For the London concert week running Thursday 19 to Sunday 22 November, the essential trip is east: Ruth Goller at MOTH Club on Saturday 21 November. Goller arrives as a bassist, vocalist and composer with a solo practice built from materials that usually occupy separate corners of a record collection—electric and double bass, wordless or abstracted voice, irregular tunings and a keen feel for physical rhythm. Her recent catalogue makes a persuasive case for the gig as an encounter with an artist’s working language, with close attention paid to texture and form. The bill also places her beside Pete Wareham, Chris Sharkey and O., giving the evening a concentrated cast of players whose names signal an appetite for sound with edges, space and elasticity. This is the week’s standout because it offers an artist with a deeply individual vocabulary in a room scaled for listening closely.[1][2][3][4]

A voice built into the instrument

Goller’s 2021 debut Skylla established the foundations: she wrote and recorded the music herself, playing electric bass, double bass and vocals, then brought in Lauren Kinsella and Alice Grant for selected vocal parts. Its central idea is unusually direct: bass carries melody, pulse and texture while voices operate as grain, breath and a form of counterweight. The album’s titles read like fragments of a private story, and its sound treats tuning as an active compositional decision. International Anthem’s account of the subsequent Skyllumina describes a further move toward a series of relationships with drummers, each piece shaped by a different player. That arc matters for a live date. Goller’s work has grown through particular instrumental encounters, so the names around her on the MOTH Club bill form part of the evening’s musical proposition.[2][3][4]

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Why MOTH Club suits the scale of the music

MOTH Club’s Valette Street address and Old Trades Hall identity give this concert a useful physical frame. It is a Hackney room with a live programme and an intimate floor, a setting that lets detail carry: the crackle of an amplified string, the suspended moment before a line settles into rhythm, the human grain within a vocal sound. Goller has played across many overlapping strands of London’s creative music community, including work with Alabaster DePlume, Vula Viel and Melt Yourself Down, yet her solo records make a case for concentration over accumulation. Skylla and Skyllumina are full of sound, though their force comes from a few elements being handled with close attention. In a venue where performers and audience share a compact space, that focus should feel especially tangible.[1][3][4]

The practical plan for Saturday

Ruth Goller plays MOTH Club on Saturday 21 November at 7.30pm, alongside Pete Wareham, Chris Sharkey and O. The date falls late in a week dense with bigger bills and specialist nights across London, which makes this a strong choice for listeners seeking a single, self-contained musical proposition. Arrive ready for a set whose interest lies in timbre, interaction and the expressive possibilities inside a bass line and a voice. MOTH Club is at Valette Street, London E9 6NU. Check the venue’s official listings and Ruth Goller’s official channels again before travelling, since door times, line-up details and ticket availability can change.[1][2][3]

Sources

  1. MOTH Club | Live Music Venue in Hackney, London — MOTH Club
  2. Ruth Goller — Ruth Goller
  3. Announcing Deluxe Vinyl Reissue of Ruth Goller’s Debut Album — International Anthem
  4. Skylla — Ruth Goller on Bandcamp