Yesterday we launched our new community radio station – Sister Midnight FM!

We’ve been working on this behind the scenes for a while, and we can’t wait to see how it shapes up with the input of our community!

Tune in at https://t.co/IL5517DMYb pic.twitter.com/65M0UC8nzP

— Sister Midnight (@sistermidnightt) August 4, 2023

The radio station officially launched last week and is an effort to build up the music community in the area. The announcement comes after further attempts to put music venues back into the hands of fans and away from private landlords that often are accused of raising prices thereby locking ordinary members of the community out.

Sister Midnight music venue has been the culmination of two years of campaigning for a community owned music base that finally found a home in Catford Town Centre. Owned by Lewisham Council, the building in question represented a serious investment for refurbishment to bring the premises up to standard for its intended use.

Sister Midnight was able to secure a ten year lease that will see the company not having to pay any rent to the council as long as they can front the money to renovate the abandoned building. Once completed, the collective have space for a 300 capacity live room, a private yard and studio space on the upper floors.

The collective boasts that the sky is the limit for the venue and have plans to feature high quality local talent. The project has gained support from notable personalities throughout the UK, including Goat Girl, Porridge Radio and Jools Holland who has even agreed to become a shareholder of the venue. As of August 2023, the building’s construction is set to get underway but Sister Midnight have gone ahead with their radio station which has thus far featured music segments from DJ Gilla, Laani and Shovel Dance Collective. The station will also host local community shows.

Listen back to my JAZZ RE:FEST 2023 Special on brand new @sistermidnightt community radio ‘LAANI on SMFM’ by Sister Midnight FM is on #SoundCloud https://t.co/c6hTC8cNSe — LAANI (@alanna_henry) August 7, 2023

Sister Midnight’s Lenny Watson, while discussing the station and its input into the local scene said, “Sister Midnight FM opens up a whole new world of possibilities for engaging and growing the Sister Midnight community-both in the present while we’re still working on opening our new music venue, and in the future once we’re up and running. We’re so excited to see how the station grows and to have a way for local people to get creatively involved with our work!”

“We’re so excited to see how the station grows and to have a way for local people to get creatively involved with our work…” – @sistermidnightthttps://t.co/CLMQyMo1bW

— DMY (@dmymag) August 3, 2023

Grassroots music gig spaces have been under threat and calls for government action have been urgently voiced in recent years. Many commentators fear that local musicians and artists will lack the means to form a viable career and the UK will lose out on numerous talent acquisition in future. The collective in Lewisham represent one, of what many will hope will be many, local organisations that will invest in music scenes for the community.

Rough Trade states “Goat Girl will be releasing a 12” featuring Remixes of ‘Sad Cowboy’ one of the standout tracks from their new album On All Fours as a limited edition of 850 copies on May 7^th”. There are four artists providing their own take on the track. The first side includes the original track followed by Portuguese producer Nidia’s remix. Side B treats us to remixes from the likes of London three-piece band PVA, British-Nigerian electronic artist Tony Njoku and Cameron Picton (also known as DJ Dairy) from the experimental outfit and Mercury Prize nominated Black Midi.

With the early May release date a while away, the band have given fans a taste of what is to come with the release of the PVA Remix today. The four minute track creates an impressive take on the original, beginning with house grooves and descending into rave ready electro infused piece. The song is available on all major streaming services along with the full remix EP on 7^th May, with vinyl pre-orders being dispatched in line with global release. Listen to ‘Sad Cowboy (PVA Remix)’ whilst we wait for the rest of the tracks to arrive below. You can also pre-order one of the 850 physicals from Rough Trade here.

On January 29th their next album will be released, On All Fours will be their second full-length record release and brought to listeners through Rough Trade Records. Goat Girl released two singles before Badibaba, which reached critical acclaim and clawed up the UK Charts in 2020. The singles Space Cowboy and The Crack will featuring on the forthcoming album, joining Badibaba. 

L.E.D, of Goat Girl described the newest single as an “environmental catastrophe and the pessimism and self-destruction that this causes to the human spirit”. The song is a clear correlation with the looming global health crisis, Covid-19.

It is no surprise that this track was released along side the announcement of their upcoming UK in-person concerts, after the country went into its latest lockdown amid concerns surrounding the new UK variant. Goat Girl’s Cream further explained the track, saying that “It touches on how the Earth’s existence is controlled by exploitative systems, and the feeling of existential helplessness this induces.” 

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Goat Girl’s UK and European tour will begin September 2021 after the release of the bands highly awaited forthcoming album On All Fours which drops this month. The new single Badibaba and accompanying music video is available as of today on all platforms, as well as the previously released tracks Space Cowboy and The Crack. 

Goat Girl UK/EU 2021 Tour
14/09/2021 – Trinity Centre – Bristol
15/09 – Islington Assembly Hall – London
16/09 – Mama Roux – Birmingham
18/09 – Whelan’s – Dublin
20/09 – Phase One – Liverpool
21/09 – SWG3 – Glasgow
22/09 – Gorilla – Manchester
24/09 – Concorde 2 – Brighton
25/09 – Loft – Southampton

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  We are very excited to announce that @lateworks_  of Noise will be out on @slowdancerecords on 10TH NOVEMBER You can pre-order the limited edition vinyl now via our website in our bio and on @roughtrade The 40 minute album features members of @bmblackmidi @goatgirlofficial @404guild @sorrybanduk @powerplant___  @curlrecordings & more who came into a studio in six groups to record with a set of instruments sculpted by @mathildabgreene @a4ngus @joe.bradleyhill & @jonaspequeno     The groups were only allowed to sample the instruments and their voice, and any lyrics had to be written in the time (of which they only had six hours). You can listen to a sampler and find more information on the Slow Dance & Late Works websites. Tracklist: A1 – “forged in fire” ft.( @djdairy2020 @thegreep @agaujma @silkarmour100 & @jerskinfendrix ) A2 – “diggy diggy fuck off” ft.( @plopper5000 @mrinstargram @maxsyedtollan & @tobyevansjesra ) A3 – “don’t sleep on” ft.( @glowsmusic & @felix.raman ) A4 – “unmenacingly violent” ft.( @marthaskye @krnlnrd @skrillig & @cajm_ ) B1 – “DRAIN MYTH” ft.( @bathwater.404 @devenny.404 @eliot.404 & @sonny.404 ( @404guild )) B2 – “DARK LORE BINGO” ft.( @bianca_scout @jacobfsamuel @homerhands @j_b_glazer @h__smart & @elenaisolini ) Musicians selected by @ggskips @joe.bradleyhill @maddymokeefe & @biancascout . All tracks mixed by the respective artists and @felix.raman and mastered for vinyl by @technodaddy666 (@pva_are_ok ) . Concept + vinyl design by @joe.bradleyhill inspired by Luigi Russolo’s 1913 manifesto “The Art of Noises”.

A post shared by Slow Dance (@slowdancerecords) on Oct 5, 2020 at 4:06am PDT

Ventures like this are typical of Slow Dance, run by three entrepreneurial music lovers Marco Pini, Darius Williams and Maddy O’Keefe. Slow Dance is a label, management, radio and events company that grew organically out of a college art zine. It has been recognised for its status as ‘one of the capital’s finest arbiters of taste’, and for its grassroots ethos, by publications such as NME, Dazed and The Quietus.

Fitting with their artistic origins, Slow Dance have collaborated with intermedia arts organisation Late Works on this project. Late Works founder Joseph Bradley Hill, who designed the concept, was inspired by Luigi Russolo’s 1913 manifesto The Art of Noises which classifies noises into six categories. Hill chose the four sculptors to contribute while O’Keefe, Pini and Bianca Scout weighed in to choose the musicians.

One group of musicians includes Lottie Pendlebury and Rosy Jones from the Rough Trade signed band Goat Girl while another saw DJ Dairy & MC Spritz, from the 2019 Mercury nominated black midi, team up with burgeoning experimental-folk musician Aga Ujma. The musicians were only able to sample the instruments and their own voices. The result is a fascinating cross-genre set of tracks, created over six hours, that demonstrates the innate musicality of its participants.

The physical product is covered in interesting graphics and contains a black and white risographed concertina booklet detailing the project. Projects like these are important because they question the purpose of music and push its parameters.