SAVAK (USA) and The Unit Ama (Newcastle) and DJ Clean Shirt Live in Sowerby Bridge
Schedule
Sat Oct 05 2024 at 08:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Location
Puzzle Hall Community Pub | Halifax, EN
Saturday October 5th 2024ADRA promotions and Puzzle Hall Inn present …
SAVAK (USA)
post-punk group from New York City - ex-Obits, The Cops, Holy Fuck.
“a potent and pointed agitpop racket which manages to balance the dark and moody with the catchy as fuck.” - VICE
https://savak.bandcamp.com/album/flavors-of-paradise
The Unit Ama (Newcastle)
Adventurous free-running post-hardcore / post-punk / jazz trio from the North East pushing the guitar/bass/drums/vocals envelope for more than twenty years.
https://theunitama.bandcamp.com/album/toward
and DJ Clean Shirt (Heavy Crates, Love Gun, Sex Beat) selecting post-punk, rock and ambient tunes throughout the eve
at Puzzle Hall Inn, 21 Hollins Mill Lane, Sowerby Bridge, HX6 2RF
8pm - 10pm (live music), DJs til late
FREE ENTRY with donations for bands gratefully accepted. Live music finished in time for trains back to Leeds / Manc. Supported using public funding from Arts Council England.
--Further Info-----
SAVAK
SAVAK was formed in 2015 by Sohrab Habibion (Obits, Edsel) and Michael Jaworski (The Cops, Virgin Islands), who play guitars and trade off singing songs, along with drummer Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck, Enon). The 6th album by Brooklyn’s post-punk stalwarts SAVAK, Flavors Of Paradise, was recorded in Chicago at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio.
Noisey/VICE wrote that SAVAK makes “a potent and pointed agitpop racket which manages to balance the dark and moody with the catchy as fuck.” UK’s Louder noted the group’s “endlessly astute observations on the modern world.” And Mojo magazine highlighted their “superior twin-guitar slash action.”
So what does that get you? Well, there are recognizable touchstones across electric guitar-based music from the 60s to today. The jagged stabs of The Fall are tempered by harmonies you might hear in a Flamin’ Groovies tune. A nod to The 13th Floor Elevators is purposefully undercut with a riff that'd make Wilko Johnson proud. You can pull out details that wouldn’t be out of place in songs by Royal Headache, Stereolab, NoMeansNo, Feelies, Stooges, Kinks, Mission of Burma, etc. If the guitar can do it, SAVAK is willing to find a way to use it.
“Even as we’re now in something of a revival of ‘post-punk’ with the new crop of bands coming out of the U.K., there’s something about SAVAK’s approach that feels fresh. Whether it’s how they juxtapose two different styles or how they demonstrate a sincere and earned knowledge of what made these sounds so enthralling in the first place, it can feel like no one is doing what they’re doing the way they’re doing it.” —Spectrum Culture https://spectrumculture.com/2024/03/03/savak-flavors-of-paradise-review/
“Angled rhythms with nerve-jangled guitars is what SAVAK does best . . . you’d be hard pressed to assign categorization. And that’s for the best.” —FLOOD https://floodmagazine.com/155355/savak-flavors-of-paradise/
“These are tight, well-constructed punk rock songs, played with joy for the love of the game. Flavors of Paradise, for sure, if your idea of heaven has sticky floors and piles of amps.” —Dusted https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/746206654562992128/savak-flavors-of-paradise-peculi ar-works
——
The Unit Ama
The Unit Ama take their time. They act on their own terms. This applies to their music and their work-rate. Two albums and a handful of singles in twenty years. Sporadic gigs. No endless Bandcamp messages or weekly mailing list updates. Rare missions outside their native north-east. And then…
Toward is their second studio album and their second Gringo release. It’s not their ‘pandemic’ album but does see the band considering the important things: post-traumatic growth, insight through experience. Utilising the past to navigate towards a meaningful future.
Toward was self-produced and will probably get tagged as post-hardcore which is fair enough. But it’s also informed by post-punk, jazz and folk, and by working closely together for two decades. The Unit Ama play in other incarnations that inform their music and the way they dismantle expectations of the rock trio. There’s as much Richard Thompson as Minutemen.
Toward takes the exploratory, explosive sound of their debut and adds twenty years of living and listening. Toward is eight tracks that are thoughtful and intricate without losing any impact. This is gut music as much as it is head music. The Unit Ama never let their abilities get in the way of their instincts and Toward is full of surging urgency and roaring anxiety. But there are moments of brooding calm too, and a song – Mary – that could be stripped down and sold as a folk ballad.
Where is it happening?
Puzzle Hall Community Pub, 21 Hollins Mill Lane, Sowerby Bridge, HX6 2, United Kingdom,Halifax, West Yorkshire