KnifeLadder

Well, its bin a while. A lot has happened , not all of it good.

About John……

He was refused re-entry to the UK due to visa issues. He is now temporarily in Berlin. This is why the furure is in doubt – we have no way of knowing how long we can keep going on different continents. The fact is if you understand the way we work – well it requires time and proximity. Believe me when I say we can’t just send sound files back and forth.

About Leipzig……

Probably one of our best shows – our new bass player Andie Brown ripped up a storm. The venue was beautiful, you were beautiful, we were beautiful, the other bands were beautiful,it was abig feckin love in…..

About MLB Madrid…….

Jesus looked after us something special, we had comfortable rooms, the sound engineer looked like a 1970s porn star, the people who were there were beautiful we were be….oh, we’ve done that. Jesus lost lots of money and we wished just 20 more people showed up each night.

About the album….

Still being mastered, but track listing finalised and ar t work nearly done. Sonically tougherbut a lot rougher since we lost Hunter at the studio helm. ITS THE SONGS THAT COUNT though and they are sharp, succinct, abstract and actually a bit more Birthday Party fighting SPK with angle grinders whilst cherubs and holy choirs try and sing above the sound of a tower block demolition in Hackney…than anything that would make sense….

This will get released and we will trumpet it’s arrival in the flesh.

Its not the winning, but the struggle…..

Weellllll its been a while. Have you missed us (the sound of one hand clapping)

In case you thought we’d been idle, in fact we’ve been idol. New album ladies and gents, in the can, slapped to wax, done like a dinner. Its called MUSIC/CONCRETE and it is , well, ermm, look I listen to it and I forget it is us. It has all the rhythmn, all the noise, all the abstraction and a lot of heart, if these things mean anything in the subcultural backwater we occasionally find ourselves in. We plan to upload some new tracks to Last FM, which if you actually care about music rather than just playing in your dressing up box, you proably already know about, or are at least going to try in the future.

As you may have seen, we are also playing in Leipzig Wave Treffen and MLB Festival Spain, both things we are incredibly excited about playing. There is also a limited edition DVD being released of all the bands at MLB Festival, so that may interesting if the visuals I have seen so far are anything to go on.

We are also performing with a new bass player called Andie Brown, who has played with Cindytalk and all number of credible outfits. Hunter has had to take a back seat for a while due to work stuff, but he still features prominently on the new album. he will be in Leipzig as well playing with the singer Andrew King.

Who knows, we might even have some t-shirts and new music to flog, so if you are at either event please come up and say hello, at worst you’ll get a grunt or a blank stare, at best you may be invited for our backstage ginger beer and whipped cream orgy.

Ta taa for now and thanks for your interest. Or not.

night of outfield electronics, avant noise and random stupidity
RSVP not required

Sunday October 14, the Enterprise, Chalk Farm London
£5

After the overwhelming response to ECM1 we return with a night for absolutely no-one. featuring the eclectic electro acoustics of Lark Blames playing tracks which no doubt will bear no resemblance to their album Chimney. Muffpunch who after their 3 year long management away day, have come back as sadistic Vaudevillians with a penchant for white noise and wrestling masks, Knifeladder Sound System which neither sounds like Knifeladder or particularly like a sound system – but like a stripped down version of album outtakes which possess the studio and write their own terrifying music, and Comasport who being neither comatose nor particularly athletic will no doubt finish off the survivors like a like an evil murder of robotic crows on the set of ‘when paintballing goes bad’

I warned you didn’t I . For weeks you’ve been lying awake wondering what next in the creative maelstrom of the visionaries of Knifeladder. Or maybe there was something on telly…but like a desperately inadeqate man trying to give Trixie the late shift prostitute an orgasm, I will continue to keep plugging away….

So after weeks of chopping, filtering relooping and wishing I’d learnt a real instrument, we decide to present these ideas we laughably call music to Hunter…bass player, producer, and only KL member who can wear the plastic apron without sucking his stomache in…

The look on his face dear readers, as we bound around the room playing hour after hour of lo fi unlistenable scratchy noises and loops. I swear I see tears well up in his eyes – not because of our naive genius, but at the prospect of months of mixing and editing ahead as he desperately tries to turn all this into something anyone, anywhere, could ever dream of voluntarily listening to. Its a pity we lost the lucrative contract with MI5 and the information extraction department, but even in the war on terror it seems they are constrained by certain moral boundaries…

Other than that we have been sending John on a mission to get hold of a venue for Electronic Countermeasures 2.. After the overwhelming success of the last one, we simply couldn’t wait to lose huge wodges of money on a night endured by literally several people, all of which fortunately had voices in their heads loud enough to drown out the horrific racket which is Muffpunch playing a Kazoo through a 3″ TV speaker and badly earthed ring modulator. Apparently having your dead mothers voice shrieking in your ear ‘Dirty boy, cut off your wee wee spout’ is less traumatising than the prospect of Hagshadow spitting at you like some mini me version of Ilsa the Wicked Warden shoving eels up your arse.

I’m really selling you on this I can tell – it will be very soon in October, it will have lots of bands you’ve never heard of, and it will make the opening 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan seem like the Wombles Chrismas Special.

we’ll keep you posted. In the mean time, its not too late to do something useful with your life instead.

Well, its time we told you some stories. Not just the ‘we released that’ and ‘we played there’ but the true life trials and tribulations of the group Knifeladder. Be still my pounding heart eh?

We’ve been working on the latest album ‘wire spine’ for ever. The process we use is so laborious, you would lose the will to live were I to describe it. It sorta goes like this.

John comes over to me with a Tesco bag full of crumbling cassettes, CDRs and an assortment of ethnic noise devices, that look like they were bought from the world music shop equivilent of Poundstretcher.

We then go to the basement room containing more cigarette smoke than ‘last gasper’ night at The Angel. We then plug in our loop machines and I duly record every scratch, rasp and wobble and the neighbours kids start to cry ‘Please Mummy, make it stop’

Then with a cheap sampler I like steal all the best bits, plunder John Murphy’s entire musical heritage, and wonder how the hell I am going to filter the tape hiss from the recording of bowed and scraped agricultural machinery, recorded in Dubbo 1978.

I can see you are fading already – part 2 of the exciting creative force which is Knifeladder to follow shortly. BTW the last album that disappeared without trace, ‘The Spectacle’ is finally actually available from Rough Trade, Cold Spring and Cryonica. So all you people who downloaded for free (and , since you couldn’t find it, who can blame you?) could get an actual object with loverly artwork and a picture of us lounging sardonically, like Victorian doctors after a hard night slicing stolen corpses.

With that beautific image, I leave you for now.

Andrew Trail

Operative Records presents A Night Of Triage

A whole load of goings-on in the Operative World including news of a very special event for all your pleasures with a live performance from KnifeLadder, Naevus and very special guest Matt Howden (Sieben), new reviews of KnifeLadder’s album “The Spectacle”, live reviews of including The Black Celebration and a whole new batch of photos available for you to view.

Lets get cracking…

A Night Of Triage

Sunday 22nd April 2007: Operative Records presents “A Night Of Triage”

KnifeLadder

Naevus

Matt Howden (Sieben)

A night of violin loops, power acoustics, post-punk angles, tribal percussions, good words, bad attitude, lo-fi samples and big dumb noise.

at

The Old Blue Last
38 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3ES

Nearest Tube: Old Street

Click for Map

Date: 22/04/2007

Doors: 8pm till bedtime
Admission: £5 / £4 with flyer

New KnifeLadder Reviews and Photos

KnifeLadder have updated their website with some new reviews including more outstanding reviews of “The Spectacle”, and a review of their live performance at The Black Celebration festival – including some great live photos too. They have also uploaded images from their latest photo-shoot and details of some of their forthcoming gigs and details of their 3rd studio album which they are currently recording…

Other Useful Links:
http://www.myspace.com/knifeladdermusic
http://www.naevus.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/naevus
http://www.matthowden.com
http://www.myspace.com/matthowden7
http://www.myspace.com/oldbluelast

Thank you for your attention,

The Operative
www.operative-records.co.uk

KnifeLadder have been invited to perform at the UK’s Premier Industrial/EBM/Electro Festival on Sunday 5th November 2006…

BLACK CELEBRATION VIII

And KnifeLadder have a special opportunity for anyone wanting to get advance tickets directly through www.knifeladder.eu.
Tickets are £13 in advance and if you buy them through www.knifeladder.eu there will be NO BOOKING FEE, AND you will receive an exclusive KnifeLadder CD-r “Live Actions in Dead Cities” featuring several live recordings of various KnifeLadder performances along with an exclusive mix of ‘Carousel’ and then never before released track ‘Oblivion Guest’.

The CD-r’s are limited to 100 so if you want ticket for Black Celebration you had better order soon. Just click here to go to KnifeLadder’s Shop or simply click on shop in the menu on the left then select ‘4 – Tickets’ under categories. Details of the show below:

Sun 5th Nov BLACK CELEBRATION 2PM-11PM

SUICIDE COMMANDO (exclusive UK date)

XPQ-21
PSYCHE
CHAOS ENGINE (reform especially for Black Celebration !)
KNIFELADDER
V2A
DEATHBOY
I AM IMMUNE
MODULATE

ISLINGTON ACADEMY – N1 Centre, 16 Parkfield Street London N1 0PS – 020 7288 4400

2 mins from Angel tube – DISCOUNT PARKING – N1 CENTRE CAR PARK 6PM-12.30AM @ £2.50

Remember that “Live Actions In Dead Cities” is ONLY available when you buy advance ticketes for Black Celebreation directly through the KnifeLadder Shop. Tickets and CD-r will be posted to the delivery address provided by PayPal.

The Spectacle

It has been a very busy couple of months for KnifeLadder. With our latest album “The Spectacle” getting massive amounts of attention and great reviews from all over the world.

And you if haven’t yet heard the album then you can now listen to samples and download the album directly from iTunes. Great news for KnifeLadder fans who want to get some real tribal, industrial music on their iPods or MP3 players… And remember you can download most of KnifeLadder’s back catalogue by visiting the KnifeLadder Store which includes KnifeLadder’s “Organic Traces”, “Leipzig Limited” along with KnifeLadder’s “Split” EP with Shining Vril.

You will also find available downloads for AntiValium… Speaking of which AntiValium are due to support In Strict Confidence at Electrowerkz II (Slimelight) on Friday 22nd September 2006. Details to follow.

Electrowerkz

Cryonica Music Presents:
In Strict Confidence + AntiValium + Katscan
Electrowerkz
7 Torrens St
London EC1
Doors 7pm

Admission £10 in advance / available from:
Resurrection Records
www.cryonica.com
www.musicnonstop.co.uk

Welcome Comrades.

KnifeLadder’s brand new album ‘The Spectacle‘ is released 6th March 2006…!!!

This album is a masterworking of Tribal Industrial, Rhythm and Noise which will take hold of you physically, mentally and spiritually. This is quite simply the best work that KnifeLadder have recorded. Still as organic and experimental as previous work however they know add extra depth to their sound creating huge, dynamic soundscapes. KnifeLadder show their versatility in performance and style by taking the listener from the skillfully delivered aggressive, harsh noise assault of “Harm’s Way” to the intense, bleak and claustrauphobic scenes of “The World Tears It’s Heart Out”.

“The Spectacle” is released courtesty of Cryonica Music in assocation with Operative Records and is available SOON…!!! The album costs just £9.49 and includes FREE shipping to anywhere in the world.

“Whilst The World Mourns Its Inevitable Decay, We Choose To Write The Soundtrack – A Primal Techno Organic Soundscape. All Locked In An Unholy War Of Stealth And Sonic Violence.”