Music at Bishops' House

18/01/2025

And we're off. The ties that bind us to Winter have been shrrrrrrrredded....
Shaking of the shackles of silence with THREE improv gigs next week at Bishops House.
Thursday 23/1 Bohman Brothers - Homemade Instruments, A Surrealist Encounter of the Bishops kind

24th, Ivor Kallin and Mick Beck. How often do you enter a room with two former residents of STRATHBUNGO! Please ask.
Ivor Kallin exploits his heritage through poetry, deploying Scots and Yiddish as the basis for improvised poetry, with occasional English.
Mick Beck needs no introduction to the denizens of Sheffield or further a field.

25th, Manchester's Minimum Wage Immanence Unit comprises Adam Fairhall on accordion/harmonium, David Birchall on guitar/banjo and Michael Perrett on bass clarinet.

They improvise music that draws as much on English folk song as it does the timbral integrations of European spectralism and the free drone excursions of Pelt.

All three nights with legend of the UK Improv Scene.
Expect the Unexpected as Terrahawks so rightly said

Doors 7.00pm
Music 7.45pm
BYOB
It's Warm inside!

18/01/2025

Such a gorgeous way to start the musical year. .
Katya Shirskova bringing layered vocals to an enchanted full house.
Remarkable, uplifting and poignant at the same time.
Thank you to everyone who came out to support.

16/01/2025

Second in our three-in-a-row of experimental music gigs next week.
2 colossi of the improv scene!! Ivor Kallin (viola / vocals) and Mick Beck (saxophone / bassoon)
Up close and personal in a Tudor House
Support from the no less legendary JABAW (John Jasnoch, Gillian Whitelaw, Geoff Bright
24/1

11/01/2025

Sonido Polifonico at Bishops' House presents two extraordinary artists working in experimental music.
France-based Katya Shirshkova playing one of 4 UK dates. We are very lucky to have her! She will be playing her composition "Le Heron", a minimalist exploration of voice, looped into fluttering murmurations.
Support from Anna Peaker who explores processed acoustic instruments and electronics.
Half tickets gone!

10/01/2025

Countdown........ This week sees the Dawn of a New Musical Year for Sonido Polifonico @ Bishops' House.
Opening on 17 Jan with the Entrancing Vocals of Katya Shirskova. With a vast range of experience this is sure to be a wonderful evening. Also playing is Anna Peaker, electronic pioneer from West Yorks.

The Return of the Bohman Brothers 23rd promises to be an evening of the uncategorisable yet wildly engrossing. Expect the...well we can't actually say. I was going to try to impress you with "Fluxus " and " Situationist" BUT sitting somewhere between Philip Glass and Tommy Cooper.....is my overriding vibe.... Imagine

24 Jan sees More experimentation with the Legends that are Mick Beck and Ivor Kallin

The from Manchester, David Birchall brings Immanence Wage Unit across the Snake Pass. Expect Free Drone Trance like Spectralism.
Floating the Boats of the Weird and Wonderful.
All with great supports of great promise.

At the Turn of the Month "The Attendant" ( Pete Astor ) brings a vision "Minimal Suburban Surrealism." Supported by Sheffield's PERSONA in a rare appearance. These are always special.
Don't miss out.

Doors for all gigs 7.00pm
Music at 7.45pm
BYOB.
Curfew 10.00pm

07/01/2025

Music at Bishops' House via Sonido Polifonico.
Experimental. Improv, electronics and gorgeous vocal atmospherics.
Local and internationally renowned artists. Some in exile and and others truly "Outre".
All welcome
17 Jan sees us enter the fray with Katya Shirskova and Anna Peaker. It's a great way to start. Be great to see some of you there. The heating will be on.
Byob
Doors 7.00pm, Music at 7.45pm
https://linktr.ee/sonidopolifonico

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03/01/2025

Epiphany is almost upon us!

January at Bishops' House sees a series of mainly experimental orientated happenings.
All will manifest something strange and wonderful.

17 Jan
We open with something truly Beautiful, Katya Shirshkova, a lecturer at Ecole de Beaux Art Bourges, a laureate of PAUSE programme for researchers and artists in exile. She participated in the Anti-war sonic action "The wind blows wherever it pleases, you hear it’s sound", (February 2022, Moscow) and now is based in France. Support comes from Leeds based Anna Peaker whose work centers around quiet electronics, organ pieces, and found sound.

Many more to come as you can see on the listings.
23 Jan
A late addition is the return of the Bohman Brothers! Difficult tpo explain, heir repertoire includes a combination of sounds created in the moment and distinct compositions including songs. They use unconventional instruments, household objects, dislocated text from found, literary and commercial sources and collaged layers of recordings.
Totally unmissable

Epiphanies come in many forms............

Why not come, you never know.

Doors 7.00pm
Music at 7.45
BYOB
It'll be warm

31/12/2024

Thank you to everyone who has come out to support our musical presentations at Bishops' House and elsewhere in 2024.
There have been so many special evenings of weird and wonderful performances. From the trad folk of Nick Hart to the bewitching, literally, appearance of Folklore Tapes . Sub bass megalithic explorations from Berlin, Abigail Toll to the slightly terrifying The Seer and so much more.

It's hard to know what 2025 will hold, but we are definitely building on something, thanks to the support of wonderful appreciative audiences and performers willing to take risks and push the boundaries of possibilities.
Thanks must be given to Bishops' House and it's volunteers for keeping the house alive, in every sense.

Below is the initial link to our Winter into Spring performances for 2025.
Thanks again.
Happy New Year from us here at Sonido Polifonico

Linktree. Make your link do more.

18/12/2024

Still time to snag a Burd Ellen over on Bandcamp . There were 3cds left in the world when I last counted. Available on vinyl too. You can catch then live at Bishops House 9 Feb Tickets available via Wegot Tickets. They played their winter set in Nottingham last week and were stunning
Also Alula Down playing on 8th May.
Two bands taking the possibilities of folk and pushing to the outer limits....

As the Unthanks release a new collection of wintry folk, we pick out other seasonal albums full of variously warm, sparkling and sharp songcraft

13/12/2024

Annelies Monseré and Gooldscammer conjouring beautiful drone with medieval spectres ar Bishops House.
Some tix on door.
7.00pm, Music at 7.45pm. Byob. Come be bewitched

12/12/2024

Last Gig of the Year!!!!

Tomorrow, Friday our final 2024 gig @ Bishops House, Sheffield, and it's a beautiful one we have for you. Long time favourite of ours Annelies Monseré purveyor of "a deep well of raw, emotive expression rumbling below numerous traditions of European folk music."

"Folk and early music are at the core of her sound but the palette of piano, organ, bass guitar, cello, synth and drum machine make it very much a document of the here and now."
It's kinda what we do and Annelies is a perfect conduit to send us on our way into our mid winter slumber.

Support comes from the Goldscammer another vector of Belgium strangeness.

Doors 7.00pm
Music 7.45pm
BYOB
Some tickets on the door.
In advance from WeGotTickets

07/12/2024

Gorgeous. Black Brunswicker now at Bishops'House. Ethereal, Wanderings to make you Wonder............Michael Plater up at 8.45ish.........still time

07/12/2024

TONIGHT@ Bishops'House, Sheffield.
Australian ,Noir Folk from the wonderful Michael Plater . Warm against the elements.
Plus Black Brunswicker. Understated guitar Explorations.
We will be warm!
Doors 7.00pm
Music 7.45pm
Byob
Tix £10 old.

04/12/2024

Just two gigs left for us at Bishops' House, before hibernation.
Firstly, Saturday, 6 Dec,

Michael Plater
Hypnotic Folk Drones and "Otherly" Songs. with that strange Australian vibe

“Beautiful and timeless...Music that breaks your heart.” (Peek-a-Boo Magazine)
"Enigmatic Melbourne troubadour, Michael Plater…explores the dark corners of his inner world, wringing every last
drop of fascination out of his gnarled guitar"

From the mid west "Black Brunswicker" ethereal guitar soundscapes.

Vibes here
https://youtu.be/zfr72Z9KB6Y

Doors 7.00pm
Music 7.45pm
BYOB

29/11/2024

Just two gigs left for us @ Bishops House this year.
Saturday 7th Dec sees Michael Plater an Australian experimental/indie/folk/noir musician, who currently divides his time between Australia and the U.K. He has played all over the world and put out a series of releases on such U.K. labels as Reverb Worship, Hypostatic Union, Woodford Halse, and Dub Cthonic. His most recent album, “Ghost Music”, was highly acclaimed, and was voted as the 4th best album of 2023 in U.K. music publication Sun 13. He also plays in the “horror soundscapes” project The Northern Lighthouse Board, the “Greek psych folk”
collective The Taps of the Holy Trinity, and the “ambient hauntronica” duo Ghosts of Electricity.
Plus Black Brunswicker, guitar dreamworld from the mid west, filtered through the North-West West.
A warm welcome awaits

25/11/2024

It just might be our gig of the year...
13 tickets left for tonight Bishops House, Sheffield. Not too late to catch .

Horse Loom
Pete Simonelli
Haress

A special evening in store.
Folk / Psych Folk / Spoken Word.

Tears in the Firmament #4
Doors 7.00pm
Performance 7.30pm
Byob
Curfew 10.00pm

15/11/2024

Monday 25th. Could be our gig of the year and we've put some decent stuff on. We don't do Mondays for just anyone...

11/11/2024

November gigs have a distinctly Folky vibe.
Alasdair Roberts /DW Lindsay is long SOLD OUT.

21 /11 Auka 50% sold.

Only 14 tickets remain for Henry Parker and David Ian Roberts on 23/11

In a Very Late addition we are over the moon to have
Horse Loom / Haress / Pete Simonelli perform on Monday 25th
Haress were a total highlight last year and if you saw them...

Horse Loom is Steve Malley, the beautifully melancholy solo project that follows his years in bands like Crane, Kodiak, Dark Northumbrian and The Unit Ama.
We are so lucky and you will be in for a RARE treat.

Pete Simonell, Brooklyn Poet tells the kind of stories you want to bottle up and save somewhere out of time.
(Oh yeah Pete also leads cult band "Enablers")

4 Great gigs. Be great to see you there.