Northwest England Live Music Highlights – April 2013
From the wonky West Coast folk of Mary Epworth to the raw scorch of Hookworms – via Steve Mason's forthright bluster – April in the Northwest is a month of contrasts. Gently does it
First on our radar this month is the tremendous, blues-soaked and helmet-clad Bob Log III at The Ruby Lounge in Manchester (6 Apr) – a re-run of one of my favourite gigs of 2011. Expect (and accept!) the improbable.
Across in Liverpool the night after (7 Apr), Mary Epworth fills Leaf on Bold Street with her folk-tilted melodies, while well-matched support comes from the effortless psych-folk atmospherics of Fuzzy Lights. If you fancy something that bit more off-kilter, however – maybe something like Devendra Banhart if he’d taken a lot more acid and studied piano that bit more intently? – then head across to The Kazimier on Monday 8 April for King Charles' twisted folk leanings.
Manchester hits back with a quadruple-whammy at Gorilla (fast becoming one of the most talked-about venues in the city): first up on Wednesday 10 April is former Beta Band frontman and The Skinny's March issue cover star Steve Mason, fresh from the glowing reception of album Monkey Minds in the Devil's Time. Mason continues to leave his former life in the shade with some blistering and style-crunching releases that thrill and sparkle with innovation – and this audience-with promises to be nothing less than intense.
British Sea Power – one of the UK’s finest and most consistent bands of the past decade – follow on 11 and 12 April, before we witness a clash of old and new on Saturday 13th with noted indie up-and-comers Deadbeat Echoes supporting the launch of photographer Ian Tilton’s Stone Roses book Set in Stone.
Sandwiched in between, Worcester's new-psych luminaries Peace play Manchester Club Academy on Friday 12 April, doing their bit to further the welcome rebirth of psychedelia into the modern musical consciousness.
Heading along the M62, on Thursday 11th Merseyside has Fang Island playing The Kazimier. Dragging their indie-pop sensibilities through a hedge of filters and reverb, they provide a distorted wake-up call before King Creosote drops by the same venue on Sunday 14th. Creosote's unique and intoxicating blend of electronica and acoustic loveliness precedes an excellent conclusion to the venue's April programme in the form of Veronica Falls – touring their superb second record Waiting for Something to Happen – on Wednesday 17th.
April may be a time for sugar, spice and all things nice, but if all this sweetness and indie-pop is too much for you, you should really consider heading across to Mello Mello on Friday 19th for The Physics House Band and Ninetails' wonderfully fractured, cerebral prog leanings: blending math rock with expansive tapestries, they engage the synapses and roll heads skywards.
Providing the highlight of Manchester's month are perennial favourites The Wave Pictures playing three secret, tiny-capacity gigs across the city on 17 and 18 April. Grab tickets for the date of your choice and you'll receive an email the week of the show telling you where Dave, Franic and Jonny are gonna turn up. Elsewhere, The Leisure Society continue touring their gorgeous new album Alone Aboard the Ark by stopping off at The Deaf Institute (21 Apr), and the month spirals to a sumptuous conclusion with Low’s absorbing textures and melodies filling the awe-inspiring space of the Central Methodist Hall on Thursday 25th.
Liverpool finishes April with a wild, weird and wonderful hat-trick of gigs. Experimental art-punk legends Pere Ubu perform their impressive new Lady From Shanghai album at Eric’s on Monday 22nd while, on the same evening, Daughter showcase debut LP If You Leave (one of 2013’s choice cuts so far) in the magnificent surroundings of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. And if you need something that bit more quirky and genre-bending, Camp and Furnace plays host to Helsinki’s K-X-P on Wednesday 24 April with their blend of death-disco, post-punk and melodic rock. Genuinely not to be missed.
DO NOT MISS: Hookworms, CAMP AND FURNACE, Liverpool, 4 Apr / SOUP KITCHEN, Manchester, 5 Apr
It’s fair to say that Hookworms’ Pearl Mystic has been one of this year’s most anticipated releases among those who've caught the band live over the past couple of years. But no one was expecting the furious, skyscraping and era-defining slab of wonderment that came to our attention last month.
Combining psychedelic space-rock leanings, drone and fuzzbox textures and muscular punk ideologies into one head-exploding package, the Leeds five-piece have set a high bar for 2013 that’s hard to imagine being surpassed, even at this early stage. Their set at the first Beacons festival in 2012 was one of the live highlights of last summer, and this month they pass by Liverpool and Manchester on consecutive nights at Camp and Furnace and Soup Kitchen, respectively.
If you want to experience a truly unique band at the peak of their powers, you really don’t want to be anywhere else on these dates. Hookworms' star is in the ascendancy. [David Edwards]