Well, hello there; fancy seeing you all here – presume you’re waiting on another batch of new Manchester bands and artists you’ve not come across before?
Stupid question, of course you are. It’s the end of the month after all and that’s how we like to start the next one. Best foot forward and all that.
In case you happen to be new here, right about now is the time (as you’ve probably guessed from the title) that we round up five of the best musicians from in and around Greater Manchester that we’ve been listening to recently.
Let’s not muck about any longer, shall we?
Five Manchester bands and artists you should listen to
1. John Bramwell
His S-heavy voice cuts through so much this album in such a satisfying way.
First up on our list is John Bramwell, best known for his years with noughties alternative and indie band I Am Kloot, but he’s been enjoying his solo journey since 2016, and so have we. With his sophomore album released earlier this year, we finally found time to try it out – in a word: stunning.
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Hailing from Hyde, the former frontman and guitarist released his standalone debut in 2017, but even before that he released a passion project under the name ‘Johnny Dangerously’ way back in 1989 entitled, You, Me and the Alarm Clock, once called “the best British album you’ve never heard” by The Guardian.
Suffice it to say, the 60-year-old has been on a long and winding road to becoming a straight-up singer-songwriter for some time now and it’s great to hear where his sound has got to. There’s a real 1960s and ’70s feel to a lot of it; we’d start with the title track, ‘It’s Just You’, and ‘I Am The Sky’, which shows a real range to those vocal tones.
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2. Hollows
Second on our list of Manchester bands and artists for November is the alternative trio, Hollows, who after stumbling across a little while back we’ve now rediscovered following their release of their latest EP, Running With Scissors.
While it’s by no means heavy, they’re probably the most guitar-driven name on the list this month. We picked up bits of Placebo and even contemporary Smashing Pumpkins at times but, put most simply, they’re just a good rock band and we still think there’s a lack of those around these days.
Their newest stuff is undoubtedly their best but you’ve still got to start with ‘UV Lights’ in our opinion (simply because we did), but from there we’d encourage you’d move on to ‘History’ and ‘Talon’.
Shifting over to electronic for a spell, our next nod goes to rising DJ and producer Oldboy. Named after the cult-hit film, his sound certainly carries over plenty of inspiration from movies and TV – and not just because he samples Brad Bitt in Seven on one of his tracks.
Born in York before spending his uni days in Sheffield and eventually landing here in Manchester a few years ago, the rising Northern star – real name Max Carter – does garage, dub and house best but there’s lots of variety on show. He also has his own record label, Front Toward Enemy.
With a catalogue dating back to 2021 and a versatility spanning so many sub-genres, not to mention a truly great selection of instant earworm sampled, he can pretty much turn his hand to anything provided there’s bass and some distortion involved. ‘Grab Di Mic’ is his latest, ‘Find Da Cure’ is a great intro and his ‘Got Yo $’ rightly went viral on TikTok a while back. Give him a spin.
Amidst all these new Manchester bands and lesser-known artists, Oldboy’s live sets are a nice change of pace.
4. The Recreation
Penultimately, we’ll quite literally keep effing and blinding until you listen to the fantastic local five-piece that is The Recreation, who have quickly become a bit of an obsession of ours. They released their second LP this past May and the only thing we’ve been listening to the same amount is their first.
To be completely honest, we’ve only really chimed with the stuff from 2020 onwards, but let’s just say we really struggled to pick our favourite tracks from the Oldham lads because we genuinely love all of it so much. That being said, if you had to push for once from each album, we’d go ‘Summertime 35s’ from their debut and ‘Call Me Back Sugar’ from Love In.
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A really special shout-out also has to go to the extremely stripped-back spoken word track, ‘remember the future? interlude’, which delivers such matter-of-fact but surprisingly moving Northernisms that we really urge you to find a quiet corner in a dark room and just experience it. Big up The Rec.
couldn’t have done it without the wizardry of @thekaratesuit and a huge thanks to Ramin Bostan for providing the luscious trumpets you hear on track 6 ‘Kharhi’. Both amazing talents in their own right!
Last but not least are the whippersnappers of the bunch, local lads Montello who were recently got onto thanks to the Stanleys lads, who named this little four-piece one of the names helping fly the flag for the mini music hamlet of Wigan.
When we say young by the way, we’re talking no one much older than 17 in this promising little outfit but they’ve already got a style and a sound that gives the impression of a band that has been at this much longer than they have and there’s definitely some similarities to The Lathums, Stanleys and more.
It’s no-nonsense indie rock and you know we love a bit of that. Better production levels and even more confidence will come as they inevitably mature but, at the minute, they’ve got three tracks you have no excuse not to work through them all. The Wigan scene really is growing and we’re here for it.
They also happen to be playing our Audio North stage at Year’s End Festival next month, so we best see your there and listening to live!
And we’re sorry to say it but, once again, that’s all for another month.
We sincerely hope you give these fantastic Manchester-based bands and artists a go over the coming weeks and come back for more recommendations for our final edition of 2024 at the end of December.
Featured Images — Press Images (supplied/via Facebook)
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Manchester Pride 2025 line-up announced, with headline performances from Olly Alexander and Leigh-Anne
Daisy Jackson
Manchester Pride has revealed its 2025 line-up and headliners ahead of the city’s huge LGBTQ+ celebration.
Set to take place, a usual, over the August bank holiday weekend, this year’s live entertainment features headline slots for Olly Alexander, Leigh-Anne, and Billy Porter.
The line-up is packed with LGBTQ+ icons and allies once again as summer’s event calendar heats up.
This year’s Manchester Pride festival will take place between Friday 22 and Monday 25 August, culminating in the candlelit vigil at Sackville Gardens.
Topping the bill this year is Brit Award winner and Years and Years frontman Olly Alexander, along with multi-platinum pop star Leigh-Anne, of Little Mix fame, and Hollywood superstar Billy Porter.
Also announced by Manchester Pride today are special guests including Tulisa, Big Freedia, Sonique and Louisa Johnson, Jodie Harsh, and multi-award winning cabaret artist, Danny Beard with The Danny Beard Show.
Manchester Pride has also worked with community collectives to commission a number of immersive shows, including House of MCR, which will bring together dance, singing, lip-syncing and fashion.
Kulture Cabaret will be a celebration of queer South Asian and Middle Eastern performers, and Queenz: Drag me to the disco will feature during the bank holiday celebrations.
Bongo’s Bingo will kick off the Manchester Pride celebrations each day.
This is all part of the first-ever line-up for the brand new Mardi Gras event, which will take place on the Saturday and Sunday and has an ambition to better represent marginalised communities such as trans, non-binary, and queer local talent.
The Gay Village Party will be back in Manchester Pride’s spiritual home from Friday 22 to Monday 25 August, featuring Samantha Mumba, B*Witched and Sister Sledge featuring Kathy Sledge – with more still to be announced.
These performances will be across two stages, the Alan Turing stage and the Indoor Arena, alongside a funfair, market stalls, and pop-up food vendors, plus Ginny Lemon’s Dog Show.
Mark Fletcher, CEO at Manchester Pride, said: “Manchester Pride is the city’s celebration of LGBTQ+ life and culture and each year we’re challenged to respond to the diverse needs of our communities.
“Working closely with LGBTQ+ groups and collectives from Greater Manchester we’ve been able to respond to the needs of our communities in presenting a queer focussed, intentional line up of performers who will elevate and lend their support to the rich bed of LGBTQ+ performers that this city has to offer.
“With the introduction of the new Mardi Gras event we needed to make sure that we stayed true to what Pride is about in this city.
“Our communities were clear that they wanted to see LGBTQ+ performers front and centre and we’re thrilled to announce a line up which serves.
“With so many stages available across the two live music based events we’re confident that there’s something for everyone; whether that be multi platinum selling pop artists, drag queen royalty or ballroom fierceness that you can expect to see at the special House of MCR Show.”
Manchester Pride 2025 line-up
Friday 22 August
Gay Village Party
Samantha Mumba
Saturday 23 August
Mardi Gras
Leigh-Anne // Billy Porter
Special Guest: Big Freedia
Gok Wan // Sonique // Booty Luv // Joshua James // Bestley
The Danny Beard Show // Dean Mccullough’s Pop Machine // Bongo’s Bingo
Queenz: Drag Me To The Disco // Black Pride Mcr // Runway X Banksie
Peaky Blinders creator set to produce a documentary of the upcoming Oasis reunion tour
Danny Jones
If you had any doubt that the upcoming Oasis reunion shows weren’t going to be heavily documented, you’re an absolute fool. However, we’ll admit we weren’t expecting to hear the creator of Peaky Blinders‘ name connected to the tour.
Yeah, as in the Brummies with the flat caps on the telly – them ones.
That’s right, the same man who brought Tommy Shelby and Birmingham’s most infamous gang to our screens is apparently overseeing a major documentary project which will chronicle the return of the Gallagher brothers and put the best bits on film.
As announced by the band themselves this week, Steven Knight has been confirmed as the creator and producer of the Oasis ‘Live ’25’ world tour documentary movie.
The brain behind Peaky Blinders is creating the second Oasis doc after 2016’s Supersonic. (Credit: Taylor Rooke/BBC/IMDb)
It’s worth noting to begin with that besides the BBC’s blockbuster gangster series, which is soon to be followed up with the franchise’s first feature film on Netflix, Knight does have some background in music-related media.
The 65-year-old created the six-part BBC drama, This Town, which revolves around the rise of ska and the ‘two-tone’ revival movement in the Midlands during the 1970s; he also wrote the script for the 2024 opera biopic, Maria, starring Angelina Jolie.
Other names involved in the Peaky Blinders boss’ Oasis documentary are joint directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, who made the LCD Soundsystem film, Shut Up And Play The Hits, which covers frontman James Murphy’s final gig as part of the band at Madison Square Gardens.
Although we are obviously yet to get a release window at this early stage – they’ve got to get through all 41 dates first (touch wood) – more details are expected soon.
Who’s managed to grab tickets? (Credit: Press Image)
The bedlam around ‘Live ’25’ becoming a reality may have died down a little as now just have to play the waiting game and gear up for those first gigs in July, but there have still been plenty of exciting announcements since then.
As well as Richard Ashcroft and Cast being confirmed as the two support acts for the tour, the full reunion band has also reportedly been revealed, with another member of the original 1991 lineup set to make his own comeback.
We’re still way too far away from seeing leaks of the setlist and what they’ve been playing in rehearsals etc., but we
After all, as much as love debating the best Oasis songs of all time, we’ll just be glad to hear any of them being played by the Burnage boys, together again in the flesh, for the first time in 15 years.
Danny Jones -
29th November 2024 
