Moni Jitchell • Believe In Nothing • Canaan Balsam – The Wee Red Bar

Moni Jitchell at The Wee Red Bar

Support: Believe In Nothing| Canaan Balsam
April 24, 2026 at The Wee Red Bar
Promoter: Play Nice Presents / Tinnitus Gigs

by Sander van den Driesche | April 28, 2026 | Live

Sometimes the brain works in funny ways. After five days at Roadburn Festival, I couldn’t listen to any music for most of the following week; I needed to give my ears (and eyes) a break. By Friday, though, I was easing myself back in with Boris’s Pink, and I felt the urge to go and see some bands again. This gig at Edinburgh’s Wee Red Bar, featuring Canaan Balsam, Believe In Nothing and Moni Jitchell, was a great way to shake off the post-Roadburn blues. The fact that I’d never seen any of these bands live before was an added incentive.

Opening the evening were Edinburgh locals Canaan Balsam, who’ve been active on the fringes of the city’s underground scene for some time. On record, the project appears to be largely the work of one person; their Bandcamp describes their music as “exploring the dead space between ambient and new age music; the liminal zone between the harshness of industrial and the beatific serenity of devotional music.” Live, the sound is delivered by three performers: the frontman handling electronics, joined by a violinist and a musical saw player who add some beautifully eerie extra layers. Spoken-word passages are woven in too. It all sounded genuinely intriguing, and I’d happily go and see them again in future.

Next up were Believe In Nothing. They’re from Eastbourne, though their frontman, Caine Hemmingway, apparently lives about ten minutes down the road from me in Leith. From the moment they started, it was clear this was going to be something completely different: a small suitcase (or maybe a toolbox) and a hammer were placed at the front of the stage, while the vocalist stood among the audience and switched on a bright light that cut straight through the crowd towards the band.

They released their excellent album Rot via the UK’s hardest-working label, Church Road Records, and it was great to hear tracks from it in a live setting, especially with the extra visual theatre. The hammer was hurled around the venue; chains were thrown too (at one point nearly swallowed by the frontman); there was in-your-face preaching right up close to audience members; a few snot-rockets; and plenty more besides.

Believe In Nothing (Photo by Alan Swan Photography)

All of it added another layer to the music itself: sludgy, filthy and oppressive, with shrieked vocals and electronics that at times reminded me of a more sludge-soaked The Body. I’d absolutely go and see them again—and with their frontman now local to Edinburgh, hopefully more shows up here will follow. They’ve also collaborated with Mrs Frighthouse on the album track “Deserts Are Glass”; Mrs Frighthouse are an excellent industrial noise metal duo from Glasgow, and they released Solitude Over Control on Lay Bare Recordings last year.

Headlining the evening were Glasgow noise-rock/hardcore two-piece Moni Jitchell, not coincidentally owners of one of the best band names on the circuit. They’ve been on my radar for ages, and for some unexplained reason (well, aside from me being a lazy arse) I’d never managed to catch them live until tonight. Their setup is wonderfully lean: David on 12‑string guitar, and Grant on vocals while handling pretty much everything else—noise, electronics, programming, vocal effects, the lot. At one point in their set they deadpanned that they’d been too busy with their “other band” recently that they were actually Angine de Poitrine, which was an absurd little joke that set the tone nicely.

Unfortunately, the set was cut short by guitar issues (either the lead or the electronics). Even trying a song on one of Believe In Nothing’s guitars didn’t solve it – turns out a 12‑string in a specific tuning isn’t exactly something you can swap out on the fly. Still, the problems only kicked in about 25 minutes in, so we got a proper onslaught before things derailed.

Moni Jitchell (Photo by Alan Swan Photography)

They absolutely owned the stage, or rather, the floor, in a venue like this – with Grant’s presence reminding me of all those Talking Heads videos my dad made me watch as a kid. There was a real Stop Making Sense energy to it, and knowing the band has performed with a ten-person lineup before, a Moni Jitchell take on that kind of legendary live-film spectacle suddenly feels like a very good idea.

Anyway, I digress: Moni Jitchell are more than worth your time live, and I’m hoping to catch them again soon, ideally with a fully functioning 12‑string.

It’s encouraging to see different people putting on local gigs of this calibre. Tonight’s show was down to Aimee from Play Nice Presents, who worked with Tinnitus Gigs, and who also manages the city’s finest record shop, Good Vibes. Hopefully we will see many more gigs to come!