Sounds From The Other City 2011, Sunday 1st May

This year’s Sounds From The Other City (SFTOC) festival sees that elusive guest not immediately associated with previous Bank Holiday Sunday afternoons in the Chapel Street locale; clear skies and sunshine. The blustery, extrinsic seaside breezes are forgivable given the lengthier-than-ever linear perimeter near the River Irwell (wind direction permitting).

The Islington Mill hub is the first stop on everyone’s SFTOC journey but with so much booked in to see it’d be hard not to plot your own unique path from there. First step along is a quick dip into the ground floor gallery space where Sonny Smith’s abstract ‘100 Records’ exhibition is housed. The jukebox centrepiece holds all the aural results of a project that has imagined, designed and storyboarded a century of conceptual musical acts. Browsing the end products of record sleeves and biographies, it’s easy to see how the lines of fact and fiction may have been blurred, while a satirical angle could lament the aesthetic roots and reasons behind musicians’ practise, as opposed to music for music’s sake.

Scheduled as festival starters, but over 30 minutes late on the HearHere / Bad Uncle stage, Dr Mahogany’s Goat Circus have a useful template for diminishing any such sardonic cynicism. A fluid sextet filed under jazz/world, they set the benchmark for the United Reformed Church’s Soundtracks From The Other City premise by composing beside a film, Baraka, which features scenes of expansive landscapes, terraced Asian paddy fields and a choreographed seated dance. Although unintentional, there’s an appealing audio/visual synchronicity early in the set as images fixate conga drum-led eyes, but the grip is loosened as they drift between songs, such as the Doors-esque rhythms of ‘Stomping Foot, Clapping Hand’, and interconnecting improv.

From then on there’s a sense of déjà vu as the aural weapon of choice is the sampler. The Mind On Fire curated Salford Arms begins with synth/drum duo Vieka’s glitch-hop under distinctively enunciated vocals (think caro snatch or From The Kites of San Quentin), who’re hampered a little by unwanted amp feedback and lead in with coin jangling samples similar to Pink Floyd and MIA. The subject of money is an appropriate topic for another band reliant on synthetic sound snippets, Money, who embellish atmospheric guitar effects with backing visuals of their own. Lyrical content with a mortal preoccupation is enhanced by a tortured delivery akin to The Walkmen’s records, while thudding bass à la Joy Division permeates the misty introspection.

Waiting next to the nearby grassy verge is a testimony to the eclectic nature of the festival. The Rhythm’N’Blood Mobile dubs lo-fi saxophone over bluesy tape recordings including ‘All Along The Watchtower’. Rumours have it that he lectures at Salford University and serenading passing punters as a one man band with a backline of four mini amps strapped to a trolley is an endearing hobby.

Where do you go from that? As it turns out, Day For Airstrikes is where to go. Back at the United Reformed Church, DFA are backed by Rita, Sue and Bob Too; managing to pinpoint a climactic ending as the film pauses with the male protagonist in mid-air, leaping towards a bed with Union Jack duvet. Planned or otherwise, it works well (and can be listened to here). And they’re another succumbed to the lure of sampled structures; replacing post-rock guitars of old, but maintaining their same slow builds towards apocalypse. A stark contrast to Veí, whose downtempo sampling orchestra transforms the Salford Arms into a meeting atrium for hollow glockenspiel clacks, disparate ivories and lonely strings.

Too much perambulation would seem wasteful, which is exactly what strides down to Peel Hall conspire to be as Willy Mason’s lure is strong enough to force a one-in-one-out scenario at which the queue doesn't look promising. One punter describes the show as “underwhelming”, but that really depends on your expectation ahead of the performance of one man and a guitar. The next stop certainly isn’t underwhelming. Easter have been causing a stir amongst post-rock purveyors and some good old-fashioned axe duelling belittles the need for rhythm guitars as instead intricate noodling harnesses the roaring feedback.

Another genre shift back to laptop connoisseur Neko Neko. His squelchy electronic samples solder to Moby-esque ambient soundscapes, while submerged progressions of swooshes and minimal percussive stabs sink indolently before giving way to melodic harp twinkles.

Denis Jones then tackles the Soundtrack stage; an improv whizz in his natural habitat. Opting for a simple film tracking ball bearing movements, Jones also opts for simple, steady loop layering patterns with acoustic guitar undercurrents and gradual introduction of electronic manipulations. The occasional recognisable songs, the typically soulful ‘Clap Hands’ being one, are supplemented by onstage collaborator David Schlechtriemen (aka The Pickpocket Network), who adds a disco remix monotony to the live compositions; the pair facing each other with gadgetry primed, evoking Fuck Buttons or worriedaboutsatan.

The finale is littered with uptempo electro of various persuasions. Capac at Salford Arms and Islington Mill festival-closers Anchorsong and D/R/U/G/S all sail aboard the good ship synth, navigating a sea of processed beats, while sandwiched between are Fixers and Rainbow Arabia. Firstly, Oxford’s Fixers take on a soundtrack to looped cuts from Mariah Carey’s Glitter by pounding their combined keys, and yet more samples – this time directly influenced by the post-Animal Collective acclaim boom. If SFTOC is an indicator for the sounds from all other cities bubbling under the mainstream radar then there’s plenty more sampledelica (?), samplecore (?), to add to this generation’s synthetic symphonies.

Apt then, is Rainbow Arabia’s headlining jaunt at the Old Pint Pot. Signed to revered German electronic music label Kompakt, the Afrobeat disco duo show themselves to be infinitely more energetic than a jaded and weary crowd; vocoded vocalist Tiffany Preston gyrates between elevated archways as her husband Danny operates a mini electronic orchestra. It’s an engaging spectacle for the Pint Pot’s poky viewing confines, which you’d expect given the endorsement from youtube-bothering politico MIA.

Words: Ian Pennington

The Natural Marketplace

The parks and green spaces of Manchester seem to be gaining an increasingly prominent status within the city as a place where community and environmental action mingles with open space and good old fashioned peace and bloody quiet. But is it that easy? What pressures are put on them by their location and their function? And what is one park, Platt Fields Park in Fallowfield and Rusholme (now halfway through its centenary year), doing to try and thrive in this 21st Century where the twitter on your i-phone is more anticipated than the twitter of a sparrow (LOL)?


There has been a new project launched by the UK Government to try and place a monetary value on the Natural World, the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. Its aim, and I quote, is to be “the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society and continuing economic prosperity” (http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org). Basically, they decide how much the Natural World is worth to us in pounds and pence. A piece of woodland? That'll be a fiver to you sir. A marshland with a peat underlayer that might act as a potential store for excess carbon? Fifty quid and a wink. Easy.


But the real issue here is the commodification of the Natural World around us. This comes in two ways – first, there is the placing of monetary value onto ecosystems and green spaces. This, according to some, will allow us to appreciate the true value of such things, and, actually, remove them from the marketplace by ascribing value designed to protect it. However, there is the reverse argument that it simply draws the Natural World into the marketplace, opening it up to be used as a 'thing' to be traded or exchanged based on its current value.


Second, is the idea that green spaces must compete with other resources for funding, preservation and a right to exist. They must prove their value for money by making repeated funding requests and proving what they do for the community, or be damned. There is no longer an idea of inherent usefulness in having green spaces.

Also, this has the effect of making us 'consumers' of green spaces to the extent that we expect things from them, as they are paid for by our money. We therefore expect value for that money. “This is our park, I paid for it with my ruddy council tax," etc, much the same argument we would use to justify bin collections every week or roads with no potholes.


So how does Platt Fields Park in particular survive and adapt to this paradigm shift in the thinking about green spaces?

In an interview with Anne Tucker from the Friends of Platt Fields Park, she explained that the park has many different interests to accommodate and to fend off. “Juggling different people’s needs from the park is the trickiest thing,” she says. “Problems are noise levels vs peace and quiet; dog lovers vs dog haters; fireworks (popular vs effects on wildlife); lake uses (fishing vs boating vs leave it alone); duck feeding vs excess of Canada geese; pathways v grass...” It seems that so many groups use these spaces that it is hard to get the balance right, as everyone has an expectation of what their local park should offer them. This expectation increases with the increased function and use value that parks must have to compete for limited Council resources.


Other interests want simply to change the use of the park altogether, or at least parts of it. “Over the years, there have been some attempts to encroach on the park by developers – most notably the gradual taking over of more of the park by Manchester City FC Sports Complex. There was a big fuss over this so another attempt in 2004 to make a temporary car park for hospital employees to park in and be bussed to the hospital while the MRI/St Mary’s were being rebuilt – it got cancelled with a huge campaign.”

On the up side though, Anne comments that, “nowadays if anyone wants anything like that, Manchester Leisure says ‘no’ immediately!”


When you go to Platt Fields Park, as I was lucky enough to do during the Easter Holidays, there certainly is a lot going on, and a lot of different communities using the park. Joggers, young families, groups of young people on the skate park, old men and their dogs, cyclists, people just going from A to B, and students, all seem to get something out of the park. There are cycling workshops, art days, guerilla gardening, community festivals and loads more stuff to try and get people involved in a productive, local way. And yet, all around, there are signs of the city still present, leaning over as if waiting for Nature to let its guard down. Student Accommodation looms up on one side, the MCFC Sports Complex on the other. The noise of traffic on Wilmslow Road is never far away.


All in all, despite the new pressures Platt Fields Park finds itself under, it tries its best to compete (yes, ‘compete’) for attention in our busy city where space is at a premium. I would have to say that its value lies not in its monetary worth, or its usefulness to various interested parties, but simply as an antidote to the dusty, glum routines we find ourselves swept along by if we don't keep our wits about us.

Words: Andy Rees
Pictures: Ian Pennington