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[misterdale]

Triptych 06: Arab Strap/Kieran Hebden (Fourtet) & Steve Reid: Bill Wells and Tape/Aidan John Moffat
Sunday 30th April
£14 + £1.50 b/fee
Doors Open: 7pm

Arab Strap
Falkirk's resplendent drone-poets and bedroom-bards Arab Strap are a beautiful, lyrical, woebegone duo whose barren psalms and candid narratives have rendered them one of Scotland's most critical bands.

The deuce assure surprises at this years Triptych: theyll curate a day of japes in Aberdeen which will include special performances from Four Tet, Steve Reid, Bill Wells, Tape  plus an exclusive, spoken-word recital from one Aidan John Moffat.

Also lauded solo artists, crushing versifier Aidan Moffat makes cenotaphs of beauty as L. Pierre, while devastating melodist Malcolm Middletons Into the Woods was one of the finest albums of last year.

Yet the Strap remain very much intact  as their current album, The Last Romance, certifies: it conveys the singular, innovative blueprint of a band who trouble hearts and tremble feet with their tender eulogies and tragi-disco beats.

Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid
In electronic musics Olympian dominion, Kieran Hebden vaulted the highest bar; raised it above the stars; cleared it again.

Londons Hebden  aka contempo artisan Four Tet  runs rings around his stellar contemporaries with an unparalleled palette of hip-hop and techno; drum loops and birdsong; gentle funk and grizzly beats; obscure folk and neo-classical sweeps: as best evinced on 2003s Rounds album, and last years follow up, Everything Ecstatic (Domino).

Its his work with legendary drummer Steve Reid, however, which is currently rousing startled remark: their 2005 Spirit Jazz collaboration (Soul Jazz), and this years Exchange Sessions Vol. 1 (Domino) testifies to a vital collaborative effort, and its Reid with whom Hebden  a long-term Triptych comrade  is set to perform this year.

Bill Wells
A brilliant local jazz-agitator variously described as Stirlings answer to Sun Ra and a Zen-like commander of vibrant psalms, groove alchemist Bill Wells lavish, life-affirming art traverses dexterous avant-garde improvisation and soaring, cinematic awe.

Hes recorded for the Geographic imprint; performed with the likes of Will Oldham and Jens Lekman; collaborated with Isobel Campbell, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Future Pilot AKA  and is set to further confound sonic boundaries and enchant music fans when he joins technoid Swedish dreamboats Tape onstage, (at the fevered behest of Arab Strap), for a special one-off Triptych performance in Aberdeen.

Tape
Evoking divergent and fêted names like Gastr del Sol, Talk Talk, John Fahey, Faust and Fennesz, dreamy Swedish trio Tape smudge the margins between bucolic and electric; between devised and improvised; between day and night.

The triumvirate  Stockholms Andreas Berthling, Johan Berthling and Tomas Hallonsten  infuse technological and rural doctrines to striking effect. Armed with an amorous, nigh-infinite arsenal of field recordings, concrete sounds, banjos, vibraphones, synths, Chinese flutes  and countless other aural accoutrements  the three-piece mine a fertile seam indeed.

Tapes second and most recent album, Milieu (Hapna), forages and forges this organic and electronic integration  its an experimental, gentle treatise whose impressive, impressionistic, gauzy melodies are at once human and mechanical; measured and spontaneous; dark and light.
Lemon Tree website

[Jenni.]

Absolutely magic.

[Lee Anderson]

aye, tis looking mighty good min!