A girl playing a clarinet in the midst of a mad soundscape of jazz fuzz, with a front cover of classic books as a flipped backdrop...A bloke attacking a sax, slap in the sound of a grunged up storm...A whole posse of serious looking musos hammering raw electro beats as a screen full of buildings get demolished...A band coming on all girlie with a poisoned hypodermic in their sounds...
...A flavour of the 2017 Fat Out Fest, maybe, which returns at Islington Mill on the weekend of 14th April for the first time in three years...Get ready for a festival that, in the organisers words, "will blur the boundaries between music, art and partying in true Fat Out style".
This year, they promise, will be "our most diverse and adventurous" with eight international partners helping to produce the festival. With around five dozen performers there should be something for everyone who likes stuff experimental.
A random sample of acts appearing on the first night reveals a band called Mums 'noise-rock power trio from Widnes' with a sound that shouldn't be legal for such hilariously sweet chaps (see the video Little Did He Know click here).
Also rather interesting are Houswives, from London, who promise an 'anti-performance' exploring 'unique sonic textures'. They do indeed (see them on a live video click here).
And then there's a feminist band from Manc called ILL with 'a repertoire of precarious pop songs and frequent improvised departures...exploring the borders between the funny and the sinister, the personal and the political, the mundane and the surreal'.
They've got some great videos, including Space Dick (click here), Diazepam (click here) and the ILL Song (click here). Underneath the latter YouTube video, someone wrote 'Well that was completely fucking mental'...to which the band replied 'Thanks! We try...'
Definitely gives a flavour of Fat Out Fest. If you want even more flavour try the video for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs' Psychopomp, summed up by the title (click here). And then there's Test Department, who have returned from the 80s and 90s industrial scene with post industrial sounds and political sentiments for the 21st Century. If a tinned up street in Pendleton made techno music this would be it! (see them in concert click here)
Also worth checking is Yr Lovely Dead Moon, a project led by Rachel Margetts, who, we think, is that girl playing a clarinet in the midst of a mad soundscape of jazz fuzz (click here), and Lake of Snakes, complete with a bloke attacking a sax slap in the sound of a grunged up storm (see here).
And these are just the random highlights of the first night of Fat Out Fest, which also promises 'workshops, delicious food, market place, record stalls and all the glitter one could ever desire...'
Fat Out Fest
Friday 14th Sunday 16th April
Islington Mill and at Regent's Road Trading Estate
James Street M3 5HW
Tickets in advance are £25 per day or £65 for full fest (plus booking fee) click here for tickets
For a full line up and more details see the Fat Out Fest Facebook page click here
Main photo shows ILL
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