MUSIC
Mammoth line-up for IVW at The Black Prince
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ndependent Venue Week (IVW) is back with a bang for February – and The Black Prince gets stuck in with Andy Bell Space Station (Feb 2), writes Sammy Jones. The Space Station is the latest treat from the Ride guitarist who has also coloured up Oasis and Beady Eye in his time. His skills have also been utilised by everyone from Pink Floyd to Talk Talk and The Brian Jonestown Massacre in a career that has delivered plenty. Then there’s his electronic streak and remix work, delivered as GLOK. Music flows wherever this man goes, and Northampton is in for a real treat with his arrival. Space Station was founded during lockdown, at the Lo-Fi coffee shop in Crouch End. Andy began streaming performances at the empty coffee emporium, helping music fans to get their quota of musical caffeine during the dour times by playing electric guitar along to reworked versions of backing tracks from his catalogue of projects. ‘The backing tracks are deconstructed and extended in a way that makes them easy to improvise over,’ apparently. Or at least that’s how it works when you are as talented as Mr Bell is. Mid-week gigs aren’t supposed to be this cool – or cheap; tickets are just £6. Maps will provide a DJ set on the night too. The venue will still be sweaty from the night before when London’s Tiña bring psych-pop to the stage, much of it lifted from their debut album, Positive Mental Health Music, which crammed a whole heap of emotions and tricky subjects into its 11 songs; anxiety, depression, love, sex, isolation, fear and failure are all covered in the ‘honest and intimate portrait,’ with frontman Josh Loftin using the material to ‘work through a mental breakdown.’ The ‘fampton’s own bloody/bath will support on the night. Songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Kailan Price is making friends and influencing still more for his music-making, which takes influence from the ‘80s tunes that found their way to him courtesy of his late mother. ‘If The Cure created their records in a Northampton bedroom, this is what it would sound like,’ declared Manchester’s Yuck magazine. Opening up the bill falls to Megalashhh, visiting from London with their pile of unsettling psychotronica. Plenty has happened since The Virginmarys (Feb 4) issued their debut album back in 2013, including plum support slots with artists including QOTSA, Eagles of Death Metal, Skunk Anansie and Slash. 42
Andy Bell (above) kicks things off in February at The Black Prince with the Andy Bell Space Station, while local favourite FFSYTHO?! (left) brings grime to the party on Feb 6
And they’ve accumulated more than 10 million streams on Spotify. The band is now operating as a duo with Ally and Danny in control of everything. “We are hugely excited about this decision, and though perhaps a little scary first off, we’re really going to thrive from the challenge of playing strictly as a duo, with bigger riffs, higher power and fresher sounds than ever before, guaranteed!” they promised. “The live show will be bigger than ever, and of course we’ll still be honouring the older material at the gigs as well,” they added. Slick riffs and easily identifiable influences meld with the rich vocals of Henrik Steenholdt to provide the backbone of Empyre’s hard rock sound, but when they choose to, they can cut a clear tune of stripped back emotion too. The pandemic only served to see their creativity surge; they issued seven singles,
February 2022 | NN Pulse Magazine | 22,000 Copies delivered every month door to door across Northamptonshire
