When: 7pm on Thursday 24 July 2025
Where: The Strines Nightingale, 105 Strines Rd, Strines, Marple, Stockport SK6 7GE

PLEASE NOTE: This show has now sold out! 

Doors are 7pm, with Myles McCormack on at 7.30pm and Joshua Burnside at 8.15pm. 

We’re excited to welcoming Joshua Burnside to the Strines Nightingale for an intimate show!

Joshua Burnside is an experimental folk songwriter, singer and producer. He takes influence from alternative electronica and Irish folk, chopping and blending them with a mixture of found sounds, world music and unorthodox production methods.

Following an award-winning debut album and an acclaimed follow-up released during the height of the global pandemic, his music lives against the grain, in both style and spirit. Raised in the north of Ireland between the lush drumlins and hills of Strangford Lough, and the narrow entries and alleyways of East Belfast, Joshua’s music has defined and defied the post-conflict society of his home.

Taking in the economics of existence, family, trauma and renewal, while set against a backdrop of tense electronica and lush Irish folk and traditional songwriting, Joshua has entrenched himself within the fabric of the modern folk canon, alongside the likes of Bon Iver, Ben Howard and Sufjan Stevens.

While his award-winning first album Ephrata took in lush landscapes, technological horrors, night terrors and wistful Columbian vistas (set against a bed of Irish folk, cumbia rhythms, and electronica), his critically acclaimed second Into The Depths Of Hell, took a far darker approach. Melding swirls of clanging metallic found sounds, alt-rock, and Irish songwriting traditions were supported by UK and US national radio and international tastemakers NPR, Guitar Magazine, CLASH, The Guardian, The Times and more.

His third album, Teeth Of Time, sits comfortably and confrontationally between the alt-folk realms of Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens while retaining the indie singer-songwriter and traditional folk elements of Josh’s signature songwriting.

Special guest is Myles McCormack. Whether as a solo artist, or through his vital presence in Belfast’s world-beating trad scene, Myles McCormack is a master of his quietly emphatic craft. Recent collaborations with the likes of Réalta and Cathy Jordan have doubled down on the strengths of his solo work. The follow-up to 2019’s Real Talk, Myles’ second solo LP, To Better All Things, doubled down on the promise of something special back in January. On highlights and Every Time, and One Day the Belfast multi-instrumentalist paired sublime harmonies and fingerpicking finesse to wonderful effect.

This show takes place at the Strines Nightingale – a lovely country pub, formerly called the Sportsman, which re-opened in autumn 2022. Strines is on the Piccadilly-Sheffield train line, and on the 358 bus route from Stockport to Hayfield. This show will run until 10.30pm at the latest.

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When: 7.30pm on Friday 25 July 2025
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re delighted to welcome Lightheaded and Jeanines back to Manchester!

Jeanines and Lightheaded, two of the brightest American indiepop bands, have new albums coming out in June. Skep Wax Records (UK and Europe) are delighted to be co-releasing them alongside Slumberland Records (US).

Jeanines’ third album How Long Can It Last sees the New York band in total control of their songcraft, with thirteen miniature pop gems. Jeanines can fit in more melody and more breathtaking choruses in two minutes than most pop bands manage across an entire album. First single On And On demonstrates this perfectly. How can such a brief pop song be so overwhelming?

Lightheaded, from New Jersey, are one of the most exciting new US pop bands, and this album combines a brand new set of songs with five tracks from their delightful Good Good Great EP, a cassette-only release on Slumberland, now available on vinyl for the first time. Lightheaded bring together the songwriting discipline of Nancy and Lee with a modern appetite for noise and reverb. It’s possible to get utterly lost and absorbed in this album. The songs echo classics of the past but also feel like they’ve arrived from the distant future. It’s quite disorienting, but very exciting. The first single, Same Drop, is no exception to this rule.

Local support comes from Autocamper. Autocamper effortlessly retrofits the jangle pop sounds of the ‘80s without the C86 revisionism. Think Sarah Records-era The Wake fused with the shambling, melodic impulse of McCarthy and The Close Lobsters, but with one foot always firmly in the present. They recently released their debut album, What Do You Do All Day?, via Slumberland and Safe Suburban Home.

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When: 7.30pm on Friday 8 August 2025
Where: The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE

We’re delighted to be helping Anna McLuckie launch her new single!

Anna McLuckie is a Scottish singer, songwriter and Clàrsach player. Raised on classical and traditional music, Anna’s writing draws on her musical beginnings and also takes influence from her love of popular music and more experimental sounds. Her music sits in a world of contemporary folklore; her songs layered with interweaving harmonies, story led lyricism and free form structures.

Based in London, she has performed in places around the world from Rockwood Music Hall NYC, to a concert series in Russia, to house shows and folk sessions. She’s appeared at festivals across the UK and supported the likes of Jake Xerxes Fussell, Rozi Plain and Richard Hawley.

In 2024 Anna took part in the Making Tracks residency and toured the UK with renowned global roots musicians. She is currently being mentored by English Folk Expo (Soundroots UK) and Kick Arts UK.

Her first full length album The Little Winters is set to be released in the back end of 2025.

‘Lush indie-folk at its finest, with Anna backing her dexterous picking with some equally sublime vocals’ – Klof Magazine

‘A haunting collection of nu-folk poetry set to music’ – Only A Northern One

Special guest is Marco Woolf. Marco Woolf is a Manchester-based singer-songwriter and storyteller. Influenced by the likes of Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell and John Martyn, the music that Marco Woolf makes can prove similarly complex to categorise, his lyrics introspective and insightful – earning him a reputation as a self-evidently skilled storyteller – though thoughtful instrumentation too is just as crucial to his compositions, clearly considered to ensure it possesses comparable weight to his wording.

His latest release, Francine, I – a narrative-led EP issued via Phlexx Records in July 2021 – follows an African woman as she migrates West for the sake of her children and perfectly typifies the trademark one-two punch of tenderness that makes Marco’s music so transcendent. A limited 12” run sold out within 24 hours and the release received positive reviews from several publications, including PAM (Pan African Music, a website dedicated to promoting music from the African continent and diaspora).

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Photo by Andrea Terzuoli

When: 7.30pm on Monday 1 September 2025
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re delighted to be working with Lily Seabird for the first time!

Since 2023, Lily Seabird’s life has been in perpetual motion, spending nearly half of that time on the road performing her own music and as a touring bassist. While she thrives in transit, back home she is anchored by ‘Trash Mountain’, a pink house surrounded by other artists situated on a decommissioned landfill site at the back of Burlington’s Old North End. Here, Seabird has found belonging, friendship, and inspiration. It’s a place that hosts artists, puts on shows, and has been passed along in her friend group for the better part of the decade. It’s a symbol of transition and stability: something always evolving and growing but never losing its soul. It’s only fitting that Seabird named her new album Trash Mountain, as it also contains its namesake’s qualities. Over nine delicate but sturdy tracks of intimate folk rock, she pares her songwriting down to its most resonant essentials. It’s an album of unwelcome exits and uncertain futures, but there’s resiliency and hope at its core.

Where Seabird’s previous records – 2024’s Alas, and 2021’s Beside Myself – were written over the course of a year, Trash Mountain practically poured out of Seabird: three months of songwriting in spring 2024, followed by four days of tracking with Kevin Copeland (Hannah Frances, Lightning Bug, Allegra Krieger) in his Southern Vermont studio in the summer. While the grief that enveloped Alas,, which dealt with her best friend’s suicide, still lingers, it’s settled into healing and reflection on Trash Mountain. On It was like you were coming to wake us back up, Seabird vividly paints a brief moment of seeing a person outside her house who bears an uncanny resemblance to her dearly deceased. Rather than mourning, she finds comfort and healing in the vision. ‘In the past, I used to come to songwriting when I was in crisis,’ admits Seabird. ‘Only recently have I come to songwriting when I am feeling other things beyond emergency and disruption.’

The album’s arrangements are markedly sparse and intentional, a shift from the layered Alas, and Beside Myself, allowing Seabird’s writing to soar and stand starkly centred. Only three songs feature her longtime touring band in guitarist Greg Freeman, bassist Nina Cates (Robber Robber), and drummer Zack James (Dari Bay, Robber Robber). On the stunning How far away, she’s backed only by a piano played by Sam Atallah which makes for elegiac catharsis. ‘I’ve finally accepted that I’m a singer-songwriter,’ she says with a shrug. ‘Not everything has to be some big rock song.’ Seabird cites Elliott Smith, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen as influences on Trash Mountain, and much like the latter, her evocative, emotionally potent lyrics find her looking for cracks in the darkness where light comes in.

‘Vermont singer-songwriter Lily Seabird is one of SXSW 2025’s most compelling new voices… crushingly honest songs, and her weathered voice gives them a spellbinding quality… Seabird gave the performance that everyone would be talking about on their walks or rides home’ – Rolling Stone

‘An unflinching songwriter who’d make Leonard Cohen proud’ – Rolling Stone

Local support comes from Brain Leak. Brain Leak is Cardiff-born, Manchester-based US/French national Tara-Gabriella Engelhardt. Revolving around honesty and vulnerability, her songs consist of personal diary-entry stories that thread together themes of attachment, escapism and relationships. Sonically inspired by the punchy sound of artists like Pixies and Cherry Glazer, Brain Leak captures the vulnerability of her self-reflection in the interplay between softness and deep over-driven tones echoing her frustrations. The music is filled with frantic feelings and delicate sombre moments with an undercurrent of sincerity as Brain Leak opens up and expresses her deeply personal emotions.

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When: 7pm on Friday 5 September 2025
Where: YES Pink Room, 38 Charles Street, Manchester, M1 7DB

We’re excited to be welcoming The Burning Hell back – to YES this time, with special guest Jon McKiel!

The Burning Hell is the ongoing musical project of songwriter Mathias Kom and multi-instrumentalist Ariel Sharratt, often including additional comrades and collaborators. Their densely populated genre-shifting songs are packed with an abundance of literary, historical, and pop-cultural forebears, heroes and villains, subjects and objects, stories and hooks. They move with heavy rhyme and a light step, incorporating a frequent fixation on apocalypse and ruin into work that celebrates participation in a mutually created, ever surprising, and even occasionally beautiful world. Which is to say they’re good dance partners and they want to dance with you.

Now based in the woods of rural Prince Edward Island, The Burning Hell has famously ventured to every out-of-the-way island and inland neglected by the less adventurous, emphasising presence and connection across latitudes, longitudes, and time, affirming a commitment to the political power of sharing music. It is a profoundly optimistic gesture delivered by way of killer tunes and joyful live performances.

When Mathias and Ariel aren’t on the road or in the studio with the band, they pursue art projects at the intersection of ecology and sound with their collective Idlefield Art Lab. Recent ventures have included mobile, solar-powered recording studios in Scotland and Canada, and off-grid recording projects in abandoned farms and lighthouses.

Ghost Palace, The Burning Hell’s newest album, was released in March 2025 on You’ve Changed Records in North America and BB*Island everywhere else.

‘Funny, sardonic, and literate. Add in a new-wavey, Loaded-era VU sensibility, and it’s impossible not to be swayed by these acerbically funny story songs’ – Mojo

‘Super literate and fantastically droll, over backings that range from bubbling synth pop and acoustic folk to rattly punk and even a spot of semi-calypso. Silver Jews and Jeffrey Lewis spring to mind on the terrific Birdwatching; Bird Queen of Garbage Island sounds like a glorious revival of Tom Tom Club‘ – Uncut

Tour support comes from Jon McKiel. The songs of Jon McKiel are born of the bruised marshlands of remote New Brunswick, from the craggy shores of the Atlantic coast; places where nature is a powerful wonder and the made-world is in slow decay. His new album, Hex, is a bloodshot pop record steeped in our dystopian present, tempered, across its ten tracks, by an existential umami. It’s the follow-up to 2020’s cult favorite Bobby Joe Hope, which Aquarium Drunkard called ‘an unlikely masterpiece’ and Gorilla vs. Bear listed as one of their favourites of that god-forsaken year.

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When: 7pm on Saturday 13 September 2025
Where: Low Four Studio, Deansgate Mews, Great Northern, Manchester M3 4EN

We’re delighted to present the Manchester debut by Danish duo Bremer/McCoy!

With 400,000 monthly listeners, Bremer/McCoy have, against all odds, created their own subdued cosmos in a noisy era. Appropriately, Kosmos is the title of the duo’s sixth album. Here, they aim to convey a worldview rooted in deep connectedness and a sense of freedom. The raw material includes tracks that have been simmering for 15 years, alongside pieces that emerged in an intense moment within 15 minutes.

Kosmos is a statement without exclamation marks or large fonts. It’s the attempt of two Danish musicians to capture the world they stand for – and wish to share with others. The album represents a worldview, and in Bremer/McCoy’s cosmos, we can meet each other without words.

‘Humans have always played music. We’ve sat around fires and sung. We’ve danced. When we play together or listen together, we communicate wordlessly. And right now, it’s important to remember to communicate, as many feel we are in tough times. What we represent is an apolitical communication. One of my biggest concerns is division. The fact that people’s political stances prevent them from talking to each other, despite so much common ground. Everyone enjoys a walk in the forest, and I believe everyone feels a fundamental joy and peace when experiencing something beautiful being created,’ says Morten McCoy.

At the group’s concerts, this intimate and immediate atmosphere arises. The starting point for Kosmos was to capture the emotions from their concerts on record. Hence, they approached the initial studio session as if they were performing a concert and began improvising. Their improvisation style is unique: they don’t improvise solos but songs. They don’t riff aimlessly but delve into a story. They don’t know what story they’ll tell when they start, but they discover it together.

They share a common background and have known each other since Ryvangen Lilleskole. Yet, they are two men living very different lives today—Morten McCoy lives in a commune on a farm with his wife and children, while Jonathan Bremer leads a fast-paced city life. In music, however, they always find each other because they can be fully present together.

‘We are very flow-oriented. One must be careful not to try to force too much into the music or have a plan for what one wants. Only when you remove all ego is there room for what needs to happen. If a musician thinks, ‘This and that should happen now,’ they stand outside the music. We want to play as if we are merely listening to the music as it arises. That is ultimate freedom,’ says Jonathan Bremer.

This approach is clearer on this album than any of their previous ones. For instance, the first single Higher Road was made in a single take, with both instruments and effects applied in the moment. The tracks contain themes of meditation, prayer, gratitude, and a quiet optimism on behalf of all of us. A song like the single Alting løser sig (Everything Will Work Out) is so named because they had a loose idea and began playing to see what would happen. Out came a song fitting for the duo’s cosmos, dealing with the notion that fear is a poor driving force; instead, one should try to trust that things will be okay. Hvor du er (Where You Are) came about because they were in the studio with Hans Philip long ago, where he put random words together as they played. Among them was ‘indtil, hvor du er’ (‘until, where you are’), which became the starting point for a separate Bremer/McCoy track. Ideas and melody fragments can need ‘to marinate for 10 years,’ as Jonathan Bremer puts it. Bøn (Prayer) comes from that pool. It is lifted from a theme the duo often played live but never managed to weave into an album. But when Jonathan Bremer played a bass ostinato, everything fell into place. As things tend to do when Bremer/McCoy put themselves and their listeners in a trance-like state.

Bremer/McCoy will follow up Kosmos with a series of concerts in the country’s largest cities this fall. The tour concludes with three concerts in the Conservatory Concert Hall in Copenhagen. In between, there is also a Scandinavian tour, where the duo will visit both Sweden and Norway. Additionally, a tour in Central Europe is expected in 2025.

This show takes place at Low Four – a recording studio situated on Deansgate Mews in the Great Northern warehouse. This intimate venue features a fully stocked Cloudwater bar.

This is a 14+ show. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

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When: 7.30pm on Tuesday 16 September 2025
Where: YES Pink Room, 38 Charles Street, Manchester, M1 7DB

We’re delighted to welcome Daddy Long Legs back to Manchester!

New York City’s most beloved blues bashers Daddy Long Legs have been huffing and puffing and blowing houses down on a nightly basis on their infinite world tour and always bring an elevated level of rough and ready intensity to contemporary lo-fi blues with their explosive fire ceremony!

‘A Daddy Long Legs show is equal parts roots rock, blues and guttural soul, stripping down old standards and making them shiny and new again. Some of the originals are like an all-out spiritual revival, while others are hauntingly beautiful’ – AltDaily

‘Like Chicago blues fired at the moon, played by the demented children of the Pretty Things’ – Rolling Stone

Support comes from The Lotts – rock ‘n’ roll crackerjacks.

‘A thing of great rowdy beauty’ – Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music

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When: 7.30pm on Friday 19 September 2025
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re excited to welcome Blue Bendy back – this time, to Gullivers!

Blue Bendy have stretched out into vast new sonic terrain with their debut album So Medieval. Their two lead singles Mr Bubblegum – a joyously intricate piece of experimental guitar pop – and the frenetic, propulsive yet incredibly deft sprawl of Cloudy, saw the band reach new heights creatively. Of the former, the Guardian enthused: ‘Indie is riddled with addled, verbose frontmen right now, but none so rapturous as Blue Bendy’s Arthur Nolan: here he dances all over splayed post-rock and micro-cataclysms.’

In one of many glowing reviews, Pitchfork described the album as ‘defiant, high-stakes art-rock’ whilst The Independent described Nolan as a ‘cherub gone through the wringer’ in their recent profile.

Having toured as main support for Squid and Cola as well as playing packed out tents at festivals like End Of The Road and Green Man, Blue Bendy have struck a balance between being obviously skilled musicians, writing complex, layered, overlapping and ambitious compositions, while also utilising space, breadth, and restraint. Their music is bursting with dynamism, exploring push-pull dynamics that results in something ceaselessly unpredictable.

It results in a sound that is rare for a new band: as experimental as it is confident and assured, as tender as it is visceral, as quiet as it is loud, as bloody as it is teary.

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When: 7.30pm on Friday 19 September 2025
Where: Hallé St Peter’s, 40 Blossom Street, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 6BF

We’re delighted to welcome James Yorkston and Nina Persson back – this time, to Hallé St Peter’s!

Acclaimed Scottish singer-songwriter James Yorkston has announced his brand new album Songs for Nina and Johanna to be released via Domino on 22 August 2025. The album is his sixteenth on Domino and his third to be recorded in Stockholm in conjunction with members of The Second Hand Orchestra. Nina Persson (The Cardigans), who teamed up with James on his previous critically-acclaimed album The Great White Sea Eagle, this time shares singing duties with Johanna Söderberg (First Aid Kit), the two of them singing separately with James on five and four tracks respectively.

For this concert, James joins forces with Nina once more to perform songs from both albums.

‘Some of the most beautiful and moving music Yorkston’s made, which is high praise indeed’ – Allmusic

‘A work of real refinement, ‘The Great White Sea Eagle’ is peppered with jewels’ – Clash Music

‘It’s a beautiful, hand made collection of natural and unforced songs to be treasured’ – Under The Radar

This is a 14+ show. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

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When: 7pm on Saturday 20 September 2025
Where: Albert Hall, 27 Peter Street, Manchester M2 5QR

We’re delighted to welcome The Beths back to Manchester – this time, to Albert Hall!

The Beths — the New Zealand-based quartet of vocalist Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck — announce signing to ANTI- and release the new single/video, Metal. Metal is the first taste of new music from the band since the release of 2023’s Expert In A Dying Field (Deluxe), the expanded version of their beloved 2022 album.

Expert In A Dying Field (Deluxe) expanded upon the brilliance of The Beths’ acclaimed 2022 album – ‘another collection of tunes that cements their status as one of the great guitar-pop bands of this present moment’ (Stereogum). The third studio album from The Beths, Expert In A Dying Field was released to a wealth of critical praise, and was named one of 2022’s best releases by the likes of Pitchfork, The Ringer, Stereogum and more. Surrounding its release, The Beths were profiled by Rolling Stone, made their U.S. television debut on CBS Saturday Morning, performed a NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert, played Coachella, Bonnaroo and Newport Folk Festival, and supported The National, Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service. The Beths are undeniably one of the most exciting indie rock bands to emerge in recent memory.

Tour support comes from Dateline. Dateline’s music oozes emotion by blending earnest harmonies that hark back to early 00’s indie pop, with the cool burn of UK guitar groups from the 90s. Dateline’s band has had a revolving roster of friends, including musicians from bands like The Beths, Hans Pucket, LIPS, Bub and more recently Revulva and French For Rabbits.

This show is a co-promotion with Communion One.

This is a 14+ show.

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