When: 7.30pm on Thursday 20 March 2014
Where: The Ruby Lounge, 28-34 High Street, Manchester M4 1QB

We’re delighted to be continuing our association with Communion for their March club night.

Michael A Grammar are four young men from Nottingham. The songs on their debut Vitamin Easy EP, were written, recorded and produced over the course of a summer in hometown Brighton by childhood friends Joel Sayers and Frankie Mockett. Their sound is informed by Ultimate Spinach, Stone Roses, Clinic, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Pink Floyd, Pixies and Broadcast (whose song Michael A Grammar gives the band their name). Michael is ‘the alien lovechild of too many sunny weekends spent indoors listening to Joy Division and Radiohead‘. The sound of the four tracks here is transcendent, spacious and quietly anthemic – The Beta Band on Ritalin.

As is often the case with distinctive endeavours, the creative path of Thomas Dybdahl – the 32-year-old guitarist, singer, songwriter, and native of Sandnes, Norway – has been, for nearly a decade, all his own. On Songs – his US debut, released via Decca Records/Universal on Strange Cargo, an imprint overseen by the renowned musician and producer Larry Klein, whose past close musical associations include Joni Mitchell, Tracey Chapman, Madeleine Peyroux and others – Dybdahl distinguishes himself with fire and finesse. The tracks serve as a great introduction for American listeners to the five albums (2002’s …that great October sound; 2003‘s Stray Dogs; 2004‘s One Day You’ll Dance for Me, New York City; 2006’s Science; and 2010’s Waiting for that One Clear Moment), for which Dybdahl has received steady acclaim internationally and won two Norwegian Grammys.

Buckinghamshire outfit Big Sixes certainly aren’t the happiest band around, but they sure know how to write good tunes. Evoking memories of the likes of Joy Division and White Lies, Big Sixes play moody indie rock packed with hooks and the maturity of industry veterans.

The Bear Around Your Neck is Nathaniel Scott, a Manchester-based singer songwriter. His songs are lyrically potent and melodically conscious, with words sitting on a fuzzy arrangement of finger picking through an overdriven amplifier. Taking inspiration from folk, rock and psychedelic music, this influence reveals a darker, grungier folk sound, lifted by spacey, pop aware melody.

Tickets are available from Seetickets.com and on 0871 220 0260.

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