Barn Owl

Event information

Gizeh Records and Paper & Iron Booking present
BARN OWL + A-Sun Amissa
£7.50 advance

Doors 8pm

Wharf Chambers is a members' club and you need to be a member, or guest of a member, in order to attend. To join, please visit wharfchambers.org. Membership costs £1 and requires a minimum of 48 hours to take effect.

BARN OWL (US - Thrill Jockey)

Between rhythmic, turning strums that recall Saharan twilight, radiant synth swells and choral clusters that echo the desolation of deep space, the duo's sound has no doubt ascended from it's desert-rock roots into a new, beaming realm. Evocative as they are, the sounds aren't easy to tie down to particular imagery. A myriad of influences from blues and raga to the guitar style most often associated with the Tuareg people meld into a new universal sound that can only be described as cosmic and sublime.

"Revisiting Earth is only a temporary exploration before Barn Owl take off into deep space and musically touch base with John Fahey, Jack Rose and Pandit Pran Nath, together with a celestial symphonic orchestra and chorus." - The Wire

"Even on tracks where celestial melody and light shatter the swirling fog off riffs (...), the mood within is h-e-a-v-y like a bewitching series of black metal incantations." - NME
"Lonesome guitars wend their way through the shimmer of rising heat, synth swells collapse into dust and a plaintive violin calls to a long-lost lover, all of which twines itself together to form a rich experimental drone that's as vast, lonely and unending as the desert images they conjure." - Rock Sound

A-SUN AMISSA (UK - Gizeh Records)

A-Sun Amissa is a project formed out of Leeds, UK in 2011 by members of Glissando and The Rustle of the Stars.. Built on the foundations of the unknown, a project that encompasses minimalist drones, modern-classical movements and avant-garde tendencies.

Richard Knox (Glissando, The Rustle of the Stars, Of Thread & Mist) & Angela Chan (Glissando, The Rustle of the Stars, Ten, Tomorrow We Sail) began forming the initial ideas in the Autumn of 2011, moving away from the piano-led ambience of previous outputs. Live they can play as a duo or often accompanied by other musicians.

A-Sun Amissa produce a dense, drone-like atmosphere accompanying evocative, melodic string sections and intertwining guitars. The live show features sections of the recorded output combined with improvisation to unlock new movements and progressions in the music. The subtle, considered textures and the hypnotic interaction between players and instruments provide an intense live performance.

The first A-Sun Amissa release was a limited edition 'postcard' EP on Hibernate Recordings in October 2011 with an album 'Desperate in Her Heavy Sleep' out in March 2012 on Gizeh Records. A new album 'You Stood Up For Victory, We Stood Up For Less' will be released on Gizeh in March 2013.

"an unsettling work that, for all this talk of solitude, is peculiarly both beautiful and comforting"
Rock-a-Rolla

"a hugely satisfying and darkly compelling piece of work from a group of artists at the forefront of UK drone exploration." Foxy Digitalis

"Mournful strings, guitars, and dark ambient shadings conjure a haunted, reverberant soundtrack for the end of days, and for one funereal minute after another, cello, violin, and guitars quietly wail, as if caught within some slow-motion death spiral" Textura