Fat Out Fest 2012

From Saturday 25th to Sunday 26th August, Fat Out Fest, the Manchester-based, DIY festival, returns to Islington Mill for its second year, with a dark and electrifying storm of a line-up set to blast away the other summer festivals.

Weekend tickets cost £25 and give full access to two days of  more than thirty ear-bending and diverse bands, a market space filled with stalls of artists and independent record labels, local artwork, face-painting, fancy dress, delicious grub and, ultimately, a teeth-shattering two-day party in the enchanting setting of the old mill building in Salford.

Highlights for the Saturday include Norwegian pulverisers Arabrot, the avant-metal usurpers Talons, the hotly tipped Queer’d Science and newly reformed Manchester D-beat legends Hammers.

Sunday offers an exclusive solo performance from the Queen of Siam Lydia Lunch, autumnal-folk hero Alexander Tucker, ex-This Heat/Camberwell Now innovator Charles Hayward and the inaugural live performance from occultist electronic group Young Hunting.

Emma Thompson, who founded Fat Out in 2007, said: “We are really excited to be back for a second year with an even more varied and experimental programme. As we grow with our regular gig nights and festivals we hope to provide increasing opportunities for people to make a living from their art, to be able to employ stronger environmental policies and to continue to put on unforgettable parties!”

Fat Out Fest is set to be the fattest and loudest little festival this summer – Don’t miss out!

Saturday 25th August:
JARBOE:
A true free spirit and all-encompassing musical entity, Jarboe’s long and illustrious career can be characterised by both its productivity and its sheer scope; unencumbered by confining restrictions that have allowed a huge and at times disparaging depth to her entire oeuvre. But if we are in the business of making summations, only one counts. Sound. That sound………THE VOICE.

It is a difficult task to try to ascribe grammar and words to a natural force. Something that embodies so much. A vocal range that is near operatic in scope, Jarboe is able to effortlessly caress her listeners with an ecstatic and seraphic tenderness, the dark sensuality of the Southern blues and earth shatteringly bellows that would cower the gods. These descriptions are mere aspirations to define her…..true justice to this goddess can only be understood and felt in the live arena. When one has been gifted with this experience, it becomes excruciatingly easy to see why so many enlightened have an obsessional devotion to her.

Arabrot:
Fittingly named after a waste dump outside the small west-Norwegian town of Haugesund, Arabrot are the sonic embodiment of the stygian filth that festers within it. The dirge of sludge metal is reduce down to murderous shards of Noise-rock minimalism that alludes to Shellac covering The Melvins. Boasting a thunderous rhythm section that barely can contain the mayhem of scathing guitar lines and caustic, tortured vocals, Arabrot may be heavy on the malice, but their definitely heavy on the groove…. And 400 times louder, dirtier and more disgustingly heavy in the flesh.

Wode:
Far from your traditional Black Metal outfit, Wode manage to circumvent many of the cliché trappings of the genre, whilst retaining all that makes it great. At times suffocatingly claustrophobic, where listeners only guide is barked grim vokills, this four piece manage to disperse their buzzsaw blizzard into huge vistas of sound containg charged, d-beat battery and expansive Ulver-ian melodies that are almost cruel yet triumphantly beautiful. Time to see the reason many mouths were left agape at the recent Sound For The Other City.

Heroin Diet:
Snarling, rowdy gutter punk that harkens back to the golden-era of early 80’s hardcore in chaotic, brittle veined bursts of 3 chord triumphance, reclaiming from the poseurs everything that ruined HC and spewing it out all over their faces. GG Allen and Negative Approach fans take note…that definitely is boff all over your shirt.

Pine Barrens:
Fast becoming one of the premier acts of Manchester’s burgeoning hardcore scene, Pine Barrens offer deft mix of frostbitten thrash and blackened crust in bile soaked bursts of unrepenting fury. Featuring former members of Beecher and Atavist, their sound is akin to being hunted in the snow by a Czechoslovakian Interior Decorator without the comfort of gleaming white loafers. And you know T is gonna be pissed.

Esoteric Youth:
Founding fathers of the V Revolution emporium fashion their heaviness in claw raising glory. As claustrophobic as they are subtly expansive, the dirge this four piece creates conjures the coldest and most clandestine elements of funeral Black Metal, Classic Swedish Death and metallic Hardcore, delivered with all the venom of the consistent failed promises of a misled youth. They might not eat meat, but they’ll definitely drink your daughters blood.

Hammers:
A crushing amalgamation of tortured doom and unparalleled crust-aggression, these Mancunian bruisers have earned a rightful place among Europe’s d-beat elite, including tours with Alphinist and a recent support slot with the legendary Tragedy. Thankfully reformed to reclaim their position at the zenith of all things heavy in the city with an new 10″ mastered by Brad Boatright of From Ashes Rise, your ears are due to be driven into a coffin of head-banging glory.

Like Rome:
A maniacal, starved and hateful wolf cry from the very pinnacle of the Pennines is slowly making it’s crawl towards Islington Mill. Culling its members from some of the steel city’s fiercest metallers, including The Mirimar Disaster, The Humble Hoax and Asuras, it’s this band’s intent to rekindle the fire of the metallic hardcore of the late 90’s that made Coalesce and Botch so mind-jarringly awesome. Expect Mountain levelling riffs. Expect Einstein-ian rhythmic structures. And expect all of them to be incredibly pissed. Off, I mean. They’ll be cunted after they play – for sure

Klaus Kinski:
One of the finest actors of the century, but by god Mr Kinski was a weird looking mother fucker. Next time you see a picture of him, study it well. Look into his eyes. His distended, bulging, swollen, engorged eyes. Alight with the confusion and madness of thousand inner arguments, all concluding his fucking awesomeness. And that is exactly what his Manchester namesake sound like. Only weirder and dirtier. And all 6 of them look far more fucking mental.

Khuda:
A unique beast in British heavy music, it’s dumbfounding that the complexity and detail inherent in their music could be created by just two dudes. And it is to their credit that at all times Khuda sound like a group of 8 – carefully examining each slab of heavyosity from every possible angle, layering intricate tapestries of sounds that recalls Russian Circles and Tool at their most cerebral.

Talons:
All too often when a band attempts to fuse to many elements, the result is frustratingly confusion. With each member bordering on musical virtuosity in their own right, the technicality of Talons compositions are downright dumbfounding, especially given their age. But this never overshadows the strength of their songs, which features shades of mathematic grooves, pulverizing heaviness and coruscating string work. How many contemporary metal bands do you know that employ two violinists!? A long and illustrious career is assured of Talons and this is your opportunity to ride the feathers of their flight to greatness.

Go Lebanon:

An ever changing collective of musicians who like playing very loudly and don’t worry too much about who they sound like. For the last seven years, this ramshackle bunch have been destroying eardrums all over Manchester. This will be only their second show of 2012. Keep an eye out for copies of their free vinyl release as part of Baptists and Bootleggers ‘Of The Wolves’ compilation which was released earlier this year..

Poino:
Rising from the ashes of Giddy Motors, Gaverick de Vis continues his assault on the senses and the sensual in this un-funk-withable new power trio. Something ungodly, primitive, jazzy, sexual and unashamedly Cockney is at work in Poino’s revision of the classic Noise-Rock of the early 90’s. No shit, this band are going to make willing masochists of all manly enough to take the beating. Bangover’s and boogie bruises par the course.

Super Luxury:
Naughty Leeds bruisers worshipping AC/DC riffage via Jesus Lizard perversion lay over thick slabs of tantrum diluted sludge and out-rock spasms with the hope of upsetting anyone within pint-spilling reach in massive, gorilla press slam sized proportions. Their frontman’s also far too preoccupied with WWF, so be warned; this will be an all-out barnstormer. No holds barred, no disqualifications and pin-falls valid anywhere. Better hope the ref’s watching at all times or you’re fucked.

Sunday 26th August:

Charles Hayward:
With the release of Out of Cold Storage box set in 2006, an entirely new generation was introduced to the truly ground-breaking sounds of This Heat, whose vital importance has had a lasting legacy on all things experimental within the independent scene. Since their split in 1982, drummer Charles Hayward has continually been at the forefront of experimental music, with stints in Crass, Bill Laswell’s Massacre, his own Camberwell Now collective and a slew of art installation projects. The last few years have seen Hayward focusing on his solo work, which, upon listening, makes it abundantly clear that the innovation inherent in his formative years is still alive and well. A true pioneer in contemporary music, expect a whirling dervish of mesmeric electronics, inventive percussion and otherworldly vocal collages in a sound that is still peerless and unclassifiable.

Alexander Tucker:
An ageless sound that belies the artists reliance on strings, found sounds, choral vocals and entrancing loops, rather, something more ancestral, and very English, seems to be channelled in a sound which Tucker is only a mere vessel. An ageless sound that belies the artists reliance on strings, found sounds, choral vocals and entrancing loops, rather, something more ancestral, and very English, seems to be channelled in a sound which Tucker is only a mere vessel.

Young Hunting
A shadowy duo from the depths of Edinburgh set the critics alight with their debut e.p last winter on Blackest Ever Black. A clarion call of menacing industrial tones, techno precision and occultist ambience that is pregnant with drama, rich compositional skill and primitive rhythm, Young Hunting’s mutation of dark electronica is far removed from their contemporaries. Haunted by Coil’s black magick artistry and Dead Can Dance’s ancestral grandeur, these glimmering influences are but speckles on a huge, morbid canvas of the duo’s own making. What makes them so individual is the sheer life force present in their sound, an aesthetic mainly void in electronic music making. The recesses of your subconscious are clawing to the fore and Young Hunting will provide the ritual for its awakening.

Fever Fever
Playing a particular brand of art-punk that has unfortunately begun to decline, Fever Fever swing for the fences in a brash and well needed revitalisation of all things funk and punk. Economic Guitar lines that snake-hip round shapes the likes of Fugazi, The Make Up and Gang Four threw on the floor, backed by extremely solid drumming and seasoned with call-response vocals about chairs that will have even the most bashful Riot Girrl gyrating like a stripper. And there’s needs to be more songs about chairs. There vital.

Anta
Prog behemoths Anta have been perfecting their brand of mountain climbing song architecture since 2010. Thick, essential drumming and thundering bass copulate with intertwining guitar and organ work that takes on a near-regal expression. The colossal units debut album, “The Tree That Bears The Equine Fruit”, is a determined, dexterous and energetic stampede through towering riffdom and infectious slabs of rhythm without respite that will have devotees of Univers Zero and Magma stroking their beards in delight. Featuring the most unusual bass playing style ever witnessed, Anta’s ceremonial tribute to the altar of prog is the only Sunday service you need feel guilty of missing. Praise the riff.

Our Man In The Bronze Age:
MK hometown heroes, Bronze Age started its existence as a dazzlingly technical and near neoclassical reaction to post-sludge movement of the early naughties. Boasting a line-up of the MK scenes most acclaimed musicians, their sound has matured and blossomed, refracting the heaviness in measured, well timed implosions. All whilst injecting lush, layered vocal melodies and intricate guitar passages in tribute to Talk Talk at their most expansive, Trail of the Dead at their most infectious and Torche and their most harmonically heavy with the might of double rhythm section. They also can’t get enough of Tatu.

a.P.A.t.t:
For nigh on 15 years, this legendary Liverpudlian orchestra of misfits have been playing Russian Roulette with the Encyclopaedia of Music with brain jarring complexity and wry wit with the sole purpose of destroying any conceivable boundary erected in relation to those 12 small notes. Whether their performing major works by Riley, Reich or Cage or attempting (successfully) to build bridges between Turkish pop, grindcore and scatter-rap (in a 40 second time frame), you’ll never wish you wanted ADHD more. Just to try and make fucking sense of it all.

Atrocity Exhibit:
By far the most ferocious and intelligently aggressive band to come out of the Northants/Milton Keynes wasteland, Atrocity Exhibit regurgitate all the hatred and frustration of being a Bucks resident. Tar and feathering the listener with insanely kinetic grind and disgustingly unclean crust, TAE’s strength comes in the ungodly well placed collapses into spinal cord rupturing doom grooves. Managing effortlessly to sidesteps all the clichés of jock-powerviolence, it’s easy to see why TAE have secured supports slots with Napalm Death, Wormrot and toured with Atomck. And their bass player is really good at Rugby. Sunday needs a well timed punch in the face, and these boys have that haymaker. IN DOOM WE GRIND.

Tombed Visions:
Sourcing aural ephemera from haunted pianos, Blade Runner-synths, distant saxophone, brittle field recordings and heavily processed guitar, Fat Out’s own D McLean creates a choral mix of deep dub-techno, drugged lounge and isolationist bliss ambience, garnering local praise from recent support slots with Barn Owl and Jason Urick and a European Tour with brothers (literally) Action Beat. His debut, hand made album, intended for rain-drenched, nocturnal consumption will be available at the fest.

Black Octagon:
A trio whose power comes from the subtlety of their delicate group interplay and genius use of space, Black Octagon weave a luxuriously dark narrative for dual guitar that converses in slowly unfurling rhythms, rich in pastoral atmosphere. A hymnal quality is present in the rich swathes of reverb that perfectly describe the Lancashire peaks and troughs from whence they hail. An undoubtable sleeper hit for those fortunate enough to watch.

Comments from Facebook

comments