In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Drowned In Sound were saddened to hear rumours of Truck Festival may be going bankrupt. Truck joins a line of more distinguished names to not sell out in what’s been a hit and miss year for festivals including Hop Farm, Latitude and Oxegen. But, DiS scribe and festival lover Simon Jay Catling claims, festivals are still a rich part of our country’s summer, and to help argue his point he thought he’d ask three festival organisers – Simon Taffe from the consistently sold out End Of The Road, Rob Challice from the Drowned In Sound-involved Summer Sundae, and a first time director in Cloud 9’s Hannah Cox – to offer their own thoughts on the matter»
News
by Simon Jay Catling
Drowned In Sound gets about these days, curating at Summer Sundae, The Great Escape, Liverpool Soundcity and, of course, our regular shows in Sheffield. However we’ve not been found loitering around Manchester since last Autumn when Health left our ears a»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
The arrival of a new White Hills record plunges psychedelia's rotating axis firmly into the darkness.»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
The seventh installment of our local scene guide from our DiS scribe in Manchester...»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
For all the bluster, the smoke and mirrors and marketing ploys, this much-anticipated debut LP is in fact far duller than the fiction created about its creators.»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Team Drowned in Sound went to Future Everything and here's what we thought.»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
A step apart from the rest of the festivals that usually dominate Manchester during the month of May, FutureEverything returns to Manchester this week promising another week of forward thinking debate, discussions and demonstrations into technological innovations in art and music as well as commissioned multimedia projects and artworks.»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
It is still possible to advance on templates built on simple foundations of guitar, bass and drums, and And So I Watch You From Afar have proved this brilliantly.»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
Dark Dark Dark couldn’t be moving more resolutely towards the light.»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
John Robertson’s gently burring baritone sadly fails to match the sweepingly pixelated panorama of his own creations. »
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
Buffalo is a success, a clear and cohesive progression from a band who, despite their more reflective approach, haven’t lost the exuberance that so endeared them last time out. »
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
To describe Manchester at the end of 2010 is to describe a very different place to the city I pitched up in back in 2006. Upon my giddy undergraduate arrival I found a music community not exactly dormant, but certainly feeling the pinch placed on it by th»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
There have always been and always will be Manchester bands who don’t care a jot about their supposed musical lineage, and at the moment Trojan Horse are among the best of the crop.»
News
by Simon Jay Catling
Sometime advertising ubiquity and Hollyoaks soundtracker but most-of-the-time criminally underrated solo artist Martin Grech has finally announced a return-of-sorts after a three year absence, hooray says us!
A prodigious talent, the half-Maltese/English»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
Thanks to it occurring on the same day as the country’s biggest spending cuts since World War II, there’s a grimly delicious sense»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
An event that brings together people from all walks of the music industry, as part of our In The City preview we thought it’d be fascinating to collect the thoughts and memories of those who’d been involved in it in various strands.»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Home presence has always been strong at In The City, previous bills acting as an accurate document of Manchester’s musical movements - for better or for worse. This year however sees local talent proving as exciting a draw as any on the bill, with all aspects of the city’s diverse and complex aural tapestry represented in the line-up, and in many cases showcasing for some of the region’s most committed DIY promoters. We’ll come to the latter further down the page but, first, new Drowned In Sound scribe David Edwards and I caught up with two of the local crop who, perhaps more than the others, are likely to make their presence felt this week. Brown Brogues and D/R/U/G/S are playing some six gigs between them over the three days, including a slot on In The City’s traditional ‘Unsigned’ section of the bill - the festival’s attempt at highlighting who they rate as the finest unsigned acts in the country. »
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Our Drowned in Manchester columnist kicks off a day dedicated to In the City...»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
And so as Manchester lurches into Autumn 2010, all bronzed up (well, those that left the country anyway) and raring to go for one of the busiest gigging season’s yet witnessed in this North West corner of the country, there’s firstly the rather pressing m»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
With I, Vigilante, Crippled Black Phoenix have made an album that at one can be traced back linearly to its influences and yet stand out gloriously from all around it.»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
Light Pollution pick from a range of influences and don’t really know what to do with them.»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
Considered as an album, Factory Records 1987 is unsurprisingly hit and miss, but as an honest document of one year in the life of one of the UK’s more important record labels, it’s fascinating - and a far more fulfilling retrospective of Factory Records and Madchester than watching a haggard looking Mani DJ down Factory HQ on a Wednesday night. »
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Glastonbury Part 4: Sunday
Simon Jay Catling: Well, well, well…christ I'm knackered. Revelling in the sun is Hard Work. Your heart bleeds I’m sure. Anyway, the last proper morning with Team Hospitality becomes eminently more comfortable when most of them»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Glastonbury Part 3: Saturday
Much like Gorillaz', my Friday night was a bit of a squib, passed out as I was by 2am, feet poking out my tent. The weather’s playing hardball today and some acts are preferred by dint of them playing in the shade - look read»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Glastonbury Part 2: Friday
Wherein me and Sean Thomas, despite in no way making contact throughout the weekend, act like we totally did, and bring you a collaborative effort…
Read Part One of our Glastonbury content here.
Simon Jay Catling:
Friday »
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Glastonbury Festival Part 1: Thursday
A fistful of printed out sheets, carefully worked out timetables and best laid plans become irrelevant before I’ve even set foot upon Glastonbury Festival turf; as my lift share companion drives over the crest of a h»
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
Welcome to the third installment in our guide to local scenes from our local scribe in Manchester...
Festivals
May and June have been ridiculous. Sounds From The Other City, MAPS, FutureEverything, Eurocultured, Hungry Pigeon, Dot To Dot, Platt Fields»
Review
by Simon Jay Catling
The Delays are trying to move forward, they just never seem to quite know how.»
News
by Simon Jay Catling
As DiS’s own Michael Dawson, thanks to my relatively late call-up to cover Glastonbury, there’s been no small amount of last-gasp poring over flipcharts, GANTT graphs, reading tea leaves, throwing bones etc. etc. as I try and deduct who the chuff I’m going to see over the festival’s duration. Plus, as it’s my first time, all of Wednesday and probably Thursday (and maybe even some of Friday) will most likely be spent wandering about gawping to no-one particularly interested that 'cripes, it’s even bigger when you’re actually here isn’t it?' Aside from that though I’m going to aim to see at least a handful of acts per day - that is if my brain doesn’t get turned to mush by the sheer logistics of it all (that’s what they call drinking these days is it?) The following is likely to be as clear as mud (b‘dm tsch) but does attempt to narrow down the many directions in which the next few days could take… »
In Depth by Simon Jay Catling
There’s been a strangely low-key build up to this year’s Glastonbury Festival, even more so considering that it celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.»
