Northwest Gig Highlights – January 2015

Looking ahead to concerts in the new year feels a bit impetuous when we’ve barely finished sifting through the streamers of the last one. Alas, time marches on, and musicians still have their bills to pay. With renewed vigour and kind thanks for the memories, then, let’s go leaping into January. After all, we’ve got some festive weight to shift.

The first man hoping to dust himself down for 2015 is BC Camplight, the alter-ego of New Jersey multi-instrumentalist Brian Christinzio (23 Jan, Gorilla). The twisty psych-pop creations of this adopted Mancunian son have an air of lost treasure about them as Christinzio released two promising albums in the mid-2000s before temporarily succumbing to personal demons. Fortunately he has resurfaced to release ‘goodbye’ album How to Die in the North, featuring a band cobbled together of musicians he met while drinking in the Castle Hotel. There’s no better time of year for reinvention, so why not turn up and give him a decent start?

Speaking of our friends at the Castle, just down the road at Band on the Wall on 19 Jan is Justin Townes Earle and his brand of nostalgic Nashville Americana. Any son of roots rock legend Steve Earle has a lot to live up to, and latest record Single Mothers (along with its forthcoming companion LP Absent Fathers) certainly shows his ambition to establish a legacy of his own with its swooning pedal steel and soulful storytelling: a relaxed evening for all concerned, then.


Oldham Street is clearly the pioneers’ place of choice in January as shifty urban rapper Ghostpoet plans to trial run some of his new nocturnal electronica in a low-key set at Gullivers (29 Jan). Also on the rap front, controversial rap-rave pairing Die Antwoord will rile up the Albert Hall on 16 Jan before the terrifically monikered Nipsey Hussle’s gangsta rap rounds off the month at Sound Control (31 Jan).

In Liverpool, and eclectic alt-rockers Peace are playing not one but two nights at the Kazimier on 15 and 16 Jan (they're also at Leeds' Brudenell Social Club on 29 Jan): the first night’s sold out unfortunately, but there’s still room for more in the second, right? The Midland four-piece’s description of their sound is, erm, ‘music to fuck you in the heart’, and with their Britpop swagger and bouncy Foals-like rhythms we suppose we'll let them have it. Some of you might have preferred the mid-90s on the other side of the Atlantic, in which case emo lads Moose Blood, who'll be at the Arts Club on 28 Jan, have the hard-hitting guitars and lyricism to help you relive that Deep Elm Records sound, albeit with Kent accents (you'll also find them at Manchester's Star & Garter on 24 Jan and Leeds' Key Club on 25 Jan).

To counter the Christmas period’s materialist rush, our penultimate recommendation surrounds Independent Venue Week, with the Zanzibar Club hosting local talent such as Sankova and Doo Dah Farm on 30 Jan. Haunting young Blackpool pianist Rae Morris does her bit at the Kazimier on 1 Feb, in what might be her breakout year – and at the same time back in Manchester, The Ruby Lounge host the Rifffest mini-festival (31 Jan – 1 Feb) with so much math rock in store that you’re going to need a calculator. And, although they’re not officially affiliated to IVW, it is Sound Control’s fifth birthday bash on 29 January, with Madchester relics Northside leading the party alongside venue favourites The Slow Readers Club and Jordan Allen.

One last note: it seems Canadian bands are making a punctual start to the year, popping to the Northwest early to make sure that we don’t forget them in a hurry. Toronto jangle pop five-piece Alvvays’ self-titled album was one of the best monuments to mid-20s romanticism in 2014, with Archie, Marry Me the standout banger. After supporting Real Estate at the Kazimier a few months ago, the Deaf Institute is the site of their first Manc headline show on 21 Jan (find them at Leeds' Brudenell Social Club on 22 Jan also). To paraphrase Limmy’s so-bad-it’s-good Get Lucky tweet, they’re the sound of the summer: check them out if you get the chance. Repping east Canada’s other indie power city of Montréal, on the other hand, we have the ever-shining Stars (13 Jan, Sound Control). Their magnum opus Set Yourself on Fire may be over a decade old now, but Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan’s moony croons are still ones of ageless beauty (geddit?). Their transition from chamber pop dramatics to discothèque dilettantes on last year’s offering No One Is Lost is an intriguing one; no doubt their heart will remain underneath all that potential day-glo. [Chris Ogden]

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DO NOT MISS:
Paperhead, The Shipping Forecast, 30 Jan

Chicago-based label Trouble in Mind probably aren't complaining about the exposure that being looped into the vaguely defined – but undeniably prominent – psych revival has given them; but to listen to artists on their roster such as Dutch troubadour Jacco Gardner, or the chiming guitar pop of Brighton-based duo Ultimate Painting, is to discover that the US imprint's strongest output is more concerned with actual songwriting chops, rather than anything to get the third eye in a boggle over.

Nashville four-piece Paperhead are another case in point. The group put out their second album Africa Avenue last autumn, a clean cut, slightly off-kilter set of three-minute songs that at times evoke an oddly English sense of pastoral mysticism to them, such as on the early ’Floyd/Barrett-esque Eye for Eye. At the heart of their writing is an effortless ability to engage with bright melodies without them becoming overly cloying – not that they don't have any number of ways to burrow into the minds of their listeners and firmly keep themselves there, as the tightly-packed 60s dandiness of Africa and Old Fashioned Kind's dreamy harmonies attest. [William Gunn]