This was the first time in a very long while that Quenched Music had stepped into Manchester’s Soup Kitchen, for live music rather than their famous DJ nights. Let’s just say the night did not disappoint. Even when we first arrived there was a buzz around the venue with spectators and musicians mingling and soaking [...]

Hidden down a back alley in the depths of the Northern Quarter in the former squat know to many as Kraak Gallery I stood with a crowd of merely 20 people waiting patiently to see East India Youth aka William Doyle. If you haven’t heard of East India Youth don’t be dismayed as material only [...]

Liz Lawrence sings subtly effective folk music, accompanied with acoustic backing band. This album was made for putting on in bed in the morning. She contends with the human condition; growing up, painting the future as observed from the past and falling / being in love. The tracks alternate between upbeat anthems and down-tempo moodiness. They are [...]

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 [...]

Today I have been shouting. Not in a crazy-guy-on-market-street kind of way but shouting nonetheless, brought upon by a bout of temporary deafness. And who is to blame for this deafness? I’ll tell you who. Scottish people. A few years ago I went watching post-rock outfit Mogwai performing at Manchester Academy. To cut a long [...]

I got to Band on the Wall and had a look round the room. There were a few people sitting at tables in front of the stage. Chatter of conversation was audible over a low droning ambience. Luke Murray and Simon Webbon were playing tracks on turntables. All sorts from cold ambient, gurgling acidic techno [...]

A small crowd part filled the Roadhouse basement. Gary Sloan was playing music to an empty dancefloor. It didn’t take long for people to start dancing. He played dark, discombobulated sounds. For a warm-up, the temperature was already set high. Throughout the night this would increase to a feverish intensity. Manchester based techno outfitters AnD [...]

As fine a modern folk band they are, Mumford & Sons are no exception to the controversial slaps that tend to hit a band when returning with album No2. Although they have been blessed with recognition for the folk jangling effort that hooked hearts worldwide in ‘Sigh No More’, ‘Babel’ quite simply, needs to be [...]

Forget what you’ve heard before. Leave your preconceptions at the door and prepare yourselves. This is The Vaccines, but not as we know them… Like The Arctic Monkeys before them with ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’, The Vaccines have traded in their indie roots for something altogether more heavy on this second album. Swapping twangy guitars for [...]

Kraak Gallery is well hidden. I eventually found it lurking down an inconspicuous alleyway in the Northern Quarter. Up a few flights of concrete stairs and into the main room I go. There is a low lit gloom. A large camouflage scrim net hangs from the ceiling, illuminated in purple. I wonder why purple UV [...]