Music / clubbing
A Load of Bull
A four-day feast of club nights, live shows, lectures and workshops comes to Bristol on Easter Weekend. Part of a month-long tour organised by the mighty Red Bull Music Academy, the Bristol dates feature cult heroes from house and techno to jazz, rock, hip-hop and grime.
Seth Troxler looks like being particularly busy. Rarely found wanting for an opinion, the Visionquest boss appears in conversation at The Canteen (April 2), where he will also be demonstrating his culinary skills. After that the Detroit techno firebrand moves on to The Love Inn for a six-hour DJ set. It’s a small venue and Troxler is one of the most respected DJs on the planet so expect a roadblock.
Other events make creative use of unusual spaces – most notably At-Bristol’s Planetarium, which hosts a night of cosmic exploration (April 6) featuring jazz fusion giant Lonnie Liston Smith and Brownswood Recordings / BBC 6Music maverick Gilles Peterson. Then there’s Kings Weston House, the elegant 17th Century setting for a Friday night party headlined by U.S rap star Danny Brown (pictured above). Also playing is Rinse FM regular Mumdance whose collaborative album with Logos for Bristol’s own Tectonic Recordings is one of the best things we’ve heard so far this year. Here he teams up with 18-year old grime MC Novelist, his collaborator on last year’s Take Time and equally blazing follow-up EP 1 Sec.
Widely considered one of the best live bands on the planet, Sweden’s Goat bring their blend of psychedelic rock and global groove to Circomedia’s home in Portland Square (April 4), but you’ll have to leave your phone, cameras and money at the door. Titled Sounds of Surrender it’s been designed as an immersive, ego-free collective experience, “which means saying goodbye to anything associated with social hierarchy, image, everything.” Expect to get similarly carried away at Arnolfini (April 5), where Just Jack host a lineup headlined by German 4/4 deities DJ Koze and Italohnson.
Meanwhile, Bristol’s home-grown talent fly the flag with a live broadcast from the Idle Hands record shop on Stokes Croft. Those too lazy (or broken) to leave the house should tune in to RBMA Radio on April 4 to hear sets from local heroes Krust, Appleblim, Chris Farrell, Troy Gunner, Hodge and Shanti Celeste.
The RBMA UK Tour is at various Bristol venues, April 2 – 4.
For more information visit www.redbullmusicacademy.com/uktour
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