Alexander's Festival Hall
Alexander's Festival Hall is a purveyor of timeless, broken, nightclub-tinged, electronic balladry. Forthcoming debut album, "Not a dry eye in London", has been chiselled out of solid popcrete, and contains zippy pop, peppy electronica, and wistful whistleable tunes.
Remixes come from Simon Bookish, DREAMTRAK, Zachary Gray, Tim Baxendale, and more...
NEXT LIVE DATE:
28th April: Daylight sessions at The Union Chapel, N1 (12-2pm)
News- Watch the "Upturned" videos
- Listen to the Upturned single + mixes
- Press for 'Upturned'
- Twitter
- Buy "Upturned"
- Other videos
- Eight minute preview...
- Biographically
- Pictures
- Join the mailing list
- Buy "Upturned"
- Contact
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Posts
- May 09, 12
Merci, gracias, thank you kindly to all who came to our lovely Daylight Session at the Union Chapel in April. Team AFH, initially held together by nothing stronger than coffee and Victoria Sponge quickly took the reins (and surely reverb gets no longer than that in a London venue?). For a special day out you can’t beat these free Saturday shows hosted by the Arctic Circle (more).
Also here are a couple of songs video’d by the audience to give you a flavour… Thanks to ‘Andunemir’ for posting.
I’m gonna get married
The life backstage
- Apr 14, 12
Thanks to all who came along for our Upturned launch show… In exciting news we’ll be treading some rather bigger boards at the end of the month at the delightful Daylight Sessions @ The Union Chapel in Highbury/Islington. Saturday 28th April; show starts at 12.00 and runs till 2pm and is a delightful way to kick off the weekend. More details here:
Union Chapel
Hope to see you in the pews!
AFH x - Apr 01, 12
Hi everyone…
Just to say the next show, our little Upturned (but hey, in a basement) launch do is at Power Lunches and we’ve got a dream bill of musical diversions for you all… the elegantly intuitive Machine Gunners will be opening proceedings, followed by the total pop of Tim Ten Yen with supportive parallel world of musical marvels from DREAMTRAK and DJ Soft Focus on the decks.A free CDsingle (remember them? stare at the artwork as you listen on soundcloud mes cheres…) to the first 20 arrivals too!
See you there, doors 7pm, live music starts at 8.30:
http://powerlunchesltd.co.uk/
(nearest station: Dalston Kingsland / Dalston Junction)
AFH x - Mar 12, 12
Hey, hey , is this on? Cool. Just a quick note to say, although, yes it’s technically Timothy Dalton’s birthday, that’s no reason not to come along for AFH’s next show – at the lovely 93 feet east. It’s Wednesday 21st March, and team AFH is on at 9.15 sharp. You can get tix from seetickets.com apparently. link as soon as we have it mes chers. x
- Feb 06, 12
Exciting times..! The “Upturned” single is coming out in April 2012, and to get you in the ah, mood, we present a dark, dark video concerning the perils of the auditioning process, when you travel a world away, to the sea. Directed by Julius Beltrame, with graphics by Linda Baritski, puppet cameo from Mr Charles of New Jersey, and featuring a semi-animate starring role for a lost village out near Clacton-on-Sea…
- Jan 20, 12
- Jan 14, 12
Check out the video and preview for AFH’s Judo track, now up on Where It’s At Is Where You Are’s site. The blog’s going to build for weeks up to release, a different musical act for each of the 26 sports! Album out in June team so head on over:
It’s the taking part (site)
- Nov 17, 11
Hey all, an advance note for that natty Justin Bieber / Newt Gingrich / Brian Cox 2012 Diary you’ll no doubt get from Aunt Sally this Xmas… NEXT AFH GIG: January 18th 2k12 at 93 Feet East. Fab place, awesome sound, and lovelz people. See you there!
- Nov 17, 11
- Sep 09, 11
Good news! Next AFH live show at The Betsey Trotwood, 3rd November 2011. With support from the smooth pop hooks from DJ Soft Focus and more tbc!
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Videos
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Listen to the Upturned single + mixes
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Press for 'Upturned'
- "‘Upturned’, his debut single as Alexander’s Festival Hall, still feels remarkably mature – and remarkably like Spiritualized doing an electro-pop Divine Comedy."(The Line of Best Fit)"Like The Postal Service if they were defiantly English, the cleverly understated progression and mix of the traditional and the new makes this a touching ballad about staring out over the edge and wondering."(Danny Wright, This Is Fake DIY)"This delightfully light-hearted, smart single brings to mind a distinctly English Magnetic Fields – we dare you not to lose your heart to the gorgeous liftoff of the chorus."(Snipe London)"[The] single carries a Jens Lekman kind of wit, the sort you only acquire through reading lots of Tobias Wolff novels with Owen Pallett clarinet solos in the background."(MusicFansMic.Net)
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Tweets
- As the euro pops its clogs let's remember the joy of confident sassy satire! Amazing video too... http://t.co/iJwtBdvr
- Is trying to write Christmas lyrics in May... And I literally cannot picture a reindeer right now. Giant rabbit with cat ears?
- And here's our song again! Judo (What we've been playing) - Alexander's Festival Hall (feat. Yazuyo Uemura): http://t.co/r9VGKe4n
- The mighty WIAIWYA olympics compilation hits the mat! http://t.co/WKDVwTZE
- @BaronSugar Indeed!
- Poll time! I have bought a cassette style iPhone case... and I wish to biro on it. Please vote! #sprout #fagen #heads http://t.co/QHP4GPFsMay 03, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Onstage but definitely "backstage"... here's another row 1 view of Alexander's Festival Hall live at Union Chapel: http://t.co/ZWZE9ZuQMay 03, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Nice little front row eye view of Team AFH performing 'I'm gonna get married' at the union chapel! http://t.co/og9V24m5
- 60 second video overview of team AFH's most ecclesiastical moment this Saturday @ Union Chapel: https://t.co/hlopqhlqApr 29, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Taking konzeptual to a new level - the ever amazing SchneiderTM and friends... http://t.co/SuNFSeHoApr 26, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Come and enjoy the daylight music making this Saturday! AFH + Ana Silvera at the delightful Union Chapel, from noon-2pm http://t.co/oSGXFcjdApr 26, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Just listening to a preview of the mind-bogglingly ace new @parismotel record. Laurie Anderson, Talking Heads, Stranglers, Tina Turner!Apr 20, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- AFH Newsletter - http://t.co/UoJ86Nid
- amazing... Martha Kearney has just played effing + blinding samples of Malcolm Tucker to make a point about govt screwups... #thethickofitApr 19, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Just nodding head approvingly to the nueva-Tony Hatch stylings of "Answer Song" by @bobpetesarah = utterly splendid! http://t.co/rjXEG0DmApr 18, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Looking forward to an shimmering soirée of classical modernism tonight courtesy of @AmyParisMotel @KaramelatCF2 More: http://t.co/8KVBP0iOApr 18, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- We made an alt video for @LeoChadburn 's lovely Bookish rework of Upturned, using leftover footage. Very po-mo ahem! http://t.co/mP1EXfSYApr 18, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- apparently I'm now being followed by Thomas Kincade Gifts. A bit like being pursued by a sinister (glowing) gingerbread house. #bitweirdApr 17, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Buy "Upturned"
- You can download the Upturned single and its lovely remixes at iTunes or Amazon, or stream at Spotify:
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Uploads
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Eight minute preview...
- The highlights in full...
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Biographically
- Alexander’s Festival Hall is the brainchild, accident, ward-of-court, or otherwise hazardous musical adventure of Alexander Mayor. A musical project that began as a date with an antiquarian book-selling model that went spectacularly wrong in the bar of yes, The Royal Festival Hall. Moving right along...
On his debut album, "Not a dry eye in London", Alexander has pulled in a diverse cast of musicians from the drummer of metallers Pig Iron to Brooklyn performance artist Clark ov Saturn, Australian folk singer Clare Younis, LA’s The Birthday Girl on 70s disco recollections, Piney Gir on a lonesome duet about the possibility of weddings, and many more. AFH doesn’t like getting pinned down to one sound and so the record which begins in the green room, dives into underground clubs, jumps back to the disco-era, noses up through German-tinged electronica and concludes bleary-eyed in a field. You can’t ask for more than that in 46 minutes.
He’s the producer who produced Piney Gir’s 2009 “The Yearling” taking a Kansas gal on a trip into Euro electronica and wonky jazz. He was one third of Baxendale when they delivered “I built this city” onto European dancefloors via those nice people at Kompakt. And now he’s teeing up his self-penned future romantronica classic (go on, it only takes 4 of us to start a micro-genre) “Not a dry eye in London” - 13 songs that chart the complexities of love in cities to the sound of broken nightclub-tinged balladry.What's next?
First single Upturned released via MelodicalTrax/State51 April 9th 2012.Album hits the streets later in the year.Press: Hannah Gould PR
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Posts
- Jan 26, 11
festivalhall posted a photo:
Piney and Alex played for the Neurotica new collection by the very talented Victoria McGrane...
Mr Dragon's Den was there getting his photo taken with starry-eyed fashion types. Most amusing...
www.thisisneurotica.com
photo from: Bianca Pal...
fashionslant.blogspot.com/2008/09/neurotica-ss-09-launch-... - Jan 26, 11
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Join the mailing list
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Buy "Upturned"
- You can download the Upturned single and its lovely remixes at iTunes or Amazon:
Or listen at Spotify:
spotify
