I left the house oblivious to the date, and therefore arrived at the Contact theatre without the significant weight of all that superstition weighing me down, maan.
As venues go for a club night(this was the temporary home of Fat Northerner's monthly bash the Friday Fry-Up), this was a weird one without question, and therefore, to me the appeal was strong.
Billed as Manchester's unhealthiest club night, the billing was at crazy odds with the sanitised insanity of the surroundings. Weird building, the Contact, all tiles and stepped walls, with a rubber/plastic floor in blue and orange. Decks in the front of house area and a mixing desk set up nearby meant it felt a bit like a smaller, well-lit version of the Hacienda (the booming acoustics were identical) - this despite the 70’s art deco effect that gives away the age of a building. From the outside it puts me in mind of Lego and reminded me sidekick of Castle Greyskull? Make of it what you will ladies and gentlemen, make of it what you will.
So, although innovative Manchester label Fat Northerner's spiritual home, The Rampant Lion, never seemed so far away, this month’s stellar line-up rendered the surroundings largely, nay COMPLETELY irrelevant.
Aniff Ankola’s IRONWEED PROJECT wasted no time in kicking up an irresistible groove that saw inhibitions shed as heads bounced instantly to the beat. The beat alchemist and one-time collaborator with A Guy Called Gerald is still cutting his own innovative path through sound; this latest trip echoes the delta highways and Devil’s crossroads central to the Blues legend, with many other ingredients thrown into the mix. Ankola’s chief concern is with the genre-blending process and rest assured, the raw talent that resulted in tracks like the mind-blowing ‘Voodoo Ray’ has been maintained and refined. The resulting album, 'Dust Bowl', stands up superbly onstage, where it resonates and crackles as a top-drawer example of how the past can be celebrated well into the future.
Thus, we gyrated and bounced to such box-fresh gems as ‘Get On The Floor’, a dusty sidewinding groove that rattled like a freight train. It was the start of a treat in store.
Again, this was a mere 35 minute blast of one of Manchester music’s freshest strongest and most addictive sensations. With the veteran groove merchant in control, the stakes were soon raised until heads wandered lost in the beat-driven blues sound.
With fun like this to be had, the just-over-half-an-hour blast was bound to flash by in what seemed like an instant, but in retrospect, the showcaser-length show was crammed with memorable and dizzy heights.
The subsonic ‘cu baby’ version of ‘Rising Sun’ complete with feedback was one, as was the floor-filling and infectious ‘All By Myself’ with Kyla Brox’s awesome vocal power immortalised in the sampled hookline around which the track spins so wildly.
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Downtempo, ‘Lovemakers’ vibrated with heavy reverb FX as Ankola’s already deeeep vocal tone plunged several octaves to eventually bass out the deliciously dirty ‘Down To My Grave’.
There was also the Antipodean flavour of ‘Swim Like Whales’, and the get down sleaze of ‘Get A little Dirty’ saw the audience response totally swing off the track as everyone assisted by literally getting down. Breathtaking! If you see them advertised at a venue you can reach, then you are assured of a cracking night out.
The Whip’s L’IL FEE maintained the dancefloor’s status as the place to be with a highly compulsive broken beat blend of electronica that had myself and my pal bouncing around absent-mindedly before THE REAL DOLLS made a handclapping, high-five start to their set.
Their white-rap/synth/scratch delivery reminded me of The Beastie Boys, and the rock/rap grind was darkened and energised. The non-stop politik of ‘Double Wedding’ saw the onset of audience abandon, as Utah-Saited sounds propelled through the relentless grind in fragments.
‘Stayin In On A Saturday Night’ was a broken beat, broken-down stare at the walls, and came right across on target as an ass-shaking exploration of the unthinkable
‘Slapdash’ was a trance-inducing gutter crawl that machine-gunned holes in my head and seemed liable to induce seizures when combined with the well-lit space being further illuminated by disco flashes in primary colours.
Disco posturing and jet-propelled, this too was an all out invitation to lose yerself in the pulse. There was more frenzy about their two-pronged attack on the head, but the flit from hip hop to techno/rock stop-started a bit. Having said that, when they hit the spot, it stayed hit.
With Fat Northerner at the forefront of a welcome trend that sees Friday nights becoming this innovative, there’s little to stay at home for. Surreal feet to the floor, be sure to keep one eye on their events list for one-off spectaculars. This one was an absolute corker!
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