Concerts
THE TIGER LILLIES
FRIDAY, 31.03.2017 | Parterre One Kultur | Basel, Switzerand
8:30 PM
"The godfathers of alternative cabaret"
- MISERY GUTS MUSIC
"There is nothing else like them. Any description of them is an injustice – they are completely peerless."
- Alex Kapranos, FRANZ FERDINAND
"Phenomenal" - THE GUARDIAN
"...brilliant and utterly fantastic!! .." - MARC ALMOND
"...a journey into wild emotion which passes right through melodrama and out the other side into bizarre beauty" - EVENING STANDARD
"Garishly guady and gloriously obscene...Imagine Kurt Weill conjuring up images of prewar Berlin while a falsetto vocalist screams, squeaks and squawks...like some rambling madman, and you've got the picture." - TIME OUT
One year after their sold-out show in Basel, London's cult Grammy-nominated and Olivier Award-winning three-piece returns! Their twisted fusion of pre-war-Berlin-cabaret & avant-garde-music-hall is irresistibly delivered in deranged anarchic-gypsy-circus-style, garnished with punk's edge. Disturbing, heart-breaking, beautiful, touching, dark, mad, bizarre, provocative, shocking, amusing, bewildering...All of this describes their shows.
Notorious for singing controversial songs of all vices imaginable, The Tiger Lillies are not for the easily offended. Their musical style is influenced by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill's masterpiece "The Threepenny Opera" as well as French chanson and British music hall tunes.
The Tiger Lillies were formed in 1989 and a quarter of a century later they remain one of the most unique, provocative and genre-defying bands one could come across. Thank God they are none the wiser, softer or nicer and they keep finding new ways to shock, enchant and amuse their audience with their breath taking live performances that will utterly bewilder yet fully entertain you.
Martyn Jacques, the band's front man, songwriter and founder, spent most of his twenties in a flat above a brothel in London's Soho, peeping through his window at the buzz of Soho’s lowlife. It took him a good ten years to turn that strange world into art, while training as a singer and songwriter.
The avant-trio stood out immediately for its distinct sound and style and the band quickly worked its way up from London pubs to the Piccadilly Theatre, and from buskers’ benches to the Sydney Opera House. Soon they were touring the world giving concerts and involved in art and theatre projects, collaborating with artists of all disciplines: from circus performers to Shakespearean actors, experimental dancers to avant-garde photographers, and burlesque puppeteers to classical music ensembles.
The world of The Tiger Lillies is dark, peculiar and varied, with moments of deep sadness, cruel black humour and immense beauty. Their songs cover the dark aspects of life, from prostitution and drug addiction to violence and despair. Always with a touch of twisted humor and sharp irony. Echoeing the voices of Bertolt Brecht and Jacques Brel; their music shocks, amuses and entertains in a postmodern vaudeville way, with inimitable in-yer-face shows, where no limit should be taken for granted.
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New album: Cold Night In Soho
Cold Night in Soho is inspired by Martyn Jacques’ life in the racy and often heartless world of Soho in the 1980s, where he lived amidst the prostitutes and drug fiends, the sleaze-mongers and local eccentrics who would all go on to populate his songs over the years. Before the widespread sanitisation of central London in recent times, the closing of the sex shops and the XXX-rated cinemas, there was risk, excitement and colour there, in all its gaudy and unexpected variety.
This new Tiger Lillies’ album and live show is a series of snapshots of a vanished Soho: women trapped in the endless cycle of turning tricks in clip joints, career alcoholics of Soho’s legendary drinking dens, starched soldiers of the Salvation Army making forays into these degenerate streets. It’s also a memoir of Martyn’s experiences as a busker in Finsbury Park as well as the Tiger Lillies very first gigs at the King’s Head in Islington. Significantly, this is also the band’s first album not connected to a theatre show in about ten years, thus representing a return to song-writing for the sake of the songs alone. To mark this high-profile occasion the album is released on a CD as well as a limited-edition vinyl pressing.
eclipse is thrilled to present this irresistible act at Parterre One Kultur
The Tiger Lillies are:
Martyn Jacques
vocals, accordion, piano, guitar, harmonica, ukulele and banjolele
Jonas Golland
drums, percussion and backing vocals
Adrian Stout
double bass, backing vocals, jaw harp, musical saw and theremin
TOM FREUND
FRIDAY, 14.04.2017 | Parterre One Kultur | Basel, Switzerand
8:30 PM
"...truly unique and absolutely brilliant...One of the great singer-songwriters" - ALL MUSIC GUIDE
"One of the few unexpected gems" - THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Along with Lucinda Williams, Freund is the best singer/songwriter operating today." – GRAHAM PARKER
"...what California feels like..." - ACOUSTIC GUITAR
The brilliant lyricist & multi-instrumentalist (guitar, piano, upright bass, ukulele) returns to Basel!
A native New Yorker (re-rooted in California), Tom counts Ben Harper, Brett Dennen, Serena Ryder, Victoria Williams and Jackson Browne as both collaborators and admirers.
Bewilderingly talented, Tom has the capacity to move his audiences to tears one moment, and have them doubled over in laughter the next. Unique, substantial and funny as hell.
A must-see live act!
For appreciators of Randy Newman, Wilco, Tom Petty, Tom Waits...(and perhaps other Toms...).
eclipse is delighted to present this outstanding artist at Parterre One Kultur.
JOHN SMITH
SATURDAY, 29.04.2017 | Parterre One Kultur | Basel, Switzerland
8:30 PM
"Spellbinding" - TIME OUT
"Brilliant" - MOJO
"Staggeringly good" - ACOUSTIC MAGAZINE
"A guitar genius" - THE SUN
"He's a magician" - BEN HOWARD
"Quietly spectacular" - THANK FOLK FOR THAT
John Smith has played to audiences all over the world in festival tents, living rooms and sold-out concert halls. He tours relentlessly with his guitars, looking to communicate through a song and to share something intangible with those willing to listen. His uniquely intimate take on love, loss or even a mythic murder ballad, combined with his innovative guitar work, have won him a loyal following.
John has opened shows for Iron and Wine, John Martyn, Tinariwen and Gil Scott-Heron, and has performed alongside the likes of Jackson Browne, Jerry Douglas, Richard Hawley, Jarvis Cocker and Rodney Crowell. In his occasional role as session musician he has played electric guitar for David Gray, Lisa Hannigan, LeAnn Rimes and Lianne La Havas.
It’s all for the love of the guitar. John plays a rumbling acoustic fingerstyle but sometimes uses a slide or plays the guitar on his lap. His playing and honey-on-gravel vocals have brought crowds the world over to pin-drop silence and rapturous applause.
John has self-released four albums: "The Fox and the Monk" (2006), "Map Or Direction" (2009), "Eavesdropping" (2011) and ”Great Lakes" (2013).
His new album will be released in the Spring of 2017.
eclipse is pleased to present this outstanding artist at Parterre One Kultur.
HARAM
THURSDAY, 15.06.2017 | Parterre One Kultur | Basel, Switzerland
8:30 PM
“The musics backbone is traditional, but wild outbursts of free improvisation and subtle injections of noise make it quite unlike anything you'd hear in the shisha dens of Cairo or Baghdad.” - THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT
“Gordon Grdina is both a skilled and slippery performer on the oud and a fiercely inventive noise guitarist”
- THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT
From the depths of Vancouver’s rich avant-garde improvisational music community, comes the phenomenal culture-mashing, juggernaut that is Haram. The power-house ensemble, half studied in the Arabic tradition and half who cut their teeth in the improv-indie-rock-jazz scene, is led by Juno Award-winning GORDON GRDINA (Dan Mangan, Mats Gustafsson, Mark Helias, Gary Peacock, Paul Motian) who trades in his guitar for Iraqi oud. Haram pays homage to traditional Arabic music while mixing elements of noise, electronic soundscape, and western free improv into their explosively self-expressive sound.
The sheer size of the band aside, trying to collect this ambitious selection of creative heavy-hitters in the same place and time is a feat. On stage you’ll find drummer KENTON LOEWEN (Dan Mangan, The Crackling, Jerry Granelli), trumpeter JP CARTER (The Inhabitants, Destroyer, Fond Of Tigers) and bassist TOMMY BABIN (Paul Plimley, Now Orchestra, Sendero Luminoso).
Violinist JESSE ZUBOT (Tanya Tagaq, Hawksley Workman, Fond Of Tigers) is a staple of Vancouver’s “free” music scene and is founder of the world-renowned Drip Audio label. Percussionists TIM GERWING and LIAM MACDONALD have been performing the Arabic tradition with Iraqi Oud virtuoso Serwan Yamokly for years and EMAD ARMOUSH has been a professional Arabic singer since his youth. Composer, improviser and soloist FRANÇOISE HOULE has, in part, reinvented the way the clarinet is played in North America.
Haram's traditional foundation feels familiar but avoids the kitsch of a simple homage band. The music, developed over time, has reached that sublime state of effortless cohesion while retaining its sense of wild abandon. The repertoire starts with Iraqi folk music and ends at the mid-century era of Egyptian radio music in which Oum Khalsoum and Farid Al Atrache reigned.
On Haram's debut album “Her Eyes Illuminate”, traditional pieces are blown wide open. The group takes classic Arabic music from great composers like Farid Al-Atrache, Abdul Whahab, and Oum Khalsoum and filters them through Vancouver's creative improvising community. It's invigorating to watch the group constantly shifting directions while building to euphoric crescendos.
Haram plays a repertoire that has been revered by millions over decades, conjuring an immense sense of respect and homage while remaining explosively self-expressive. This one-of-a-kind ensemble is for anyone interested in exciting, cross-cultural, boundary-annihilating music.
eclipse is pleased to present this groundbreaking act at Parterre One Kultur.
eclipse will be bringing you select shows as of Spring 2017. Check back from time to time to see what's blooming!