Arts, Music & Events Preview, February 2011 (Part Two)

It’s been a revolutionary month so far but largely one for the armchair supporters in this country. I don’t foresee a fortnight’s worth of protest in the cotton capital over here but there’s plenty to sink your political teeth into, as well as gigs, exhibitions and all the rest.

This evening (Tuesday 15th) there’re a couple of gigs worth a look; This Is The Kit bring some lo-fi folk to the Night’N’Day Cafe while Debt Records signees Red Tides add more of the same in support. And Darkstar return to the Deaf Institute after their support slot with Matthew Dear last year, this time headlining.

Wednesday 16th shapes up in a similar vein with a pair of Now Then endorsed shows to sample. The Night’N’Day again plays host, this time to Animal Collective semi-copyists Fixers, a band who equally invoke Coldplay. Confused? Intrigued? Both fair reasons to check them out. Ryan Francesconi is on down the road (Oldham Street) at The Castle Hotel and if you need any further encouragement for that one, Hey! Manchester, who don’t often put a foot wrong, have organised his return following a stage-sharing with alt-folkie pin-up Joanna Newsom last year.

Also on Wednesday is a socio-economic discussion put on by Manchester Salon, entitled China’s Economic Growth: What Should We Celebrate? Alan Hudson and Berthold Schoene are the guest speakers, respectively focusing on the social possibilities of Chinese urban centres given rapid recent development and planning, and the west’s mentality towards globalisation and cosmopolitanism as factors in the relative stagnancy and decline of western society. Those waxing lyrical can be found in the Shakespeare Pub just off Market Street.

Or, finally, put your feet up for a Wednesday film upstairs at Trof Fallowfield. Shock Doctrine will be beamed onto a screen, pre-Cool Runnings, and it’s guaranteed to be more enjoyable than straining your ears through a barrage of popcorn crunchers at any given Orange Wednesday theatre.

While your political head’s screwed on you might appreciate a trip to the University of Manchester on Thursday 17th to look back at the 1990s opposition to Manchester Airport’s second runway. Joining will be guest speakers, including legal experts, who’ll be armed with a shedload of photographic slides while evaluating your, and humanity’s, carbon footprint.

Carefully Planned take their all-day gig a stage further; this is their 8th on Saturday 19th and the usual varied genres apply, broadly under an independent umbrella. Halifax’s Battles-esque prog troupe Wot Gorilla? and Huddersfield’s jazz-sampling hip-hop duo Imranimal with DJ Illas are just two of the diverse mix.

Art Corner launches its latest array of artistry, featuring twenty-odd easel-wielders, shape-sculptors and paint-merchants interpreting the title Desire & Repulsion: Grotesqueries. Monday 21st is the opening date, which is a date shared by MIE Music and their show at Islington Mill. They’ve talked the Flower/Campbell duo into another appearance (following last November’s Fuel gig) and the eardrum obliterating Our Love Will Destroy the World headline.

As you may or may not have heard, off-kilter MuseRadioheadPortishead summoners Kin will disband after this month and Thursday 24th is a final chance to catch the four-piece on the same stage. Interested collaborators Mr Heart and Veí support.

On the same evening BlankMedia freshen up the decor at their new BLANKSPACE abode. Freedom From Selection invites artists to introduce a biological slant to compositions, which will no doubt provoke some responses worth viewing.

Closing in on the end of the month, I’ll finish with a trio of gigs; Friday 25th sees Yuck at the Night’N’Day cranking up the level of 80s/90s American lo-fi indie influence; same day for a King Creosote / The Earlies double-whammy at Band on the Wall. Then ambient soundwalling glitchman Venetian Snares unpacks his electronic beats orchestra in Jabez Clegg on Saturday 26th.

Words: Ian Pennington

Matthew Dear @ Deaf Institute, Monday 6th December

There’s a fine line between neat progressive layers and melody-less dirge. It may seem an odd opening statement when the musician in question is Matthew Dear; author of 2003’s melodious minimal tech masterclass, Leave Luck To Heaven, and an attentive scholar of Detroit techno. But tonight’s performance shows a desire to take the development towards Brooklyn's brooding electronic pop cool in his subsequent albums, 2007’s Asa Breed and this year’s Black City, and rest it atop ear-shattering strata of miasmic noise.

The start is delayed due to the weather that you can’t fail to have noticed of late, but thankfully the Deaf Institute curfew is flexible enough to allow full sets from both tri-synth Hyperdub signees Darkstar and the headlining Matthew Dear’s live band.


Darkstar bring with them an earthy gloom in the form of thick, smoggy soundscapes, which are permeated only by glistening clean piano tones. They preach an urgency through atmospheric electronica as if soundtracking impending doom in all its stark desolation. Aside from downtempo treats such as the Moby’s ‘My Weakness' sound-alike, ‘Deadness’, with its Mount Kimbie-esque sampled shakes, there’s a variety of possible reference points. There’s a vocal likeness to Secret Machines' Brandon Curtis on the atmospheric ‘When It’s Gone’, while Portishead’s ‘Machine Gun’ is recalled as the following track winds up with a tinny monotony, like a toy drummer marching into an organ-fuelled warzone. And their remix of Radiohead’s ‘Videotape’ is an ample set-closer; in limbo between halfbeat Eurythmics whimpers and echoes of the sound it makes when you run your finger round the rim of a slightly filled glass.


It’s a lesson in simple-sounding complexity, and vice versa, until Matthew Dear takes the stage, dressed in a half-buttoned white shirt with a black jacket and met by a strip light shining upwards onto him like an expansion of torch-lit tales of terror. The scene befits his full-band swagger (he operates under different pseudonyms, with the others swerving closer to the tech/house groundings of the Ghostly International and Spectral Sound labels). Once there, he enforces a beefed-up scuzz, largely masking the trumpet that occasionally enhances recorded structures. This isn’t always a bad thing, by any means. The krautrocky constancy is intoxicatingly groovy as stubborn basslines infiltrate heads’ ability to stay still, nodding instinctively as they do. But vocals are lost, perhaps deliberately, in the vapid layers of echo and feedback.


When the density relents you’re left with highlights, such as the swirling haze of ‘Shortwave’, and when you can make out the intricacies within the constructions then even the musically polluted are palatable. Thunderous processed beats welcome in ‘You Put a Smell on Me’ before Dear redirects the dazzlingly bright strip light towards an entranced audience. There’s a brief rest from rib-shaking beats for the ‘Little People (Black City)’ intro, which is short-lived as soon the latest record’s lead single builds to ear-bending proportions. En route the bass slides and deep monotonic vocal delivery cannot be faulted, but the tendency for every crescendo to reach the apocalyptic is a little grating.


The encore begins with a melancholic solo performance of ‘Innh Dahh’, but the house-addled version of Asa Breed’s ‘Don and Sherri’ only serves in the end to drill home the target of concrete walls of sound, until the walls subside and crumble as Dear’s band depart, leaving prepared loops rolling through the void of a personnel-less stage; ending the set how it began.

Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Simon Bray