2017, Downtown Boys have continued to grow as artists, musicians, and organizers.
Now, the band has arrived with Public Luxury, an enthralling album that keeps politics front and center while summoning the band’s most urgent and powerful sound to date. The definition of Public Luxury falls very much in line with that of the title of the band’s second LP, Full Communism. Straight up, Public Luxury means, “everything for everyone.” It’s the stubborn insistence that a better world is possible, while fully recognizing the horrors we witness daily, and the individual and collective responsibility to resist the nihilism and hopelessness we all feel.
Public Luxury was co-produced by DeFrancesco with recording engineer and longtime Downtown Boys supporter Seth Manchester (Lambrini Girls, Lightning Bolt, Model/Actriz) at the Pawtucket, RI studio and arts space Machines With Magnets.
Curbside Lambsear
Curbside Lambsear is Annabelle Mödlinger and Magdalena McLean. The collaboration explores rough textures and soft intentions, weaving together elements of pop, folk, and
improvisation with influences of drone, dub, and post-punk. The project began as a way for Magdalena and Annabelle to experiment with writing music together, using early sessions
to learn new instruments, the process of recording and writing o n DAWs. Their musical output is the result of time spent together in the studio fusing disparate influences into
collage; phone notes, little poems written on public transport, field recordings, sample loops, rehearsal voice memos and string melodies merge, realign, and sometimes
coalesce into songs.
The Nightingales
Pop Mutations presents:
The Nightingales
+ Special Guests
Thursday 25th March
Stereo
18+
Birmingham’s original punk group The Prefects had been part of The Clash’s ‘White Riot Tour’, recorded a couple of Peel sessions, released a 45 on Rough Trade and, years after splitting up, had a retrospective CD released by NY label Acute Records to all round glowing reviews – from Rolling Stone to webzines.
The Nightingales was formed by a few members of The Prefects following that band’s demise in 1979.
Described in John Robb’s definitive book on post punk (“Death To Trad Rock”) as “The misfits’ misfits” and comprising an ever fl uctuating line up, based around lyricist/singer Robert Lloyd, the Nightingales enjoyed cult status in the early ’80’s as darlings of the credible music scene and were championed by John Peel, who said of them – “Their performances will serve to confirm their excellence when we are far enough distanced from the 1980’s to look at the period rationally and other, infinitely better known, bands stand revealed as charlatans”.
The group recorded a bunch of critically acclaimed singles – pretty much always ‘Single Of The Week’ in the music press – and three albums, plus many radio sessions for their great supporter Peel. They also regularly toured the UK and Northern Europe, as headliners and supporting acts as diverse as Bo Diddley and Nico.
In the late Eighties the Nightingales stopped working but, following the occasional gig between times, they re-grouped in 2004.
After fucking about with various part timers, starry eyed wastrels,
precious sorts and mercenaries the group arrived at a long standing
line up, which featured Lloyd, Andreas Schmid from Faust on bass,
ex Violet Violet wonder drummer Fliss Kitson and on guitar James
Smith, who Lloyd had spotted playing with Damo Suzuki.
Since restarting the group have been more productive than ever – releasing eight vinyl singles, a bunch of EPs, two 6 song mini albums, ten full length studio albums plus a movie soundtrack. They have regularly toured UK, mainland Europe and also the USA numerous times, playing various festivals and recording many radio sessions along the way.
The band continue to operate with no actual manager, booking
agent, et al, but they get by. And they work equally well with pop
musicians, rock n rollers and the avant garde. The group is
independent, maverick, diligent, daft, blah blah.
Following the hit fi lm "King Rocker", (Stewart Lee's documentary
feature about the band), which had been produced by Fire Films,
the group has been working with Fire Records. The label has been
issuing the band's back catalogue in a series of 'deluxe editions',
the movie soundtrack and a new studio album "The Awful Truth".
In the last few years, amongst other stuff, the Gales toured as
special guests of The Damned on an extensive UK tour, released a
double live LP and have continued to play regularly around Europe.
Following the release of “The Awful Truth” in 2025 the band was
officially augmented by wonderful viola player Natalie Mason who
had previously guested with the group on stage and record. The five piece - the best batch yet - have completed short tours of UK,
Ireland and Germany. They will be supporting their new recordings with a full UK tour in March/April 2027.
Retail Simps
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Retail Simps
+ Dragged Up
Wednesday 28th October
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
What if the Velvet Underground had written ‘Wooly Bully’ and Sam The Sham ‘Sister Ray?' If Ron House picked up some bongos and joined CCR or If Half Japanese and Hasil Adkins started a Meters cover band? This is the scrap yard of the Retail Simp's mind. Short on practice and high on ideas, thee Retail Simple Tones are 4 well traveled and unraveled individuals, bound by a musical adventure. This is the southern soul of Memphian tradesmen flipped on it’s snowy head, the sound of impure regionalism. An alternate kind of Northern Soul with a frosty Arctic sheen. More spazzed out guitar, more howling lunacy, more heat of the moment, turnt poetry and outside the box-isms. 3 LPs, 2 7"s, 1 2xLP, many tapes and shows in, the band remains unpredictable and ill content with stasis and the status quo. As the returns for REAL rock n roll diminish exponentially, so do the Retail Simps expectations, however, like the pious Eunuchs of Sumeria, their mission and core spirit remains strongly in tact: Get it or don't, they're on a mission.
Will Samson
Will Samson presents his forthcoming album 'Sings Again' at the Glad.
With the use of his beloved tape machines, Samson has been exploring the spaces between electronic, folk and ambient music for well over a decade, with releases on labels such as Wichita Recordings / 12k and touring with artists such as Efterklang, S. Carey, The Album Leaf.
'Samson's meditative mix of folk and electronica has an almost spiritual dimension’ - UNCUT
'the kind of smooth, shimmering palette that indie dreams are made of' - Loud & Quiet
'A beautiful, hushed and contemplative record, the falsetto reminding you of Bon Iver, the intricacy and tenderness recalling kindred spirits such as Nils Frahm and Sufjan Stevens' - The Sunday Times
'A delicate, persuasive balance between ambience and formal song structures… Minimal keyboard patterns are infilled with pattering, glitchy beats... Choir–like wash, pedal steel and double bass bring further colour.' - MOJO
'Gently cascading acoustics, country lapsteel and glitchy, crunchy tick-tocks, it might not just provide for want of serenity but for want of sleep: all the components shuffling quietly under the crackle of tape-machines.' - The Line of Best Fit
Deradoorian
Pop Mutations & The Glad Cafe presents:
Deradoorian
plus Mason Lindahl
Saturday 24th October
Fusing elements of indie rock, avant-garde electronic music, dub, and dance rhythms, Deradoorian is the name Angel Deradoorian works under as a solo artist. She launched said solo career after making a name for herself as a member of Dirty Projectors and collaborating with artists such as Avey Tare and Flying Lotus. Her albums, including 2015's 'The Expanding Flower Planet' and 2020's 'Find the Sun', are cosmic song cycles informed by her spiritual journey. After collaborating with Kate NV under the name Decisive Pink on 2023's heavily electronic 'Ticket to Fame', Deradoorian added that sound to her already jam-packed approach on 2025's 'Ready for Heaven'.
‘Ready for Heaven’ deals with heaven and earth, damnation and salvation, and using intelligence against rampant, naked greed. It is a classic forty minute set of inquisitive pop songs, blessed with a lightness of touch and a sharp focus that can’t help but charm the listener. It conjures up some last, faint afterglow of the old belief that an electronic, programmed beat can smash itself - and you - into another, more egalitarian consciousness.
“Deradoorian’s voice is the main attraction. Wispy one moment, bellowing full-throated the next, and capable of dazzling melismatic runs, it remains her not-so-secret weapon.” Pitchfork
It is a remarkable fact that this bold and open-hearted record is made by one person, working alone. Repeatedly reworking the songs until they were complete is a painstaking process that generated an energy and space where Deradoorian could indulge in the arcana of her artform. “I love the production more than the songwriting. [...] In fact, I don’t even feel like a songwriter at times, I feel like someone who is just inspired by so much music. And I want to try it all out! Like Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Mingus, or ESG and Silver Apples, or making weird krautrock and industrial music. I love dub, and Sly and Robbie. I love the productions of those records and the collective energies released by their creators in the studio. It’s just a weird thing to do it by yourself!”
Engaging with past musical glories helps deal with a major theme of this album; the awful nature of the world around us. Deradoorian: “This album is partly about watching humanity erode. It’s about mental struggle, and it’s avowedly anti-capitalist. I mean; would we have all these identity labels we have to live by, if we didn’t live in a capitalist world?”
Guitarist Mason Lindahl — whose “unabashedly beautiful” (Aquarium Drunkard) sound “balances the romantic dynamics of flamenco and the meticulousness of Windham Hill with the unguarded qualities of improvised music” (Pitchfork) — will release a pair of new albums, Joshua / Same Day Walking, this fall via Mt. Brings Death.
Though packaged together, Joshua and Same Day Walking chart distinct worlds. Recorded in northern California and produced by Robby Moncrieff (Dirty Projectors, Zach Hill), Joshua is woolier and warmer, evoking haze, humidity, and overgrown Spanish moss. Meanwhile, Same Day Walking — recorded in Iceland and produced by Moncrieff alongside two-time GRAMMY-winning composer / sound designer Sam Slater (Joker, Chernobyl) — is, appropriate for its icier climes, windswept and beholden to the vast emptiness of harsh landscapes. As a pair, they provide a thorough portrait of Lindahl’s singular and versatile playing.
Described by friend and contemporary Hayden Pedigo as “the greatest living guitar player,” Mason Lindahl’s “austere, gothic flamenco…dares you to submit to this odd and immersive sonic universe” (Uncut). The North Carolina native’s solo instrumental debut Kissing Rosy in the Rain, released in 2021 via Tompkins Square, was praised as “gorgeous” (Petal Motel) and “a minimalist gem” (Everything Is Noise). Prior to that, his only other solo release is 2009’s Serrated Man Sound.
Nadeem Din-Gabisi
Pop Mutations & The Glad Cafe presents:
Nadeem Din-Gabisi
plus special guests chizu nnamdi + Simone Seales
Friday 23rd October at The Glad Cafe
Nadeem Din-Gabisi brings his acclaimed debut Album OFFSHORE to The Glad Cafe for his debut Glasgow show!
Nadeem’s music tackles themes of belonging, estrangement and identity with ‘potent streams of consciousness’. Nadeem’s live shows at Supernormal Festival, Sinsal Festival and Great Escape have showcased his 'big choruses and big energy which elevate themes of Black identity, cultural displacement, and spiritual resilience with a refined sense of composition and arrangement', expect to go on an adventure of loops, costumes, audience participation and the unexpected!
Iguana Death Cult
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Iguana Death Cult
+ Special Guests
Thursday 22nd October
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Iguana Death Cult’s latest evolution finds the Rotterdam band reflecting on hardship and doubt while facing a burning world. The result channels their early punk and garage roots, powered by Tobias Opschoor’s razorsharp riffs, Rennert’s relentless drumming, Jimmy de Kok’s groovy rhythms and Jeroen Reek’s raw, emotive vocals.
Formed in 2014, the band has grown from a group of friends into an renowned international act, touring with band such as Osees and Frankie and the Witch Fingers, supporting Jack White and performing at SXSW, Levitation, and Desert Daze.
Their new album Guns Out (Greenway Records) marks a return to punchy garage rock and features honest self-reflection, addressing escapism, mental strain, and creative renewal. Tough yet introspective, Guns Out captures a band coming to terms with its own evolution and the turbulent world around it.
Earth Tongue
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Earth Tongue
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 20th October
The Glad Cafe
18+
Hailing from New Zealand, heavy psych rock duo Earth Tongue have become known for their mind altering, cult-like live performances. With only two people on stage, their sonic power, intricate world-building and rich visuals have combined to launch them on a seemingly non-stop tour for the past few years. Guitarist Gussie Larkin is a master of the fuzz-smothered
riff, and along with Ezra Simons’ off-kilter drumming, they’ve been sending punters into transcendental states since their emergence in 2016.
Ushering in a new era, Earth Tongue lowered the castle gates with their 2026 album, Dungeon Vision. Produced by garage rock hero Ty Segall in Los Angeles, the record captures the duo’s live intensity with sludge guitars, bone-battering drums, and tuneful vocals, all recorded live and
direct to tape at Altamira Sound. Their collaboration with Ty, whom they previously supported on tour, brought a new dimension to their music. Band and producer were particular about finding the right sound, and that’s apparent on listening, as the album’s twelve tracks offer a feast of wonderfully scuffed and scuzzy riffage. Dungeon Vision was recorded and mixed in just 10 days—a testament to the band’s drive and ability, and a process that infused the album with urgency and adrenaline.
Dungeon Vision is the much anticipated follow up to 2024’s Great Haunting (In The Red), a record written during the pandemic lockdown era while holed up binging on 1970’s and 80’s horror movies. Their love of B-movies also runs through their self-produced music videos, which are
steeped in Giallo tropes; from melted candles to sacrificial daggers. Great Haunting was met with critical acclaim and saw Earth Tongue win the 2025 Aotearoa Music Award for Best Group, along with a nomination for the prestigious 2025 Taite Music Prize.
Since the release of their first album Floating Being in 2019, Earth Tongue have hit the road time and time again, sharing stages with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, IDLES, Acid King, Brant Bjork and Kikagaku Moyo. Anyone who’s been to an Earth Tongue show knows their mind-expanding power, as well as a sense of disbelief that two people are generating this much noise - not just in terms of volume, or venue-filling frequency range, but such a variety of sounds, from beautiful to bruising. Dungeon Vision bottles the magic of those live shows, a product of two-person alchemy honed over many hours.
Felicity J Lord
Pop Mutations & The Glad Cafe present:
Felicity J Lord + PG. Tina
Sunday 18th October at The Glad Cafe
Felicity J Lord does performances with lots of surprises.
Please do visit felicityjlord.online for bits and games.
P.G Tina is a Dublin-born and raised producer. His live shows are frenetic. The music blends rap and emo vocals with raw synths and pop structures.
Hollow Hand
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Hollow Hand
+ Special Guests
Friday 16th October
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Max Kinghorn-Mills is the Brighton-based artist behind the psych-pop project Hollow Hand - and with a new record due this year - the latest signing to Loose Music. 2023’s Your Own Adventure received widespread acclaim (MOJO, Uncut, BBC 6Music, Brooklyn Vegan, La Blogotheque , Aquarium Drunkard, Shindig!) since then, Hollow Hand have toured extensively - serving as house band for Caitlin Rose, collaborating and performing with Aoife Nessa Frances, supporting MJ Lenderman across Europe, and joining Willie J Healey on his most recent UK tour.
“Enchanting and melodic third from folk-rock voyager… Max Kinghorn-Mills casts quite a spell on his third Hollow Hand album” - UNCUT
“Evoking everyone from Stealers Wheel to Jeff Lynne to Tom Petty, Hollow Hand is a shape-shifting beast.” - MOJO 4*
“Everything you ever thought you needed from '60s pop, and a little bit more.” - The Line Of Best Fit
“Beatles-esque… jangly country-rock and psychedelic pop epiphanies” - Shindig! 4*
Dead Finks
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Dead Finks
+ Special Guests
Thursday 15th October
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Dead Finks is a post-punk group based in Berlin, Germany. Their music tows a fine line between the genre's typical ironic detachment and a genuine sense of emotional earnestness, something they have in common with The Replacements, Wire, Pavement and Protomatryr, who they've toured with.
The band started gaining traction in 2021 when the video for their single “(My Human) Extinction” was premiered on the taste-making Harakiri Diät channel, becoming a modest hit in underground punk circles.
Their songs range from the abrasive and intense to earwormy-y and accessible, with their 2026 effort "New Plastik Abyss" earning praise and plays from everyone; teenage TikTok influencers to NTS radio alike.
This is also the year that Dead Finks finally tour the UK for the first time, the ancestral home of many of their creative forebears and finest contemporaries, after years of touring mainland Europe, handpicked as support by the likes of Dry Cleaning, Stuck, Fuzz, Folly Group, Sheer Mag and many others.
Kelley Stoltz
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Kelley Stoltz
+ Sarah/Shaun
+ Kim Logan & the Silhouettes
Wednesday 14th October
The Glad Cafe
18+
Kelley Stoltz is an American songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and DIY innovator whose career stretches back to the late 1990s, when he began self-recording lush, psych‑tinged pop and garage rock in his San Francisco home studio. Born in New York City in 1971, and raised in Michigan, Stoltz has released a remarkable catalog of albums on labels including Sub Pop, Third Man, and Castle Face Records often playing all of the instruments himself and drawing comparisons to the melodic craftsmanship of the major 60’s pop auteurs and the quirkiness of lesser known 80’s power-pop & new wave.
After issuing his 18th album, La Fleur in 2024 to critical notice, he returns in 2026 with his 19th full‑length release, If You Don’t Know Me, Buy Now, a collection that continues his long exploration of hook‑laden psych‑pop, introspective lyrics, and richly textured arrangements that both honor his influences and push his sound forward, reinforcing his status as one of the most prolific and singular voices in underground rock.
Guests Brigid Dawson of the Osees, Karina Denike of Dance Hall Crashers, Pete Straus of the Dwarves and Allyson Baker of Dirty Ghosts and other guests provide backing vocals on several tracks.
Long a favorite of MOJO, Brooklyn Vegan, and John Dwyer… Stoltz is also a onetime Echo & the Bunnymen rhythm guitarist and currently Robyn Hitchcock’s West Coast drummer. Stoltz is also now the host of legendary
radio station KEXPs weekly Bay Area Music spotlight show, “Vinelands”.
An extensive UK & European tour is scheduled for October – November 2026, with a key appearance live in session for Marc Riley on his BBC 6 Music show. West Coast USA dates to be announced.
If You Don’t Know Me, Buy Now will be released in May 2026 on LP & CD by Agitated Records in UK & Europe and Dandy Boy Records in the USA.
The Hanging Stars
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
The Hanging Stars
+ Radhika
Saturday 10th October
Mono
18+
London’s The Hanging Stars return with their sixth album, Just A Day – a dazzling collection of four-part harmonies, shimmering twelve-string guitars and chiming songs, touching on themes of longing, new beginnings and the fragility of the everyday. Recorded at Edwyn Collin’s legendary Clashnarrow Studios in the Scottish Highlands, the album marks a bold new chapter for the band, produced with the invaluable guidance of Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love.
A line-up change at the end of 2024 proved to be a galvanising moment for The Hanging Stars. “We needed to rethink things,” says guitarist Patrick Ralla. “A new leaner approach – bass, drums, guitars, four-part harmonies. Certainly worked for The Byrds, Big Star and Teenage Fanclub.” The result is a wonderfully energising record full of catchy hooks and a renewed vision. The songs are designed to take the listener away from it all… even if it's just for a little while.
Central to the record’s new direction was the involvement of Gerard Love – one third of Teenage Fanclub’s celebrated songwriting trio and the artist behind Lightships. Starting from demos exchanged between Glasgow and London, Love helped the band strip things back to their essence, ever so gently guiding them toward their finest work to date. He also joined the band for a week of recording, contributing vocals, arrangement ideas and by all accounts a mean vegan curry.
Just A Day is The Hanging Stars’ third album to be recorded at Clashnarrow Studios, Helmsdale located in the most idyllic setting imaginable, thirty minutes south of John O’Groats and overlooking the Moray Firth. The studio, owned and run by Edwyn Collins and Grace Maxwell, is a place the band describe with reverence: “a sort of mixture between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and the BBC’s Repair Shop”.
The band recorded the core of the album in a single week in February 2025, using Edwyn’s vintage gear – including the Gretsch Blackhawk he used in his Orange Juice days and the Barnes and & Mullins fuzz box heard on a “A Girl Like You”. The Hanging Stars’ connection with Edwyn Collins extends beyond just using his studio, Patrick plays guitar in Edwyn’s band and they were invited to support Collin’s momentous 2025 Testimonial Tour – A Last Lap Around The UK with dates including The Royal Festival Hall in London and the Theatre Royal in Glasgow.
The new album was produced and engineered by longtime collaborator Sean Read, with overdubs and mixing completed at Read’s Famous Times Studios over the spring of 2025, and additional recording at bassist Paul Milne’s Seagull Studios in East London. Drummer Paulie Cobra anchors the record with his defining beat, lending his voice to the soaring four-part harmonies. A core figure in the band’s story, Cobra has embarked on a prolonged sabbatical, making way for their new live drummer Charlie Salvidge (TOY, Proper Ornaments, Great Silkie) who will join the band on the road.
Frontman and songwriter Richard Olson reaches a creative high point with Just A Day, which opens in a surge of optimism with “All Your Yesterdays”, to “The Glasshouse”’s twelve-string-jangle-meets-New-York-circa-1976 meditation on wealth and class, to “Let It Slide” a feel-good track with a sting in its tail, to the country gospel drone of “Big Red Car” and meditative title track “Just A Day” laments for the day just gone. There are additional compositions from Patrick Ralla (“Keep On Making Me Wait”) and the first inclusion for bassist Paul Milne who wrote the party track “Show Me The Way”.
Their sound evokes classic sounds from the past with an ear towards the future, from The Byrds via Big Star, to The Feelies, Spiritualized, Teenage Fanclub and Tom Petty. Or think Lou Reed and the Velvets jamming with Gorkys Zygotic Mynci. The result is an album that feels simultaneously classic and vibrant, their influences worn lightly giving the songs room to breathe.
Born At Midnite
Pop Mutations presents:
Born At Midnite
+ Special Guests
Thursday 8th October
The Glad Cafe
18+
Who is Born At Midnite and why is it so important to you?
Born At Midnite are not your garden variety drag and drop producers, they are a vertically integrated song machine. Employing samplers, fake drums, tape machine, and their patented ‘do it myself’ method; the Montreal based duo bring their tracks from ground up to thumbs up all from a low rent former tax office above a dress shop. Playing into, whilst poking fun at, our era’s omnipresent narcissism and self indulgence the group stitch together an unsponsored sort of ‘product-placement-punk’.
What are they doing now?
Since 2020 the self appointed town heroes BAM have been flourishing in their own Belle Epoque, casually dropping the shallowest of cuts, play it again jams, and booya bangers to cosmo and countryside fanfare alike.
Who’s in the band?
Amery Sandford is a visual artist and easy going pop songstress. She recently released her first solo record Amery - Continue As Amery on Night School Records. David Carriere is a producer, songwriter, and guitarist in the bands TOPS and Marci.
The Third Sound
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
The Third Sound
+ Special Guests
Wednesday 7th October
The Glad Cafe
18+
Ever evolving Berlin based The Third Sound are back with their hypnotic blend of psychedelia and drone infused post punk. After a successful Australian tour in early 2026, the cards were reshuffled once again, and with a brand-new line up the band has begun working on a new album (their 7th), due to be released next year.
Before finishing the record, there will be run of shows this autumn testing out some of the new material, mixed with songs from previous albums, many of which becoming firm favourites with audiences everywhere during their live sets in recent years.
Their well-received most recent LP ́Most Perfect Solitude ́, was released on Fuzz Club Records in 2024 followed by stand-alone single ́Remedy ́, which dropped earlier this year. After touring extensively the last few years, both with The Third Sound and as a guitarist for the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Icelandic musician Hákon Aðalsteinsson is ready to take The Third Sound in new directions alongside recently joined fellow Icelander and BJM member Hallberg Daði Hallbergsson, Francis Broek (Goblyns) and Mike Denton (formerly of The Lucid Dream).
Jake Xerxes Fussell
Pop Mutations presents:
Jake Xerxes Fussell
plus special guest Naima Bock
Tuesday 6th October
St Luke’s, Glasgow
Unreserved seated
—
Reared in Georgia and now settled in North Carolina, Jake Xerxes Fussell has established himself as a devoted listener and contemplative interpreter of a vast array of so-called folk songs, lovingly sourced from a personal store of favorites. He has released five studio albums to-date, beginning with his self-titled debut album, released by Paradise of Bachelors in 2015.
His most recent studio album When I’m Called was produced by James Elkington and features the playing of Ben Whiteley (The Weather Station), Joe Westerlund (Bon Iver, Califone), and others. Blake Mills contributes guitars on several tracks. Joan Shelley and Robin Holcomb provide backing vocals. In their review of the record, Pitchfork wrote: “No other American singer is repurposing our old folk scripts with so much authority or ingenuity.”
More recently, Fussell and Elkington collaborated on the music for Rebuilding - a feature film directed by Max Walker-Silverman and starring Josh O’Connor. A soundtrack of the same name was released on Fat Possum Records in November 2025.
“Critics love to call things unclassifiable, which can sometimes feel like a subtle admission of defeat. But Jake Xerxes Fussell’s music, which draws heavily from nineteenth- and twentieth-century vernacular folk songs and archival field recordings, is idiomatic, and entirely his own…he is a folksinger in the truest sense, collecting ideas and melodies and lyrics from distant and disparate traditions, looking for the things that unite us in our humanity.” - The New Yorker
“(Fussell) is one of the great magpies of American song, collecting forgotten, tarnished gems with a folklorist’s zeal…” – The Guardian
“…maybe the leading interpreter of American folk music right now.” – Ann Powers, NPR
GB
GB is an artist from Copenhagen, currently based in London. His debut album “Gusse Music” was released in May 2024 on Posh Isolation. It is a 33 minute collaged symphony of explorative guitar songs offering a world heavy on texture and atmosphere but which nevertheless has a sheen of pop sensibility. His latest record will be released this Spring via AD93.
R.M.F.C.
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
R.M.F.C.
+ Special Guests
Thursday 1st October
The Glad Cafe
18+
Béton Armé
Pop Mutations presents:
Béton Armé
+ Special Guests
Wednesday 30th September
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Béton Armé is a punk/oi! band founded in 2018. Having become a fixture on the global punk scene, the band stands out for its original music, with driving rhythms and haunting choruses, as well as its universally celebrated live performances. Since the band's formation, Béton Armé has produced a self-titled demo on the LSC records label in 2018, a debut EP entitled "Au bord du gouffre" on Primator Crew (France) in 2020, a split 45 with Buffalo band Violent Way, jointly produced by Primator Crew records and Contra Records (Germany) in 2021, and an EP entitled Second souffle released by Primator Crew (France) and Roachleg Records (New York, USA).
The band's numerous live performances have attracted the attention of the punk sphere around the world. In addition to performances in Quebec and Ontario, the band played a series of concerts in Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago in fall 2019. They also hit the stage on the U.S. West Coast in the summer of 2021, when they took part in the Lie Detector festival in Los Angeles and performed in two other concerts in Long Beach, California. During the same summer, they also went to Vancouver to play at the Have a Good Laugh festival. They also played a number of concerts in New York (4), Philadelphia (5) and other cities in the northeastern U.S., including Buffalo, Boston and Pittsburgh, during a tour with French band Squelette in summer 2022.
More recently, the band toured Europe on a 14-show European tour. This series of concerts took them to several cities in France, Belgium, England and Germany. Highlights of the tour included performances at the latest edition of Static Shock Weekend, in London (England), and Bal des Vauriens, in Vitry-sur-Seine (France).
The band also participated in a 10-show tour the US West Coast in March 2024, playing in front live audiences from Los Angeles to Seattle. They also went to Spain in August 2024 for the Beach, Beer and Chaos festival in the Barcelona suburb of Badalona. In September, the band embarked on its biggest tour to date, opening for Soft Kill. The 14-concert tour took them to the following cities: Portland, Reno, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
Carla dal Forno
Carla dal Forno is an Australian composer, songwriter and producer based in Castlemaine, Victoria. Working between post-punk minimalism, experimental pop and atmospheric electronics, she has built a dedicated international following through a series of acclaimed releases and extensive touring across Europe and North America.
Her albums have been praised by outlets including Pitchfork, The Quietus and Resident Advisor, alongside airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music. Beyond her recorded work, dal Forno hosts a monthly radio program on NTS Radio, where she curates eclectic selections spanning experimental electronics, dub, post-punk and leftfield pop - offering insight into the wide-ranging influences that inform her own practice.
She has performed headline shows and festival appearances throughout the UK, Europe and the United States, including dates in London, Berlin, Paris and New York City, as well as appearances at Unsound Festival and Le Guess Who?.
Her fourth studio album, Confession, expands her signature sound while maintaining the minimal, immersive qualities that have defined her work to date. On stage, dal Forno delivers a focused and atmospheric set that moves between brooding electronics and melodic immediacy - a performance that is both restrained and quietly powerful.
Cory Hanson
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Cory Hanson
+ Special Guests
Tuesday 29th September
Stereo
18+
Like a sweet spring breeze after a long, cruel winter, Cory Hanson’s blowing through town again. And like the wind, I Love People comes from parts unknown. Need a ride? Long as you’re ready to find yourself wherever it dies down, jump on! Despite all the complications of life here in Central Casting 2025, Cory and the boys are happier than ever to be playing music at its most beautiful for ALL the people: eminent hipsters bellied up to the bar alongside the ropers, riders and all the other jokers for whom freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose or do. Followers of Cory’s twin arcs as solo singer and Wand member will be intrigued to learn that the lineup here is the same band that recorded last year’s Vertigo. Yep, Wand — their Masters of Unbounded Space robes traded in for Wrecking Crew trucker’s caps, as they reel out licks both tasty and smooth, like chopsmeisters of yore. That’s Robbie Cody co-producing behind the desk, Evan Backer playing bass and arranging strings and horns, Evan Burrows on drums and percussion and Cory on piano, guitars and voices and songs.
Locust
Pop Mutations presents:
Locust
+ Special Guests
Saturday 26th September
The Glad Cafe
18+
Mark Van Hoen's project Locust has been in existence since the early 1990s, acclaimed for their singular permutations which have taken in everything from IDM (Van Hoen has previously played shows with Aphex Twin and Autechre), My Bloody Valentine, Trip Hop to Eno, and their latest line-up began to take shape in 2024.
"Olive Kimoto (vocals, keyboards) instigated all this. I was playing a solo show in September 2024 and she came to that. She had been running a club called Heaven or Los Angeles, a Cocteau Twins reference which I immediately liked. When we met, she said how much she liked my music. She did a two hour radio special with me on my music and we decided to collaborate."
The new Locust played their first show in 2025, the first show back since opening for Massive Attack in the 90s, and since then they have fleshed out new material for a new album, Spectral+, with parts added as developed onstage.
"We're establishing this identity as a live band. We've really bonded, all really good friends, all rooting for it. People can see we're a tight band, they're not hired hands."
The band also includes Derek Mabra on guitar and Jaelyn Valero on drums.
Spectral+, which builds on the success of the previous Locust album, is an eclectic, uniquely slanted collection of songs which use classic influences as jumping off points into fresh waters. The album title reflects the sheer variegation, the range of colour across these songs, as well as implying something of the sense of spectres of pop's past.
"I'm much more interested in songs these days, the songwriting process," says Van Hoen.
So, "Shape Of Another", with its heavy, radioactive buzz, reminds faintly of The Bug as well as echoes of very early Locust material. "Long Distance Lover", with its chromium neo-synthpop and echoing guitar figurines, rings out with Neil Halstead's unmistakable guitar, while "All Of Them" feels like epic pop from a parallel universe, with vocals from Nick Holton of the group Black Hearted Brother (a project with Mark Van Hoen and Neil Halstead).
There's a dazzling intervention from left field in the shape of rapper Griff Spex, who appears on two tracks, including "Soul Sky", with its clustered backbeat and siren loop.
"He contacted me because he loved my very early music, the first album. His own music has an industrial electronic edge to it. He's from Queens, close to the home of rap music. He's a real New Yorker and likes investigating different styles of music."
"No Space For Love" features a blaze of old school synths in a fresh context (Van Hoen was impacted as a kid by the 70s productions of Giorgio Moroder), while "Going Nowhere" reminds a little of Boards Of Canada in its celestial trails of electronics, rolling percussion and reverberant, existentially forlorn vocals.
The reproachful "Face It", which features words no man cares to hear, "you are not doing enough", combines textures including idiosyncratic droplets of guitar to create a weave like no other.
Finally, the aristocratic swell of "In The Service Of Others", suffused with a sort of defiant melancholy, has its closest musical relation in Brian Eno's "Spider And I".
The Tubs
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
The Tubs
+ Special Guests
Friday 25th September
Stereo
18+
Frog
Pop Mutations presents:
Frog
+ Special Guests
Monday 14th September
Stereo
18+
Frog are a band from New York, described as everything from “Indie Rock” to “Americana” and “Alt-Country” to “Fifth Wave Emo.” Frog debuted in 2012 with their beautiful and bizarre self-titled record before finding broader acclaim (including from David Berman) with 2015’s classic ‘Kind of Blah‘ LP, and its follow ups ‘Whatever We Probably Already Had It‘ and ‘Count Bateman.’ After a four-year-plus hiatus, Frog returned in November 2023 with ‘GROG,’ which was praised by Pitchfork, Stereogum, Bandcamp Daily, BBC Radio Scotland and KCRW, while being the top debut for the North American College & Community Radio Chart. Their award-winning ‘Kings of Blah‘ documentary is available here, and their KEXP session is live here.
Ceremony East Coast + test plan
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Ceremony East Coast
+ test plan
Sunday 13th September
The Glad Cafe
18+
Ceremony East Coast -
Ceremony East Coast, or short CEC, is John Fedowitz on (bass-) guitar and vocal mic and Sandra Fedowitz on drums. You also might have seen them as the current rhythm section of A Place to Bury Strangers.
CEC loves relentless live shows and releases: Drone bass lines, white-noise guitars, savage drums and intense vocals. Nothing polished, highs and lows. The two of them insist on keeping their sound unapologetically human.
test plan -
test plan are looking for the sweet spot between dancing and moshing.
Formed in 2022 by Rory Dickinson (bass), Michalis Fragkiadakis (guitar), and Max Mason(drums/vocals), the London-based DIY trio cultivate a ferocious blend of noise-rock, dance-punk, and post-hardcore.
Winds of overloaded guitar feedback and distortion are punctuated by crunching drums andthrobbing bass, all bound together by howls of angst and chaotic energy. Their dynamic live performances beckon a meeting point where volume and energy collide - intense, visceral, and unfiltered, hitting like a punch in the gut: sweat-soaked, teeth-rattling, and gloriously unhinged.
Tomorrow Syndicate (matinee)
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Tomorrow Syndicate
+ Special Guests
Saturday 12th September (matinee)
The Glad Cafe
Suitable for ages 10+ (under 18s must be accompanied by an adult)
Tomorrow Syndicate blend analogue synthesisers, ambient guitars and melodic songwriting into a distinctive sci-fi inspired sound. Influenced by krautrock, classic pop and cinematic soundscapes, the band have spent the last decade building a catalogue of immersive and atmospheric music.
Returning to the stage for their first live show in six years, Tomorrow Syndicate will perform songs from Future Tense, Citizen Input, Higher Resolution and their upcoming album Full Capacity Breathing
Drook
Pop Mutations presents:
Drook
+ Special Guests
Friday 11th September
The Glad Cafe
18+
Drook's debut LP, The Pure Joy of Jumping, stands as a testament to the lofty ambitions of the Richmond, Virginia-based group and their ever-spinning wheelhouse of interests and tastes. Written up and down the east coast, in studios, bedrooms and coffee shops, the contents of Jumping are as traveled as the band itself. Conceived over a period of four years, this deeply personal coming-of-age record explores identity, interpersonal relationships, and the modern malaise of American life. Underscored by an earnest sense of humor and pointed self-evaluation, Jumping plays out over 11 songs driven by frenetic rhythms, blissed-out guitars, and colorful synth arrangements. It's an aggregation of self-expression with a limitless approach to form.
Loscil
Pop Mutations & The Glad Cafe presents:
Loscil
plus Kinbrae
Monday 7th September
The Glad Cafe
18+ show
“Less than a month after one of the most violent fire events in the history of the continent, new shoots had burst through the scorched hardpan, nourished by the still-vital roots of those flayed and blackened trees.” John Vaillant, Fire Weather
Loscil (aka Scott Morgan) returns to kranky with Lake Fire, a nine-track offering of ash-laden sonics that mine the tension within the cycle of destruction and rejuvenation.
Lake Fire is the result of a disjointed creative process. Originally conceived as a suite for
electronics and ensemble, most of the original compositions were deserted, save for Ash Clouds, featuring James Meager on double bass. The remaining tracks were reshaped and remixed, built anew out of the remnants of the abandoned work. The result is a phoenix, an album burnt to the ground only to be reassembled out of its cinders. Fragments of the original lurk beneath a densely overpainted canvas of sound.
Infused into the resulting rearrangements are impressions from a road trip into the mountains marking a personal half-century milestone, surrounded by the ominous proximity of wildfires and dense smoke; celebrating life while the world burns. The album’s title comes from the striking irony that forest fires are often named after regional lakes - perhaps subconsciously referencing ancient lore. The cover photos were taken from this same trip, while sitting in a rowboat staring into the grey abyss of an opposing mountainside outside of Revelstoke, BC, obfuscated by smoke from a nearby lake fire.
Annabelle Chairlegs
Pop Mutations & Freakender present:
Annabelle Chairlegs
+ Special Guests
Sunday 6th September
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Annabelle Chairlegs is the electrifying project of Austin-based songwriter Lindsey Mackin, known for her gritty, whimsical sound and commanding stage presence. Since emerging in 2013, the band has become a standout live act, sharing stages with The Zombies, Lucy Dacus, and The Brian Jonestown Massacre and performing at major festivals including Austin City Limits, SXSW, Levitation, and Austin Psych Fest. With two self-released albums and a 2020 Austin Music Award for Best Music Video ("Outside"), the project continues to build momentum. Their upcoming Ty Segall–produced album, Waking Up (January 2026), introduces a refreshed lineup and an even sharper, explosive live energy. Mackin is joined by dummer Nick Cornetti, Simone Maresh on bass and Nolan Potter on guitar.
Fatboi Sharif
Pop Mutations presents:
Fatboi Sharif
+ Special Guests
Wednesday 2nd September
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
The Garden State Gargoyle, Fatboi Sharif, is an American avant-garde Hip-Hop artist that is looking to take over the globe with his abstract lyricism, spine-chilling soundscapes, illuminating intensity, and his million-dollar smile. It is either the highest level or nothing for Sharif when it comes to putting out projects and performing on stage. He treats the live show as a spiritual experience where Sharif takes the crowd on a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world as if from a location outside their physical body. By the closing track he tells the crowd to involve themselves in a call & response that simply repeats “MY FAMILY!” because by the end of his set he’s grown a connection with the crowd that could only equate with that of your family.
Different channels of inspiration are always a must. Inspired by Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic, Alice Coltrane, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Ultramagnetic MC’s, Freestyle Fellowship, Cannibal Ox, Rob Zombie, Pig Destroyer just to name a few. Fatboi keeps constant inspiration around him to push the limit. If not, he’s better off without it. Sharif has studied all genre-pushing works of music, film, and literature. His debut “Ape Twin” from 2017 was re-released on vinyl, via Needle to the Groove, with exclusive bonus tracks only available on wax. The reason Sharif can re-release a project from 2017 in 2025 is because his sound is evergreen. Fatboi Sharif is one of the most charismatic and embracing individuals you’ll have the pleasure of meeting. The Garden State Gargoyle of Elaborate Literature Challenging the Unknown.
“Sharif is one of the most distinct artists across any scene.” – Rolling Stone
“Imagine a Cenobite raised on MF DOOM and Wu-Tang Clan, and you’ve got something approximating a rapper like Fatboi Sharif.” – FADER
“But if the sound has grown stagnant in the sun, hip-hop’s future may lie underground with bold voices like Sharif’s.” – US Weekly
“Fatboi excels at reeling off jolting couplets that seem like non sequitur observations at first but collectively compile a portrait of a fictional world of tumult. Or is it mere fiction?” - Complex
“No two songs are alike, but the fragmented verses and horror flick references from each one form a twisted mosaic of Lynchian strangeness, where nothing is too strange, sacred,
or taboo.” – SPIN
"I want to create my own genre.” - Fatboi Sharif
More Eaze
Pop Mutations & The Glad Cafe present:
More Ease
plus special secret guest!
More Eaze is the project of Brooklyn-based sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Mari Maurice. Ranging from ambient pop to folk and musique concrete, her numerous solo and collaborative releases weave mundane, everyday sounds, acoustic orchestration and instrumentation, and electronics into adventurous textural compositions. Her music explores themes of intimacy, yearning, Americana, and the transformation of abstract feeling into intense living through compositions that move seamlessly between the banal and the ethereal. She has recently released work with Thrill Jockey, 15 Love, Longform Editions, Leaving Records, Ecstatic, and Orange Milk. Her work as a string arranger, pedal steel player, and producer has recently been featured on recordings by Martha Skye Murphy, Water Damage, Lomelda, Fashion Club, claire rousay, Space Afrika and Rainy Miller, and Nick Zanca amongst others. She regularly performs in the duos Pink Must (w/ Lynn Avery) and whait (w/ Wendy Eisenberg).
Lily Seabird
Pop Mutations presents:
Lily Seabird
+ Special Guests
Monday 31st August
The Old Hairdresser's
18+
Seabird has shared “Demon in Me,” her first new single of 2026. Having built a reputation for her singular voice and cutting lyricism, the new single arrives with high anticipation following her critically acclaimed 2025 album Trash Mountain, out now via Lame-O Records. “Demon in Me” is perhaps the most striking example to date of Seabird’s potent songwriting, beginning as a stark vocal & guitar before blossoming into a lush arrangement and ultimately collapsing into smoldering wreckage.
Since the release of Trash Mountain, Seabird’s life has continued in perpetual motion, touring with Mikaela Davis, Florry, Thomas Dollbaum, Dean Johnson, Robert Lester Folsom, and more. Her appearance at 2025’s End of the Road Festival led The Guardian to proclaim Seabird as “an indie star in the making… The Vermont songwriter has some of Big Thief to her brawny, easy rockers, coupled with a gorgeously open-hearted voice that recalls Lucinda Williams and Frances Quinlan of Hop Along.”