Tempo Tempo and Star & Shadow Cinema present:

Charlie Looker’s Extra Life blend so many disparate influences together that on paper you wouldn’t think it would all stick. The vocals are Morrissey with some Arthur Russell, and the music has fascinating mixtures of elements from free-improvisation, jazz, medieval chant, no wave, prog, hardcore metal, dark neofolk and lush avant-pop. And yet, even the harder elements are made to feel epic rather than brutal by some beautifully subdued softness in Looker’s vocals. This music isn’t an instant hit, but stick with it and it’ll work it’s magic on you soon enough.

Charlie Looker, singer, guitarist and composer, has become one of the most intense and respected voices in the New York experimental underground. For years Looker was a core member of legendary brutal chamber ensemble Zs and has also worked with diverse artists such as Dirty Projectors, Glenn Branca, William Parker and the S.E.M. Ensemble.
Extra Life’s all-star cast also includes the following New York experimentalists: violinist Caley Monahon-Ward (Snowblink), bassist Anthony Gedrich (Stats, Ocrilim), drummer Nicholas
Podgurski (Yukon), and saxophonist/keyboardist Travis Laplante (Little Women).

Their new album’s first single “Head Shrinker” will be accompanied by both a music video by the Peking team (Glass Ghost, Here We Go Magic) and a remix by Tyondai Braxton (Battles) for Sockets Records. Other eclectic activities surrounding the release will include an R Kelly cover on a split 7-inch with Larkin Grimm for Planaria Recordings, a split 7-inch of mutual covers with Parenthetical Girls, and a remix by industrial legend JG Thirlwell (Foetus). Extra Life will tour the U.S. in March and Europe in May.


http://www.myspace.com/extralifetheband



Reviews
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“Every so often there's a record so accomplished that it makes most albums of its type sound ridiculous, and Secular Works is one of those… Remarkable for its scope, depth and technical accomplishment, Secular Works is a devastating record that has the power to change minds, if only people hear it. Don't miss out.”

DUSTED Magazine


“…a genuinely remarkable and fearlessly high-minded album.”

DROWNED IN SOUND



Support
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Support comes from The Long Lonesome Go, a melodically driven improv trio. Everything they play is composed spontaneously, with no premeditated composition, arrangement or other legerdemain. The pieces range from serene soundscapes, dextrous polyrhythmical jingles, nubile moog noodlings, prog-rock phase-outs, space flute reveries to feedback travesties.

http://www.myspace.com/thelonglonesomego



And finally, Posset is Newcastle’s Joe Murray, who for years was one half of a duo with Lee Etherington of NO-FI, and whose brand of repetitive, clunky, droney noise you may remember from his slot supporting Itsuhiro Ito at the AV Festival.

http://www.myspace.com/iamposset


There'll also be some great music played between sets by Newcastle's Jazzfinger playing a DJ set. Check out their own stuff:

http://www.myspace.com/jzzfngr



£5 on the door, or you can buy tickets from here:

http://extralifenewcastle.eventbrite.com/



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