LIVE: FORMATION – 24/03/2017

– NIGHT & DAY CAFE, MANCHESTER – It’s a special day for Formation before they even step on the jam-packed-full of equipment corner stage at the Night and Day Cafe. It’s the release day of their debut album, Look at the Powerful People. The five-piece, founded by twins Will and Matt Ritson, walk on stage […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Jacques Greene’s new album Feel Infinite was released but days ago, an exquisite deep house album with some great vocal collaborations and banging basslines (listen to ‘I Won’t Judge’, I urge you) . The electronic music diehards have been in need of a 2017 album to dance to. Although he […]

LIVE: JACQUES GREENE – 24/03/2017

LIVE: THUNDERCAT – 23/03/2017

– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – I first recall listening to Stephen Bruner, alias Thundercat, in 2014, accompanying Taylor McFerrin (child of Bobby) on his debut album Early Riser, released on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label. It was only upon further investigation that I clocked he was, sub-rosa, in my record (and, admittedly, CD) collection. In 2008 and […]
– SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER – Soup Kitchen is sticky, dank and a scene of squalor… it’s perfect for The Garden. Despite the glossy, cartoony sound the Shears brothers have recently embarked on with ‘Call This # Now’ and ‘California Here We Go’, there’s a definite element of filthiness as they explode onto stage tonight with ‘U […]

LIVE: THE GARDEN – 21/03/2017

LIVE: ELBOW – 19/03/2017

– O2 APOLLO, MANCHESTER – Music forms the soundtrack to our lives, the bedrock beats that orientate us through relationships, friendships, heartache, like fluorescent buoys in the sea. An example. I began (re)dating my high schoool sweetheart in early 2006 – around 25 years after the first time – and just around the time the […]
– GORILLA, MANCHESTER – It’s always a good vibe when a band you dig announce a tour with an equally excellent support, so tonight I excitedly make it down nice and early to see Indiana based three piece Cloakroom open up for instrumental mavericks Russian Circles. Cloakroom is a name I’ve heard a lot over […]

LIVE: RUSSIAN CIRCLES / CLOAKROOM – 20/03/2017

LIVE: CLOUD NOTHINGS – 18/03/2017

– DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER – Dylan Baldi and his band have one setting: LOUD. That setting is taken to the nth degree tonight at the Deaf Institute, as Cloud Nothings arrive in Manchester to support their stellar new album Life Without Sound (insert joke about my life without sound after this deafening gig etc). This […]
– ALBERT HALL, MANCHESTER – Hysteria might be the only word I know that comes close to describing the atmosphere as Glass Animals walk onto the stage at Manchester’s Albert Hall. The group of girls that tightly pack around me scream for lead singer Dave Bayley – shouts of “Yes Dave!!” will become as familiar […]

LIVE: GLASS ANIMALS – 18/03/2017

LIVE: FACTORY FLOOR – 17/03/2017

– THE WHITE HOTEL, SALFORD – It’s midnight in the salubrious surroundings of The White Hotel (actually an industrial unit in North Manchester, with a trapdoor bar in the floor which is all kinds of amazing), and the packed room is watching people make their final tinkerings with the equipment on stage (actually there is […]
– SACRED TRINITY CHURCH, SALFORD – It’d be easy to pigeonhole Horsebeach into the indie LA beach rock style category (there’s a lot of that knocking about now) but he’s much deeper than that. The new LP, Beauty & Sadness, continues a Horsebeach trend of combining harrowing lyrics and jangly, poppy guitars. Tonight, in Salford’s […]

LIVE: HORSEBEACH / KYOTOYA – 17/03/2017