Work Them returns... again

First thing's first... A massive thankyou to all of you who made it down to the bowels (not bowls) of Soup last weekend for the first edition of Work Them 'by night' in quite a while. Any by all of you, I do really mean all of you, as we had a total sell out event on our hands. So as well as a big thanks to everyone who kept dancing until the end, and for not making a single shite request along the way, a big apology to anybody who couldn't make it in. Fortunately, you'll have another chance, but you'll need to move quick sharp. Work Them returns on Saturday October 13th to Soup Kitchen once more, for another throwdown of full bodied alternative and electronic music for the body and mind, but be warned, this is no victory lap. We've got plenty more where that came from - more grooves, more fuzz, more weird stuff, more liberal use of the strobe light and smoke machine. No fuss, no muss, so see you down there? It's just £4 in before midnight, and only £5 after. This event follows on directly from Now Wave's PINS headline show, so come find us and we'll see if we can cut you a deal should you want to stick around.

You can find the poster below - click for the Facebook event - and then scroll for a quick video playlist of some choice tunes that those in attendance appeared to enjoy. For a more comprehensive, but hopefully not too conclusive idea of that Work Them sound, drop by our Mixcloud for a history of streaming live mixes. There's more of them to come too, as well as a few other features and interviews.

Work Them at Soup Kitchen

As promised, Work Them returns this month to a brand new venue that'll really allow us to take it up a gear, down in the basement of Soup Kitchen. If you've never had the chance to visit, you're in for a great party. And we don't use the term party lightly. It's the perfect setting for five hours of weird and wonderful body music with minimal but effective disco lights, dubious enclaves and chatty communal unisex toilets. Oh, and a great soundsystem and a typically up for it crowd. Just in case communal toilets aren't enough to convince you to part with £4*. That's right, less than a premium jacket potato in many of the UK's top chain retailers. Ladies and gentlemen, this is hype.
 

Credit to Natalie Dunning for our crisp poster, as well as all our other artwork.

To celebrate, and also because it just seems like the sensible thing for a still relatively fresh club night, we've produced an hour of music mixed and mastered to give you an idea of jus what to expect down there. Entitled Work Them's Somewhat Esssential Mix #2 and is the sequel to last year's mix, stil available on our own Mixcloud archive. Held together with a more four the floor style reflective of what to expect now we found ourselves below ground level (where things get deep, yo), you'll still find an eclectic hour of music covering a wide range of edits of artists and producers from Zomby to Kate Bush, Nicolas Jaar to Bob Sinclair, some chopped up, beefed out or rearranged, some nestling comfortably in their original form. Listening atmosphere suggestions include a Metrolink at sunset without a ticket, a hungover shower or with a girl you want to impress. If you suspect she may be impressed by Andrew Weatherall remixes, therefore rendering her a keeper.

Work Them presents... Somewhat Essential Mix #2 by Workthem on Mixcloud

 The mix is also available as a free download with a quick visit to our Facebook event page here, which contains everything you need to know, but, in short...

WORK THEM

SATURDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER

10:30PM - 3:30AM

£4 BEFORE MIDNIGHT/£5 AFTER

GET OUT THE HOUSE MUSIC ALL NIGHT LONG.

 

 

Afternoon Delight & Summer Mixtape

Hello, nice catching up. It's all been a bit quiet on the blog front as of late, but fear not, the Work Them cogs are turning and things are coming together. A few of said things, we're pleased to be able to tell you about right now.

Currently, we're going to ride out the drizzly dusk of Manchester's summer scene and come back with more proper parties in September, which will incorporate guest DJs, a few live acts and the same sound but different as usual. In the meantime, to keep us alive in hearts and minds, we're making our presence felt in various bars and basements for the meantime.

First of all, we're pleased to announce that Work Them's director of sonics and flyer-size, John Thorp, will be undertaking a new residency on the last Saturday of each month at the ubiquitous Deaf Institute, between the Aquatics centre and the kebab shops of Manchester's contrived Southern Quarter. From 3PM to 9PM, expect a set that transitions fluidly from an afternoon laze around to a pre-night out drink-up, taking in ambient electronica, psychedelic edits, warped hip-hop, laid back disco and hypnotic shoegaze. Given that we've six hours to fill, we'll also be inviting down some very special guests over the coming months, often taking the advantage of the daylight streaming in to play the sort of music you might not expect...

As well as the speaker output, The Deaf Institute (AKA, 'The Deaf', AKA, 'The Deafy', AKA, 'The Wes Institute'), will be serving it's fine selection of craft ales and impressive cocktails, to match the mood. Also encouraged are zines, mixtape swaps, crafts, t-shirt printing and readings. This gives us a broad remit, so if any of you have any ideas of something matching but beyond the musical realm to match, do get in touch. After all, this is your event. Actually, no, it's ours, but there's no better company than like minded souls.

We'll be compiling an accompanying Spotify playlist for the event to enjot at your leisure, and whilst our edition is not for a month or so at the time of writing, the series launches with our pals Dr. Me this Saturday the 7th July, whose are fine designers and DJs to boot.

Meanwhile, we've a summer tinged mix to download and stream over at Mixcloud here. We've previously been advocates of Soundcloud, but they didn't seem to want this one as apparently the new Major Lazer track featured, and is particularly copyright protected. This is particularly stupid as not only did I customarily lay some wonky electro-jazz chords over the end of it anyway, but it was a free giveaway. I tell you kids, it wasn't like this back with Freeserve. Anyway, do enjoy it, and some of our favourite tracks this year from the likes of Slow Magic, Romare and Trevino.

Natural nger at Diplo notwithstanding, we've some great stuff planned, so thanks for your time, see you for some Afternoon Delight. x

Sounds From The Other City & April Mixtape

After a brief hiatus, Work Them returns to host an Islington Mill afterparty for Sounds From The Other City, taking you through until the early hours after a day of fantastic new music, and featuring a line up of DJs as fresh and eclectic as the festival itself. Admission is free with a Sounds From The Other City wristband, which allows you access to our little soiree as well as a record eleven other stages across the river in Salford, brought you by promoters such as Underachievers, Mind On Fire, Trash-O-Rama and more! 

Acts Include But Are Not Limited To!

• Walls
• Dam Mantle
• Loney Dear
• Keep Shelley In Athens
• This Many Boyfriends
• Molly Nillson
• Patterns
• Islet
• 100% Beefcock!!!

It’s like the most sonically enlightening pub crawl you’ve ever been on. The event has sold out in the past, so act fast!

First off, we’re very excited to welcome the 100% silky queen of modern weirdo pscyh disco, Miss Maria Minerva, upstairs at t'Mill for a DJ set after she’s finished off the Now Wave stage downstairs. One of the most unpredictable and individual new artists working in alternative/dance/experimental/lo-fi/whatever music today, and she’ll be bringing a stack of records focused on pure groove. Creator of some real, “What’s This?!” on rotation at Work Them, check out her excellent FACT mix - the appropriately subtitled ‘Living in Ecstasy’ for an idea of what to expect from Miss MM.

Deeper, darker, heavier and weirder more, we’re also joined for the latter part of the party by creature of the night and one of Manchester’s finest producers, The Countach. Once promising ‘an original techno anthem to inspire the troops’, in the meantime, The Count has expertly crafted some of the most memorable techno of recent times, with tracks such as ‘Melvin Never Made It’, and several strange and wonderful edits for the likes of Abba and Queen. Probably uncommissioned, we must admit. As well as this, he also runs Fallowfield’s extra sweaty Countach Club, a sort of Friday night community rave project that has lured some great guests. Whilst only a glimpse into his untame musical mind, here’s a recent ‘5 Songs You Must Hear This Week’ as requested by paid-up Countach fanboy Erol Alkan to get you started...

Victories at Sea are one of the most potentially powerful new bands in the UK, a Birmingham cross breed between Factory Floor and New Order, presenting their full throttle live show earlier on in the day over at Underachievers stage, save them travelling back down the M6 on a Bank Holiday, they’ll be sticking around to play some tunes and be merry with us. We’ll be honest, we anticipate tunes that sound a bit like Factory Floor or New Order, but they could be big Rick Ross enthusiasts for all we know.

In between our special guests, we’ll be keeping it going with our usual mix of tunes for the booty shakers and the beard strokers, from dubbed out disco, weirdo indie classics, charismatic techno to oddball house and pop. Who knows what to expect in our ongoing quest to establish the link between Edywn Collins and Flying Lotus, but boy, you’d better get set for cowbells!

As promised you can reacquaint yourself with our style and pizazz, with this April’s Work Them mixtape, a downloadable one hour odyssey through our worthy flavours of the month, including tracks from Chromatics, Burial, New Build, Midland and more... Our last mixtape had over 500 listens, so thanks for the support, and we hope to see you at the Mill. Pace yourselves... x

www.soundsfromtheothercity.com

On Decks - Kindness & James Blake.

Hello there, hope you're well.

First of all, a big thanks to everyone that made it down to see Halls great debut Manchester show last Friday. A totally promising young band in possession of both atmosphere and pulse, and we look forward to seeing them back in Manchester soon.

After a couple of months collaborating with live bands, we'll be returning to a more traditional clubnight for a cool party this Easter, but we've still copped two very special local guests to add some flavour, both rooted in our ethos of cutting edge leftfield and electronic music, although you can expect a fair few uncovered gems too if we may so ourselves... details to follow very shortly.

In the meantime, we're happy to annouce we're going to be administering audio hits for our pals at Now Wave a few times soon. First of all, we're very pleased to be an addition to a bill for a very special clubnight in June, featuring James Blake collaborating with astounding Roll Deep MC Trim, for a special set of his Harmonix productions,. In support is a live set from the tremendously underrated Hyetal, whose debut album from last year, Broadcast, was frequently a thing of real beauty. Also featured is Riz MC, rapper/MC/producer/actor/comedian, best known for his role as Omar in Chris Morris's Four Lions, but also one of the original founders of co-promoters Hit and Run. Please, no "Rubber dinghy rapids" business. All the details, the full line up and a selection of very reasonably priced earlybird tickets are available right here. Be warned the limit to these, is equal, if not lesser than that of Jimmy B's love.

Before that, and in fact, this Thursday, we're delighted to be warming up at another Now Wave joint, the debut Manchester show by the engimatic dubby disco pop king to be, Kindness. His new album 'World, You Need A Change Of Mind', has been soundtracking late evenings and Sunday afternoons for us for a while now, and lead single Cyan (see below) has yet to miss out on an airing at the club. On the night, we'll be bringing a suitable selection of disco, psych and pop to get you in the mood. The Now Wave blog features a preview from yours truly, as well as a stream of the album.


"... What Kindness does best, is create warm, encompassing pop music. Mastered in the studio by Phillippe Zdar (last responsible, of course, for Phoenix’s exempelary Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix) it’s an odd but reassuring tapestry of ideas. With Zdar at the helm, and support from a range of dance music alumni, ‘World…’ may feel like a throwback album, but it’s certainly an idiosyncratic and very current one at that...."

Tickets for the show, in the wonderful basement of Soup Kitchen, are priced just £6 and all the details are here. Get down early to catch us and support act, Modern Blonde.

That's it for now. Don't forget to like our Facebook page to find out what we've got on offer over the coming months. We're excited and hope you will be too.

Work Them Chart Mixtape - March 2012

Our new mixtape for March 2012 features the toast of what's been entertaining our collective ears lately, and what to expect from the night itself. Following a 45 minute trail of alternative dance and weirdo indie, expect contributions from Todd Terje with the irresistible 'Inspector Norse', Errors euphoric post-rock on 'Pleasure Palaces', and future-thinking hip hop from the likes of Lapalux and Evian Christ. There's also an accidental Whitney Houston tribute guaranteed to tear up anybody's sad Aunt. The mix is downloadable for a limited time, and available on our Soundcloud below, and soon at our dedicated Mixcloud account, which is also a permanent home all of our previous mixes.

We hope you enjoy it.




The next edition of Work Them takes place on March 9th, at Kraak Gallery off Stevenson Square, and features a live performance from Halls one of the best new alternative electronic bands in the UK. Their recent EP, 'Fragile' has been gaining plaudits from critics and new music lovers all over, and we're delighted to bring their full live performance to Manchester. Support comes from a DJ set by co-promoters for the evening, Grey Lantern, and after the band, we'll be keeping it going until Kraak gives up the ghost for tne night,. What to expect? A mind expanding and pulse racing mix of everything from shoegaze and psych to future thinking electronica, all dashed with leftfield pop and club classics for the beard strokers, the booty shakers and the awkward ravers.

For full details and tickets for just £4 in advance, register at the Facebook event. We hope to see you at the show and on the floor.

Also, producers, bands, and so forth... We're always looking for exciting new tracks and releases, for our chart mixes, live bookings, and some sort of potential beyond. If you're reckon you've got something we might like, email it over to workthemclub at g mail dot com. But of course, we never really want to know just what we like...

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.