Northwest Gig Highlights – May 2013

Do you like your music served bearded and American? If so, you're in luck, as both Matthew Houck and Sam Beam, better known as Phosphorescent and Iron & Wine respectively, grace Manchester this month as part of very fleeting UK visits – the former coming to The Ruby Lounge (7 May), and the latter paying a visit to the Opera House on the 30th. Don’t miss either opportunity to enjoy these rare troubadours' haunting, rustic melancholia.

While more than 400 bands decamp to Liverpool's Sound City, each to be enjoyed for less than the price of a Freddo (2-4 May), the other end of the M62 flexes its own magnetic properties on the 5th, attracting names from home and abroad to Salford's Sounds from the Other City (SFTOC). Uniting the cream of the local scene with national newbies and international cult figures are a host of Salford/Manchester promoters we love to love. With stages hosted by Now Wave, Comfortable on a Tightrope, Underachievers Please Try Harder, Hey! Manchester and more – and featuring acts as diverse as Parenthetical Girls, Daedelus and Divorce – the ninth year of SFTOC provides another top bank holiday destination.

From a crop of fresh-faced newbies to a true Northwest veteran: on 10 May, Liverpool's new East Village Arts Club plays host to Mark E. Smith and the latest incarnation of The Fall that he hasn’t managed to piss off yet. Famously branded “always different, always the same” by John Peel, the band and their abrasive abstraction need little introduction – and there's equally little chance that Smith’s sharp-fanged miserabilia will have been blunted by the years. At the opposite end of the spectrum, playing The Kazimier on the 7th are Yoni Wolf's brainchild Why? – on paper, their concoction of folk, indie and hip-hop probably shouldn’t work, but it’s an intersection they’ve mined successfully for nearly a decade, wriggling at every turn to prove themselves exhaustingly unclassifiable, and all the better for it.

A curveball from Siouxsie and the Banshees founding member Steven Severin takes May's prize for most leftfield gig. Despite the London punks' resilient afterlife, their final demise in 2002 pushed Severin towards his current occupation as soundtrack composer (among other things) – and on 10 May, he takes up residence in a building celebrating another distinct voice, Manchester's International Anthony Burgess Foundation, introducing it to his electronic score for chilling film noir The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Hailed as one of the very first horror films, the German silent revolves around the sinister hypnotist of the title, who is suspected of using the somnambulist headliner of his travelling carnival show, Cesare, as a murdering accomplice. And it seems there’s an atmosphere of foreboding everywhere, with Montreal's twisted SUUNS and their doomy, propulsive post-punk heading to Liverpool’s Kazimier on the 17th.

Ex-cotton factory Islington Mill continues to establish itself at the centre of Manchester and Salford's margins – see what we did there – with a series of top bookings this month. Kicking things into action with their synthesised vulnerability are Vondelpark (9 May). In support are B L O O M, who've been recently recruited to nearby anti-establishment label/self-proclaimed 'cultural regenerator' SWAYS, and Yes Blythe. Following on 16 May is the subversive Mykki Blanco, whose wilful transgression of social and musical norms promises something thrilling: prepare to have your preconceptions of hip-hop identity swung dramatically to the right side of wrong. Last but by no means least comes Molly Nilsson, with her shimmering, quietly anthemic twist on Scandinavian pop and support from Die Hexen (24 May).

Manchester's big-time alternative promoters Now Wave bring their “celebration of the best record label around” to The Roadhouse and The Deaf Institute with an unofficial Captured Tracks 'season.' Between Beach Fossils on 15 May (Roadhouse), Mac DeMarco on the 17th (Roadhouse), and Widowspeak on the 19th (Deaf Institute), we're offered three of the Brooklyn label's distinct spins on dense, warm nostalgia. (DeMarco also plays East Village Arts Club, Liverpool, 24 May, as do Widowspeak, on the 23rd.) And as the best things come in threes, Underachievers Please Try Harder and Hey! Manchester have teamed up to bring us a visceral triple-header of Fucked Up, Titus Andronicus and Metz at Sound Control, Manchester, on the 29 May.

The month in Manchester comes to a close with two icons of a very different nature. On 23 May, the reclusive Phil Elverum heads to Soup Kitchen with the dark hymnals of his lo-fi Mount Eerie project – while Nile Rodgers takes a break from slaying the internet with new buddies Daft Punk and hits The Ritz with his recently reformed disco outfit Chic (29 May). What better way to wave in the summer than with a joint-loosening 'freak-out' alongside its original pioneers?

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DO NOT MISS:

How To Dress Well, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 15 May / Leaf, Liverpool, 20 May
Over the course of last year’s rightfully acclaimed Total Loss LP, Tom Krell – better known as How To Dress Well – rendered himself in such vivid detail and stark intimacy that his songs felt more like minimal self portraits than just 'tracks.' It's apt, then, that his Manchester appearance on 15 May sees him surrounded by actual artwork – as he performs to an all-seated audience against the backdrop of the Whitworth Art Gallery's collections. This inspired choice of environment will surely only intensify the emotional punch of Krell's ethereal R‘n’B, honest introspection and quivering vocal. His Liverpool date at tea-spot Leaf the following week comes equally highly recommended.

Drawing from a patchwork of influences and touching base with acts as diverse as Prince and Bon Iver, Krell’s music feels borne of a dark place, but is often cathartic in its harnessing of the creative drive that negative space can provide. Of all the individuals gracing the Northwest this month, Krell is neither the most eccentric nor the most established – but he's an artist with whom you can't fail to be enamoured. [Sam Briggs]