Manchester International Festival is upon us, and with the return of the world’s first biennial of original and new work comes an awesome series of gigs curated by DJ Mary Anne Hobbs. Titled Dark Matter, the series kicked off with LEVELZ, a local group of DJs, MCs and producers on Thursday night, before American electronic musician and sound artist Holly Herndon arrived in town to take over the laptop stand on the first Friday of the festival, when i-D were in the crowd to witness her immersive audiovisual show.
Dark Matter shows are happening across two adjacent venues in the centre of Manchester, the Ritz and Gorilla. Each space has been transformed from its standard gig venue look into a “new universe” by Stuart Bailes, who Mary Anne Hobbs described as “one of the most radical lighting designers on earth”. Holly Herndon performed at Gorilla, which Stuart had blacked out and lit with red laser beams crossing the space horizontally, strip lights flashing in rows overhead, and swirling circles of white light breaking through smoke like flashlights on the X-files. It looks pretty awesome.
Herndon did not turn up alone; she brought her regular collaborators, the visual artist Mat Dryhurst and multidisciplinary artist Colin Self along too. From the off, Mat’s strange projections took us on a journey through a digital world stitched together from photographic images of onions and yellow corn, friends smiling in restaurants, and the blue UN globe logo — he typed over the images live, penning jovial messages about how thrilled they were to be in Manchester — “this city’s been through a bit, but you couldn’t tell” — and musing on the current political situation — “JC !!!!”.
Holly layered her and Colin’s vocals live, chopping them up into glitchy melodies and beats. It appears technically clever, but doesn’t feel academic in a dry sense – it’s fun to watch and they look like they’re having a great time making it, often falling about laughing at each other. Although some of the audience seemed a bit bemused, when they perform tracks like Interference from 2014 album Platform, it’s impossible not to dance. A highlight was when Colin Self broke away from his mic stand to march up and down in the centre of the crowd until people had made a channel, which he then used as a kind of catwalk to vogue along, winding his arms around and striding somewhat stiffly like a zombie, a glowlight flashing menacingly behind his teeth.
Dark Matter continues over the next two weekends of Manchester International Festival with Manchester-born musician and Rinse FM DJ Paleman on Thursday 6 July, producer and Björk collaborator The Haxan Cloak on Friday and Clark on Saturday. The final weekend of the festival promises the first major Manchester show from poet, musician and artist Kojey Radical on Thursday 13, with saxophonist Colin Stetson on Friday 14, and drone metal band SUNN O))) on Saturday 15.
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Credits
Text Charlotte Gush
Images courtesy Tarnish Vision