Thanks so much t0 everyone who came down on Sunday – was a blast. We are in recovery. Pictures, videos and reviews to follow here soon.

It’s everybody’s second most favourite day of the year – Sounds from the Other City eve. We hope that you’ve sat with your family around the warm glow of the Sounds from the Other City website, that you’ve made your intinerary (and checked it twice) and sung merrily along with tracks from the SFTOC 13 Spotify playlist. We hate to say this – especially given the trouble you’ll have getting to sleep tonight through all the excitement – but this year’s festival is pretty much here, and we have some key things for you to remember.

TICKETS & WRISTBAND EXCHANGE

If you’re one of the few people who didn’t buy tickets in advance, we do advise you to get down to Islington Mill early, as there will be a very limited amount available for sale at Islington Mill, where the ticket collection will be open from 2 pm. If you’ve not purchased a ticket yet, we can’t guarantee that they’ll be available all day – in fact, they’ll likely sell out very early on – so don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Please note: there are always queues, which means that if there is anything that you are desperate to see early on (a lot of performances are from 3 onwards) then it would be wise to make sure that your wristband is collected as early as possible.

Also, please be advised that ticket collection will be closing at 10 pm.

LINE UP AMENDS

There have also been some changes to the line-ups for tomorrow, too

On Hey! Manchester’s stage at Islington Mill, BC Camplight has unfortunately had to pull out, though the majestic BIRD are coming over from Liverpool to take his place.

For the SceneSkype stage, Trojan Horse are unable to perform, though thankfully they’ve managed to hoodwink The Travelling Band in their place.

Unfortunately, Bridget Hayden won’t be playing at SFTOC, which means that Astral Social Club will be playing in her original slot, and a very special set taking over headline duties – we can’t say much, but it is going to be incredible.

For the rest of the line-up and times, you can check once again here

FOLLOW US

For up to the date information, we’ll be on twitter, facebook and instagram all day – follow us and stay tuned. We’ll see you tomorrow!

So while most of the focus is rightly going into the awesome array of new music talent that you will find up and down the street during the day, it wouldnt be SFTOC without some late hours action. And it is a bank holiday after all.

Islington Mill will be the main after-hours hosts with 3 rooms of action:

MAIN ROOM

Esqueezy v Dj Al (aka Boltonmore) 

What happens when you bring two eclectic maniacs with an obsession for Patron and Cocounut Ciroc together? Stuff gets totally wild. Good times are all these two know so expect a b2b fuelled battles of house, hip-hop, tech-noo0 and that fuzzy stuff in between. web

Chew Disco vs Pumping Iron

Free love and hot trax for homo rebels, rad straights, feminists, starchildren, moonshine-makers and everyone in-between, Chew Disco, rub up, side by side with a pumping (IRON) mix of vintage underground disco, pulsating house and aerobic Hi-NRG. Spirits High. No surrender. web

Gesamtkunstwerk vs Faktion

Heavy, deep, dirty anlogue electronics from these two masters of dark party action.  Also serves as handy precursor to their team up on May 31st at the Mill with their enormo bill of sonic visceral electronics with Vatican Shadow, Miles (Demdike Stare) and GNOD at the helm.

Chris Egan (Tusk)

A minor master at selecting records both fresh and forgotten, uniting the crowd with both a cutting edge and a pop sensibility. Inspired by the heights of acid house as much as Fleetwood Mac, Chris will be kicking proceedings off with a stripped back set of irresistible rhythms. Expect slow sweat build.

1ST FLOOR

Islington Mill’s resident ‘First Floor Film Night’ have put together a special playbill of over 5 hours of silent films from across the ages with pre-recorded soundtracks. Chill out on the sofas and make the most of that Marble Bar.

GALLERY

After a full day of sceneskyping its time to turn the tables and join with chat roulette friends in a special chat roulette disco. To be completely honest we have no idea where this one is going to end up.

Meanwhile elsewhere around the street you can see Faktion vs Unknown to the Unknown and Wet Play, make it all sweaty up at the Old Pint Pot till 1.30am and the Mind on Fire vs This City is Ours stage carrying on til 1am with a midnight slot from BlackSmif

With the emergence of the great light giving orb, it looks like the Summer might be just around the corner. PRAISE BE – Hello tiny little bit of heat!

Yesterday we gave you a little rundown of the feast of foods that will be on offer come Sunday, and today is about how you wash it all down. Scientists have proven that well fed and watered ears appreciate new music much better….they havent but its great fun and good for everyone’s spiritual well-being.

There are the old returning favourites; you can relive the days of Marx and Engels drinking and discussing revolution in The Crescent, sample Belgian Beers with impossible percentages in the original real and craft ale pub, The New Oxford or lounge out all day in the Kings Arms, ‘britains most bohemian back-street boozer‘ The Guardian

And as well as these Chapel Street institutions we’ve also welcome a couple of special additions for the day: We welcome back the GNOD BAR to the courtyard of Islington Mill and a first appearance from Marble Brewery in the wristband exchange upstairs at the Mill

GNOD BAR: Over the past three weeks Islington Mill’s resident band, Gnod have been bringing their decadant industrial techno to the far reaches of Europe taking in a trip from Denmark to Hungary. Being the mega booze aficianados that they are, it hasnt been all about the giving! Along route they have been a amassing a weird and wonderful selection of local booze and curiosities. And you lucky people all get to sample it without the travel. Last year’s bar sold out in a couple of hours so expect the same this year.

MARBLE BAR: This year Islington Mill are teaming up with Marble brewery, stocked full of their finest products. Situated on the wristband exchange on first floor at the Mill, the Marble bar will be open for you to get off to an early start as you visit the wristband exchange, and will continue to be open throughout the night and into the  early hours as Textbook Studio “First Floor Film Night’ show a number of their favourite music related films.(more info on this on our upcoming ‘afterparties’ post)

As you may have spotted last week we announced details of our merch for this years festival. A glowing selection of Totes/Tees/Jumpers and totally fetch Sticker Packs. All the artwork is by David Bailey and has been printed and created by Islington Mill based screenprinters One69a Print Studio.

We invited a member of Positively Destructive to come and model the wares and created this neat little stop motion video.

The merchandise is available on the day and online http://islingtonmill.bigcartel.com/

On Sunday November 4th 2012, we teamed up with space creatures, art babes and long standing collaborators, the Volkov Commanders , to create a brand new concept event outside of our annual May Day Festival. Dreamt up over the long summer months, the result was a “ORBIT: A Show in Seven Parts”, a mysterious and magical walkthrough musical event that lent itself as much to live theatre as it did to music festival. This is the first showing of a short video made by Tobias Longmate that captures a little bit of the mood and atmosphere of the day.

Orbit featured specially commissioned one-off performances that saw DFA’s Planningtorock playing under a sea of blue light in St Philips Church, Ed Schraders Music Beat emerge out of smoke filled perspex box at Islington Mill, Queer’d Science attacked by naked test-tube dancers at the Old Pint Pot as well as fantastical and challenging sets from N. Racker, GNOD, Yola Fatoush & Tranarchy.

Along the way the audience moved as one, to the sound of a drum, from venue to venue, united together in an orbital journey knitted together by a series of narrative vignettes orchestrated by the Commanders. This included a mass, masked luminous box dance at the Salford war memorial, a candle lit waltz on the grassy knoll, the 20 strong Northern Quarter Boys choir singing David Bowie from the roof of St Philip’s Church with special silver moon heads and analogue amplifiers, a balloon-filled, saxophone dance within Islington Mill’s gallery as well as blue smoke signals filling the crisp, cold air of a magical night on the streets of Salford.

We would like to say thanks to everyone who helped make this event possible, particularly all the volunteers, the performers, Andy Salmon at St Phils, all at the Pint Pot, everyone at Islington Mill, Noisebox Sounds Productions, who stay faithful to the festival and all that we throw at them, the Arts Council, University of Salford for enthusiastically supporting the event and most importantly you, the audience.

Look out for news of another ‘Orbit’ and other special SFTOC events over the summer months

Transmission over

In time honoured tradition we’ve been working away behind the scenes to dream up some lovely new merchandise for SFTOC 13 and here it is. CATS. Everywhere. CATS.  We are particularly in love with the little sticker packs!

All designs were created by David Bailey and hand screen-printed in-house at Islington Mill by One69a Print Studio

All are AVAILABLE NOW and can be purchased here

For last year’s Sounds from the Other City, the excellent Skyliner  did a comprehensive ‘alternative venue guide’, unearthing a world of fascinating historical facts about the many and varied sites that play host to SFTOC every year. Have a flick through the handy guide below and find out more. We are also excited to be working with Skyliner again this year – more info coming to you soon…….

We are super pleased to be working with Dogshow at our January event entitled ☒☒☒☒☒ which takes place on 26.01.13 at 7.30pm

Known for their work and performances at The Kazimer in Liverpool, the Russian Professor and his Oxford born teammate use visuals and sound to transport you on some strange journey that by-pass Disney’s Fantasia, 90s dance and the drum beats we became familiar with Ed Schrader back in November.

Check the video below for just a taster

Tickets for this event are available now online at Skiddle.com and from Friday 11th in person at Piccadilly Records, The Bay Horse & Islington Mill

DOGSHOW | Split Screen Experiment from Jack Whiteley on Vimeo.