Beck's 'Music Inspires Art' Weekender
Thursday 22nd July - Sunday 25th July
FREE Entry All Weekend
@ The Lock Tavern, 35 Chalk Farm Road
London NW1 8AJ

A weekend of incredible musical talent, much of which will be announced on the week of the show, alongside the best new visual artists around. Sign up to Facebook.com/becksvier for more information.

THURSDAY 22ND JULY

THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS

New York based duo, Jason Friedman and Eleanore Everdell, came together through a love for playing one anothers' music. Their pop-forms and structures are laiden with smooth, rounded electronics and scattered drums. Eleanore was formerly backing singer for TV on the Radio and Jason former frontman of Boggs. They bring you boy/girl sweet indie vocals, juddering guitar and rumbling doom bass, the type of unlikely concoction that only seems to work when Warp decree that it should!
www.myspace.com/thehundredinthehands

MEN

MEN is a Brooklyn-based band and art/performance collective that focuses on the energy of live performance and radical potential of dance music. MEN speaks to issues such as wartime economies, sexual compromise, and demanding liberties through lyrical content and an exciting stage show. The group began in 2007 as the DJ/production/remix team of LE TIGRE members JD Samson and Johanna Fateman. When the duo began to write new songs, it made sense to merge their efforts with JD's other new project HIRSUTE. JD and Hirsute members Michael O'Neill (Princess, Ladybug Transistor) and Ginger Brooks Takahashi (LTTR, The Ballet) now comprise the core of MEN, with Johanna and artist Emily Roysdon contributing as writers, consultants, and producers.
www.myspace.com/men

SQUEAKY HILL

The Squeaky Hill Art Collective is an itinerant group of actors and comedians. Their task is to break down inhibitions. At its inception (Bristol 2005) there was a Bottle Rocket Competition. This event spawned a whole host of new hands on / alternative events which became Squeaky Hill. The collective produce 40 events, annually, in Bristol alongside UK and European festivals. Their walkabout performances include a mobile charity shop, megaphone beatbox musical statues, red sparrow display team, barber shop quartet.
www.squeakyhill.com

SEXBEAT

SEXBEAT first raised its ugly head in a dingy pub with over flowing toilets in East London in 2007. 2 years on it has expanded from a monthly party to a regular and respected promoter of UK + US underground acts, a producer of fanzines + cassettes and has released 7"s from the likes of Crocodiles, Jeremy Jay and Screaming Tea Party. SEXBEAT residents play US indie, lo-fi, 80s hardcore, shoe gaze and far out pop.
sexbeatlondon.com

FRIDAY 23RD JULY

O CHILDREN

London based four piece O.Children somehow manage to make a fresh take on the 80’s. Out of the ashes of an act called Bono Must Die, they summon the spirit of all things gloomy and noir. Referencing post-punk and new-wave, the band take their name from a Bad Seeds song, and there is much about that group's early sound and dark subject matter to be found here. Rumbling basslines, sinister guitar riffs and ghostly synths. Eerie baritone vocals are also present. It's no wonder they've gained comparisons to Joy Division and The Horrors. Even their record label is called Deadly!
www.myspace.com/ochildren

METRONOMY DJ SET

Electro-pop mavericks, Metronomy, have been wowing the crowds non-stop for a few years now with their quirky take on music for the home and for the dancefloor. We can expect their DJ set to showcase influences and contemporaries, from soul to disco to the pioneers of synth-pop.
www.myspace.com/metronomy

DAM MANTLE

Dam Mantle’s DIY tracks of infinite beauty and scarred electronic music have been gaining mad property from legions of critics, fans and bloggers, and now it’s time for his shattered melodies and ecstatic synths to sway the crowd for 'Music Inspires Art'. Very much in the mould of fellow Scot, Hudson Mohawke.
www.myspace.com/porcelainpoems

THE EYES IN THE HEAT

With their dense sonic textures and piercingly emotive vocals, The Eyes in The Heat encompass music’s epic journey from the Delta blues of Son House to the post-punk dissonance of Suicide. The band is comprised of Oliver Ho (AKA noted techno producer, Raudive) and Zizi Kanaan, who met in London in 2007, quickly establishing a no-frills style to which they remain committed: powerful, driving vocals, jagged guitar noise, and a sparse, hard-hitting drum machine.
www.myspace.com/theeyesintheheat

MODERN ROMANCE

The Modern Romance gang are a walking encyclopedia of indie classics, old and new, from The Futureheads to Foals and Feist and even a few less alliterative names.

SATURDAY 24TH JULY

DEADBOY

Southeast London DJ/producer Deadboy is practically a veteran. After the appearance of his sublime 'U Cheated' EP, the Numbers squad snatched him up and released the even bigger 'If U Want Me' which solidified his penchant for swinging garage beats and pitch-shifted vocal snippets. Deadboy has assigned himself the task of reviving the 2-step scene, with a shot in the arm from the burgeoning UK Funky movement ,incorporating funky house, R&B vocals and the odd dubstep drop.
myspace.com/deadboysoundboy

El-B

El-B originally made his name as part of the legendary Groove Chronicles outfit, being the first artist to bring a dark edge to UK Garage with tracks like ‘Stone Cold’ and ‘1999’. Through his own Ghost Records imprint, El-B has sculpted and defined the modern dubstep sound and famously inspired the prodigious talent of Burial and countless others. With Tempa re-issuing some of his finest productions to date, El-B announced his return to the forefront of dubstep and garage and is one of the most in demand DJs in the scene. Look out for his debut LP on Ghost Recordings!
www.myspace.com/ghostrecordings

ROCKWELL

Now residing in North London via Bristol and Cardiff, drum and bass young-gun Rockwell has become prolific in a very short amount of time due to a series of strong productions, each taking a fresh and different approach to the drum and bass blueprint. With releases scheduled for some of the scenes largest labels: Digital Soundboy, Critical, and Shogun, 2010 will see Rockwell become one of the leading new producers in the scene. With wide reaching support from scene kingpins, such as Andy C, Shy Fx, Friction, Noisia, Alix Perez, and even Radio 1’s Gilles Peterson, Rockwell is one of an increasingly rare breed of producers whose tunes are suited to both the big raves and small intimate dances.
www.myspace.com/rockwelldnb

PARIAH

Another one of London’s great hopes in the world of bass music, fusing garage and 2-Step but making something entirely new. Signed to the recently rejuvenated R&S, which achieved legendary status in the 90s as a bastion of European rave. big things are expected from Pariah, with the buzz still ringing in his ears from his acclaimed remix of 'band of the moment' The XX.
www.myspace.com/pariahbeats

BENEDICT BULL(Skull Juice / Special Set)

One half of the successful London DJ duo, Skull Juice, Ben will be eschewing the usual cross-genre party-starting set tonight, specifically to pay homage to the originators of garage and 2-step itself, while also pushing the future London house sounds that are killing the dancefloors worldwide right now. Ben's DJ sets are never anything less than an education!
www.myspace.com/skulljuice

SUNDAY 25TH JULY

CARIBOU DJ SET

Gaining ground on Madonna in the reinvention game, the hyper-prolific Canadian producer has stepped up to the next level with the recently released third album, 'Swim'. At its' heart is 'Odessa', a song of such singular sonic sunshine that it's destined to be everywhere this summer. He plays a rare DJ set for us tonight, encompassing influences including classic acid house, Detroit techno, cold-wave and hopefully a few of his own tracks!
www.myspace.com/cariboumanitoba

THESE NEW PURITANS DJ SET

Still the masters of their game, These New Puritans released their 'difficult second album' Hidden to salivating reviews this year. Their music takes on influences from new wave, dubstep, art rock, electronica, glitch… expect their DJ set to turn some heads tonight!
www.myspace.com/thesenewpuritans

LUKID

Lukid is Luke Blair. He is from North London. Lukid makes music on his computer. So far he has released an album called ‘Onandon’, an EP called ‘The Now’, and another album called ‘Foma.’ These platters were released on Actress' hyped label, Werk Discs. His sound takes on the form of complex hip-hop instrumentals with a late night pace, scuzzed out synth swells and sampled melody’s. Lukid displays a flair for creating quick witted odysseys. Quick because all—bar one—are less than five minutes long; and odysseys because they unfold and ripen into sonic screenplays that you can re-discover and re-immerse yourself in on each listen.
www.myspace.com/lukid

CASPER C (Blogger's Delight / Field Day)

Adventures In The Beetroot Field curator and resident, Casper C also proudly presides over the notorious Sunday club, Blogger’s Delight and has toured the world as a solo DJ, and with his French Fluokid buddies who made a name with their influential music blog. On his travels, Casper has been fortunate enough to play regularly at his favourite London nights and venues, including Bugged Out, Durrr, Trailer Trash, Fabric, Plastic People and The End, and has been lucky enough to play as far and wide as Tokyo, Moscow, Poland and even outside at The Blue Lagoon in Rejkavik. A reknowned promoter as well as DJ, he's been responsible for a successful weekly techno night at The T Bar, his own experimental electronica stage at Field Day Festival and has helped to break a whole host of acts early on in their careers, including Late Of The Pier, Brodinski and Joy Orbison.
myspace.com/cas_cool

SUNDAY GIRL DJ SET

Sunday Girl's sideways approach to pop is to blend riotgrrl make up with popstar poses, throw in some Ska, and moody Jazz, then get Diplo on production to make sense of it all. Anyone with the tongue-in-cheek nous to cover Raf's italo pop classic Self Control deserves a pat on the back. Like Little Boots, Pixie Lott and Cyndi Lauper before her, she's going to be dead famous.
myspace.com/wearesundaygirl

CIVIL CIVIC

Civil Civic are a duo, currently unsigned, who operate from two different bases in two different countries. They were friends in Australia, but maybe it's one of those friendships that needs a distance of several thousand miles to make it work, since Aaron Cupples drew the short straw and lives in London while Ben Green got lucky and ended up in Barcelona. It certainly works musically, even if, once you learn about their modus operandi, you start to hear their songs as binary creations, which makes sense, because that's what they are. But in a way the beauty of Civil Civic's music lies in the separation between guitar/bass and rhythm/electro-noise.
www.myspace.com/civilcivic