When: 7.30pm on Sunday 29 January 2012
Where: The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE

We’re excited to be promoting a headline show for Domino artists Fránçois & The Atlas Mountains.

The delightful French singer-songwriter, musician and animator Fránçois & The Atlas Mountains brings his collection of Gallic chamber-pop and chanson to the UK, performing songs from his latest album E Volo Love.

Recently signed to Domino Records, Fránçois’ playful vocals croon above electronic beats, African rhythms, rich piano chords, shimmering electric guitars and an all-female polyphonic vocal group to create a colourful sound-world.

‘There are echoes of the House of Love, Stereolab and Wild Beasts, with Marry’s intimate vocals staying on the right side of fey throughout’ – 4*, Q

‘A tour de force of French pop eccentricity’ – The Word

‘It’s a dreamlike amalgamation of French and English lyrics over lifting acoustic guitars and impressionistic pianos – part Adrian Orange joyous freedom, part Erik Satie sad melancholia’ – The Stool Pigeon

Support comes from Joel Nicholson, aka Butcher The Bar. Signed to Morr Music (Múm, Amiina, The Go Find, Telekinesis) Joel makes subtle pop songs that are somewhat reminiscent of label-mates Seabear, but also of indie-pop greats such as The Lucksmiths. His second album, For Each a Future Tethered, was released in June 2011, and the band recently toured with Death Cab For Cutie.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Saturday 4 February 2012
Where: Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5NH

PLEASE NOTE: This show is now sold out. Sign up above for updates about future Jesca Hoop shows.

We’re delighted to present an intimate show for Jesca Hoop, one of Manchester’s most talented artists, at the city’s cultural hub, Cornerhouse.

Californian-born, Manchester-dwelling Jesca Hoop returns for a series of live shows in the new year. The past year has seen BBC 6Music favourite Jesca support Eels on their summer run, duet and tour with Peter Gabriel, and do the rounds of the European festival circuit, as well as recording and releasing her stripped-down Snowglobe EP to much acclaim. She is now busy in Zeitgeist Studio in Los Angeles, putting the finishing touches to her next full-length studio album, as yet untitled, which will come to light in 2012.

Jesca’s adventurous songwriting and idiosyncratic vocals have earned favorable comparisons to such cutting-edge forbears as Björk, Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell. ‘Those women inspired a generation, and I’m of that generation,’ Hoop acknowledges. ‘I’m trying to get to what’s innately mine. My heroes set this example for me. My only aim is to be just like myself.’

With a back-story as varied and colourful as Hoop’s, she certainly faces no shortage of material to draw from in that quest. Indeed, Jesca’s songs are a series of indelible tales from a life less ordinary.

‘Hunting My Dress confirms her as one of alternative folk-pop’s most arresting recent arrivals, singing like an outcast angel and writing like a restless explorer’ – The Sunday Times

‘A sensual, eccentric and often frankly odd-sounding record, Hunting My Dress exudes oodles of charisma and originality, thanks mostly to Hoop’s delightfully freaky take on traditional folk convention’ - BBC Music

‘There’s a thin line between genuine eccentricity and precious affectation of weirdness, but Jesca Hoop walks it well’ – The Guardian

‘Jesca Hoop’s music is like a four sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night’ –  Tom Waits

Support comes from Stefan Melbourne. With a whispering intensity for lyricism bound to simple yet robust musicality, Stefan is already becoming a well-known name in the Manchester music scene. Drawing on the emotionally expressive sounds of Nick Drake and Tim Buckley, he is no stranger to urban poetry and lyrics of raw emotion, and has caught the limelight through his composite style that aligns itself with both indie-folk and country blues. Tapping into a mature repertoire of seminal American folk musicians such as Lead Belly, Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Johnson, his interesting blend of contemporary lyrics alongside a classic folk, almost bluegrass approach, sees Melbourne’s efforts fall comfortably on the ears of Bon Iver fans and Ray Lamontagne followers alike.

PLEASE NOTE: This show is now sold out. Sign up above for updates about future Jesca Hoop shows.

Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk, Ticketweb.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Monday 6 February 2012
Where: Central Methodist Hall, 4 Central Buildings, Oldham Street,Manchester M1 1JQ

PLEASE NOTE: This show is now sold out. Sign up above for updates about future King Creosote & Jon Hopkins shows.

We’re more than a little bit excited to be welcoming back two of our favourite artists for a very special collaboration.

Featuring lyrics and vocals from King Creosote sung over musical backdrops arranged and recorded by Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine is a genuine labour of love, recorded over a number of years without the pressure of deadlines, whenever Jon and KC could get together. Released in March, the album, featuring instrumental moments as affecting as the lyrical, consists of newly interpreted obscure delights picked out from twenty years of King Creosote’s treasure chest of a back catalogue. Intended to be heard as a single experience, Diamond Mine produces a near classical suite of emotion ranging from cracked despair to patched-up euphoria. Described by King Creosote as a ‘soundtrack to a romanticised version of a life lived in a Scottish coastal village’, the record weaves in slices of Fife life, bike wheels, spring tides, tea cups and café chatter to produce a beautiful, unique and timeless album. It was shortlisted for 2011′s Mercury Prize.

King Creosote – aka Kenny Anderson - is the founder of Fife’s Fence Collective, who also count his brothers Lone Pigeon and Pip Dylan among their number, as well as British folk mainstays James Yorkston and the Pictish Trail. Jon Hopkins, signed to Domino’s sister label Double Six (Steve Mason, She & Him), is a pianist and electronic music from London. He has worked with David Holmes, Tunng and Four Tet, and co-wrote and performed Brian Eno‘s Small Craft on a Milk Sea, released on Warp Records in late 2010.

Support comes from the Fence Collective’s enfant terrible Withered Hand – the stage name for the musical output of Edinburgh-based songwriter Dan Willson. He has garnered endorsements from the likes of Malcolm Middleton, King Creosote, Jarvis Cocker, The Dodos and Frightened Rabbit, leading to festival invitations, a successful 2010 solo European tour and regular sold out shows in London and Scotland. In October 2011, Withered Hand was tagged ‘Artist to Watch’ by Rolling Stone magazine. It gives Dan great pleasure to open for Fence Collective founder, friend and mentor King Creosote on this tour with Jon Hopkins.

This show is a co-promotion with Ceremony Concerts.

PLEASE NOTE: This show is now sold out. Sign up above for updates about future King Creosote & Jon Hopkins shows.

Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Wednesday 8 February 2012
Where: The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE

We’re pleased to be working with Michael Weston King for the first time.

Michael Weston King is widely acknowledged as one of Britain’s finest singer songwriters. Admired by the likes of Chris Hillman, Ron Sexsmith, Jackie Leven and the legendary Townes van Zandt (who recorded one of his songs), he draws his influence from a wide range of styles, from pop to folk, from country to soul, from gospel to blues. He is the former leader of British alt-country pioneers The Good Sons, with whom he made four critically acclaimed albums in a seven year career, which was celebrated by the double album, Cosmic Fireworks – The Best of The Good Sons (1994-2001). Mojo wrote: ‘The band who must rate as England’s very own Uncle Tupelo. A truly thrilling collection.’

For the past ten years he has been a solo troubadour, touring all over the world, performing with the likes of Nick Cave, John Cale, Roger McGuinn, Steve Earle, Guy Clark, America, Chris Hillman, Nils Lofgren, Ron Sexsmith, Arlo Guthrie,  Steve Forbert, Son Volt and many more, and releasing six studio albums, three live albums and a career retrospective dvd, The Crowning Story, along the way.

Many different artists have recorded King’s songs, while a number of his songs have also been used in TV shows in America and Germany. Beautiful Lies, a songbook of his work, was published in 2005,  Happy Infidels, a play by the Irish writer Brian Richmond, was based around twelve of Michael’s songs, and he is currently working on a book about some of the greatest ‘lost’ songs of the past forty years. A solo retrospective collection, The Tender Place, was released in November 2006, while his 2007 studio album, A New Kind of Loneliness, including contributions from Chris Hillman, Ron Sexsmith and Jackie Leven, was met with high critical acclaim, and was widely hailed as his best album to date.

His 2008 live album, Crawling Through The USA, recording during a grueling tour of North America, perfectly showcased the man alone with just his guitar and songs for company.  The album features Michael’s stunning interpretation of the Townes Van Zandt song, Marie. Last year saw Michael address the serious issues facing everyday people in such difficult modern times, when he released I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier – an album made up entirely of protest songs, some new, some old, and some going as far back as the 1900s.  Since its release Michael has appeared at a number of protest festivals, political rallies, and human rights events in the UK, Germany, Scandinavia, North America and, in May 2011, his first ever concerts in China.

The latter half of 2011 will see another musical departure, with the release of an album of country duets, recorded with his wife Lou Dalgleish, under the name of  My Darling Clementine. Entitled How Do You Plead?, it contains twelve brand new MWK songs, paying homage to the likes of George Jones & Tammy Wynette, Porter Waggoner & Dolly Parton, Delaney & Bonnie. It will be released initially in Europe in November 2011.

‘Michael Weston King has a voice part Nashville balladeer and part alt-country hero… a cross between Nick Cave and Rodney Crowell‘ – The Independent

‘Like Tim Hardin, Phil Ochs or Townes van Zandt, King transmutes squalor and self-laceration into pure gold’ – Mojo

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records,Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk, Ticketweb.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Monday 20 February 2012
Where: The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE

We’re excited to welcome Canada’s The Deep Dark Woods to The Castle!

Canadian alt-country band The Deep Dark Woods caught critics’ ears across the country with the release of 2009′s Winter Hours. The album, a solemn ode to darker themes of seclusion and detachment, could yet warm even the bottomless, frozen nights of hometown Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. With Winter Hours, The Deep Dark Woods won Best Roots Group at the 2009 Western Canadian Music Awards, and Ensemble of the Year at the 2009 Canadian Folk Music Awards. The band also had the runaway winner in CBC’s Great Canadian Songquest with Charlie’s (Is Coming Down), a song about Good Time Charlie’s in Regina.

The Deep Dark Woods frame their music with subtle orchestration; songs are trimmed with minimal embellishments of banjo, piano, with subtle mellotron flutters. Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Lucas Goetz’s layers heartbreaking arches of pedal steel under the clarity and warmth of Ryan Boldt’s voice. Newest member, organ-player Geoff Hilhorst furnishes the songs’ edges with slurred polyphonies, while surefooted, danceable basslines and rich second vocals belong to Chris Mason. Burke Barlow’s clarion guitar tone and lead lines are focused and impeccable.

Their new album, The Place I Left Behind, finds continuity in themes of temporal and geographic alienation, neglected inward trails, and the scars of abandoned intimacies. The album opens with a song about Saskatoon’s rougher edges. A rainstorm over the desert of modern music, The Place I Left Behind offers murder ballads alongside scrappy rockers, lovesick hymnals and slow-dance waltzes. The album illuminates folk traditions without stripping the shadows of roots music history – The Deep Dark Woods wake the ghosts of Appalachia with their prairie gothic pyre-side tales. The Place I Left Behind echoes with traces of time and space that are never fully abandoned or forgotten.

‘A Canadian band whose multipart harmonies are more pristine than Gram Parsons and the Byrds might’ve dreamed possible’ – Nashville Scene

‘Like The Deep Dark Woods’ fellow countryman Neil Young, the group taps into a species of Americana that sounds more authentic than a dozen contemporary bands garnering that same label’ – Eugene Weekly

‘A timeless, organic sound. It feels weather beaten and worn in, like a great album from the Band‘ – Billboard

Support comes from Walton Hesse. Burst into being from the sunny imagination of songwriter Matt Grayson, Walton Hesse are a lapsed congregation of optimistic outcasts standing on the shoulders of Big Star and Wilco, peering into the shaft of a 13th Floor Elevator. Frontier-facing and burdened by a twisted nostalgia this alt-country psych creation blend the melodious harmonies of Matt and Nicola Crosby haunted by the ghostly union of Gram and Emmylou to bring Arizona desert plains to the streets of Manchester.

Opening the show will be another Hey! Manchester regular, James Kelly. James plays an impressively energetic bluesy solo set, complete with ‘a voice, a classical guitar. a bass drum pedal and a guitar case’.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Sunday 29 January 2012
Where: The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE

Read our Q&A with Joe here.

We’re excited to present the debut headline show in Manchester for American singer-songwriter Joe Pug.

For the moment, Joe Pug has it figured out, career if not life: Just write the songs that have to be written, play them for anybody who will listen, tour as if you had no home. Oh, and give your music away. Which isn’t to say he won’t be selling his debut full-length offering, Messenger. But free is how he came to make it, more or less. It worked like this, for Joe Pug anyhow: The day before his senior year as a playwright student at the University of North Carolina, he sat down for a cup of coffee and had the clearest thought of his life: I am profoundly unhappy here. Then came the second clearest. Pug packed up his belongings and pointed his car towards Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day, the 23 year-old Pug spent nights playing the guitar he hadn’t picked up since his teenage years. Using ideas originally slated for a play he was writing called Austin Fish, Pug began creating the sublime lyrical arrangements that would become the Nation of Heat EP. The songs were recorded fast and fervently at a Chicago studio where a friend snuck him in to late night slots other musicians had cancelled. He was short on money, but his bare-boned sincerity didn’t require much more than a microphone and it dripped off of each note he sang.

The early rumblings of critical praise for the EP were confirmed when his first headlining gig sold out Chicago’s storied Schubas Tavern in 2008. As word spread, Pug struck upon an idea that would later prove to be one of the most significant in his young career. He offered his existing fans unlimited copies of a free sampler CD to pass along to their friends. He sent the CDs out at his own expense, even covering the postage. Inside each package was a personal note thanking the fan for helping to spread the word. The response was overwhelming, and to date he has sent out over 15,000 CDs to 50 states and 14 different countries. Without access to radio, Pug managed to turn his fans into his very own broadcast system. The offer still stands, and to this day it’s featured prominently on joepugmusic.com.

Nation of Heat took on a life of its own, passing from friend to friend and iPod to iPod. The crowds swelled and the media took notice. Tours with Steve Earle, M Ward and Josh Ritter followed, as did invitations to Lollapalooza and the Newport Folk Festival. He criss-crossed the country incessantly, traveling mostly alone in his 1995 Plymouth Voyager with no stereo or air conditioning. As the tours went on, he became closely linked to the burgeoning indie-folk scene that was coalescing loosely around Pug and his young contemporaries in bands such as The Low Anthem, Langhorne Slim and Horse Feathers.

After over 200 shows, Pug took a brief respite to record his full-length debut. If Nation of Heat heralded the arrival of a talent to watch, Messenger assigns Pug a deserved spot among the finest songwriters of his generation. From the opening notes of the title track that leads off the record, it’s clear that the artist has no intention of retreating to the comfortable or the familiar. With his debut album now released, the options only get more numerous for the 25 year-old-singer. The remainder of 2009 was spent touring Europe before he returned home to hit the road in support of Messenger.

‘In Pug’s hard plucking, exaggerated choruses, and lyrical vignettes you can draw a pretty straight line from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan to Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen to Steve Earle to Josh Ritter‘ – 3Hive

Read our Q&A with Joe here.

Support comes from Jo Dudderidge. Frontman of local alt-country favourites the Travelling Band, Jo is a Hey! Manchester favourite and regular – we think you’ll like him too.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Wednesday 22 February 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re excited to welcome back Beth Jeans Houghton and her band the Hooves of Destiny.

Beth Jeans Houghton‘s debut album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose introduces one of the most self-assured new artists of the year, a pop polymath whose blend of psychedelia, glam rock and chain gang folk is quite unlike anything else you’re likely to hear in 2012. Like her utterly unique stage outfits, it’s made from disparate individual elements that wouldn’t work on paper, but sing out like a holy choir in the execution. Adding muscle to Beth’s far-ranging vocals are her band The Hooves Of Destiny. Comprising Dav Shiel (drums, vocals samples) Rory Gibson (bass, vocals), Ed Blazey (guitar, trumpet, vocals) and Findlay Macaskill (violin, vocals), they’re a crack unit recruited from Beth’s native North East.

Three years in the making, this album was created with producer Ben Hiller (Blur, Elbow, Depeche Mode). Initially, Beth had reservations about working with such a big name behind the desk, being almost punk-like in her attitude and resolutely independent in every facet of her career. Over time, Ben and Beth developed a harmonious working relationship, and the album changed shape many times in the making. Unusually, the album features a song that Beth wrote about her first relationship at 17, named Veins, which sits alongside brand new tracks like the ever-changing single Dodecahedron.

Since her first performance in 2006 Beth has played alongside a diverse collection of artists such as Jeffrey Lewis, King Creosote, St Vincent, Euros Childs and Diane Cluck among others. While still in her teens, Devendra Banhartinvited her to join him on the main stage at Green Man Festival, declaring her ‘a musical magician’.

‘When she opens her mouth the sound is Vashti Bunyan crossed with Nico and Laura Marling’ – the Guardian

Support comes from Goodnight Lenin. Inspired by Dylan, Young and Simon & Garfunkel, the band formed in 2009 and were soon performing at Moseley Folk Festival and with First Aid Kit and British Sea Power. Their first single, Crook in the Creek, was released through Static Caravan Recordings in August 2010 and received airplay on Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour, among others. Their follow-up, The Wenceslas Square EP, was released in July 2011, with the band also performing at Glastonbury, Kendal Calling and Larmer Tree festivals last year.

This show is a co-promotion with Ceremony Concerts.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records,Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Thursday 23 February 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re delighted to be working with Hey! Manchester favourites Allo Darlin’ for the first time!

Allo Darlin‘ are many things. They can turn a room in a famous punk venue into a joyous, jumping, sweaty, pop-mosh pit. Or bring a room of 500 to hushed silence with the few strums of a ukulele and a love song about cooking. Coming very much from a DIY approach, they inspire true dedication from their fans, many of whom will travel hundreds of miles to see them.

In their brief lifetime they have toured the USA four times, sold out tours across the UK and embarked on an epic five-week European tour. They have played the End of the Road festival twice and recently headlined a packed-out Scala in London for their label Fortuna POP!’s 15th Anniversary celebrations. The band have also been strongly supported by BBC 6music, recording several sessions including one at the BBC’s prestigious Maida Vale Studios.

Their self-titled debut was released to universal acclaim in 2010 with plaudits including being named No. 2 record of the year by eMusic and a glowing 1200-word essay by legendary Go-Between Mr Robert Forster in the Australian critical magazine, The Monthly.

Despite all the activity, Allo Darlin’ have found time to write songs for their follow-up album which was recorded at different stages during the year and slated to come out in the spring. Their new record Europe is very different from their first as the world has changed a lot since their debut in 2009. There have been riots in the streets of London and there is a sense that people are unhappy, so a carefree album didn’t seem appropriate. Singer Elizabeth Morris says: ‘I wanted to make beautiful songs and end up with a beautiful album, not necessarily an album with four singles… I suppose the songs have an awareness of a darker place but end up coming out the other side. We wanted to make the best album we possibly could and I think we’ve ended up with that.’

Live, the London-based four-piece – led by Australian ukulele-toting songbird Elizabeth Morris, with guitarist Paul Rains, Bill Botting on the bass and Michael Collins on drums – create perfect, sophisticated pop gems and know how to put on a joyous, effervescent, fun-filled show.

‘Terrific, witty and heartfelt, like a less moody Belle & Sebastian‘ – The New York Times

This Many Boyfriends are an indie pop band from the North. They bonded over a shared love of playing pop music far too loud in rooms far too small. They have been through more lineup changes than The Fall before settling on the current one: Richard on lead vocals, Tom on bass guitar, Laura on drums and Dan on lead guitar. Now on Angular Records (home of Art Brut and Bloc Party amongst others), the band released single Young Lovers Go Pop! last year and received press and plays galore from NME, The Guardian and 6 Music. Their next single is to be released in February. Listen out for it.

Standard Fare complete this exciting bill. There’s always gonna come a time when we don’t know the answers – always gonna come a time when we should just go dancing. So come dancing. So come dancing with Standard Fare. They’ve got a new album out too, Out of Sight, Out of Town. Always a joy to watch live, with more of the dancing and singing along bits.

This show is a co-promotion with Underachievers.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

We’re also promoting Allo Darlin’s show at the Fleece in Bristol on Tuesday 28 February and at the Haunt in Brighton on Saturday 3 March.

When: 7.30pm on Friday 2 March 2012
Where: International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Engine House, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester M1 5BY

For our second outing at the Burgess Foundation, we’re proud to present the Manchester debut of Momus.

Momus is the artist name of Nick Currie, a Scotsman currently living in Japan. For over twenty years he’s been releasing albums of weird and poignant songs in a dizzying array of styles on independent labels like 4AD, el and Creation. He is one of underground music’s most controversial and influential provocateurs: from his early days with the Happy Family in the 1980s through his digital troubadour incarnations of the 2000s, Currie has lent his style to Pulp, Beck, the Divine Comedy, and others while remaining fiercely political and uncompromising in his artistic vision.

‘Nick Currie’s musical career now looks like a long detour on his way to his destiny as discreetly subversive international Man Of Letters’ – Uncut

‘It’s a 21st century lounge music, which draws all manner of material into its studied insouciance: 1980s electronica (Sylvian & Sakamoto’s 1982 masterpiece Bamboo Music is referenced on Bubble Music); post-punk (the album includes a cover of Josef K‘s Adoration); Everything Stops For Tea-style pre-war skit-pop (as used on Is There Sex In Marriage?). The highlight is Datapanik, a sardonically tender meditation on how a computer crash now means the loss of irretrievable memory objects’ – Mark Fisher, The Wire

Momus also performs as ‘the unreliable tour guide‘, giving absurdist tours of museums around the world. He’s published three books, a novel told entirely through jokes and two books imagining parallel futures for Scotland and Japan. His live shows are vaudevillian and unmissable.

We’re excited to have the Montgolfier Brothers supporting. The trio, who are one of our favourite Manchester bands, will make an extremely rare live appearance – only their second in two years. Since 1997, Roger Quigley (aka At Swim Two Birds), Mark Tranmer (Gnac) and Otto Smart (The Otto Show) have released their own recordings as well as three Montgolfier Brothers albums: Seventeen Stars, The World Is Flat, and All My Bad Thoughts. In 1999 Alan McGee signed them to his Poptones label and has since said of them, ‘sometimes the best bands feel like a well-kept secret’. It’s true.

This show takes place at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, a charity that encourages and supports public and scholarly interest in all aspects of the life and work of Anthony Burgess, the late novelist (best known for A Clockwork Orange), poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The foundation, situated just off Oxford Road, features a fully licensed cafe-bar and an engine room, which will host this concert.

Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk, Ticketweb.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Sunday 18 March 2012
Where: Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5NH

We’re excited to be promoting the Manchester headline debut for Jonny Kearney and Lucy Farrell, and our second event at the city’s cultural hub, Cornerhouse.

Delicate, haunting and heartbreaking are just a few of the words that have been used to describe Jonny Kearney and Lucy Farrell’s music. After meeting at Newcastle University six years ago, they formed an unlikely alliance – unlikely because Jonny with his bittersweet kitchen-sink dramas, shows sympathy with American storytellers like Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, while Lucy’s traditional folkie upbringing and vocal style couldn’t be more English. Just as likely to appeal to fans of Gillian Welch and the Low Anthem as the traditional folk world, their six-track EP entitled The North Farm Sessions received four stars from the Guardian and Q, BBC Radio 1, 2 and 6 airplay, and sold heavily on tour supports with The Unthanks and Bellowhead, and at summer festivals including Green Man, End of the Road and Cambridge. To The Boy from The North Farm Sessions EP is being used in an independent Irish film staring Andy Serkis entitled Death of A Hero, which premiered recently at Toronto Film Festival.

Eighteen months after their acclaimed debut EP, Jonny and Lucy finally release their debut album, Kite, produced by Adrian McNally (The Unthanks), It speaks volumes about the quality and quantity of their songwriting that none of the EP tracks feature on the debut album.

‘Such a beautiful record’ – Lauren Laverne, BBC 6Music

‘Delicate, thoughtful and intimate’ – four stars, the Guardian

‘Folk music’s best kept secret’ – Uncut

Main support comes from Christopher Eatough. Christopher writes and plays songs and was once memorably described as sounding ‘like Ryan Adams possessed by Elliot Smith, covering Rufus Wainwright‘. He has played with the likes of Neal Casal, Williams Fitzsimmons, Karima Francis and Jesca Hoop, and managed not to offend any of them. Having played at every major venue in the North West (and quite a few elsewhere) armed with only an acoustic guitar and a glass of whiskey, he holed up in the winter of 2010 to record a handful of tracks charting the past 18 months and their mysteries. The resulting album, A Creak in the Cold, released through Pull Yourself Together Records on Valentine’s Day, was heralded by Drowned in Sound as ‘a fascinating and occasionally disarming series of portraits on life and relationships… an album of timeless, ethereal beauty’. In 2012, Christopher aims to play more shows, record another album, and extend his not insignificant hat collection.

Opening the show will be Pip Mountjoy. Pip is a 17-year-old singer-songwriter from North Yorkshire. Last summer she was invited to record a session for BBC Introducing and has since been selected for the BBC Introducing masterclass at Maida Vale and Abbey Road studios. Her debut EP, Louisiana, which was described as ‘a beautiful, sweet and delicate thing’ by BBC Tees’ Bob Fischer, was self-released in December 2011 and can be heard on her Bandcamp.

This show takes place in the Annexe of Cornerhouse, Manchester’s main cultural hub, situated on Oxford Road.

Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk, Ticketweb.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm

When: 7.30pm on Friday 23 March 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re excited to be promoting a headline show for Hey! Manchester regulars Driver Drive Faster, supported by Golden Fable and GladEyes.

Driver Drive Faster are a new band from Manchester, but you wouldn’t necessarily tell: this masterful debut album Open House presents a rich, timeworn sound that exists somewhere between Americana and spectral indie rock. It’s crafted songwriting at its best, hinging on stirring chord sequences and moments of fragile beauty. Recorded in the shared digs in which the entire band reside, the album was a labour of love begun in late 2009, poured over in 2010 and released in 2011. The result is a lush, layered record that slowly draws you into its world. Think Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs for a new generation.

Taking their name from the first line in WH Auden’s poem Calypso, in which he’s running late to meet his lover, Driver Drive Faster have, in their short career, supported The Aliens, The Phantom Band, Darwin Deez, Japandroids and more, recorded live sessions for 6Music’s Marc Riley and received airplay on Radio 1 and Radio 2. They graced 2011′s festival season too with slots at Green Man, Beacons, FOM Fest and Sounds From The Other City.

‘Driver Driver Faster’s debut album is subtly magnificent… like a scrap book of our favourite bands’ – The Fly

‘Ghostly delight of a debut’ – Q

‘Ambitious, big-vision pop… widescreen arrangements, ponderous piano and blissful country rock’ – Uncut

Support comes from two fine products of Manchester’s music scene, Golden Fable and GladEyes.

Golden Fable are Tim McIver and Rebecca Palin, who were the driving force behind multi-instrumental cult group Tim and Sam’s Tim and the Sam Band. After a heavy touring schedule, major festival appearances, a highly acclaimed album and many radio sessions, the duo decided that it was time for the charming innocence of Tim and Sam to grow up – Golden Fable was born. Any illusions of a stripped back acoustic duo quickly dissipate when listening to debut single Chill Pt. 2. Quirky beats introduce multi-layered synths, acoustic guitars and choral vocal style, soaring to a crescendo of electric guitars and two voices. This is electronic infused, folk-tinged pop that picks you up and takes you to another place.

Originally consisting of members of Bone-Box, the Guthries and Polytechnic, ‘GladEyes vs Geography’ resulted in the loss of two members (one to Brighton, one to London) after tracking for the first album had been completed. Ultimately though it was a win for GladEyes, with the addition of two members ofSamson & Delilah to take the departed brothers’ places. Noted influences include Can, Neil Young, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, Mingus, Pavement, the Grateful Dead, Television and Tinariwen. The debut record is currently being mixed, and preparations are well under way for record no. 2.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 7.30pm on Saturday 24 March 2012
Where: The Kings Arms, 11 Bloom Street, Salford M3 6AN

We’re delighted to welcome back The Wave Pictures – their first headline show here since June 2009.

The Wave Pictures are David Tattersall, Franic Rozycki and Jonny ‘Huddersfield’ Helm. In 1998 Franic and David lived in a village called Wymeswold where they started playing music together, with Hugh J Noble on drums. The band was called Blind Summit. When Hugh decided he didn’t want to play drums he went to Exeter to study philosophy instead. The band changed its name to The Wave Pictures. Hugh was replaced by several drummers, until Jonny ‘Huddersfield’ Helm became the permanent replacement.

For a few years The Wave Pictures have played sporadically in the UK, France and New York. During this time highlights have included playing at the Mofo Festival in Paris at the invitation of friends Herman Dune, and playing shows with Herman Dune and The Jeffrey Lewis Band. David also sang The Wave Pictures song Dust Off Your Heart with Herman Dune on a radio session for the great John Peel. The Wave Pictures have also served as backing band and co-songwriters for John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, the results featuring on a seven-inch single released by 4AD records.

This year sees the release of Long Black Cars, due out in early March on Moshi Moshi.

The Wave Pictures’ most recent performances in Manchester were supporting Noah & The Whale at Manchester Cathedral and at our stage of Sounds From The Other City, as well as acting as Darren Hayman‘s backing band at the same event. Their previously visit to Manchester was at the Town Hall, where they supported and backed Daniel Johnston in November 2009.

‘In their own very English way they make you think of the simple three-chord US drone-rock of the Velvets, Modern Lovers et al while the frontman’s vocals recall the classic tuneless rock whiners who turned non-singing into an art form’ – the Guardian

Support comes from Golden Glow. Golden Glow, aka Manchester’s Pierre Hall, released their debut EP, Tender is the Night, through Mush Records last year with great reviews from the NME, the 405 and Neu Magazine amongst others. Described as ‘spectral-Mancunian post-punks’ by Time Out and with their blend of distorted and fuzzy guitars, choppy experimental layers steeped in personal lyrics of joy and sorrow, the band are currently in the studio recording their new album, which will see a release later this year. The last year has seen Golden Glow support the likes of The Drums, Crystal Stilts, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Wild Nothing.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 7.30pm on Monday 26 March 2012
Where: Band on the Wall, 26 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JZ

When: 7.30pm on Sunday 1 April 2012
Where: Trades Club, Holme Street, Hebden Bridge HX7 8EE

We’re proud to be presenting the hometown show for Hey! Manchester regulars Last Harbour – plus a visit to Hebden Bridge.

Last Harbour are an expansive collective playing ‘swooning dustbowl baroque’ (Plan B) that come from ‘the same tangled patch of briar as The Bad Seeds and Tindersticks‘ (Uncut). The only claims they make for their music are that it be honest and searching. From dusty laments to doom-filled rock, from starkly beautiful duets to drifting clouds of ambient noise, there’s always an intensity that strikes hard. Last Harbour’s acclaimed 2010 album Volo and EP Lights were co-produced by Richard Formby (Wild Beasts, Spacemen 3) and were featured across 6Music shows including Gideon Coe, Tom Robinson and a session on Marc Riley.

The band’s new album, Your Heart, It Carries The Sound, was written in isolation in a small Northumbrian cottage in October 2010 and recorded in April 2011 in St Margaret’s Church, Manchester. The songs are recorded almost entirely live, with producer Sam Lench employing the church as a soundstage. His approach carefully uses the architecture of the building to sculpt and shape the music, creating a sense of the band within the space. Your Heart, It Carries The Sound will be released on Little Red Rabbit Records on 20 February.

The band have played alongside, amongst others, Dirty Three, Josh T Pearson, Michael Gira (Swans/Angels of Light), Willard Grant Conspiracy, Lanterns on the Lake, Mark Mulcahy, Devendra Banhart and The Handsome Family. Their 2010 UK tour included headline dates at London’s Union Chapel and Manchester’s Deaf Institute. They were also featured on the I Am Cold Rock Will Oldham tribute alongside Calexico, Iron & Wine and Mark Kozelek.

‘The final frontier of funeral pop’ – Artrocker

‘Rich and foreboding, tracing a thread back to the post-industrial landscapes of Joy Division’ – Drowned in Sound

Support in Manchester comes from Easter. Three years on from self-released EP Hob Talk, Easter release their debut album Innocence Man on White Box Recordings in March. Easter use their palate freely with indie, folk, and even free-rock influences resulting in a more intense and accomplished take on their upright shoegaze sound. For musical reference points, try Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters, Sonic Youth, Califone, Neil Young, Sebadoh and Hood.

The Manchester show is a co-promotion with Band on the Wall.

FOR MANCHESTER:

Tickets are available from Band on the Wall’s box office, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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FOR HEBDEN BRIDGE:

Tickets are available from the Trades Club bar, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 7.30pm on Thursday 5 April 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re proud to present a headline show from Manchester’s own Liz Green – the first since the release of her acclaimed debut album.

The least exotic thing about tragi-comic pop artist Liz Green is her name. No Alela here – according to family lore the 28-year-old Green is descended from a Liverpool line that includes executioners and rag-and-bone men. It’s at least certain that she carries on an ancestral tradition of storytelling, as her debut album O, Devotion! testifies.

Whatever took her so long? It’s now four years since Green’s first single, the critically adored, now sought-after Bad Medicine appeared, and she won the Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition to find herself entertaining the main field from on high. Tipped everywhere from Mojo to The Sun, her uniquely lyrical blend of chanson, jazz and the starkest a capella, a distinct fingerpicking style more cable-knit than filigree and an idiosyncratic vocal style nodding to saints (or maybe martyrs) Judy Garland, Billie Holiday and Karen Dalton seemed set to conquer all. Yet she had seemingly dropped out of sight.

Except she hadn’t. Green has toured consistently, here and abroad, and overcome her dread of the recording studio with aplomb. Sequestered in Hackney’s legendary Toerag under the aegis of Liam Watson (White Stripes, everyone else) and subsisting on the local diet of ackee and saltfish, she finally relaxed enough to enjoy the process, so different from the instant gratification provided by an audience.

Green’s world features shadow puppetry and contraptions designed to ease her way into performance. She owes as much to a tradition of shape-shifting feminist artists from Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Lee Miller and Frida Kahlo to Cindy Sherman and Tracey Emin as to musicians from Lily Allen to Bessie Smith, prosaically named exotics both. Yet young Liz, born into Britpop, devoured music growing up. ‘I exhausted the 80s of punk and new wave, digested the 70s of David Bowie and mined my dad’s incredibly impressive collection of 60s Motown and Merseybeat.’ Where to go but back? Musicals. Gospel and blues and country. Interwar Weimar cabaret. Bugsy Malone’s dancehall. Marlon Brando’s brilliant turn in Guys and Dolls. Johnny Cash. Dolly Parton. Son House, Blind Willie McTell. The inimitable Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Oh, and Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River.

‘Then I began to enjoy discovering little nuggets of gold. Field recordings, songs sung at old medicine shows, cabarets and dancehalls. There’s a whole history in the songs. The distilled essence of eras gone by. I think I belong a bit in every one of them,’ says Liz, unafraid to present that which others store only in imagination. She continually redefines the line between the personal and the performance. If she can imagine it, she can bring it to life. A lifetime in gestation, it’s no wonder the timeless classicism of O, Devotion! took its sweet time to hatch.

‘Wonderful’ – Single of the Week, the Guardian Guide

‘Her enchanting mix of muddy blues-tinged folk songs possess a warmth that gets immediately under your skin’ – Music Week

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 7.30pm on Thursday 5 April 2012
Where: Manchester Academy 3, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PR

We’re delighted to be welcoming back Oklahoma’s Other Lives.

Other Lives formed as an instrumental project in 2004 under the name Kunek. Based in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Kunek (who eventually added vocals to the mix) released one album (Flight of the Flynns) before making the transition to the similarly themed Other Lives. The group’s eponymous debut album was produced and recorded by drummer/engineer Joey Waronker (Walt Mink, Beck, REM) and released in late 2008.

After getting a boost by having songs appear on Grey’s Anatomy, the band released their second album, Tamer Animals, this summer of 2011 on Play It Again Sam. They have also been asked to join Radiohead on their North America in spring 2012, having only recently finished touring with Bon Iver.

‘Thanks to the makeshift orchestra’s shaggy ringleader, Jesse Tabish, these wistful Americana-styled tracks (influenced by Tabish favourites Sigur Rós and Godspeed You! Black Emperor) rarely feel forced’ – 7.4/10, Pitchfork

‘File under Pastoral Americana alongside Fleet Foxes and Midlake, but there is a major difference: Tabish worships instrumental music, and classical minimalistsSteve Reich and Philip Glass, which accounts for the album’s pulsating orchestrations’ – BBC Music

‘This is sublime, transportive music to spend hours with’ – 4/5, the Guardian

This show is a co-promotion with Now Wave.

Tickets are available from Manchester University Students Union, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0161 832 1111.

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When: 7.30pm on Saturday 14 April 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re delighted to be promoting Great Lake Swimmers’ first Manchester show in over two years.

Toronto indie-folk darlings Great Lake Swimmers return in April with New Wild Everywhere, their fifth studio album and follow up to 2009’s Juno- and Polaris-nominated album Lost Channels. Lead single Easy Come Easy Go, the most upbeat and up-tempo song in the band’s history, precedes it in January.

New Wild Everywhere captures all of the excitement and intuitive musicianship of a group at the peak of their creative powers, with 12 new tracks that reveal a depth and maturity only previously hinted at by lead singer and songwriter Tony Dekker. Produced by long-time Great Lake Swimmers collaborator Andy Magoffin, New Wild Everywhere marks the first time in the band’s history that an album was recorded in a real studio (Toronto’s Revolution Recording); past albums have been famously recorded in historic churches, castles and music venues.

Featuring the touring band from Lost Channels (long-time collaborator Erik Arnesen on banjo and guitar, along with new addition Miranda Mulholland contributing backing vocals and violin, Bret Higgins on upright bass, and Lost Channels drummer Greg Millson), New Wild Everywhere thematically picks up where the previous album left off, exploring transcendence in the natural world to describe the universal themes of love, mortality and escape.

Dekker has spent the last decade entrancing listeners with his unforgettable voice and compelling songwriting. Great Lake Swimmers have long been a word-of-mouth favourite in their home country of Canada for whom critical mass was inevitable. They’ve been regarded as a national treasure, with 2009′s Lost Channels topping the charts at CBC Radio 3 and on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter Chart. The band have received public endorsements by the likes of Feist, Robert Plant and cyclist Lance Armstrong. The latter has raved about the band on his personal website; the former two have handpicked the band to open tours, while the band have also shared the stage with Calexico, Goldfrapp and Bill Callahan of Smog.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 7.30pm on Monday 16 April 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re delighted to welcome back Simone Felice, performing this time with his Group.

When you sit in a room with Simone Felice you can hear a subtle metallic ticking noise. If you hunt for the source of the sound you’ll find a scar bisecting the entire length of his chest, a visceral reminder of the open-heart surgery he was forced to undergo in the summer of 2010 after a childhood congenital defect brought him to the brink of death. Felice’s heart is his metronome, his divining rod, and the life source of his self-titled solo debut, set for release on 2 April via Reveal Records.

Former drummer, writer and vocalist of Catskill Mountain troubadours The Felice Brothers, and the creator of folk-soul outfit The Duke & The King, Simone Felice steps into the spotlight to begin his journey as a lone artist, bearing the fruits of a lifetime of songwriting. Largely self-produced with help from Ben Lovett (Mumford & Sons), the album was recorded in deeply resonant places, settings that were as haunted in their rafters as Felice felt in his bones: a barn near his house in the woods, an old church in London, an abandoned high school building by the Hudson River. What he created in these hushed, hallowed places is music that could be called folk but that has running through it a ghostly gospel-like feel.

The album, entitled Simone Felice, is strikingly simple in its arrangements while extravagant in its emotional impact. Each track is rife with intricate imagery and captivating storytelling, not surprisingly, as Simone is an acclaimed wordsmith, published poet and novelist. As with his prose, Felice conveys his often mournful tales of star-crossed lovers and beautiful losers with remarkable empathy, giving each a deeply personal feeling. Lead single You & I Belong (with friends from Mumford & Sons) finds Felice praising each new morning, an increasingly difficult chore in today’s pixilated world of seven billion distractions. The darkly exquisite New York Times presents a commanding lyrical onslaught about the dire state of the front page news.

Simone is charted to travel the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and Ireland with his band of remarkable players, the hauntingly harmonious Simone Felice Group. As well as debuting material from his outstanding new release, Simone be performing many of the classics his devoted followers hold dear from his time with The Felice Brothers and The Duke & The King.

‘Each song somehow sounding like a classic, each live performance suggesting we are in the presence of a rare, fiery brilliance’ – The Guardian

‘Utterly devastating live’ – Q

Support comes from The Duke & The King’s Simi Stone.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 7.30pm on Friday 20 April 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re pleased to welcome The Miserable Rich back to the Deaf Institute.

Tinkering with a winning formula can be a dangerous tactic, but after two critically lauded albums and three years of touring, The Miserable Rich decided that their third album warranted a different approach. So they holed themselves up in a stately home in Norfolk to write and record, bringing in a recording engineer and a drummer. Blickling Hall, the haunted ancestral home of the Boleyn family, provided the setting, and they spent a dark, bitter month isolated from the outside world, putting together the new tracks. Miss You In The Days adds drums, electric guitar and piano to the band’s more recognisable core of violin, cello and double bass, achieving the desired heavier, more rhythmic sound (yes, you can dance to The Miserable Rich!), and the lyrically the songs play with themes of sex, death and possession. The resultant album was unveiled at Halloween 2011 to immediate critical acclaim at home, in Europe and across the internet, making several critics’ top tens of the year.

The Miserable Rich’s story began in Brighton in 2007 when Will Calderbank (cello), Mike Siddell (violin) and James de Malplaquet (vocals) met while playing in the much-loved alt-folk band Shoreline. James had a collection of songs of his own, and he, Will and Mike set about revisiting some of those songs using cello and violin to play all the lead parts, much like a baroque chamber ensemble. Inspiration came from an afternoon listening Colin Blunstone‘s 1970 classic Say You Don’t Mind and Kronos Quartet’s Kraftwerk covers album. Over the summer months of 2007 (mostly in James’s flat in Hove) they put together a debut album with a little help from their friends, now more widely known as The Willkommen Collective (Shoreline, The Leisure Society, Sons of Noel and Adrian). The band’s lineup was completed when Rhys Lovell (double bass) and Ricky Pritchard (guitar/piano) joined.

That first album, Twelve Ways to Count, was described as ‘heartbreakingly beautiful’ by NME and was 6Music Album of The Day in November 2008. First single, Boat Song, was iTunes Single Of The Week, and has become a long-term favourite of Marc Riley and Guy Garvey on 6Music. Sophomore album, Of Flight & Fury, saw the band extend their reach, with sessions on Radio 4′s Loose Ends and Mark Lamarr’s Radio 2 show, God’s Own Jukebox. Two videos were filmed with Wasp Video, leading to the band being invited to score the short film The Girl Is Mime for the 48hr Film Project. The film stars Martin Freeman (The Office, Sherlock); it won the top awards in the International 48hr Film Project competition and was shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and at the prestigious LA shorts Festival.

‘Like Beirut hosting a Wuthering Heights theme Halloween party, it’s a record that grows goose-bumps in the night’ – Mark Beaumont, BBC Online

‘TMR produce consistently beautiful, haunting music, and with this third album they’ve produced something of a masterpiece – sounds like the house band for Mary Shelley’s hen night’ – The Word

Support comes from Arthur Rigby & the Baskervylles. Arthur Rigby & the Baskervylles are an eight-piece orchestral pop band based in Leeds. The sound the band creates is a genuinely beautiful mixing pot of lush orchestrations, poetic lyrics, romantic melodies and powerful energy. Arthur Rigby have become firm favourites of BBC 6Music’s Tom Robinson, who regularly features the band on his show. Towards the end of 2010 the band released the single White Houses, having worked with Whiskas (formerly of ¡Forward, Russia! and Dance to the Radio label) to produce it. They follow up with the Tales From Pegasus Wood EP on 4 April 2012.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records,Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 7.30pm on Sunday 22 April 2012
Where: The Royal Exchange Theatre, St Ann’s Square, Manchester M2 7DH

For the third in our new series of Sunday night concerts at the historic Royal Exchange, we present An intimate evening with The Unthanks.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see The Unthanks close-up and pared down. For the past three years, The Unthanks have toured as a ten-piece troupe, bringing their peerless sound to the stage in full glory. During that time they have performed in the atmospheric surroundings of some of the UK’s finest cathedrals, concert halls and churches.

Following a recent collaboration with the massed ranks of national champions Brighouse and Rastick Brass Band, the Mercury-nominated Tynesiders now return to where they began, playing cosier venues, in the guise of their core quintet – the creative nucleus – for a more intimate and close-up musical and personal experience.

Fronted by sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, The Unthanks prefer to see folk as an ongoing unwritten history, rather than a style of music, drawing on myriad influences to story-tell in Technicolor – from the minimalist eccentricity of Steve Reich, Antony & The Johnsons, Robert Wyatt and Miles Davis, to the singers of their Geordie native North East of England. The Unthanks prove that staunch traditionalism and sonic adventure need not be opposites.

Special guests will be Jonny Kearney and Lucy Farrell, who were such a hit on The Unthanks’ 2009 Here’s The Tender Coming tour. Jonny and Lucy will be performing songs from their debut album Kite, released autumn 2011 and described by Lauren Laverne as ‘absolutely gorgeous’.

The Royal Exchange Theatre has existed in one form or another since 1792, including at its current site in St Ann’s Square. The building was seriously damaged during World War II when it took a direct hit from a bomb during a German air raid at Christmas, 1940. The interior was subsequently rebuilt but trading ceased in 1968, and the building was threatened with demolition. It remained empty until 1973 when it was used to temporarily house a theatre company. The Royal Exchange Theatre was founded in 1976, and formally opened by Sir Laurence Olivier.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Royal Exchange Theatre, which seats upwards of 700 people in the round across three tiers, welcomed the likes of John Martyn, Fairport Convention, Loudon Wainwright III, Cowboy Junkies, the Durutti Column, Penguin Cafe and Christy Moore among others. The building was later damaged on 15 June 1996 when the IRA bomb exploded less than 50 yards away in nearby Corporation Street. Repairs took over two years and cost £32m, but the theatre was named ‘Theatre of the Year’ in 1999 and continues to thrive.

This is a co-promotion with Phil Jones for Edge Street Live.

Tickets are available directly from the Royal Exchange box office (no booking fee for cash payment), Royalexchange.co.uk and on 0161 833 9833. They will also be available shortly from Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange (both on Oldham Street), Ticketline.co.uk and Seetickets.com

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When: 7.30pm on Monday 23 April 2012
Where: Band on the Wall, 26 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JZ

We’re excited to be presenting a headline show for Hey! Manchester favourite Gabriel Minnikin.

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Gabriel Minnikin is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer. His voice is unbelievable, ranging from the gravely depths of a bass to the richer timbre of a baritone. He has toured extensively as a soloist, been a side musician for many great artists, produced records, and has even had a hand in recording a film soundtrack. Gabriel was a member of the Canadian country rock band The Guthries (signed to Hay Sale Records) in the late 1990s and early 2000s who toured extensively throughout Canada and the UK. The band released their first album, Off Windmill, in 2000, followed by the self-titled, The Guthries, in 2002. Following that album the band members decided to pursue solo projects.

In 2004 Gabriel made Manchester his home. That year he released his critically acclaimed debut record, Hard Feelings, establishing him as a recognised singer/songwriter in his own right. In 2006 he found himself back in Canada, recording what would be his sophmore release, Wandering Midnight. Despite being a relatively unheard record, it did produce some interest from fans, labels and press. He has gained radio support from John Peel and Bob Harris, and is a regular guest on BBC Radio Manchester.

As a soloist he has been fortunate enough to tour and share stages with great artists including I, Calexico, The Handsome Family, The Earlies, Bone-Box and Samson & Delilah, to name but a few. In the summer of 2010 Gabriel and his younger sister Ruth toured as The Minnikins supporting artists including Jools Holland, Jose Gonzalez, Duke and The King, Frazey Ford (The Be Good Tanyas) and First Aid Kit. During the same period The Minnikins performed at a number of UK festivals including End of The Road, Meadowlands, Truck, Glasgow Americana Festival, and Canadian Blast.

Although Gabriel’s musical roots are in the pedal steel and banjo sheen of classic Americana, his third record, Parakeets with Parasols, brings a grandiosity and cinematic sweep to his country-folk stylings – think Tom Waits meets The Wizard of Oz. Gabriel hopes to release this record in 2011. Gabriel is currently working on a rock n’ roll album, Remember Remember, which he aims to release in 2012. In addition The Minnikins are working on a joint record, using their family’s history as a source of inspiration, which is due to be released in 2011.

Support comes from Lisa O’Neill, who started writing songs and music at an early age in her native Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan, Ireland. She moved to Dublin, aged 18, to study music on a full time basis. Early on she was welcomed into the folk and traditional scene in pubs and venues around the city where her singular voice, witty lyrics and observations on modern Irish life gained her popularity and set her apart as a unique talent.

Her independently released debut album, aptly titled Has an Album, was launched in August 2009 and sold out throughout the country displaying her popularity not just in Dublin, but nationwide. In 2011 she has toured America, Canada and the UK, opening for Welsh singer David Gray. She is currently working on her second album.

This show is a co-promotion with Band on the Wall.

Tickets are available from Band on the Wall’s box office, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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When: 3pm until late on Sunday 6 May 2012
Where: St Philip’s Church, Encombe Place, Salford, Lancashire, M3 6FJ

Hey! Manchester has been invited to curate a stage at this year’s Sounds From The Other City! SFTOC is a one-day music festival that celebrates the diversity of Greater Manchester’s ‘other city’. The 12-hour event places many of the city’s favourite promoters –  including Mind on Fire, Underachievers, Comfortable on A Tightrope, Trash-O-Rama, Now Wave – into several of our favourite venues and drinking establishments: the Kings Arms, Islington Mill, the Crescent and the Pint Pot’s two-tiered venue. Hey! Manchester is excited to be returning to a very special venue in 2012: St Philip’s Church.

We’re currently hand-picking a line-up to rival our three previous SFTOC outings, which have featured the likes of  Willy Mason, Darren Hayman, Damon & Naomi, Jesca Hoop and David Thomas Broughton.

Our first couple of confirmations include rising star Laura J Martin. Armed with a flute ready for wrangling, mandolin and a loop station, she sings over her loops and beats, with songs inspired by subject matter as disparate as Japanese folklore and real-life sentiments and characters. She has supported the likes of Scout Niblett, Bonobo, Little Dragon, Singing Adams, Hannah Peel and The Simonsound, and has just finished an improvised album with Euros Childs and Sweet Baboo under the moniker ‘Short and Curlies’.

Our other early confirmation is a band who blew us away at the Brudenell in Leeds in December. Joseph & David comprise best friends David Henshaw and Joseph Lawrenson, who have been writing music together for two years now, dividing their time between Cardiff and their Leeds hometown. When performing live, they are joined by a host of friends who provide additional piano, guitar, vocals, accordion, drums and violin to reconstruct the full, powerful sounds of their records. Their live performances have seen the band gather an increasing amount of plaudits as a result of a full UK tour in support of Benjamin Francis Leftwich as well as gigs supporting the likes of James Vincent McMorrow, Peggy Sue, Foy Vance and Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell. Fans of Bon Iver will admire David’s stunning vocals as he drifts from sweet, delicate hushed whisperings to roaring intensity, while fans of Beirut and Devandra Banhart are likely to be enticed by the rich, varied depth of the instrumentation throughout.

To check out who else is playing, visit the Sounds From The Other City website or attend the event on Facebook.

Tickets, priced £18 and giving access to all stages, are available from Islington Mill, Piccadilly Records, the Gaslamp, Skiddle.com and QuayTickets.com. A small number of early bird tickets are available exclusively from the Gaslamp at £14.

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When: 7.30pm on Friday 8 June 2012
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re proud to welcome Introducing, who are back in town to recreate the sound of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing.

‘From listening to the records, we just knew what to do.’

DJ Shadow‘s seminal Endtroducing album is considered by most to be uncoverable – but Introducing are not your average ‘covers’ band. The 1996 album inspired a generation. It made the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s first completely sampled album. Introducing take the whole thing full circle, and return those samples into live musicianship, in the image that DJ Shadow created them.

Introducing’s note-for-note nine-piece recreation has already been turning heads on the festival circuit. After their debut at Festinho in 2008, Radio 1′s Rob da Bank booked them for Camp Bestival and Bestival in 2009, shortly before Ireland’s Electric Picnic picked them up too. Matt Derbyshire, the brains behind the band, has a smile on his face. ‘It seems to be gathering momentum now,’ he says. ‘We’ve put a lot of work into it, so it’s great that it seems to be paying off. We have gone to great lengths to recreate the exact sounds used in the original. The most important thing about these albums we are recreating is the sonic content. Also, there are sometimes a lot of parts, so Mick (sax), Andy (Keys) and myself all have a keyboard to hand to play sounds. I think we’ve only got one loop in the whole set and the concept of any backing tracks were outlawed from day one!’

Introducing bring their impressive DJ Shadow live set back to Manchester following acclaimed performances at Band on the Wall and Club Academy in previous years. Book early for this more intimate outing at our favourite small venue.

This show is a co-promotion with One Inch Badge.

Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

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