Upset The Rhythm presents…

ARTIFICIAL GO
Wednesday 13 May
New River Studios, 199 Eade Rd, Harringay, London, N4 1DN
7.30pm | £10

ARTIFICIAL GO hail from Cincinnati, USA, and bring the beat to life with their New / No / Whatever Wave weirdness! Last year they released ‘Musical Chairs’, building on 2024’s 'Hopscotch Fever', an album of ten existential post-punk chamber pop tracks. Recorded at Lambda Research and the haunted attic of the band’s house, the core trio of Angie Willcutt, Micah Wu, and Cole Gilfilen have traded the sparse jangle of their debut for a broader, fuller sound. ‘Musical Chairs’ deftly meshes the angular excitability of 'Hopscotch Fever' with a spectral warmth and expensiveness able to encompass acoustic guitars, Wu’s almost metaphysical funk bass lines, tape loops and blips and bleeps, a guest spot by Eric Dietrich (of The Drin and Sorry Eric) on saxophone, and Gilfilen’s hip moving boom-bap drumming add to the excitement.

In Willcutt’s hands, the struggles, and at times terrors, of our current age are playfully subverted with agile world play and dynamic vocalization that moves from sweet and dreamy to cartoonishly exaggerated as she charts an emotional course through such topics as the difficulties of playing the role of “woman” in a misogynist world (“Playing Puppet”) or the injustice of anthropocentric hierarchy (“Tightrope Walker”). Musical Chairs is serious music not meant to be taken too seriously, a playful act of resistance, a meditation on the good and bad of this world, and ultimately a remarkable statement on the continuing growth of Artificial Go.

https://artificialgo.bandcamp.com/