LIVE REVIEW: MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL'S DARK MATTER HIGHLIGHTS

The Manchester International Festival is an annual event that spans many weeks and venues taking all creative art forms such as live music, poetry, theatre and more. Every year the festival gets more ambitious and creative, truly thinking outside the box and pushing the limits of what a festival can entail. Highlights of MIF 2017 included New Order, Fatherland, Arcade Fire and Dark Matter...

Dark Matter is just one small slice of the festival. A series of individual live shows favouring musicians known for making very dark, experimental and otherworldly music. Dark Matter has been curated by British DJ, journalist and BBC Radio 6 presenter Mary Anne Hobbs. Eight headlining acts performed over the duration of the festival, including LEVELZ, Holly Herndon, Paleman, The Haxan Cloak, Clark, Kojey Radical, Colin Stetson and Sunn O))). There were also brilliant DJ sets from the likes of Demdike Stare, Akkord and Mary Anne Hobbs herself. Sadly I wasn't able to attend all of the shows, but I wanted to give a shout out to the ones I did attend. It's brilliant that MIF and Mary Anne Hobbs were able to give such a prominent platform to strange, experimental and esoteric underground music.


PALEMAN
Gorilla. 6/7/17.

Manchester raised Paleman began his craft as a Jazz drummer and it is clear that he implements that into his sound. Not only was Paleman twiddling knobs and triggering samples on stage, but also adding live percussion along the way. He worked on improvisation, sculpting off kilter techno beats with icy cold synths. He delivered many peaks and troughs in his music, with the calmer parts evoking spacey atmospheres, soon leading into upbeat, lively passages that got the crowd dancing. The dim lighting and room full of fog helped to enhance a special atmosphere created by Paleman. His music was slow building, yet playful.


THE HAXAN CLOAK
Gorilla. 7/7/17.

The Haxan Cloak (real name Bobby Krlic) is a Yorkshire born Producer who has worked with Bjork, The Body, and even created film and TV scores. But when it comes to his solo act, Krlic likes to get sinister! The Haxan Cloak is one of the best modern names in Dark Ambient music, essentially creating scary soundscapes inspired by the music and atmospheres of horror and nightmares. The entire performance felt almost like one continuous piece of music, beginning slow like a glacier as long drawn out, ominous synths gathered in intensity. Krlic gradually built up layers of eerie and unsettling effects such as buzzing static, escalating noise, scraping and clanging sounds. The way The Haxan Cloak is able to allure an audience through gradual build ups and a foreboding sense of dread is mesmerizing. The use of strobe lights and thick smoke just added to the atmosphere. Only towards the second half of his set, did pulsing Industrial beats become more commonplace. The finale of his show in particular lead even greater towards Industrial Electronic music, with heavy, pounding beats and piercing noise that rumbled and shook your entire body. Krlic's show is incredibly loud and truly akin to a live horror experience. 


CLARK
02 Ritz. 8/7/17.

Warp Records veteran Chris Clark delivered a whole new stage show to the MIF in support of his latest album 'Death Peak'. Clark performed practically the entire album in full (though sequenced differently) plus some welcome oldies such as 'Winter Linn' and 'Superscope'. Clark really went all out with the light show, which was a true spectacle to watch. Each tune he played had its own choreographed colour scheme and lasers projecting trippy patterns towards the crowd. He even had two masked dancer girls on stage performing improvised dance routines to Clark's music. Certainly not an easy task considering how wonky his music is, switching up tempos and rhythms frantically. Though Clark isn't the "darkest" of the Dark Matter lineup, his eclectic body of music suitably strikes a fine balance between different moods and shades. His beats are incredibly heavy, pounding through the Ritz's bouncy dancefloor like a pneumatic drill. He truly got the crowd dancing the whole way through. Clark is so fascinating to watch on stage, not just because of the incredible visual show accompanying him, but just seeing how busy he gets. He is constantly moving up and down his large desk of Electronic apparatus, flicking switches, triggering samples and adjusting mixers, breaking into a sweat almost immediately. If anyone believes that Electronic music is just somebody standing behind a laptop pressing buttons, then Clark is here to prove you wrong!

SUNN O)))
02 Ritz. 15/7/17

Closing MIF's Dark Matter series was one of the weirdest and most experimental bands on earth. Seattle's Drone masters Sunn O))) are renown for being perhaps the loudest band in existence. The core duo of Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley have featured in countless influential Extreme Metal bands, usually favouring the slowest and heaviest riffs in existence. Sunn O))) is definitely their most well known act, taking the concept of amplifier worship to the utmost extreme (and not just their name). The band perform in Sith Lord style cloaks in front of a colossal and intimidating wall of massive Sunn guitar amps. Over the years their touring line-up has continued to expand, tonight performing as a 5 piece. O'Malley and Anderson deafened audiences with their guitars, whilst the addition of two extra players on keyboards, electronics and even a Drone trombone added more layers to the sonic chaos. Attila Csihar, long time vocalist of the controversial Black Metal pioneers Mayhem, also performed a highly eclectic vocal display, as well as dressing in some elaborate costumes. Their music is so damn slow, that they have no use for a live drummer to keep a beat or tempo.

Sunn O))) are very much a love it or hate it kind of band, even causing debate among extreme music fans. One numpty in the crowd even yelled 'GET ON WITH IT' 10 minutes into Attila Csihar's widely versatile ritualistic chanting intro. I was genuinely dumbfounded by this rude interruption, hoping it was some kind of self-aware irony.  Personally I consider Sunn O))) to be true explorers, pushing the boundaries of what music can be perceived as further and further. In a nutshell, Sunn O))) performed for 90 minutes performing what is essentially just a note, or a chord, dragged into an infinite abyss. However because of their dynamic sound setup, the rumbling guitar drones were so incredibly, ear punishingly loud that the listener ends up confronting sound itself face to face. You can feel every wave and texture pulsing through your entire body. Sometimes it can be a scary and painful experience, as you feel all your bones rattling and it feels like your head is about to explode, but there are parts of it that are generally soothing, like getting a deep massage. In a sense, by attending a Sunn O))) concert, you become one with the force of sound. It genuinely is the closest I have come to being able to physically feel music travelling through my body.

Even though the music of Sunn O))) is incredibly patience testing, their visual show was very exciting. A thick wall of smoke constantly filled the room, enhancing the sinister atmosphere. The sight of the amps and the mysterious cloaked men looked akin to an occult ritual for guitar fans. Vocalist Attila Csihar was by far the most animated on stage, delivering not only a great vocal performance but a physical display too. Near the end of the show he came out in a suit made of reflective mirror shards (reminiscent of their latest album sleeve for 'Kannon') and shot laser beams from his fingertips. The show seemed to drift slowly through different movements. It began with a chanting vocal warm up from Attila, followed by all 5 players demolishing Manchester with a monolith of loud noise. Some players would then drift in and out of the performance, allowing the drones to modulate, as if they were growing and shrinking in weight. Sunn O))) ended the performance with just the core duo droning away on their guitars. Despite the Sunn O))) live show essentially being 90 minutes of listening to one note, I still find them to be one of the most gripping, exciting, unique and thrilling live acts I've ever experienced. Sunn O))) are a landmark act in the field of the avant-garde. True experimentalists on a mission to shock audiences as well as defy perceptions of music and art altogether. What a perfect way to end MIF's Dark Matter showcase.