Sounds From the Other City new music festival unites the cream of the local scene with the finest musicians and club nights. Takes over Chapel Street from 3pm to midnight on Sunday 6 May 2012
Over the next 10 days, in the lead up to Sunday 6th May we’re gonna be dropping some little exclusives and behind the scenes snippets to get you hyped for the big day itself. Today sees the turn of PINS to show us exactly how excited they are to play SFTOC in the form of photo:
Lois, Anna, Faith & Lara played their very first gig at Islington Mill back in October and return to play at Sounds From the Other City with a wind of success behind them. Plays by Huw Stevens, John Kennedy & Mary Ann Hobbs in the past week have propelled them into everyone’s hemisphere combined with articles and tours lined up with Line of Best Fit, Willis Earl Beal and Best Coast and a Single that sold out in a matter of days, forcing a second run of tapes to be published instantly.
Their latest video for the B Side of said single can be viewed right below.
This is undoubtedly one of the last chances to catch these local lasses before they head off to bigger and better things.
With the day getting closer and closer, Mark and Rivca took time out from prepping Islington Mill and psyching themselves up to go have a chat about Sounds from the Other City on BBC Radio Manchester’s Introducing radio show, as well as playing a couple of tracks you might hear. Have a listen through the link below for the next 7 days or so
Sounds from the Other City wouldn’t work without the help of a few plucky volunteers. And, as ever, we’d be overjoyed if you could be one of them. The jobs include venue maintenance, artists liaison, audience contact as well as other opportunities. We are looking for people to assist in the 2 weeks running up to the event and for at least 6 hours on the day of the event. If that sounds cool with you, send an email over to jamie@islingtonmill.com and we can have a little natter about it.
If you’ve not guessed it from the headline, we’ve two new outlets stocking tickets. So the next time you’re down at Piccadilly Records getting some new vinyl, or if you’re at a show at Islington Mill, you can pick up a SFTOC ticket at the same time. Of course, you can still pick them up at all the usual outlets too.
If you’ve listened to Shinies, you’ve listened to Spent Youth. The only track that the band had available, they recently went down to London to record some more, and headed back up north with their single in the can. Available for pre-order on Dirty Bingo records, you can reserve your copy through the following link:
Of all the bands that have plodded around Manchester’s live scene in the past couple of years, none of them have had the same sense of wit and worthlessness that Monster Island seem to embody. Stephen from the band is going to be performing as… well, himself, doing some readings for Paradox, and then sticking around later to play some songs with the rest of his band. We’ve had a chat with him about some things and it’s really interesting, like.
Alright Stephen, how are you?
Good Enough.
You’re performing twice at the festival this year, but let’s start with your bread and butter: Monster Island. For those who’ve not had the pleasure of seeing you live, what can they expect?
They can expect some uncomfortable funk, some heavy chords, some vicious drum playing and some viscous hip swaying. This will likely be layered with snaky bass, beer battered guitar and some yokely northern vocals.
You’re all from the wastelands of industrial Lancashire, which means you’ll be at home in Salford. To what extent do you think all that decay has affected what you do as a band?
To a large extent.
Perhaps not decay persay, and I don’t agree with anyone who sees beauty in decay eg. a derelict warehouse or a dead pigeon. The American Beauty/Six Feet Under mindset. Shite is Shite.
Instead maybe just the awkward, bland, stressful, convoluted infrastructure and atmosphere of most northern towns and cities.
NCPs, stinky bins, “street furniture”, new build flats with little or no ground floor retail provision, bad cladding, knackered vistas. Specific examples would include the Arndale Food Court which, were I a sturdy giant, I would boot towards the Pennines. Salford Quays and its endless fences and dead brick walls. They don’t have to put up with this bullshit in Paris.
The words from Monster Island tracks have always felt more like free verse poetry than lyrics to me – does your work as a poet differ much from your work with the band?
Some of the songs are a bit all over the place but the ones I hope will work as spoken word have a bit of a story or theme. They’ll always be a bit disperse though as they usually start life as a series of one liners typed into a phone in Next or scrawled into a work pad mid conference call which seek each other out over a period of months.
People always ask about what music has inspired bands, but what poets/writers most excite you? – and, of course, why.
Anyone with colour, humour, a bit of menace and a good sense of rhythm.
Ballard, Philip K Dick, Joyce, Faulkner, Kafka, Beckett, Pinter. With lyricists Mark Smith in his prime was untouchable, and inspiring in that he just writes about whatever the fuck he wants. Loveable oddballs like Marnie Stern, Isaac Brock and Frank Black. Also more flowery stuff like Leonard Cohen, Bill Callahan, David Berman. It’s all about the assonance man.
I don’t read a lot of poetry. I built up a GCSE aversion to it. Science-y concepts like iambic pentameter sucking the fun out of it for everyone.
Right, last two things – give us a link to a song you like at the minute:
Recently I’ve been listening to a few of the bands I liked back when I was a young man, like this:
Or, on the SFTOC theme,
…and recommend us a poem we should seek out
I’m going to cheat here and recommend the words to a song, “San Francisco BC” by the Silver Jews. He makes it look easy.
Stephen will be reading at Paradox, then doing a set with Monster Island for Fat Out till You Pass Out.
It feels a bit odd looking back now, but it kinda was the whole Arctic Monkeys thing that kicked off the idea of a band being able to get anywhere through just having a bit of internet presence. A decade or so later and Regal Safari have followed down a similar path, though with music a world away from the Yorkshire drawl and landfill indie sounds.
The best way to think of a Regal Safari song is probably through that of darkness and light, shimmering hope through the atmospheric gloom that the rest of music seems to have shrouded itself in at the moment. We had a chat with the band to see what’s what.
Hiya Regal Safari, how are you?
Hi Matthew, We’re good. Working on new material currently and preparing for shows so all is well.
For those who’ve not listened to you before, can you give us a few words about what you do?
S: We create sounds using synthesizers, drum machines and we take samples from field recordings I make on a dictaphone.
G: It is electronic music I suppose, although I’d consider it pop music.
S: I’m currently cutting film to project while we perform, but we will produce to images also – it changes what you want from a sound.
Growing up, what influenced you? Do you think that shows in your work? G: I listened to mainly classical music during the first decade in my life so therefore I was reasonably isolated from a lot of the more contemporary music out there. Although, I was aware of and enjoyed a few popular bands such as Blur. But I wouldn’t say that any of that music really stands out in our music.
S: I realise now that growing up I wasn’t very interested in the objects that I was listening to, but rather looking for sounds that pleased me. Names and genres were pretty irrelevant, I just took whatever was around, which for my friends was guitar music circa 1970 and some pretty (but sometimes awful) american electronica.
G: I’d say the most formative element that drove me to, for want of a better word, create was the first time I played a synthesizer and learned that you could sculpt sound to your precise taste. That was incredible. Hearing a lot of the electronic/experimental German acts from the 60s, 70s and 80s helped me curate certain ideas in my mind.
S: Guy introduced me to a lot of that stuff, its had a profound impact on how I think about electronic music now.
A lot of your early hype came through the whole blog scene. What do you think about the ‘blogosphere’ and all the people who plough their time into it?
G: I find the blogosphere remarkable in a way – the fact that so many people put so much time and effort into it is fantastic. We didn’t have any PR for the releases of the EP, videos or remixes and still we got onto websites and blogs – even a couple that I read. So it was quite amazing.
S: People seemed to respond in quite an honest way, trying to bring something to the music. It was always very positive.
If I’m not mistaken, this will be your first trip up north as an outfit. Have you ever made the trip to Salford? How do you think you’ll find it?
S: Yeah it’s our first trip up north as Regal Safari.
G: I’ve been to Salford before and I spent a fair amount of time in Manchester when I was younger so I think it’ll be good to be back.
Lastly – what’s your favourite song at the moment?
Regal Safari will be playing for Drowned in Sound/Grey Lantern at The Black Lion for this year’s festival.
After months of careful planning, we’re proud to announce the first big raft of bands playing at this year’s edition of the festival. There’s the usual mix of names that you know – Walls, Pandr Eyez, The Lovely Eggs, Loney Dear, Molly Nilsson – and ones that you will definitely know by the time the big day comes along – Embers, Shinies, PINS, GREAT WAVES, Fear of Men, as well as everything in between. All the line-ups have been updated on the stages section – have a look and see what you fancy. It is going to be a blast.
…and, as if by magic, the new tracks from this years crop of SFTOC bands begin pouring in. Signed to Angular Records, this new song picks up where their last single ‘Young Lovers Go Pop!’ left off and is going to be released as a limited edition fanzine. The track will be available to purchase from February 20th, but you can stream it below already.
[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/35339544" iframe="true" /]
This Many Boyfriends – Young Lovers Go Pop
This Many Boyfriends will be playing the Underachievers, Please Try Harder stage at the Salford Arms
