-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a stunning transformation. Back in 2012, I went to the much cherished and much missed ATP Festival at Camber Sands, the edition that was curated by The National. Early on in the first evening I took my mate to see Perfume Genius, kind of against […]
-SOUP KITCHEN, MANCHESTER- Night Flowers open tonight at Soup Kitchen. Their sound is soft and honeyed. It reminds me of a teen movie soundtrack. They do keep the crowd enthralled and are very enjoyable to listen to as they play, but a lot of songs begin to sound very similar. Overall, their tone is poppy […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- Pantha Du Prince makes sun blitzed electronic music that’s hard to put in a single box. Hendrik Weber, the birth name of Pantha Du Prince, calls his music ‘sonic house’ and the juxtaposition of his feather-like weightless synths with his glitchy 4/4 percussion definitely matches with that description. Sonic house on a Sunday […]
-ACADEMY 2, MANCHESTER- “Welcome to the house of love”. We are treated to a few Bob Marley singalongs with the whole crowd pitching in before Tash Sultana enters the stage. The crowd are in great spirits and there’s a chilled vibe in the air. This is mirrored in the first few seconds of Tash Sultana’s […]
-THE RITZ, MANCHESTER- Electronic duo Dominic Maker and Kai Campos have been making music as Mount Kimbie since 2008, formed out of the awfully named ‘post-dubstep’ movement that also saw the rise of one James Blake, who went on to be quite the big deal himself. Their debut Crooks and Lovers was an instant classic, their […]
-GORILLA, MANCHESTER- The Lovely Eggs return nearly 12 months to the day after they played one of their largest headline gigs to date at Manchester’s Gorilla. I was fortunate to be there last time as a paying punter and had jumped at the chance this time to review them on their return to the city. […]
-ACADEMY 1, MANCHESTER- Rock royalty such as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will always do things how they want. About to smash into their 20th year (can you believe they started in 1998?! Me neither…), the now three-piece announced a new album in September. Releasing just a couple of tracks off Wrong Creatures to whet people’s […]
-BAND ON THE WALL, MANCHESTER- Ibeyi’s reputation seems to have a habit of preceding itself on account of some key, critic-friendly factors. It’s typically of interest that their father was an esteemed percussionist with a number of Cuban acts, notably Buena Vista Social Club, though they have noted that they declined his offers of music […]
-APOLLO, MANCHESTER- Annie Clark (stage name St. Vincent) told Pitchfork earlier this month: “All human beings create their own mythologies, and I’m in the somewhat bizarre circumstance of creating a big mythology that gets shared with a lot of people. In some ways, doing the work that I do is about reinventing a value system. […]
-DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER- Hundred Waters are a hard band to pin down, genre wise. Made up of vocalist Nicole Miglis, electronics whizz Trayer Tyron and percussionist Zach Tetreault, they can twist from lo-fi electronic folk loveliness to full electro-pop banger to all consuming noise, sometimes within the same song, and often punctured by sections of […]