Subbacultcha presents: Milkweed + swampling

Encounter the slacker-trad folklore of Milkweed’s formula of existing source material, cut up words, and lo-fi and experimental sound productions, this October at Dokzaal.

Milkweed describe their sound as slacker-trad, which is both true and somehow insufficient. For three years Milkweed have refined a formula – taking existing source material (a folklore journal, a book on Welsh myths, another on bronze age human remains and most recently Thomas Kinsella’s masterfully stark translation of the Táin Bó Cúailnge), cutting up the words and feeding them through a woodchipper of lo-fi production and experimental folk music.

On the face of it their musical concerns are transatlantic – they follow the rich creative line that runs between British traditional music and the songs and tunes of the eastern United States. In reality their scope is global, and rooted in deep time, with influences from prehistory bleeding into a troubled and troubling modern era. As a result their music doesn’t sit easily anywhere, but ricochets between bewitching folk music and disconcerting hauntological experimentation.

swampling is a polite-grunge group from Amsterdam who scavenge sonic elements from Irish traditional, shoegaze, Mediafire lofi, noise rock, and spiritual jazz. The band is currently made up of Josefina Gilardi on flute, Till Hormann on saxophone, Ben Tupper on drums, Meis Vranken on bass, and aido wall on guitar and vocals. Featuring both blistering waves of distortion and creaky moments of quietude, the group weave harrowed melodies and songs from within the eternal freefall of late-capitalist collapse.

This is a Subbacultcha original show. Please make a reservation by sending an email to mailinglist@subbacultcha.nl with ‘Milkweed’ in the subject line + your name in the email. Registrations are open until 12PM on weekdays. 

This show is kindly supported by Fonds Podium Kunsten, AFK and Cultuurfonds.