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.

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.