Heavy Mental: Nadja - Sannhet - Sum of R

Swamp Booking and Urban Spree presents Heavy Mental concert series : #2 Nadja is a duo of multi-instrumentalist Aidan Baker and bassist Leah Buckareff active since 2005 and credited as one of the progenitors of the genres 'drone doom' or 'metalgaze'—heavy atmospheric music which combines the darkness and volume of doom metal and industrial with the textures and melodicism of shoegaze and ambient/electronic music. The project has released numerous albums on many different underground labels—Alien8 Recordings, Daymare Records, Robotic Empire, Hydrahead Records, Gizeh Records, and Important Records, to name a few—and have toured extensively with appearances in Europe, Japan, Russia, Australia/New Zealand, North and South America, including appearances at such festivals as SXSW, FIMAV, Roadburn, Donaufest, Le Guess Who, Incubate, and Unsound. Originally from Toronto, Canada, the duo now resides in Berlin, Germany. web links: http://www.facebook.com/luvnadja http://www.nadjaluv.ca/ http://nadja.bandcamp.com/ https://youtu.be/7RceyHAz9Jk https://youtu.be/nzL7nJZOlGs Sannhet have always been hard to classify. Since 2010, the Brooklyn trio’s played instrumental music that’s heavy and light, cinematic and intimate, dense but minimal. You could call them “post” something, “experimental metal,” or “math rock,” but none of that’s quite right and the band has thrown another wrinkle into the mix with So Numb. While they don’t write lyrics, they do write subtexts. They pen love letters, extended epistles, and suicide notes, all without words. With So Numb, Sannhet create a new world out of very few ingredients. The cover of Sannhet’s third album, So Numb, features a mother shielding her son’s eyes with her hands - an allegory depicting the protection one receives from their parents, but it isn’t meant to be sentimental. As the mother shelters her child, she inadvertently creates a false sense of safety. The child, in turn, spends it's life seeking comfort and escape in temporary solutions. Though Sannhet meditate on life’s imperfect escapes, So Numb’s nine songs showcase the band facing life’s pain and joy with their eyes wide open. The collection’s emotional landscape is one of existential dread, melancholy, and loss - ammunition for escapists. Despite these existential conundrums, So Numb has an uplifting, euphoric feel. web links: https://www.facebook.com/sannhet Twitter: @sannhetbk Instagram: @sannhetbk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLX9BhEqDc Switzerland's Sum Of R R exists since 2008 and was created by Reto Mäder (URAL UMBO, RM74) to construct/deconstruct sound in ways that infest and cloud the interior of the mind. Sum Of R creates slow moving instrumental music with a sensibility for hypnotic and complex song structures. Their intense and pulsating sound is influenced by lumbering doom, drone, post-metal, ambient, noiserock, psychedelic and cinematic post-rock. Sum Of R’s ritualistic take on expanding sound layers is deepened by the rawness of an unconventional metal atmosphere plunged into darkness, light and its reflection. Their live performances as a duo are characterized by a cyclical process involving bass guitars, drums, effects, samples and drones to create a unique and dense whole which is more than the sum of its parts. web links: https://www.facebook.com/sumofr/ FB Event