High Voltage

Manchester will be one of three stops on an intimate tour of top-secret venues by Welsh rockers The Joy Formidable. The trio will play to just 150 people at a special Mancunian location on Wednesday 29 February.

Tickets for the tour – which also takes the band to Bristol and London – are free and can be won via an online ballot at www.clarksoriginals.com. The ballot ends on...

Mexican duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela are truly inspiring artists. Inspiring in the sense that they are sickeningly talented but inspiring also because they have brought a particularly unpopular genre of music into mainstream consciousness. Their 2006 eponymous debut LP acted as a refreshing education into an unreported musical culture. Six years on, Rodrigo Y Gabriela are still providing lessons but...

These truths we hold to be self evident; that not all bands are created equal, that indie dross, lazy punk and half-baked experimentalism will always fill the garages- nay, the concert halls of this great land- and for every truly brilliant album there will be ten that fall tragically short. This is the symptom of iteration, of the spread and the pervasion of music in the internet age,...

Monument Valley is the musical world of London-born Ned Younger. Inspired by classic 1950s rock and roll, Postcard-era indie-pop and the modern poets of hip hop, Younger weaves all his musical touchstones into a passion for timeless story-telling and song-writing.  An extremely exciting and talented new UK songwriting talent, his first release, the Tongues EP was...

For anybody interested in this kind of music, Elohymn are a band to get really excited about. Taking the instrumental post rock of And So I Watch You From Afar and marrying it to the math-prog virtuosity of early Oceansize, they take up the Manchester underground progressive mantle and run it through a flanger pedal over a jazz-drumming breakdown.

While there’s a...

If you’ve heard this band’s music already, no doubt your ears will be smiling for it. If you’re one of the ‘far too many’ who haven’t, it’s important that you find the few releases they have, and sit with bated breath craving more from them.

Mostly from around London, the four-piece who are Bastille are gaining much respect around the...

Unless you're involved with a particular part of the Manchester scene, Cyril Snear is a name you're probably not too familiar with. Nevertheless, they have a cult following that extends far beyond the confines of the M62 and have just been announced as the support for Amplifier's Manchester showcase with The Pineapple Thief. Having already released one critically-acclaimed album, Fluent in...