The Ritz was busy. In the darkened gloom of the cavernous room, people stood about, talking in low tones. Onstage, four piece band 14th had set up and began their set. 14th are made up of a violinist, cellist, singer and electronics. They played a few of their own tracks, some cover versions, all low [...]

Rolling in off the crest of a potentially over hyped wave of modern day melody fuelled indie pop, New York City based Darwin Deez strolled back into town to treat an ever appreciative Manchester crowd. My ever lasting impression of The Ritz is one of blokes getting into fights as their girlfriends jump into a [...]

Tom Metcalfe’s EP ‘Life is Only Vibrating Energy’ is a five track compendium of folk music from the North West of England. Tom hails from Preston and works in Salford. The title forms the acronym LOVE. I consider volcanos, supernovae, this EP playing through my headphones, all forms of life. The title is a salient [...]

When a new release from a band lands in my inbox, I usually like to have a good dig around. Well, a 10 minute Google at least. Long enough usually to unearth a Facebook or Souncloud account, maybe even a defunct Myspace page with some pictures of the bass player before he lost all that [...]

The night was a symbiosis between man, machine and music. The Narrows carved a noisy electro rut, using computer hardware to provide rhythm and synthesis. The man on the keyboard was controlling drums and some synthesizer patches. I spent a portion of their set trying to locate the fourth man they appeared to be using. [...]

It still feels like yesterday when I used to go to varies open mics around Manchester and the North-West and I would see Josephine tuning up ready to play. It has been great to see her go from beginning to where she is now. I would hazard a guess that this is only the beginning [...]

Mark Wynn’s album ‘James Dean makes me insecure, why does he have to be so shexy’ is a woven narrative detailing the highs and lows of every day life. It will strike a chord with folk, wherever you are. Be we drinking tea in the morning, waiting for the bus, or eating hot food from [...]

In a week where one of the biggest news stories was that of the 2014 referendum to vote on Scottish independence, it almost seems as if Manchester has become the unofficial home of all those seeking to take asylum in the UK, making a break for the border before Alex Salmond begins rebuilding Hadrian’s Wall. [...]

Since its madder days, the Manchester music scene appears to have lost much of its buzz with London and Birmingham seemingly leading the way with a brief early naughties emergence in the North of the country. Stalagmites from Salford are bringing the scene back to where it should be with a post Oasis style that [...]

The night was one of the most popular on the Warehouse Christmas calender and sold out weeks before the event. The artists were a varied bunch, from new big-hitters TNGHT and Disclosure to older reliant figureheads Caribou and Four Tet. The boiler room was broadcasting live from the event and to any house follower, surely it could [...]