Oi!, from South East London,
Reunited and it feels so good. This month's Voices Radio show is now online for your bank holiday listening, a brief return to home mixing and a tombola-based approach to genre.
B: I was keen to share some punk rocker highlights from recent months - as ever, I sit in awe at whatever's happening in so-called Australia, and there are some essential Palestinian benefit records) coming out too that you should give your full support.
V: I think we had a blast with this one, even if maybe I was overstocking the USB this month. Every Lucy Liyou should be lauded, whilst elsewhere I threw in some absolutely mental 170BPM clanking, deep drones, noise guys making rap records, metal guys making jungle records. Kissland might be the best hardcore band on earth right now?
01. Oh No! — Eddy Current Suppression Ring
02. Born in Silence — M.A.Z.E.
03. Held By Threads — Bootlicker
04. I don’t care you broke your elbow — Kissland
05. Scrapbooking — Pissed Jeans
06. 03—MSP—MIX — Jung An Taken
07. People Have the Right to Build — N1 _ SOUND
08. Mandrake 2 (feat. New Villain) — Andrew Nolan
09. Dark Wood — Fashiongore & Cementation Anxiety
10. Imagine Kiss — Lucy Liyou
11. The Names of F----t Chav Boys — aya
12. New Chest — Dale Cornish
13. I Just Want To Go Into Weird Companies And See What The F--k Is Going On — Iceman Junglist Kru
14. LOST LOST LOST — Harry Pussy
15. The Lion's Share — Gorgon Vomit
16. The Burning Light — Milk Music
17. Cello Figures — Felicity Mangan
18. 220611—005 SHATTER — John T. Gast & Gossiwor 2
19. Send It!! (Ice _ Eyes Remix) — Klahrk
20. Mind Detergent — The Doubtful Guest
21. Silk Barricade — Manslaughter 777You can hear the show on our Mixcloud and Soundcloud. Links to tracks available on Bandcamp can be found on our Buy Music Club.
We will be broadcasting live again on Voices Radio next month on Sunday 21st September at 20:00 UK time.
Superlative Weekend
Earlier this month, the two of us went to Supernormal 2025, to play as Rubber and enjoy a festival we've both wanted to get to for years. Here's a review of the first two days, which will also be printed in the return issue of Another Subculture.
It’s good to reassure yourself sometimes. Other people get stuck into art, right? You’re not the only one whose hobby has led to putting on events, hosting fellow travellers on your living room floor, or travelling hundreds of miles to prove your commitment to your corner of the culture?
Being into punk can lead to these irrational, beautiful actions but we’re not alone. The first weekend of August may have hosted the third iteration of Unrest, an all-dayer in which the Bristol scene invites the great and the good to get wild in an anarchic quarry, but I also enjoyed watching every corner of the Train Nerds on my socials gather in Derby to see the largest display of locomotives ever held in Britain. Two examples of shared obsessions and ‘the friends we made along the way’, and on Friday 1st, I was on my way to the third example.
Supernormal is a festival that has held fast for 15 years with a lineup that has increasingly brought together the underground music I know and love with other scenes, artists and communities that have much in common, even if they are sonically distinct. Rubber, the house band, had been asked to play at midday on the Saturday – an opportunity to act as a circuit-bent alarm clock to a field of tents had us signing up immediately. While negotiating tent pegs and a canned cocktail (do one, then the other), it became instantly clear that we had picked a good spot as Bristol’s Distraxi kicked into gear and sent sheets of pummeling power electronics across the field. Start as you mean to go on, but strictly in the Aphex Twin frame of mind.
Our group find the Barn – through the forest and down into the grounds of Brazier House, that sort of eccentric British co-operative space you wonder how it survived the 1980s, and glad it did – and find Rory Salter, the Infant Tree stalwart, taking in a packed seated venue with a solo set, contact mic in mouth and loops to hand. The first example of catching up with old friends and parallel scenes, finally catching acts fifty miles from home after missing them at venues I could have walked to.
We head down to watch Gorgon Vomit, keen to catch every metal band that has been recommended to me who are playing. They absolutely shredded – maximum impact, anti-fascist, metal party fuckers with riffs as big as your house. Smoke machine’s going, teenagers are moshing, here we go. They are followed by an evening of checking the place out and catching quick bursts of new stages: Nicky bewitches in the indoor Vortex with a sample of their cabaret piano repertoire, and I get distracted by an art piece outside that is formed of old tellies.
Traidora’s anarcho-punk sounds huge too, making the Red Kite tent shake and inviting the (formidable!) queer punk contingent to get those limbs out. The night ends with me soaking in the Silkback set on the shed, his set taking in all genres and mixing them into an abrasive bouncy Katamari ball of bangers. I catch up with friends and drink too many pints.
On Saturday we play our set, just after a group of kids play instruments they’ve made the previous day. Shower, Elvanse, coffee, big cake, go – and we do one of our best. Stretching it out as long as we could, we play for 24 minutes. My partner lent me a large wooden mallet to help with the tent pegs, so of course Creg swung it around the stage like a cross between Bobby Soxx and Timmy Mallett. We’re followed by Widget whose bouncy postpunk is perfect for the rising heat, and then I nap in the quiet zone, a quilted corner crafted by Chloe Rochefort which acted as both shield and vantage point – I fall asleep to a drone and a Shrek mashup, all at once.
Head shaken awake by Glasgow’s Unmaking – more metal to pursue, this time minimal and blackened, friends from Anxiety who I hadn’t seen in years rocking out. Speaking of friends, Sublux’s set brightens everyone’s day, performing under the Heart n Soul technicolor mobiles and making the case for linking the struggles of Palestinians and disabled people the world over. I later end up at the ale bar with a mate as we both look back at what being in a band with our friends has given us – never would have gone to that city, never would have built up that friendship without it, that sort of thing. We also talk about there being no money, because it’s 2025 (earlier, at the Bands Boycott Barclays talk, Liv Wynter points out how this small festival’s rates are the best they’re getting all summer).
Another wander brings me to more experimental sounds that I’d missed until now. GRAIN’s residency brought over their Avalon Café nights to the countryside, with Laird, Theo Guttenplan and Harry Murdoch laying out loops with drums, vocals and a live projected code file (XML to Ableton? Magic, I tell you.) All Power Emanates from the Land is also a packed performance, Jessica Ashman’s research into the colonial seed archives of Bristol brought to life with a post rock soundtrack and a textural, lush animation to boot.
I end Saturday taking an early night, vibing out to what Vic described to me as ‘evil Sonic music’ that was John T. Gast’s nighttime set. That familiar headrush of many faces, many catch-ups can be a lot whether you’re in New River Studios or a field in the middle of nowhere, but my abiding memory of Supernormal will be of reassurance – the country is teeming with bands, artists, scenes and venues who are getting on with experimenting and keeping it independent, despite the country being the United Kingdom. (Glad for the lack of phone signal all weekend.) Get on the ballot for 2026, it'll be good for you.
Yes, I’m doing the listings zine again; more information at anothersubculture.co.uk.
Listening to Speed Garage in a Field at 7AM vs. Doing Yoga in a Barn at 8AM
Consider this an extension of Ben’s Supernormal review, with the addition of shaking the sleep out of my eyes after three days working at Field Maneuvers. I have many highlights of both, but just to reiterate Ben’s view that nothing really comes close to the oppressive mechanical dub onslaught of John T. Gast. Imagine digital dancehall played by Merzbow, with so much strobe and fog running you’re basically hallucinating. Maybe one of the best live sets I’ve ever seen of anything? Just crazy.
We had a lot of friends play Supernormal, and Ben has covered much of that ground, but it was great to see people you’ve seen play music in the tens of times bring totally highest calibre and often incredibly new things.
Guttersnipe have never failed to play with an intensity where you think “no they can’t possibly keep this up”, only for it to keep going until you’re nearly crying with euphoria. I’m unsurprised to say GS/Cuntroaches mutation YEXXEN goes just as hard and I do not understand how you structure music like this, but I want it all the time.
It’s been a minute since I’ve personally seen Michael from Night School Records play live in anything – so it brings me great joy to write that the latest post-Anxiety formation is Unmaking’s grinding death metal slammers. Speaking of old RS pals, loved watching Rory Salter rocking up to a room full of people and playing head-rattling sub bass. One final shout to the grotesque, we made friends with a band with a song called ‘Vomit Pon The Icon’. I just love music!
Final non-nepotistic outs: The dance was truly shelled by The Doubtful Guest swinging between alien acid, gabber and jungle and Slikback was, predictably, unreal. Both Kalkin and Semay Wu have great recorded material but were totally mesmerising live in a way I hope they release proof of soon. Final, final shout out to the coffee stall, I love you all.
Attending the similarly-sized and similarly-loose Field Maneuvers two weeks after this was hotter, more mischevious, and I showered a lot less. I was on the clock, and therefore wedded to a specific stage all weekend – which meant I missed Big Ang and Nazar play (pain) – but DID see Ifeoluwa open to a full room with the album version of ‘Be Quiet And Drive’ (really outstanding). I have seen FAFF DJ like 20 times, but at 4.30am playing acid surrounded by London heads is the best possible version.
Other highlights: I’ve played some Redstone Press stuff on the show before, but I didn’t expect label boss Lewis Lowe to go total pingers-in-the-house-party mode. Finding 5 minutes to play ’There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)’ will always win me over. Running on roughly three hours sleep a day, I have to say what happened the rest becomes kind of mentally blurry at times – but Sybil closing the last night stands out with a deep, DEEP trip of spaced-out drum and bass. I’m probably exaggerating here, but the last 20 minutes felt like she was layering new breaks every 30 seconds. One of those things that makes you want to go away and practise mixing every day for a year.
One of the craziest parts of the FM experience for me was, as a punk regularly alienated by how apolitical dance music is, experiencing a version of that kind of festival completely free of sponsorship and punishing security involvement. The regulars really run this thing, with every chaotic element of that you can imagine. A world beyond investment guys running raves that end at 10pm is possible.
I will be mostly hibernating for the rest of the month – and if you ask me to go camping I will point a weapon at you – but I am looking forward to RUBBER playing Impulse Control in September, having a strong opinion on Alien: Earth (so far so hmm…), and dealing myself psychological damage by working through the remaining films I haven’t seen of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. If this isn’t a list of enough deeply wonky music for you, I recommend Mumdance’s latest ‘PING REPORT 2025’ mix for some total peak time metallic rocket fuel. Finally, in the spirit of high frequency noises blasted at high volume, I’m chipping at the recent repress of Mark Fell’s incredible Structure and Synthesis.
Until next time, I hate the government!
Ⓐ Oi! from South London Ⓔ
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