Makeshift Art Bar is a cultural defibrillator. In a society that increasingly resembles an algorithmic discharge of vapid similitude, they are a caustically vital slab of sonic mayhem.

Dangerous, authentic and raw. No-fi, textural disorientation specialists who make experimental noise rock with such primordial aggression that it’s enough to wake a generation from its narcosis of nostalgia fetishism. Joseph Sweeney (lead vocals/guitar/electronics), Callum McGuigan (bass), Alleyah Boulaich (drums) and Callum Sweeney (guitar/lap- steel) summon the nihilistic ideology of punk, the architectural precision of dance, and the dark convulsions of post-industrial pioneers, without conforming to genre convention or expectations.

DJs and publications are lining up to call themselves fans with BBC 6Music playlisting the band and granting them a live session; presenter Mary Anne Hobbs describing their track ‘Bedwetter’ as: “Imagine catching the tears of 1980s Bargeld and Cave and using them to wipe down a devastatingly beautiful cafe racer motorcycle.” The band’s brand of emotionally raw, primal catharsis also cut through on wax, peaking at No. 3 in the UK Vinyl Single Charts with their Early Doors Dinked Edition.

Discordance and strange rhythms. Unorthodox frequencies and panic-attack oscillations burbling through the cracks in ever-shifting structures.The rising sonic powerhouse dropped their debut EP ‘Lackluster Writing Makes Fundamental Reading’ in January 2025 to critical acclaim. By summer, they’d featured on Mount Palomar single ‘Pass the Parcel’, whisking synthetic timbres into an abstract Irish post-punk milieu. Newly signed to indie heavyweights Heist or Hit (Westside Cowboy, Her’s) EP two: ‘Marionette’ has been produced by Daniel Fox (Sprints, Melts, Psy-chotic Monks, Naked Lungs, Nerves, Ronan Group) and it’s set to be seminal. A set text for future musicians with aspirations of innovation.

“The theme of the marionette is present throughout each song, involving some aspect of a power struggle and a lack of control within oneself.”

Description supplied by the event organiser.