The Hipshakes
People to see and places to be as Getintothis’ James Sullivan runs down the top five gigs in Manchester this April.
April has now become most famous for three things: showers, fools and Record Store Day. The first is unavoidable, the second inevitable, the third weirdly ubiquitous.
One thing that Record Store Day does bring is more live music, and for that we can all be grateful. As such, the streets of Manchester will no doubt be swinging to the beat of a new Jack White single, recorded using a toilet roll as a microphone capturing the sound of an ape scratching on wood.
Squalling garage is very much the order of the month, as Canadians, Philadelphians and, erm, four lads from Bakewell roll into town. There’s also tropical beats, skyscraping indie-rock and enough hometown heroes to shake your tic tacs at.
May I introduce to you, five top gigs in Manchester for April 2016.
The Besnard Lakes
1. The Besnard Lakes: The Deaf Institute, April 2
Sailing across the Atlantic from Montreal on a sea of reverb and space-rock symphonies, The Besnard Lakes are nothing if not overstated.
The husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas throw out echoes of Spiritualized and The Flaming Lips in their super-sized, lolloping choruses.
Lasek and Goreas’ day job is running Breakglass Studio in their hometown, and the band’s new album A Coliseum Complex Museum sees them reaffirm their place as Canadian indie-rock royalty.
For more information, click here.
The Hipshakes
2. Crocodile Records presents The Hipshakes, The Mourning After & The Transmitters: Ruby Lounge, April 16
There’s tough competition on Record Store Day from The Deaf Institute’s ‘Record Store Day After-party’ (featuring Horsebeach, Blooms and more), but the Ruby Lounge plays host to three of the north-west’s finest.
Manchester-via-Bakewell’s The Hipshakes play jagged, goofy garage-rock that’s wiry, incessant and unstoppable. New single You Think You Know – released on Crocodile Records – is a prime example of their gang-vocal glee and Undertones-inflected smarts.
Also on the bill, Sheffield’s The Mourning After are a spluttering, leering, freakbeat away from a Nuggets album, and Bolton’s The Transmitters channel The Jam’s throaty suburban anthems.
For more information, click here.
The King Khan & BBQ Show
3. The King Khan & BBQ Show: Night and Day Cafe, April 18
King Khan is the mover, shaker and leader of garage-soul maniacs King Khan & the Shrines. His other bands have included The Spaceshits and gospel group The Almighty Defenders (with members of the Black Lips), all of which fronted by his unique whirlwind of fuzzy chaos.
The King Khan & BBQ Show (featuring Khan and Mark Sultan, formerly a Spaceshit and one man band ‘BBQ’) seemed to be all over following a falling-out in 2010. Six years later, and with new record Bad News Boys out, here they are again.
Expect costumes, rattling ramshackle garage, and soul pop nuggets played fast, loose and scrappy.
For more information, click here.
Fumaca Preta
4. Fumaça Preta and Purple Heart Parade: Soup Kitchen, April 21
Tropicalia and funk rhythms collide with Portuguese hip hop and acid house as Fumaça Preta land at the Soup Kitchen.
Starting as a studio experiment from Portuguese/Venezuelan producer Alex Figueira, the three piece run through Brazilian grooves furnished with deep, sparse electronica and occasional wailings of loopy guitar. Kaleidoscopic and compelling.
Support comes in the familiar form of Manchester’s favourite cosmic space-trippers Purple Heart Parade.
For more information click here.
BC Camplight
5. BC Camplight and Fruit Bomb: Band on the Wall, April 22
As a former touring member of The War on Drugs, BC Camplight is not an obvious candidate to be an adopted Manc. But moving to the city from Philadelphia, he found a new lease of life, a home and an audience appreciative to his glacial, shifting psychedelia.
Declaring ‘Manchester saved my life’ after leaving his home country and a host of personal difficulties, he was then banned from the UK at the start of 2015.
This, then, will be a glorious homecoming of sorts as he plays songs from, among other records, the How to Die in the North album born in this city.
Main support is from Manchester/Sheffield’s Fruit Bombs; clattering, wispy garage fronted by Nai Harvest’s Ben Thompson.
For more information, click here.
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