Another ambitious double-header comes to town from Propeller Theatre Company. In hot pursuit of the twin outing (no pun intended) of 2011's 'Richard III' and 'The Comedy Of Errors', this time around the all-male players present 'Twelfth Night' and 'The Taming Of The Shrew', playing on alternate nights and a matinee at The Lowry. An all-male cast they may be, but that's the only thing remotely 'traditional' about the company. Propeller's approach to the texts is both irreverent and devoted, and their productions offer other such rewarding contradictions; slapstick yet wonderfully choreographed, raucous but impeccably musical (all the cast seem to be accomplished musicians alongside everything else). Whether any common threads or new revelations will be drawn out between two very disparate plays over two consecutive nights' performance remains to be seen, but I'll be attending with a very open mind.
'Twelfth Night' plays on the 9th and 13th of April, 'The Taming Of The Shrew' on the 10th and 13th of April.
I’ve tried a little bit of everything, shop work,
writing for a fashion magazine, partying. But I’ve just started a course that
should finally get me into University to study Public Relations.
Where do you live?
I’m living in Altrincham at the moment, it’s a
Cheshire postcode but technically it falls within Manchester so it’s the best
of both worlds while I’m studying really.
Tell us the story of how you ended up in
Manchester.
I’ve lived here my whole life, but I’ve done a lot
of moving around. As a teenager I never really felt like I had a home except
Manchester. It was never any specific place, just the streets and the buildings
and the lights. I never spent more than a week anywhere at a time. I used to
just disappear into the city, it drove my parents wild but there was always
something I loved about never being tied down to one place. My friends and I
would spend a couple of nights in a hotel or a friend’s place or a squat or
guys’ houses. There were nights we had no money and we just slept rough or
queued up for hostels. Those years were fluid, nothing was constant. People
came and went and home was wherever you laid your head, home was just
Manchester. I have a tattoo that I got done when I was seventeen, I was drunk
and it was spur of the moment when a friend offered to do it, but it was
something that I’d been thinking about for a while. It’s lyrics from the City
& Colour song ‘Coming Home’, worked into the art from his first record and
it says: ‘And hell you know it ain’t
worth shit’. The whole song is Dallas Green listing the places he’s been
to, but none of it matters because he’s coming home to the person he loves.
It’s something deeply personal to me; I’ve never really felt at home in any one
place and the tattoo represents that ongoing search for my one true home. It’s
a reminder that no matter where I go, or what I’ve done, that Manchester has
been a home to me.
What’s great about this city?
It’s been a home when I had none. But it’s not just
home in that the streets and bars and hotels were my home. Manchester is such a
nurturing city, and there is such history here. Some of the greatest bands,
clubs, thinkers, writers, and people in every field have come from this town. I’m
proud to be from somewhere that has been pushing the boundaries in so many ways
for centuries. There’s an environment of acceptance here, I’ve grown up in a
city where completely different groups of people, different cultures and subcultures
all exist in their own sort of harmony. There’s a sort of ‘against all odds’
vibe to this place, there’s a culture of acceptance but also of independence.
So many times I’ve seen minority groups that anywhere else would be mortal
enemies defending each other and standing up for individuality. It’s something
I’ve genuinely never seen anywhere else.
What’s not so great?
I think Manchester’s stuck in a rut at the moment;
we have this incredible city that’s given so many great things to the world but
there’s this massive question of ‘What’s
next?’ A lot of the city is being modernised with buildings like Beetham
Tower that just don’t really fit with the city. It’s like this directionless
modernisation for the sake of modernisation. There haven’t really been many
interesting developments in the culture scene, there are a lot of small club
nights but there’s nothing big and new. I think the city just needs something
new and fresh, it needs to be revitalised. There’s also a lot of history for me
here. I’m planning on moving away next year because having lived here my whole
life every street has a memory. There’s a lot of dark shit that went down here
for me, parts of my life that a lot of people don’t know about, and in a way
that’s personal to me there are memories that I need to get away from before I
can come back. I love Manchester but maybe I’m just too jaded now, it’s a great
city and I think it’s sad that I’m driven to a point where I don’t feel I can
live here anymore. I will definitely come back one day, there’s just a lot of
shit I need to get away from so that I can move on.
Do you have a favourite Manchester building?
I’d have to say The Royal Exchange. I love the
Victorian architecture in the Classical style and the arcade between Cross
Street and St Anne’s Square is home to the tobacconist’s which is one if my
favourite stores in the city. What really sets The Royal Exchange apart for me
and makes it my favourite building is the theatre inside. I’ve seen so many
productions there and the theatre in the round space is one of my favourites. I
love the Apollo 11-esque theatre module suspended from the main columns in the
hall. The contrast between the intricate Victorian architecture and the modern
engineered theatre below the hall’s main glass dome is, I think, an incredibly
successful one. Pictures don’t do it justice, you have to visit and see a
production there, the atmosphere is unique and it’s a space I just love being
around.
Do you have a favourite Mancunian?
I don’t think I could say, there are so many great
people that have come from this city. Tony Wilson and Emmeline Pankhurst have
to be up there, I mean one of them essentially gave the world Joy Division and
the other is largely responsible for women’s rights in this country. I will say
though it’s a special thing to be a Mancunian and a lot of people who aren’t
from here don’t understand that. There isn’t really a sense of national pride
in Manchester; it’s the city not the country that gives us our heritage and our
unyielding sense of pride.
What’s your favourite
pub/bar/club/restaurant/park/venue?
I always loved Bar Below on Canal Street. I was
never really into the whole scene there, but Bar Below was something special. I
don’t know what it is now, it’s changed names and hands a few times since I
last went a couple of years ago, it’s a shame. It’s a tiny basement space but
it was so well decorated and run, it was intimate and elegant with a couple of
sofas, a short bar and some of the friendliest bar staff. I had some great
times there, just having a drink and meeting people without the queeny pop
music vibe in the rest of the village, there was this dope guy on the bar who
always played Blondie records and I remember this Debbie Harry shirt he wore a
bunch of times. I miss that place.
What do you think is missing from Manchester?
Like I said earlier, we need something new and
fresh. Manchester’s still a pioneering city but it’s been that way for so long
it’s kind of passé. We have a lot of shit happening that doesn’t happen in
other cities, and some really great individual scenes but Manchester has always
been that way so it’s nothing new. It needs something even bigger and even more
ground-breaking, especially with the destruction of places like Legends on
Whitworth Street. There are a lot of people who I’m sure would lynch me for saying
this but Legends had become stale, but it is sad to see it go. It’s an historic
part of the city and it’s disappearing to make way for a hotel, it’s like the
Hacienda story all over again. Inch by inch the concrete evidence of this great
city is being eroded for what, hotels and apartment blocks? It’s time we
created new cultural landmarks and gave Manchester some new history, and you
don’t have to be a born and bred Mancunian to do that.
If I was Mayor for a day I would …
Pass an act to ban Ian Simpson from getting any
more development contracts in Manchester. Parkway Gate student
accommodation isn’t bad, but Beetham Tower is horrible and the plans
for Sharp Street, First Street and a lot of other areas in the city are very
similar. Planning permission is approved for a lot of his designs already and
soon Manchester will just be full of tall, emotionless, cantilevered glass
shit. I would definitely stop him or whoever is approving these plans,
Manchester is a city with soul and it doesn’t need soulless modernisation for
the sake of it.
Who else would you like to nominate to answer this
questionnaire?
Ian Simpson,
I’d like to find out why he seems to hate Manchester so much! Vendetta aside I
think it’d be interesting to see university students’ answers to these
questions. All my answers have come from a place of living here my whole life,
I never really chose to be here and the city has informed the person I am
today. I’d like to get a whole new perspective from someone to whom the city is
fresh and new, see what it is that draws them to current day Manchester from
the outside.
Time for some more objects of desire. The sales weren’t up to much, and
let’s face it your savings could be better, but even imaginary retail therapy can help on the long
haul to payday . Here’s what future-me has his eye on
...
Ghetto Blaster Cushion
£17
Beard T-shirt
£22
BaByliss i-Stubble Trimmer
£40
New Balance trainers
£55
Primavera Festival, Barcelona
£145
Flight from Manchester to Melbourne
£685
Smithson Martin Emulator Multi-Touch Professional DJ System
Well, the world didn’t end, but it’s still in a right old state,
and isn’t music the very best of comforts and the most comforting of
distractions? I’ve had a special little moment with every one of these
songs in 2012. I’ll wax lyrical on the top ten when we get there, and what a ten
it is. Here’s the Spotify playlist, and here's the rundown from 50…
14. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop - feat. Wanz
13. Friends – A Thing Like This
12. The Child of Lov – Heal
11. Orbital – One Big Moment
And the top 10…
10. Kitty Pryde –
Okay Cupid
‘Get out my
rooooom….!’ A super late entry from Ms Pryde and her girlish, lolloping gem
of a single. It didn’t occur to me until about my tenth listen that this was rap. I’ve been so brainwashed into
thinking rap belongs entirely to hip-hop but here’s Kitty to prove otherwise.
Lyrically, this might be favourite thing on the list. Just listen:
‘Lordy, shorty, you're
a 10 and I wait for your drunk dials at 3:30 am, I love them.
So call me sober when
you're ready, not goin’ steady, but babe I planned our wedding already’
9. Todd Terje –
Inspector Norse
Everybody loves
this track, how could they not? It’s Bentley Rhythm Ace and The Clangers for a generation
reared on Aeroplane mixes. Terje’s amazing instrumental shows there are other ways
to be uplifting without having crashing great crescendos everywhere. And just
when you think you’re in the groove with it, at three minutes thirty that weird
hummmmmm bottoms out and makes you
want to do all the messy things in the world. Out and out magic.
8. Grimes – Genesis
She’s the Enya you can dance to. That’s a good thing, by the
way. I nearly chose ‘Oblivion’ or ‘Be A Body’, the album is choc-full of these
little masterpieces, but ‘Genesis’ neatly represents everything she’s best at.
The Enya’s really kick in just shy of a minute but then it gives way to that
amazing beat... An electronic masterclass.
7. Mykki Blanco &
Brenmar – Wavvy
The queering of hip-hop continues apace. Mykki Blanco is not
just an artist who happens to be gay either, there is full-on sexual potency
and radical drag at the heart of his material. This addictive track is actually
trad hip-hop in lots of ways, the me-me-me vibes are intact and the production
could be a 50 Cent record, but just listen to those words:
‘I pimp slap you bitch
niggas with my limp wrist, bro
What the fuck I gotta
prove to a room full of dudes
Who ain't listening to
my words cuz they staring at my shoes…’
Come out Missy Elliott, it’s lovely out here.
6. Girls Aloud – On
The Metro
Comeback single ‘Something New’ was just clearing the decks
for this knowing, rollicking bullet of a track. Great pop can usually eclipse
whoever is actually singing it, and this would have been just as good in the
hands of anyone from Mini Viva to Kylie, but the fact Cheryl at the very least might
have actually cried on the Metro adds some charming veracity to the whole affair.
5. Sleigh Bells –
Comeback Kid
I didn’t really know or mind what Sleigh Bells were going to
do next, but this piece of massive Ratatat-meets-Stars buzz-saw gutter pop turned
into my favourite ever track of theirs. Drunk air-guitaring to this became a
brilliant thing for me this year, it’s
in my repertoire forever.
4. iamamiwhoami –
Goods
Kate Bush’s influence seems to be all over the place this
year (Alex Winston, Grimes) and nowhere is it more obvious than on the weird
helium-and-trill vocals of this track, so it might take you a while to realise
you are in the middle of the best dance song of 2012. Jonna Lee’s iamamiwhoami
project has delivered something astonishingly good in the Kin album. Not a shabby moment on it.
3. Haim – Forever
Perfect guitar pop record. I’ve been falling in love to and
with this song since the summer. It might turn out to be one of those golden
one-hit moments a la Wilson Philips but right now it sounds like the greatest reason
in the world to grow your hair and cycle round town with your sisters. The
Lindstrom and Prins Thomas re-work was one of my favourite mixes of the year too.
2. Solange – Losing
You
Her most sensational output since ‘Sandcastle Disco’, nobody
has quite put their finger on why this track is so great, so perfect in fact. Every
botched description I’ve read in the press has put it further out of reach. It’s
a sad song first off, all my favourite songs are, but it sounds like she’s at a
block party, and the weird dissonance between the two is a pop trick worthy of
Prince. It’s quite simply brilliant. You can stop mentioning the B-word now.
1. Winhill/Losehill –
Tell Her She's The Light Of The World
It’s fate and only fate that a band that just rolled up in
my ‘recommended listening’ one day has had such a lasting impact on me. This
video was the first thing I heard from Sweden’s Winhill/Losehill and it was
love at first listen. ‘Tell Her She's The Light Of The World’ isn’t just my
song of the year, their album Swing Of Sorrowis the most perfectly realised and moving set of songs I have heard
in ages. From the opening ten seconds of silence, to ‘Karin’s Hymn’ where a
mournful cello drops out of the sky like a Lancaster Bomber, to the perfect happy/sad
Neil Young-esque ‘The House Is Black’ and ‘Long Way To Next Stop’, to the brilliantly
funny Beirut-style stomper ‘I Leave You ‘Cause I Don’t Care’, this sounds like
a band at the absolute peak of their vision, and it’s only a debut. Song, band,
and album of 2012.
Postscript and
Interview
I was so possessed by wanting to know where this kind of songwriting
can come from, and getting tired of reading badly Google-translated interviews
in Swedish, that I tracked down the band myself and asked them some questions.
Here’s what they told me:
The
music for this album was written under a terrible cloud of sadness around
Jonas’ mother’s illness and subsequent passing. Is it important for listeners
to know about these unusually fraught circumstances, or are you happy for the
album to stand alone?
JONAS - I hope it can stand alone without the listeners necessarily
knowing about all that. I mean, those things are the reasons we came together
to make the record so of course it’s really important for us, but my impression
is that anyone who has been through something similar, like the loss of a loved
one or any form of painful breakup, can catch up on that just from relating to
the songs in themselves.
The
band name comes from a place near to me, just over in Derbyshire, where Jonas
visited as a youth. What are your memories of England, and have you or any of
the band ever been to Manchester?
JONAS – One of my memories is walking in the mountains
just outside of Hope village; the landscapes were very inspiring and beautiful.
The strongest memory though is the music I experienced and learned during my
stay at a folk music camp. English folk music has definitely been an
inspiration for Swing of Sorrow. Unfortunately
though, I've never been to Manchester.
CARL – Many members of the band have been to the UK and
we’d obviously love to come play there soon, especially in a music city like
Manchester!
Where
does the album title Swing Of Sorrow come from?
CARL - The short answer is that ‘back in your wild swing of sorrow love’ is the first line in ‘Don’t
let the inside shine out’. But Swing of
Sorrow was also the working title for another song way back, which we
eventually changed. When we were to decide on an album title it suddenly came
back to us. Partly because we felt that all the mood swings we’d been through
during the grieving process was exactly that, a swing of sorrow. And partly
because of the musical reference, a way of tying grief and music together.
What
makes this record so special for me is that there are moments of terrible
melancholy offset by a wonderful sense of elation and hope. Is that a fair
assessment of your intentions?
JONAS - I find it hard to define intentions like that, composing
is just so much more intuitive to me, but it’s definitely a really beautiful and
flattering assessment of how one can receive our music.
Some
artists revel in abstraction, such as Bon Iver, and that can work really well. Your
writing seems to be the opposite, there’s a concern that the listener
understands exactly what you intend. For instance the line, ‘In these songs I have tried to make it
clear: whenever she is close there is no fear’, is one of my favourite
moments. I find that frankness and lack of irony really moving. Is that an
accurate description for what your music is trying to achieve?
CARL - I believe that sometimes a straight line like that
can be the best way to say something complicated, and sometimes a queer
abstraction is necessary to say the simplest thing. We’re really into writing
songs and telling stories that matter to ourselves in ways that move the
listener and I wouldn’t want to avoid any methods of writing to achieve that.
We write for ourselves and for strangers, so to speak.
In
the rest of Europe and America, Swedish music seems to fall in and out of
fashion from time to time (see also Canadian music). Would you consider
yourself part of a ‘scene’, and do you think it’s a help or a hindrance?
JONAS - I wouldn’t really say we’re part of a scene in
that way. Of course there are some bands that we feel related to musically, but
that’s sort of independent of time and space, and some bands that are our
friends, but that’s mostly being from Umeå and having known each other from way
back.
‘Karin’s
Hymn’ is one of the loveliest instrumental pieces I’ve heard in years. Are you
classically trained musicians, and do you differentiate between using one type
of instrument and another when you’re making music for the band?
JONAS - Thank you so much. Writing that piece was a truly
proud moment for me as a composer and one of the songs I remember playing on
the piano for my mother while she was sick. Writing music to record and playing
music live are two very different things to me and I try to think as little as
possible of the practical circumstances and different levels of training of the
musicians when I'm writing, so that the creative process can be as free as
possible.
CARL – As far as the band is concerned, everybody comes
from really different backgrounds with various degrees of having studied or
worked with music, but we’ve all been playing together in different
constellations since about high school.
What’s
great about living in Sweden, and wuld you ever consider living anywhere else?
CARL - What’s great is the few remains of the welfare
state, but that’s unfortunately being dismantled more and more for every day.
If things don’t change for the better soon, maybe we’ll have to consider going
into exile: preferably somewhere a bit warmer, less racist and more fair. Where
is that again?
JONAS - The musical climate in Sweden is often very warm
and supportive and it has helped me and the band a lot in the creation of Swing
of Sorrow to have the kind of support we've had from other musicians, teachers,
institutions and people around us.
I can
hear so many diverse influences in the music (some that may not even be there),
such as Neil Young, Beirut, P:ano… Who really does influence you as musicians
and songwriters?
JONAS – Me and my co-producer Henrik Nybom (also the
band's drummer) were listening a lot to classical composers while arranging and
recording Swing of Sorrow, for
example Igor Stravinsky and György Ligeti. Rufus Wainwright and Frank Zappa are
two other important influences.
CARL – From those you mentioned, I’ve taken more interest
in Neil Young again just recently, when it comes to writing lyrics. But during
the work with Swing of Sorrow, and in
general, I really find the most inspiration in writers and poets rather than
songwriters. Lyn Hejinian, Forough Farrokhzad and Marguerite Duras for example.
JONAS - And in the end, just hanging around together is
probably the most inspiring for all of us!
What
new music have you enjoyed this year?
JONAS - Just the other day I discovered Sufjan Stevens
latest Christmas-album which gave me a joyful feeling that'll hopefully stick
during the holidays. My greatest musical experience this year was definitely
Bon Iver's perfomance at Way Out West in Gothenburg last summer, which was one
of the greatest experiences of my life, all categories.
CARL - It’s been a such a good year for new music I think,
it’s really hard to choose. But Cat Power was really great, as well as Patti
Smith and Rufus Wainwright. And I’d say some of the songs on Psychedelic Pill
are among the best Neil Young’s ever written.
What’s
next for the band, and when can we see you play?
JONAS - Well, we’re back to writing new material of
course, and we’re really looking forward to play at By:Larm in Oslo in February,
our first gig outside of Sweden!
8. Everything Everything – My Keys, Your
Boyfriend
7. La Roux – In For The Kill
6. Julian Casablancas – 11th Dimension
5. Dizzee Rascal – Bonkers
4. Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
3. V V Brown – Shark In The Water
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero
1. Girls – Lust
For Life
2010
10. The Besnard Lakes – Chicago Train
9. Yeasayer – I Remember
8. Broken Bells – The High Road
7. John Grant – Outer Space
6. Gorillaz – On Melancholy Hill
5. Xiu Xiu – Chocolate Makes You Happy
4. Band Of Horses – Blue Beard
3. Robyn – Dancing On My Own
2. Beach House – Zebra
1. Everything
Everything – Weights
2011
10. Azealia Banks – 212
9. Junior Boys – Banana Ripple
8. PJ Harvey – On Battleship Hill
7. Joe Goddard – Gabriel
6. Foster The People – Pumped Up Kicks
5. Metronomy – Corinne
4. Nicola Roberts – Beat Of My Drum
3. James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream
2. Elbow – lippy kids
1. Bon Iver –
Beth/Rest
And so to 2012. Chances are if you
made super sad folk music or out-there hip-hop or if you’re a woman
who listens to a lot of Kate Bush and
I heard about it, then you’re probably on the list. It was as fragmented and
hub-bub a year as I can ever remember. Another year where the brilliant singles
were never the best tracks on the album, another year where the women seemed to
outstrip the men (if you’re bothered about that kind of thing), another year
where unstoppable pop juggernauts could un-cool your scrobbling list in a
matter of days, and if nothing ever tops
that top ten from last year (look at it!) then the list this year manages to blow
every other one out of the water in one department at least: lyrics. Beautiful,
strange, forward-looking, painful, funny and effervescent writing everywhere
you listened. 2012 was like having your bookshelves set to music…
‘It starts like
this: a kiss is a kiss….’
‘She may
contain the urge to run away, but hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks…’
‘We held our breath to see our names are
written on the wreck of '86. That was the year I knew the panic was over…’
‘You gave me my
very first gun…’
'Then she
starts to cry, mascara running down her little Bambi eyes: "Lana, how I
hate those guys"...'
‘My sister
asked, ‘Are we prayin’ for him to pass?’ And no one dared speak out loud, but
we all knew, and pushed the paperwork through…’
'The Last Post
sounds, just like a love song for the way I feel about you;
paradise not lost,
it's in you ...'
‘Before the
full weight was on our shoulders, before the twilight’s cover, before I knew
time was such a swindler. Oh my dear friend, everything falls to death…’
Wonderful stuff. I’m posting the first half of
the top 50 for now; the top 25 is still
subject to painful reshuffling (rest assured the Top 3 are carved in marble). But
it’s coming very soon. I hope you find something here to love for a very long
time. And right here is a Spotify list for your convenience. Merry Christmas,
2012.
