Halls - 9th March, Kraak Gallery

Hello, and a big thanks to everyone who made it down to our show with patten earlier this month. It was a truly exciting set of live electronic music, and anyone that missed it can still catch both audio and video recordings of his show in the Boiler Room archive. Since his appearance at Work Them, patten has also announced a new label, Kaleidoscope, which has begun with a release from a London duo, Sculpture. The track, Slime Code, matches their label boss' interest in strange and hypnotic sounds that unravel slowly. Released on tape and now unfortunately sold out, there's a limited download release available for free here, and the suitably unusual visual accompaniement can be found below to get your head around.

Looking forward, our next Work Them show and accompanying clubnight will take place on March 9th, at Kraak Gallery as usual, when in accompaniment with our pals Grey Lantern, we'll be playing host to London's Halls. Originally a one-man production project, and now expanded into a live band, Halls have been on our playlists and such since we first encountered them last autumn, although the project is two years in. The recently released 'Fragile' EP is easily his best work, much of which is available on a well stocked Bandcamp page. Affecting and enigmatic electronica with a real pulse, Halls recalls Work Them favourites such as Mount Kimbie, Radiohead and Gold Panda (whom he has also remixed), and we're expecting a brilliant debut live set before a night of dancing to some of the best alternative and electronic music of this moment and those gone. Find the superb 'I Am Not Who You Want' attached below.

Tickets are available now from WeGotTickets for just £4, and will be more on the door. Full details are available on the Facebook event.

Also look out for a new run of Work Them flyers and posters around town, and perhaps upon seeing one, point it out towards a friend and say, "Hey, you, that looks good." Ta.

In potentially unfortunate news, all of us at Work Them were pretty upset to hear that Legends on Whitworth Street could be closing to make room for another (theoretical) hotel to be constructed by the Olympian Group. An alternative club on the fringe of the gay village, it is in possession of a unique style and layout (half glittering cabaret, half shameless rave) and an attitude to match, as well as friendly staff, an open minded crowd and a dedication to strengthening Manchester's LBGT scene and reputation, rather than capitalising on it. It's spawned nights like Bollox, and our favourite, if not unfortunate date-clash rival, Homoelectric. There are some of the best alternative clubbing experiences in the UK, run by people who each give more of a shit than a collective concierge of Workfare customer service staff in a drab business hotel ever could. In order to keep people drinking, dancing, making friends and engaging in safe filth not to be replaced instead by pay-per-view pornography channels, please take the time to sign this petition. Although perhaps it's best not to repeat all of that logic in the process.

Apart from that small request, all we ask is you stay tuned to the blog and our Facebook for more news of gigs, DJ sets as well as our own musical reccomendations, including a forthcoming monthly Top 10 of fresh records. You can still catch up on our mixtapes over on Mixcloud, to get a flavour of what we're about.

Work Them with patten (Live) this weekend at Kraak

The sophomore edition of Work Them is finally upon us. Friday February 3rd sees London's enigmatic patten grace Kraak Gallery with his thrilling live show, accompanied by Work Them DJs playing a multi-genre mix squarely aimed at keeping you moving. If you're coming to Now Wave and WotGodForgot's Still Corners show in the venue, beforehand, there'll be discounted admission on the door. Otherwise, it's £5 on the door or just £4 in advance from WeGotTickets. We'll have your name on the door.

To get you in the mood, we recorded a special 30 minute mix for our pals at The Pigeon Post, which you can hear right here, as well as a few words on patten from the pigeon himself.

We hope to see you there and to party late. x

Sounds From The Other All Over

We're delighted to let you know that both Work Them mixtapes so far are now compiled for infinite streaming over on Mixcloud, where they even come complete with tracklisting as standard, plus a full catalogue of all the labels they feature on, which we hope at least a few of you will appreciate and find useful. It's really important to ensure you buy records after because DJs on the internet have told you to do so having obtained them through more dubious means. They didn't close down Wikipedia for nothing.

It is 2 weeks now until the next Work Them featuring London's mind-boggling and enigmatic young master of experimental electronica, patten. Look out for flyers over the next few weeks, or visit the Facebook event page and let us know you're coming, which you most definitely are, right? Tickets are available in advance for £4, which is just 80 pence per quality hour of music.

Speaking of music, that's what we're all about, lest you forget admist other waffle - and we've been doing our fair share of that too. For example, here's a little interview we did for Sounds From The Other City, which we're extremely pleased to be a part of this year. We've more details to follow, but the ticket and line up launch party for the event, which typically combines the best of both a Salford bar crawl and a new music festival, is this Tuesday 24th January, at Deansgate's cosy Gaslamp. And we'll be there, spinning records, as well as the opportunity to buy limited earlybird tickets at just £14.

We've also got a few bookings of our own, live and behind the decks, that we're very excited about over the coming months, but in the meantime, here's some new records you can expect to hear at Kraak on February 3rd.

Hans Peter Lindstrom has returned with his latest LP, the curiously titled 'Six Cups of Rebel'. Best known for his chugging disco remixes, his new, and somewhat gloriously unfashionable new work, deals more than ever in psych and prog but is nonetheless full of his usual disco shimmer. Check out one of the several highlights above.

Many Matthe Dear fan shed a silent, but dicussion forum extolled tear when Matthew Dear began to leave behind the likes of Audion to indulge his experimental pop and dance sensibilities, as heard on 2010's superlative 'Black City'. So God knows what they'd make of this new collaboration from the new Headcage EP on his own Ghostly Records, and a taster for the full LP follow up, featuring Jonny Pierce of Smiths inspired/contrived indie pop lads The Drums. Whilst no fans here at Work Them Towers, Pierce's voice is perfect on this 3.5 minute slice of looped hip-pop, which retains the atmosphere and perfect rhythm that Dear has become best known for. More please.

Like our old pal Maria Minerva, DIY songstress Molly Nillson creates melancholy, witty dance pop, ambient and disco that are a gift for a warm up DJ or those after a night out in. Her fourth album, 'History' is out now, and is highly recommended if you enjoy the above. If you get round to listening to those first three albums from Sweden before we do, let us know what to check out.

Seasonal Affective Disco - #1

 Work Them's series of mixtapes returns with our first ever Seasonal Affective Disco. Perhaps a little more subdued than our clubbier effort, this hour of music new and old is still designed to satisfy tapping toes as well as any general sense of melancholy. Call it night bus, night in or nice night out, SAD encompasses ambient, electronica, proper indie and disco - featuring music from Burial, Beach House, Joe Goddard, Seahawks and more.


 The new mixtape is available below, and embedded at the side of the blog for easy access comparable to that of a walk-in bath. Downloads are available around the top left of the player, and we hope you enjoy the mix.


Work Them - Seasonal Affective Disco #1 by Work Them

 Don't forget, ar from hibernating until Spring however, Work Them will be back in it's body warming club night mode on Friday February 3rd, at our anything goes den down the alley, Kraak Gallery. As well as us DJs, the night will see the debut live performance in Manchester from London's patten, who hides one of the most exciting and experimental minds in electronic music behind his lower cases. His album GLAQJO XAACSS was one of the underground highlights of last year, earning plaudits from the likes of FACT Mag and The Line Of Best Fit, who both placed it high on their end of year lists.

 Tickets, priced just £4 in advance are available from WeGotTickets now http://www.wegottickets.com/event/148260

 Keep your eyes out over the next few weeks for more astute musical recommendations from all over, accompanying witterings and a review of what happened when we enjoyed/endured the final 17 hours of Warehouse Project. Will I finally confront Store Street car park owners with receipts for four pairs of ruined Converse, will we have an epiphany in that weird void near the toilets and we conclusively reveal how many spinbacks it will take for the back room to get sweaty enough to develop a minor strain of malaria.

Patten LIVE at Work Them

Hello there, hope you're well and haven't had your annual listen to The Waitresses' 'Christmas Wrapping' too early, meaning you'll only have walnut whips, Babycham and hard, ill advised acid to reignite your soul by Christmas Eve.


Anyway, all's well at our end. In fact, we're ready to announce the first of several artists we have lined up to compliment our usual clubnight bizznezz, namely Patten. Having released one of the most promising, distinctive and diverse albums of the past 12 months in the shape of GLAQJO XAACSSO on No Pain in Pop, we're very pleased to bring Patten to Kraak Gallery for his debut live show in Manchester. And we hope to see you there, and then, the then being 3rd February.


A one man force of experimental, but fluid electronica Patten's music is both blissful and baffling, recalling such broad influences as Broadcast and Aphex Twin - jittering, unpredictable beats layered above striking shoegaze guitar work. Matching his recorded output, Patten's live show is a raw blend both digital and analogue influences, as anyone who saw him earlier this year on Boiler Room will surely attest.


Full ticket details, artwork and so on are to follow later this month, but for now, check out Patten's stunning and eclectic FACT mix for a 40 minute preview covering his influences and favourite records, each chopped up and compressed into his distinctive style.

We're also working on a new mixtape which will be arriving within a few weeks, which means our original Somewhat Essential Mix will be disappearing for a while. Mixing up everything you can expect from Work Them, (and at 90 minutes, happilly, less) it's still available to stream and download from our Souncloud, and perfect complimentary audio fodder for the sort of seasonal social occasion that you apparently have agreed to have at your house. Why offer a party favour, when you can give the gift of exciting background music?

Work Them Roundup

 A huge thank you to everyone that made it down to the debut Work Them last week at Kraak, we had a brilliant time - got to play loads of good records, you danced to them, can still afford to get our parents something or other for Christmas, jobs a goodun'. Also a big thanks to Dan Nolan and Citylife for our feature in the MEN, which dealt with our personal inspiration for the night/where and who we steal all our ideas from. You can still read that here, if you missed it and are interested.

 We'll be back in February to begin what we hope will be a regular run of 'Work Thems' ("a gaggle of Work Thems") over at Kraak, as well as a possible event of the record playing kind in the party void known as January. Upon our return, we also hope to present a small but golden selection of special guests to reflect our ethos, which we're currently working on, as well as a new mixtape... Anyway, enough cryptic hyperbole, we'll be posting plenty of interesting and fresh music here in the meantime.

 Maria Minerva's A Love So Strong, remixed here by Not Not Fun label boss Ital, proved to be the surprise hit of the night around 2AM last week. Starting off slowly, a good portion of the crowd soon found themselves lost in Minerva's beckoning vocals and hail of chimes, even going for the weird old bit towards the end when the track sounds as if it's reversing in on itself. On later and more sober listens, it becomes clear that this happens a few times throughout, and offers a good example of why the lo-fi dance music of Maria Minerva, Peaking Lights, Grimes and so on has seemed so fresh this year, offering real groove and heart, and still finding time to willfully muck about with conventions.

 Like we said, while our 'Ethos' is a loosely defined, work in progress, we do know what we like; and Tearjerker, a three piece from Toronto, we certainly like. A Bandcamp wild card find, with little information available, Tearjerker describe themselves, in rather meta fashion, as follows;

 'Tearjerker plays music that has been described by various people as indie rock, shoegaze, chillwave, glo-fi/lo-fi and other subgenres that Tearjerker hadn’t really heard of before.'

  'Strangers', a gently touching, almost shoegaze record is the one caught my attention, and something I had on heavy rotation this time last year. It holds off on the fuzziness just enough for you to appreciate the record for what it is, a creepingly melancholic, electronic tinged haze fest. The fuzziness itself, produced by a wonderfully warm and almost droning bass playing with the snare, is one of my favourite aspects of this record; it feeds through the album, leaving you almost enveloped in, well, any other word that equates to 'vibes'.

 In May this year, Tearjerker released a 'self re edit' of Strangers. Track for track re recorded, and slightly tweaked, the result was a lighter, but not necessarily polished version of an already gorgeous record. It retained the fuzziness, but had more clarity, and a generally more airy feel (there's no way I could say 'airy air'), picking up on the track 'Wave' and carrying on. It's interesting that on the two records, different songs stand out more. In my opinion, 'Wave' and 'Downtown' are the stand outs on Strangers, while on Strangers Remade it's 'Slip Away Remake' and 'Best Remake', that I love the most. Possibly something to do with the flipping in tone, they almost turn the lighter heavier, and vice versa with these tracks. That's not to say the original Strangers is 'dark' or 'heavy', it's just a more 'hazy', yet equally layered counterpart. Essentially it comes down to release dates, 'Strangers Remade' is the Summer version of 'Strangers', both wonderful and haunting records, yet without excessive melancholia, it's almost like we have a AW10/11 and SS11 collection of shoegaze, chillwave, glo-fi/lo-fi and other subgenres that Tearjerker hadn't really heard of before, but probably won't stop hearing about from now on.