When: 7.30pm on Thursday 16 January 2025
Where: The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE

We’re delighted to be working with Simon Joyner again!

Coyote Butterfly is the first album of new songs in two years from singer-songwriter Simon Joyner following the overdose death of his son, Owen, in August of 2022. Drawing on the kaleidoscopic nature of grief, Joyner explores his loss through a series of imagined dialogues and raw confessions. The album is a tribute to Owen, but what Joyner generously delivers is an intimate glimpse at his attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible.

The album is bookended by field recordings overlaid with minimalist guitar laments. The first, a spring thrum of sparrows and red-winged blackbirds, functions as an invitation to the elegies which follow, while the last, the late-August drone of cicadas returns us to a life of sweat on the skin, sirens in the distance, and the things we cannot change but must somehow accept. In between these instrumentals, Joyner grapples with regret and fear, shame and love. From the opening song, I’m Taking You With Me to the gut-wrenching remorse of My Lament, Joyner lays bare the struggles of those left in the wake of personal devastation. On the title track, we hear Joyner perform an elemental incantation, a heartbroken ode infused with forgiveness. The final song of the album, There Will be a Time, is a meditation on a future where such suffering, both personal and universal, might be softened by understanding.

In creating an album of such intimacy, Joyner reminds us of the importance of using art to alchemise the deeply personal into transformative beauty. Throughout the album we are invited to stand with him in the aftermath and have our own hearts crack open. Coyote Butterfly is a beautiful evocation of a father’s grief but also serves as an enduring testament to love and the life that endures after loss.

The musicians playing alongside Simon on Coyote Butterfly are among his closest friends: David Nance, James Schroeder, Kevin Donahue, Ben Brodin and Michael Krassner. It’s thanks to their sensitive arrangements and loving support that the songs on Coyote Butterfly could be performed and documented.

‘Omaha has given us the reigning heir to Henry Miller’s dark emotional mirror, Townes Van Zandt’s three-chord moan, and Lou Reed’s warehouse minimalism: his name is Simon Joyner’ — Gillian Welch

‘Pound for pound Simon Joyner is my favourite lyricist of all time. He has shades of all the greats (Van Zandt, Cohen, Dylan) but exists in a space all his own … He truly is an American songwriting treasure. It is my hope that more people will discover his music and share in the unique joy that it brings’ — Conor Oberst

This show is a co-promotion with Comfortable on a Tightrope.

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When: 7.30pm on Saturday 18 January 2025
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re delighted to be working with Jim Moray for the first time!

Should you care to look back over the past two decades of British folk music, one musician in particular stands out for having a singular, idiosyncratic vision that has rarely wavered in style and substance. Jim Moray may have garnered initial attention for his digitally-driven approach to traditional music, but reflecting on his seven albums and numerous production credits it’s clear that imagination and invention are the real cornerstones of his work.

The cinematic vision of albums such as Skulk (2012), Upcetera (2016), and his game-changing debut Sweet England (2003) show just how far the old songs can be taken. His arrangements of traditional songs such as Gilderoy, Horkstow Grange and Fair Margaret and Sweet William are regarded as amongst the classics of the folk genre, while his treatment of the ballad Lord Douglas has become a must-learn for fingerstyle guitarists.

As Moray embarks on his third decade as a professional musician, he can count career-defining performances at Glastonbury, the Royal Albert Hall, and WOMAD, and has caught the attention of those in the know along the way. ‘I love this singer of old ballads,’ enthused none other than Iggy Pop, no stranger to songs of love, life and loss. Twenty years in the business also means that his influence is being felt among a younger generation of folk musicians, especially those who explore the wider canon and ways in which traditional music can be stretched. Frankie Archer recently spoke about how Moray’s work on Low Culture (2008) blew her mind: ‘It showed me for the first time what UK folk music could be.’

Never satisfied with staying still, he is still moving after shaking the folk world to its foundations twenty years ago. And in a genre where musicians reach their peak the older they get, there’s a sense that he has only just begun.

‘A landmark artist for our times’ – Mojo magazine

‘The most significant musician since Bob Dylan to decide that the folk idiom is the perfect vehicle for his musical adventures and experiments’ – Sydney Morning Herald

Special guest is Amelia Coburn. Amelia Coburn is darkness and light. From tales of vengeful widows and moonlit stream-of-consciousness to songs filled with whimsical romance, she has a knack for making the unusual sound timeless. Her work is populated with the characters she meets in the dark shadows of literature, film noir and travels in unfamiliar lands. Amelia threads Tin Pan Alley melodies through European folk music and torchlit jazz with a blur of psychedelia and baroque pop. Musical heroes and heroines include Serge Gainsbourg, Scott Walker, Joni Mitchell, Neil Hannon, Rufus Wainwright, Liza Minelli and David Bowie. From early musical epiphanies pilfering songs from her dad’s record collection which have infused her original work with a playful, punkish spirit that remains highly melodic and distinctive, in no small part, due to her unique, cut-glass delivery which betrays a love of the golden age of musicals and can pierce and melt even the most well-armoured heart.

A finalist in the BBC Folk Awards, Amelia’s live performances are captivating, dynamic and leave audiences stunned and walking away with a major new musical crush. Her natural, North Eastern stage presence disarms and beguiles in equal measure. It is art without artifice: The wild, theatrical characterisations of Jacques Brel pinned to the unforgettable melodic ability of McCartney. Her debut studio album Between the Moon and the Milkman, produced by Bill Ryder-Jones, is out now.

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When: 7.30pm on Saturday 25 January 2025
Where: Academy 3, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PR

We’re excited to welcome Josh Rouse back to Manchester – this time, performing his album Nashville!

To mark 20 years since its release in 2005, Josh Rouse returns – with his full band – to perform his fifth album, Nashville, in full!

‘Like a baseball player who quietly hits 30 home runs every year or a golfer who regularly finishes in the Top Ten, Josh Rouse’s continued streak of excellence is easy to ignore and maybe even downplay a little’ – Tim Sendra, Allmusic.com

You don’t have to work hard to enjoy Rouse’s music. His songs present themselves to you with an open heart, an innate intelligence and an absolute lack of pretension. They are clear-eyed, empathetic and penetrating. Without pandering, they seek to satisfy both your ear and your understanding. The verses draw you in with telling detail, both musical and thematic, and the choruses lift and deliver. They resolve without seeming overly tidy or pat.

Josh Rouse was born in Nebraska, and following an itinerant upbringing he eventually landed in Nashville where he recorded his debut Dressed Like Nebraska (1998). The album’s acclaim led to tours with Aimee Mann, Mark Etzel and the late Vic Chestnut. The follow-up – Home (2000) — yielded the song Directions, which Cameron Crowe used in his film Vanilla Sky.

‘Every time I’ve made a record, I’ve tried to make it different from the last one,’ says Rouse. ‘I always became fascinated by a different style of music. But at the end of the day, no matter how eclectic I try to make it, it’s my voice and melodic sensibility that tie things together.’

For his breakthrough album, 1972 (2003), which happens to be the year he was born, Rouse decided to cheer up a bit. Noting that he’d earned a reputation for melancholy, he says, with a laugh, ‘I figured this is my career, I might as well try to enjoy it.’ While the Seventies are often identified with singer-songwriters, Rouse was primarily attracted to the warmer sound of albums back then, as well as the more communal feel of the soul music of that time. The follow up, Nashville (2005) continued the hot streak and expanded his audience further.

After relocating to  Valencia, Spain with his wife Paz, Rouse has released a steady stream of high quality songs and albums. Subtitulo (2006) contained the international indie folk hit Quiet Town. On El Turista (2010) he even experimented with writing and singing some songs in Spanish. In  2014, he won a Goya Award (the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar) for best song for Do You Really Want To Be In Love, from the film La Gran Familia Española.

His latest, Going Places, came together over the last two years when Josh Rouse found himself unable to tour and hunkered down with his family in Spain. Together with his Spanish band, he began workshopping new songs in a small local venue owned by a friend, resulting in ten road-ready tracks with a looser, more relaxed vibe.

Tour support comes from Later Youth. British singer-songwriter and producer Jo Dudderidge, also known for fronting Manchester indie-folk favourites The Travelling Band, returns with his solo project, Later Youth. After over a decade leading the much-loved band through four acclaimed albums, the now London-based multi-instrumentalist has since established himself as a sought-after collaborator, writing and performing with an array of talented artists including Victoria Canal, Rose Gray, Stephen Fretwell, James Walsh, Joyeria, Ren Harvieu, Bette Smith and longtime cohort Lissie.

With Later Youth, Dudderidge steps back into the spotlight, with his unmistakable voice and signature Wurlitzer electric piano driving the sound. His music blends dry heart-on-sleeve lyricism with modern spins on classic rock, soul, blues and alt-country, creating a unique soundscape for listeners who might also enjoy The Beatles, Harry Nilsson, White Denim, Father John Misty, David Bowie and The Band.

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

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When: 7.30pm on Sunday 26 January 2025
Where: Night & Day Cafe, 26 Oldham St, Manchester, M1 1JN

We’re delighted to be welcome John Craigie back to Manchester!

John Craigie has mastered the art of creating live shows that feel more like intimate conversations than performances. Infusing humour, wit, and poignant storytelling, his shows are a space where audience members feel like old friends. Whether he’s headlining solo or sharing the stage with longtime collaborators, Craigie’s ability to make his crowd laugh, reflect, and connect is second to none. As he prepares to release Greatest Hits… Just Kidding… Live – No Hits, his latest live album captures the warmth and spontaneity of these memorable nights.

At this point, there have been quite a few good shows in the rearview…

As a tried-and-true performer, he has regularly sold out solo tours in addition to hitting the road with the likes of Langhorne Slim, Brett Dennen, Mason Jennings, Bella White and Jack Johnson. He has picked up fans with sets at Newport Folk Festival, Pickathon, Edmonton Folk Festival and High Sierra Music Festival. Including numerous European tours and his first Australian tour in spring of 2024 Moreover, his annual river trip on the Tuolumne River – just outside of Yosemite in California – has remained a hit with his audience, hosting one sellout after another. Giving back as much as possible, he notably launched the #KeepItWarm Tour during the holidays. By donating $1 from every ticket sale, this headline run has raised money for regional non-profits with the goal of fighting food insecurity. An avowed Beatles acolyte, he has performed acoustic renditions of the albums Abbey Road and Let It Be live in front of packed crowds and partnered with Record Store Day for limited edition vinyl releases of those concerts..

Simultaneously, his catalogue has continued to reel in tens of millions of streams, fuelled by favourites such as I Am California, Highway Blood, Don’t Ask, and Microdose. Maintaining a prolific pace, 2024’s Pagan Church saw him join forces with TK & The Holy Know-Nothings. Among many highlights, it logged six weeks at #1 on the Americana Radio Albums Chart. Inciting critical applause, Pop Matters raved, ‘All of Craigie’s songs are made of something truly ineffable,’ and American Highways assured, ‘Along with excellent musicianship across the album, there are genuinely pretty moments on Pagan Church.’ Meanwhile, he joined forces with Langhorne Slim for a duet song Out On The Road.

To him, the live albums seek to achieve a sound where the listener will feel like they’re in the venue, sitting and experiencing the show with the rest of the crowd.

Tour support comes from Taylor Rae. Born in the scenic coastal town of Santa Cruz, California, singer-songwriter Taylor Rae has swiftly made her mark on the Americana music scene with her debut album, Mad Twenties, released in October 2021. The record went on to become a fixture on the Americana Radio charts (AMA/CDX) for 31 weeks, marking the longest duration for any independently released album in 2022. The single, Home on the Road, which truly embodies her ‘Soul & Roll’ sound, remained in the Top 10 of the Americana Music Singles Chart for five consecutive weeks.

The positive response to Mad Twenties catapulted Taylor Rae onto a series of nationwide tours, performing to sold-out crowds alongside luminaries like Sierra Hull, John Craigie, Pokey LaFarge, as well as headlining shows with her own band. One of the unique aspects of the album is its fusion of various genres, which has allowed Taylor Rae to captivate a wide range of audiences across the country.

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When: 7.30pm on Thursday 30 January 2025
Where: Gullivers, 109 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LW

We’re delighted to be working with Julian Taylor for the first time!

After 25 years in music, building an unimpeachable reputation as a truly independent artist and entrepreneur, Julian Taylor now owns his legacy. It’s rare in this era to see an artist build slowly and reach a new level of widespread acclaim decades into their career. But Julian’s ethos, work ethic, and artistry has always had a timeless quality to it.

Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor has been part of the musical fabric and landscape in Canada for over two decades. Taylor enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2020, when his second solo acoustic album, The Ridge, earned million plays on Spotify, praise from press worldwide, and airplay from America to Australia to the UK. Loaded with soulful Americana and country twang, the album was produced by Taylor himself and Saam Hashemi, and was recorded at The Woodshed in Toronto.

Taylor, of combined Mohawk and Caribbean ancestry, is a major label veteran, Toronto music scene staple, and musical chameleon. His versatility as a songwriter is signature; one minute he’s onstage playing with his band spilling out electrified rhythm and blues glory, and the next he’s featured at a folk festival delivering a captivating solo singer-songwriter set. Formerly associated with the band Staggered Crossing, he has continued to record and perform as a solo artist and has released twelve studio albums since 2001.

Taylor is as explosive and captivating a live performer as you’ll ever see. He has toured the Canada and the US countless times, sharing the stage with the likes of Serena Ryder, Blue Rodeo, William Prince, AHI, Rodney Crowell, Keb’ Mo’, and has performed at the Festival d’Été de Quebec, the Mariposa Folk Festival, Ottawa BluesFest, and more. Taylor was also invited to perform at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and Vancouver.

‘One of the strongest Americana recordings we’ve heard year to date’ – Glide Magazine

‘Crisp, modern, and listenable… the folky, rootsy facets of the album feel entirely intuitive, raw, and perfectly placed… a stunning work of country-folk’ – The Bluegrass Situation

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When: 7pm on Friday 31 January 2025
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re delighted to be welcoming Emily Barker back to Manchester!

‘”Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all…’ – Emily Dickinson

The opening line of Emily Dickinson’s short poem ‘‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers’ inspired the central image of Emily Barker’s new single Feathered Thing, written while she navigated cumulative grief.

When Barker was first introduced to producer Luke Potashnick (Gabrielle Aplin, Jack Savoretti, Katie Melua) in May 2022, she brought with her a full album’s worth of songs. But after visiting Potashnick’s storied studio, The Wool Hall and hearing his ambitious production ideas, she was inspired to write one more song.

‘I also needed to process some heavy news,’ she comments. Barker and her husband Lukas Drinkwater had been trying to start a family. Following a couple of failed IVF cycles (and other ‘starts that we’d lost’), they investigated adoption and had decided to relocate to Australia to be closer to Barker’s family.

‘It felt like we couldn’t work out what we wanted, but we finally reached a point where we both felt at peace with not having kids,’ Barker recalls. ‘It had been an incredibly intense time, coinciding with a house move and the pandemic.’

And then Barker found she was pregnant. ‘We’d done all these things to try to make it happen, and then it happened naturally (and against all biological odds). Having previously navigated losses throughout our pregnancy journey, we now had to get our heads around what having this new person in our lives might look like – emotionally and practically.’

Soon after work began on the album, Barker had a miscarriage.

‘Songwriting has always been a way of processing throughout my life.’ Barker reveals how the new song came quickly as she sat at her piano at home. She shared an early version with Potashnick and remembers him politely asking, ‘Do you mind telling me what this is about?’

‘I think I’d left it too abstract, initially,’ she reflects. ‘It was difficult to open up about the miscarriage, but Luke was very supportive and encouraged me to dig a little deeper without necessarily being specific. I revisited the lyrics, and the result is much stronger.’

‘I went to the burnt-out woods/ A tourist with some damaged goods/ Remembered how the trees withstood fires before…’

‘The opening line is a metaphor for knowing that I’ll get through this,’ Barker clarifies. ‘It’s about recovery and hope, allowing yourself both the space to grieve and permission to move on’. But Barker’s optimism is never misplaced – she knows the imprint of imagined futures and lost children are carried in hearts and minds forever:

‘It’s so hard to let go, wanted to know
wanted to know you …’

‘I think that it’s important to share and normalise these stories, which are all too common, yet not openly spoken about. People hide their pain and don’t want to burden friends and family. I think behind all this anguish, there’s a deep, often untold story.’

Now that Barker is settled back in Western Australia, she’s embracing being an auntie. ‘I’ve got three younger siblings over here who I’m close to, and they all have kids,’ she enthuses. ‘I look after my brother’s kids, aged two and five, one morning a week.’

Recorded – along with the entirety of the new album – at The Wool Hall, Feathered Thing begins gently, with oscillating piano and distant drums, until the arrangement gradually transforms into an instrumental dervish of vibrant strings, bass drones and cymbal crashes. Throughout, Barker’s vocals float tantalisingly like a slipstreaming feather.

The Wool Hall is a studio in Beckington, Somerset, set up by Tears for Fears in the 1980s and used by artists including The Smiths, Pretenders, Joni Mitchell and many more.

Emily Barker is an award-winning singer-songwriter, best known as the writer and performer of the theme to the hugely successful BBC crime drama ‘Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh.

Her last album, 2020’s A Dark Murmuration of Words, was produced by Greg Freeman and recorded at StudiOwz, a converted chapel in the Welsh countryside. Lyrically probing, by turns both dark and optimistic, Barker searches for meaning through the deafening clamour of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversation, delivering a timely exploration of the grand themes of our age. It garnered widespread acclaim, with Uncut calling it ‘…a kind of Australian equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake‘.

Barker has released music and toured as a solo artist as well as with various bands and collaborations, most notably her long association with Frank Turner, and has written for TV and film, including composing the soundtrack for Jake Gavin’s lauded debut feature Hector starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen.

Fragile as Humans is scheduled for release on 3 May 2024 through Everyone Sang/Kartel Music Group. The album will also feature earlier singles: the vast, cinematic Wild to be Sharing This Moment and the meditative, crestfallen Loneliness.

Tour support comes from Liz Stringer. Liz Stringer is one of Australia’s most admired and versatile songwriters and instrumentalists. Hailing from Melbourne and recently located to London, Stringer counts seminal artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Midnight Oil (with whom she toured the world as backing vocalist and occasional instrumentalist between 2020 and 2022) as fans. Her most recent album, 2021’s First Time Really Feeling, released through Courtney Barnett’s Milk! Records, won an Australian Independent Record Award and debuted at #14 on the ARIA charts in her home country.

Stringer recorded the follow-up full-length album in Brixton, London in Summer 2023 with award-winning UK-based producer Beni Giles. Due for an early 2025 release, this record sees her lean further into her influences not yet explored in her recorded music, including soul, funk and jazz, marking a musical departure while maintaining her extraordinary storytelling at the heart of each track. Liz Stringer’s notoriously powerful live performances and melodically rich, story-based songs have earned her a unique place among the most important Australian songwriters of the modern era.

Age restriction: 14+. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

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When: 7pm on Friday 7 February 2025
Where: Low Four Studio, Deansgate Mews, Great Northern, Manchester M3 4EN

Gratis – our series of free entry shows – returns, with Sophie Jamieson, celebrating the release of her second album!

Sophie Jamieson is a London-based singer-songwriter, known for delivering uncomfortably honest songs direct to the heart. Her career began on the 2012 London new-folk scene and spans initial early success, a breakdown, a withdrawal from music for many years followed by a comeback which culminated with her debut album, Choosing, being released on Bella Union Records, 10 years after she first emerged.

Sophie’s experience of these ups and downs can be heard in her deep, raw voice which pivots from wobbling vulnerability to soaring, pent-up longing unleashed. Committed to releasing the deepest corners of her humanity on the stage in the most uncompromising way, this has not gone unnoticed over the years while she has opened for the likes of Father John Misty, Ezra Furman and Marika Hackman to name a few. Choosing received widespread critical acclaim for its candid examination of the self-destructive urge, with high praise from the likes of Uncut, Mojo and The Financial Times.

Her second LP, I still want to share, will be released on Bella Union in January 2025. A record of flourished ambition, intricate song-writing, expanded heart and deepened voice, Sophie is not slowing down in her commitment to hold nothing back, to face the ugly longings of the human race with love, curiosity and acceptance.

Special guest is Rosie Miles. Alt-folk singer-songwriter Rosie Miles is a storyteller whose soaring melodies and poetic lyrics serve as her ink and pen. ‘A gifted and charismatic songwriter’ (Tom Robinson, BBC Radio 6), inspired by Joni Mitchell, Madison Cunningham and Laura Marling, her music dances effortlessly between the worlds of indie, folk and jazz, evoking a welcome nostalgia of the 70s songwriter movement. Rosie’s deeply personal and peculiar style guarantees a night of tears, laughter and classic songwriting.

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

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

This is a free entry show! Click here to reserve your place

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When: 8pm on Thursday 13 February 2025
Where: Night & Day Cafe, 26 Oldham St, Manchester, M1 1JN

We’re delighted to be welcome Anna B Savage back to Manchester!

A sense of rootedness is at the heart of Anna B Savage’s third record You and i are Earth, a record that is as much about healing as it is an unbowed sense of curiosity, and, more simply, ‘a love letter to a man and to Ireland’.

Following on from her critically acclaimed records A Common Turn and in|FLUX, You and i are Earth manages to convey a sense of intimacy, while also being open-ended. Sounds of the sea and bright-eyed strings coax us on opening song Talk to Me, a study in tenderness, which brings us to a place of the elemental. It is a charged signifier that sets the tone, ‘I don’t think I feel nervous because of the intimacy of it,’ says Savage, ‘the thing I feel nervous about is that it is so delicate and subtle, and the attention economy has made us desire big shiny things that will whisk us away.’

Yet You and i are Earth transports differently, swept along by an abiding sense of calm, a major progression from Savage’s earlier work, ‘when I was writing the first record, it felt difficult. I wanted to make sense of something I didn’t really understand. Then with the second record I had done some therapy, and was getting to grips with myself, but my old self was still pulling me back a bit, but with this one it was quite different.’

Gentleness is as radiant a touchstone on the record as earthiness, something that Savage attributes to the place she finds herself at present, both geographically and emotionally. And quite literally the record bears witness to a particular piece of earth – Ireland, and Savage’s relationship to it as her new home.

Savage’s connection to Ireland goes back over a decade to when she studied a poetry Masters in Manchester, where both her teachers were Irish, ‘and I totally fell in love with Seamus Heaney,’ she recalls. ‘Then in 2020 I did a Masters in Music (in Dublin) and was reading essays about sean-nós singing, watching Cartoon Saloon stuff, reading about Irish mythology – I wanted to educate myself’. Since then Anna has spent much of her time on the west coast of Ireland, dipping back to her home in County Donegal between bouts of touring (this year supporting The Staves and St Vincent – having previously toured with Father John Misty and Son Lux amongst others) and trips to London for work (this year alone she has soundtracked a new Alex Lawther-directed short film Rhoda, which premieres at London Film Festival – and was part of Mike Lindsay’s Supershapes – a collaborative album and super-group led by the Tunng and LUMP producer and multi-instrumentalist).

This delicate, yet blossoming, relationship with her new home is all laid bare in her pact with the sea on Donegal, where amid skittering percussion, she asks it to ‘please look after me’, and then Mo Cheol Thú which morphs into an almost-lullaby for a person, a place, and perhaps, a hope. ‘One of the things that I was reading while I was making this record was Manchán Magan’s book 32 words for Field, and the idea that language can have an explicit connection to the land. When I am in Ireland, that sense of grounding is vast but also intimate, and sometimes it’s a bit magical and sometimes a bit scary.’

It’s fitting then, that You & i are Earth folds in some of Ireland’s brightest contemporary musicians, with Kate Ellis and Caimin Gilmore from Crash Ensemble, Cormac Dermody from Lankum and Anna Mieke contributing vocals, strings, harmonium, bouzouki, taishogoto and clarinets to the album, all tied together by producer John ‘Spud’ Murphy (Lankum, Black Midi).

A sense of reckoning underpins a compassionate piece of work, with a conflation of many strands; histories and people, and nature and human nature, with the title song You and i are Earth taking inspiration from a 17th century plate that was found in a London sewer that has inscribed that unifying sentiment. And yet the song, while epic, is also pared back and graceful, warming to something that sounds like a swirling storm of strings. The record is not trying to hide anything, but instead unfurls a vulnerability that binds, such as on the delicate I Reach for You in My Sleep with its dreamy marriage of guitar and choral flecks, and the sweetly aching The Rest of Our Lives, which really serve Savage’s magnetic, elegant voice.

That process is brilliantly rendered on Agnes, a complicated piece of work featuring Anna Mieke that turns on tropes of duality and transformation. It mirrors an unsettling experience that Savage had through meditation, which ultimately ended in an immersive, beautiful feeling, ‘I felt like I was part of the earth, completely connected to the mycelium network, I felt like I was where I was meant to be.’

In many ways, that experience framed the album’s artwork, a photograph taken in some woodlands in Co. Sligo, with Savage looking up at the trees, their fractals reflected in her eyes, mirroring something she had felt in her meditation, bringing us back full circle, and to that sense that we are essentially in unison, or at least striving to be, that ‘you and I are earth’.

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

We’re delighted to be working with C Duncan once again!

Born and raised in Glasgow by two classical musicians, Chris Duncan – aka C Duncan – studied piano and viola before taking up guitar, bass, and drums in his teens, eventually studying music composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

After graduating he began work on his first album, writing and recording everything from home. His Mercury Prize-nominated debut Architect was released in 2015 and after a spell of touring the UK and Europe he returned to his home studio and began work on his Twilight Zone-inspired second album The Midnight Sun, which was released in 2016 and shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year.

He supported Elbow on their UK and North American tour, which led him to record his third album Health at their studio in Salford with Craig Potter, which was released in 2019 and also shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year.

Chris signed to Bella Union and released his fourth album Alluvium in 2022. Following this he produced records for Scottish harpist Gillian Fleetwood, and Downton Abbey actor Michael C. Fox, as well as writing music for documentaries and orchestral commissions.

Chris’s new album It’s Only A Love Song was recorded in his ‘new and improved’ home studio and will be released in January 2025. He is also a keen artist and paints all his album artwork.

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When: 7.30pm on Friday 21 February 2025
Where: Hallé St Peter’s, 40 Blossom Street, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 6BF 

We’re delighted to welcome Dustin O’Halloran back to Manchester!

Dustin O’Halloran is an American pianist and composer with six acclaimed solo albums under his own name, and is a member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen, which has released five albums, some based on scores and soundtracks.

He previously released music with dreampop band Devics – which he co-founded with Sara Lov in his late teens before embarking on a solo career. Tracks from his debut solo album Piano Solos (2004) caught the attention of music supervisor Brian Reitzell, who shared them with Sofia Coppola to help inspire her script for Marie Antoinette. Coppola invited him to contribute music to the film, which marked his breakthrough as a film composer. These tracks were subsequently included in his second solo album Piano Solos Vol 2 (2006).

O’Halloran’s third and fourth solo albums Vorleben (2010) and Lumiere (2011) followed, with the latter being mixed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson. In 2011, he also co-founded the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen with Adam Wiltzie of Stars of the Lid, while continuing his work scoring films.

As part of A Winged Victory For The Sullen, he worked on Jalil Lespert’s film In the Shadow of Iris in 2016. This music was released as the album Iris the same year. The band’s catalogue also includes Atomos (2014), based on music composed for a dance piece by Wayne McGregor, resident choreographer for The Royal Ballet in London; The Undivided Five (2019), which was released by Ninja Tune; and their last album Invisible Cities (2021), released as a side project under their own label Artificial Pinearch Manufacturing. It contains music from the Manchester International Festival-produced live performance Invisible Cities, which the band scored in 2019.

O’Halloran signed with renowned classical music label Deutsche Grammophon in early 2019, releasing the EP Sundoor (2019), which offers a 20-minute piece entitled ‘196 Hz’, adapted from a 2017 site-specific composition for cross-disciplinary American artist Slater Bradley’s ‘Sundoor At World’s End’. His next album released by the label, Silfur (2021), revisits select songs from his catalogue, exploring time and place. In 2021, he contributed What Gently Flutters to the Deutsche Grammophon Christmas album Winter Tales, featuring Bryan Senti.

O’Halloran also produced Katy Perry’s Into Me You See on her 2017 album Witness, collaborated with Gyda Valty?sdóttir for the EP 3 Movements in 2017, and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance.

In 2019 he premiered the electronic composition 1 0 0 1 at Minneapolis’s Liquid Music Series with choreographer Fukiko Takase. It was well-received, but subsequent productions were halted by the pandemic. O’Halloran’s latest record 1 0 0 1, released on Deutsche Grammophon in March 2024, is an expansion of that composition, marking a departure from the introspective solo piano music with which he first made his name. Recorded at RRO Studios in Reykjavík, it features his collaborator Bryan Senti on violin, an eight-voice choir, Paul Corley on electronic production, and the Budapest Art Orchestra orchestrated by Roman Vinuesa, mixed by Francesco Donadello.

Tour support comes from Margaret Hermant. Margaret Hermant is a violinist, harpist and composer based in Brussels, who graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. She is a founding member of several music groups, including Echo Collective, Quatuor MP4 and BOW quintet. Her collaborations with these ensembles have involved working with a variety of renowned artists, such as Jóhann Jóhannsson, Adam Wiltzie, Dustin O’Halloran, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Stars of the Lid, Joep Beving, Christina Vantzou and Rutger Hoedemaekers. These collaborations have helped bring to life works in the Post Classical Music genre.

Age restriction: 14+. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

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