Sounds From the Other City festival is a one day celebration of new music and performance, uniting the cream of the national and international scene with some of the city’s finest independent promotors, collectives and club nights. Mind on Fire Collective, Now Wave, Faktion, Comfortable on a Tightrope and Hey! Manchester are amongst the brave bunch hosting stages at this year’s extravaganza which takes over Chapel Street from 3pm to midnight on Sunday, May 6th.
Panoply is an artistic performative event inspired by the eccentricities and ambition of contemporary costume, dance, music, theatre and performance art and we are super pleased to have them involved at SFTOC this year.
Panoply is created by a group called the Volkov Commanders who aim to create fiction for the sake of spectacle by bringing artists, performers and designers together to create new work that is dissident of contemporary cultural practices. Past shows have included a future disco party from the moon, an opera about Britney Spears and the devil and a no-holds-barred fight between a modern day David and Goliath, with David in 6 inch stilettos.
For SFTOC Panoply will focus on bringing musicians together with artists to create new unique performances that will push the boundaries of their usual practices to create new sonic experiences.
+ P I E C E 1 - “Sound by Numbers”
An instructional piece that invites the audience to create and record sound at site specific sound zones throughout the stage area.
+ P I E C E 2 – “And now for something completely different”
Energetic cacophonous interruptions created by wearable sound sculptures. Based on the marriage between sound and movement.
+ P I E C E 3 - “The Deepest Hole”
by Black Shuck (Sophie Titherington & Steve Hockett)
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1984, “Kola Deep Bore Reveals Shocking New Findings”, Helsinki Times, 7th November, p13
+ P I E C E 4 – ‘Voice of The Garland Queen‘
by Andrew Magee
Part alchemical ritual; a performance, sound and video piece in three parts drawing from ancient traditions of Teutonic mythology in which The Garland Queen is reborn through a door of light fashioned by Claude Rains from the 1933 science fiction classic ‘The Invisible Man.
Andrew graduated with a degree in Fine Art from Leeds Metropolitan University and has worked for a printmaking studio in Manchester for the last 5 years. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, has been shortlisted for John Moore’s Painting Prize twice and has designed wallpaper for Graham and Brown, which recently featured in Elle Decoration.
+ P I E C E 5 – “Power Portrait”
by Helen Collett & Lois MacDonald
The first mistake of Art is to assume that it’s serious” Lester Bangs
Two of the foremost powers in Curating open up their working lives to the public with a series of personalised power portraits. Join Helen Collett and Lois Macdonald and take your turn in front of the camera with them. Power suits optional.
+ P I E C E 6 - “Room”
with: Callum Higgins – Percussion / Tapes
James Moffat – Guitar / Percussion
Chris Anderson – Bass /Synth / Vocals
Vei – visuals
Room embrace rhythm, repetition, drone and space in order to explore the music that can be found in the chaos of industry.
Their piece will involve a pairing of sound and moving images that will react to each other in parallel improvisational pieces.
+ P I E C E 7 - “Solipsistic Dialectic 03: lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”
by Liam Wright Higgins
Liam Wright-Higgins is a collective of dancers, fighters, drivers, sappers and choreographers who collaborate on installation and performance art. Their past projects included the terrifying Metempsychonaut 02: Doris Lessing’s Ice Cave Encounter, the vile Metempsychonaut 03: Sixteen Hands, the deviant Ouroboroscopic Ways and the sickening Dragon
The Soliptic Resonator is an instrument of torture devised by the British during the last days of their empire. It is equipped with a two-way mirrored visor, which is lit by LEDs positioned around the inside frame; resultantly the wearer can see nothing but their own reflection. The two-way mirror permits light through the visor, meaning a blind and disembodied head provides the sole source of illumination in an otherwise pitch-black space.
Though its use is banned throughout the sector, reports abound of its being employed by the leaders of non-spatial trade cabals in punishing bad debtors.
In certain macabre fiscal ceremonies – wherein the aim is to render the subjects insane before allowing them the reprieve of death – the Soliptic Resonator is used in conjunction with the Pheromantic Emitter. The Emitter is ordinarily fitted with a bell torn from some desecrated sacred structure, and provides a means of guiding the maddened soliptonaut around their cell along carefully choreographed routes.
+ P I E C E 8 - “For Bin Lady”
Irma Vep & Friends
Live sound and video performance with audience participation.
About Irma Vep: Solo stink of interpretive dancer, Edwin Stevens…or “Everything you ever wanted to know about posh wanks but were too scared to ask” – The Midnight Crooner, crying in your lap.
+ P I E C E 8 – “Jessop & Williamson”
In May 2063, Crale Jessop and Still Williamson’s political profile was raised when they walked out of ‘The Daniel True Show’ . During rehearsals, Crale and Still had been informed by CBS television’s “head of program practices” that the song they were planning to perform, “I Yearn For The Past”, was potentially libellous to the Past itself. Rather than comply with the censorship, Jessop and Williamson refused to appear on the program.
By this time, Jessop and Williamson were both prominent figures in the civilian rights movement, singing together at the march on London on August 28, 2063. Jessop & Williamson’s third album, ‘The Crimes’, reflected a more politicised and cynical side to the duo. The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary, real life stories, with “The Only Working Mind” addressing the murder of civilian rights worker Meagre Thomas; and the Brechtian, “The Lonesome Life of Human Beings”, the death, as they saw it, of living, as they knew it, at the hands of young white socialites. On a more general theme, “Ballad of Direction” and,”Undercurrents of Home”, address the despair engendered by the breakdown of farming and mining communities. This political material was accompanied by two personal love songs, “Walk Out On This” and “Children Know”.
Jessop & Williamson’s performance at Panoply at Sounds From The Other City will be their only performance.
+ P I E C E 9 - “HIPSHAKESEKAHSPIH“
by The Hipshakes
The Hipshakes usually play very fast, very short, very low-brow sets. At Panoply, they will play a very slow, very long (for them) and very high-brow set. Following a deranged discussion about mirrors in mirrors and pictures of magazine covers on magazine covers, a plan was hatched to write a palindromic song. This never happened. Instead, during SFTOC, the Hipshakes will attempt to reconfigure and draw out their songs into a set that peaks in the middle and then repeats in reverse. There will be accompanying dance.
+ P I E C E 1 0 – “Makina Sun Dance”
by Sophie Lisa Beresford
Come and Join in the Makina Sun Dance. Where the Vibe of Geordie/Mackem Rave Style meets Native American Earth Power.
Uniting in the Ravers Way Dancing to Beats that make Us Trance and Sway. Open your Heart as You Jump and Play!
Letting Go of Who We Think We Are! Opening into Our Infinity! The All That Is of Who We Be!
Together in Love and Harmony let’s Rock and Rave this Kick Ass Epic Blip in History!
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