Al Murray To Join Suns Of The Tundra On Stage This Week

This Thursday, October 20, ambitious four-piece London proggers Suns Of The Tundra – formerly known as Peach, featuring Tool’s Justin Chancellor – will present their fourth album, Bones Of Brave Ships, played in its entirety at Balham’s The Bedford pub theatre.

Described by Prog’s Dom Lawson as a mix of post-rock and Eric Satie, the double album was created in 2015 as a soundtrack to 1919 documentary South, an 82-minute long silent film about Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic exploits and an epic tale of survival, which will also be screened on the night as the band’s backdrop. Suns Of The Tundra became interested in composing a soundtrack after playing with bands such as Red Sparowes, who used film to augment their performances.

After seeing South at a film festival, the band began a Kickstarter campaign to realise the concept. “I wondered what kind of soundtrack Suns of the Tundra could create for South,” said frontman Simon Oakes. “My eye had been caught too by stunning still images of South on permanent display at London’s Royal Geographical Society.”

The title itself comes from expedition member Commander Frank Worsley who wrote about the experience in his diary after seeing wreckage piled high on a South Georgian beach, the remnants of previous explorations: “This was a graveyard of ships – ships’ timbers, bones of brave ships and bones of brave men.”

Pub Landlord Al Murray will guest on drums for one section, and support comes from psychedelic folk duo The Left Outsides.

Doors open at 7.30 and tickets cost £12.

Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer who joined Kerrang! in 1999 and then the dark side – Prog – a decade later as Deputy Editor. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!) and asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit. Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London and can be occasionally heard polluting the BBC Radio airwaves as a pop and rock pundit. Steven Wilson still owes her £3, which he borrowed to pay for parking before a King Crimson show in Aylesbury.