The University of Salford’s brass band has collaborated with Beehive Sound System to create a new version of the 1977 folk classic about artist L.S. Lowry, as part of a project working with charity, Mustard Tree to tackle homelessness in the city.

The project was led by Mark Denby, producer and leader of Manchester-based Beehive Sound System, who oversaw the recording of the piece at 80 Hertz Studios in Manchester earlier this year. As the original song contained a brass band, Mark and the students were keen to include its traditional sound as a reminder of working-class life in the North of England and in recognition of the university’s significance in brass banding heritage in the United Kingdom.

“The brass arrangement we developed with the students really bring new emotions to the song and it is a wonderful homage to a piece of music that is very much embedded in the bricks of Salford’s history,” he says.

The new cover is accompanied by an animated music video, developed by the university’s animation students that pays homage to Lowry’s painting style and imagines how landmarks such as MediaCityUK, the Lowry Theatre and Manchester Central Library would have looked if painted in his signature style.

“Creating the animation was a real challenge,” Mark adds, “but the result is a beautiful companion to the song that faithfully echoes Lowry’s unique artistry.”

Elliot Gray, who graduated from the university this summer, lead on the brass arrangement and conducted the six brass instrumentalists from the Musical Arts programme during the recording.

“It was an amazing experience,” he says. “The final track is fantastic. It is amazing to see how it evolved through the recording process. To see how the brass parts fit into the overall piece has been very creatively satisfying. I learnt so much from writing in a more commercial style and working in an independent way. It was great for me and something that I can point to as an example of real-world professional experience.”

The track is now available on Spotify and other plaforms. And early next year Mustard Tree and the Beehive Sound System are holding a live music event with special guests performing the track along with other songs to fund raise for Mustard Tree.

Jo Walby, CEO of Mustard Tree says: “Lowry is a shining example of how someone born with limited experiences can go on to leave a lasting legacy through discovering and following their passion.

“Mustard Tree exists so others across Manchester and Salford can come together and create opportunities of their own. We’re extremely grateful to the University of Salford and Beehive Sound System for approaching us to be a part of the project – helping us to combat poverty and prevent homelessness.”

To find out more about the history of the orginal track read our interview with Me and Our Kid, Mick and Tim Coleman.

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There are various reasons for this choice, and not only that it was one of the final things I heard last night, when Parks performed the first of two nights at Manchester Central for the Manchester International Festival. The main reason, though, that this song is on high rotation in the whirling Wurlitzer in my mind, is because it’s absolutely gorgeous. Arlo Parks, a recent addition both to the landscape of British singer-songwriters, and to my own cognisance, has made an immediate impression on both, garnering critical plaudits and commercial sales of her first and only album, Collapsed in Sunbeams. (It’s hard to accuse her of slacking when she has done all that and is still only 20). But anyway… about last night:

The lights dim in Manchester Central and I am, not surprisingly, forced to think back to a time, a time ‘before’. I was in almost this same spot on this floor of what was G-Mex, around Easter of 1990, only then I was in a body scrum of people, my uni girlfriend on my shoulders, watching The Happy Mondays debut their new song ‘Step On’. Now… now I am sat down alone, with no one in the seats around me, as though I am persona non grata, the rows of seats spaced out luxuriously, so you can stretch out your legs with business class flight elan. This is not to be pejorative of course. We all know why we are here, and why we are like this. But.. we are, at least, here. We made it, and to be together, listening to live music again is enough, a point that Parks makes herself. The rest can come later.

The band come on stage in stages… the bass kicks in, drums, keys, guitar combining to create that lush, warm deep young soul sound… then Parks herself, low-slung and vibey as she adds vocals for the opener ‘Hurt’, moving straight into ‘Cola’, then digging into Collapsed in Sunbeams for ‘Just Go’. The songs are elegant, unhurried, soulful cuts of contemporary young British experience. And they all just groooooove… bouncing like a Riva hitting a wake, or rolling like a beaten-up old car, top down, cruising streets late at night. These songs tell eternal stories of young life – love, loss, relationships… relationships going wrong, anxiety and doubt. Hey, why let the young have all the fun… these are eternal topics, right? Concerns we have to deal with all through our lives. Take ‘Black Dog’, which Parks introduces as a “pandemic song” about the black dog of depression that hunts, and haunts, many of us. But let’s keep things in the light. We’re still here, still sharing music, and as Parks puts it, “we survived… we’re in a room full of people!”

Parks performed her first ever live gig only back in May 2019. She is that box-fresh. She started a European tour in February 2020… and then. And then. She tells us this is her first gig in 19 months, her first live show of her 20s (another will follow on the 9 July) and that she is nervous. She doesn’t look it, gliding round the stage as though it were a dancefloor, between the fauna and flora that stand in pots on the stage, as though part of the band. Also a poet (she says poetry is incredibly important to her), she slips effortlessly into spoken word during her songs, and also stops to recite the poem ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’ that opens the album. Her lyrics are well constructed. Take the opening couplet from ‘Black Dog’: “I’d lick the grief right off your lips / You do your eyes like Robert Smith”. Brilliant.

The set continues, at times at the same pace as the album – ‘For Violet’ into ‘Eugene’ for instance. And the crowd behave – most grooving contained in the shoulders, and head, as the two guitars swap licks and arpeggios (one guitarist in a beret that means serious business), and the fabulous female two-piece horn section take solos in instrumental breaks and groove-dance more than anyone.

For the second half of the set, the band are joined by a three part strings section from the RNCM, and those lush strings just lift the music even higher, right into the comfy curved roof of this erstwhile train station. Some tracks are formed of just Parks and guitar; at times there’s an interplay of pizzicato from the cello, and guitar; then others have the whole band involved. Overall, the slightly more jazzy improv interpretations of the tracks, when played live, really adds something.

“It feels so good to play these songs,” says Parks, adding: “You are the first people who have heard these songs live.” It’s a privilege. The set is just over an hour, another consequence of an artist at the beginning of her trajectory. A trajectory that will, inevitably, be “up”. There’s an encore formed, suitably, of the track ‘Hope’, with its chorus “you’re not alone” because that’s what we always had… and that’s because we never were. Parks concedes she’s never done an encore before, admitting that backstage she’d asked a bandmate “what if they just don’t want another one?” But we do. And could do more. Tonight and the next morning, when the neon lights of my inner Wurlitzer will snap on.

Arlo Parks was reviewed at Manchester Central on 8 July 2021 as part of the Manchester International Festival 2021.

All of This Unreal Time: Review MIF 2021

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Indeed it is. Tonight we’re all finding our way back to life, back to reality. Back to how we even do this – this socialising, live music, gig-going thing we all used to take for granted. My first visits back to the pub were compromised by a realisation I had lost the ability to talk waffle. And after a life reviewing music, my last gig before this was Sleater-Kinney at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. In February 2020. So we all need to tread carefully, band and audience, audience and venue, all finding our way back to one another, in that nocturnal embrace that used to come so naturally.

It is evident from the get-go that Honeyfeet are going to keep their side of the deal. With influences from Manchester to Detroit, via Cork, the band touch down everywhere from mellow soul to vibey pop via anything from nu folk to old funk, so that they can number both Craig Charles, and Jools Holland, amongst their admirers. It’s all good when you have feet made of honey. So while one track might dig down to the very roots for organic sustenance, the soundtrack to some country hoedown, Connolly hitching up her dress and belting out vocals like she’s about to kick a mule where mules don’t much like to be kicked; on the next, guitar, bass and keys lay down slow and soulful grooves that take us more gently by the hand and lead us gracefully onto the dancefloor of Studio 54 for a smooch.

In front of a trippy visual display the band are tight and taut, despite the enforced absences. Fractured riffs battle with angular off-beat action across Hammond keyboards, jazz chords and the occasional solo on guitar, with a languorous trombone adding sepia retro touches to tracks like 2018’s ‘You Go to My Head’, with its hypnotising opener: “You go my head / And you linger like a haunting refrain.”  

Connolly is the definitive presence, no doubting that. Stage front and centre, hands dug demonstrably into her hips, rolling her shoulders and wagging a finger, she looks as though she might have stepped straight out of an Andy Capp cartoon, were Andy Capp to number a fabulous Irish soul sister amongst his acquaintances. Often wielding a flute like a weapon, she is captivating, like an even earthier Ian Anderson… although very much on two feet. Occasionally she sings through a small megaphone (so what’s that… a miniphone?) taking us straight to Bristol and the trip hop sounds of Tricky and Portishead. Sometimes she loosely raps doggerel, but then as if from nowhere this celestial, dramatic and soaring voice fills the voluminous space of the Albert Hall; a little Amy here, a little Dusty there, even a little Duffy on tracks like ‘Hunt Gatherer’.

Connolly says there’s a new album done and “in the post”, but for now the gig is in support of the last album, Orange Whip, and indeed tracks like ‘Sinner’ and ‘Meet Me On The Corner’ get a dusting down. As does the venue. Albert Hall is elegantly decadent at the best of times – peeling walls, the frayed, aged and bruised ego of a grand ecclesiastical past. But tonight it’s as though the accumulated dust of what Caitlin Moran deemed ‘the great unpleasantness’ is quickly blown away by the Connolly’s seemingly effortless voice, that comes from somewhere deep within her frock, and launches out right across the hall.

We must allow venues to find their feet again, as they themselves stretch out after this brutal hibernation. The Albert Hall has effectively arranged itself into socially-distanced beer hall style tables, so that the venue, both gallery and pit, are fully seated, which is quite something when recalling the carnage for gigs like Blossoms. Drinks are ordered from the App and arrive in suitably Teutonic steiners, and Rudy’s pizzas arrive from what I can only presume is a secret underground tunnel, from their Peter Street locale next door. Spring sunlight streams through the gorgeous stained glass windows and illuminates what remains one of Manchester’s great venues.

The tables look pretty much sold out and the night is designed so as to be divided into two sets. The band definitely up the funk in the second set and people are on their feet for the encore tracks. “You are definitely not allowed to dance on bits of furniture,” Connolly says, with a nod that says “you should definitely dance on bits of furniture.” Mark Radcliffe famously quipped that Manchester is a city that thinks a table is for dancing on. Manchester wasn’t quite on the tables tonight… but give us time. Small steps out of this insipid darkness and back out in to the light of … not the new normal, but our beloved old normal. We’ll get there. “It’s hard to know where to put all the feelings,” says Connolly towards the end of the set and for now, it is just enough be out out, with friends, and Honeyfeet, and the city, and to feel.

Honeyfeet was reviewed at Albert Hall, Manchester on 27 May 2021.

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What Does the Future Sound Like? celebrates the diversity of Jewish music. How does secular music such as Klezmer differ from the traditional music sung at the synagogue?

Anna: “The music sung in synagogues is pretty diverse: differing across denominations and ethnic groups so what you might hear in an Orthodox Sephadi synagogue could be pretty different from a Reformed one for example. However, I haven’t spent enough time in any Shul to feel equipped to answer this question in great detail. In Judaism, the Hazzan (Khazn in Yiddish) leads the congregation in sung prayers. This can be an officially ordained position, requiring as lengthy and as deep a training as to become a Rabbi. As far as I know; purely instrumental music isn’t heard so much in a religious context, although instruments can be present to accompany choirs and singing. Klezmer is broadly speaking an instrumental genre played for celebrations and during lifecycle rituals such as weddings. Klezmer music is often danced to, although not all Klezmer is dance music. There is a crossover between wordless melodies sung by the Hasidim called nigunim which form part of worship. Many of these melodies have made their way into Klezmer repertoire”.

How would you describe Klezmer music for those unfamiliar with the genre?

Anna: “Klezmer music is the traditional, instrumental music of the Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews. The word Klezmer (pl. Klezmorim) originally referred to a Jewish musician, rather than the style of music. Like all traditions, it’s a varied, complex and nuanced music, with many sub-categories of dance styles, ritualistic/functional forms and regional variation depending on locality. However, the most ‘recognisable’ sound of Klezmer might be a lively tune in 2/4 or 4/4 time, in what might sound to people like a minor key. However, Klezmer makes use of modes that don’t all fit into ‘Western’ music theory, and the relationship between major and minor modalities isn’t so binary. For me, the beauty of this music is expressed through these modal tensions; simultaneously joyful and mournful, with phrasing and ornamentation that stylistically aims to mimic the expressive quality of singing”.

What is Klezmer fidl style?

Anna: “This is a difficult question to answer in terms of the technicalities, so I’ll answer it in terms of what it is today and the ways in which I engage with it. As this music was, and to a large extent still is, an oral tradition, much of what we know about the way the music sounded when it was still widely played across Eastern Europe comes from old recordings made on wax cylinders. Much of the work I have done to learn about the style is to listen to these recordings, slowing them down and attempting to transcribe and copy the details in how these players phrased and ornamented melodies. However, some fidl players – Alicia Svigals, Deborah Strauss, Michael Alpert to name just a few – have been lucky enough to learn from musicians who still knew the music in its original context. There was a fiddler called, Leon Schwartz who was still alive in 1970s/80s New York. He was originally from Bukovina and taught and recorded his repertoire and style – much of which is still being passed on through teachers today”.

How does the UK Klezmer scene fit into that tradition?

Anna: “The UK Klezmer scene is small but perfectly formed community of players who have dedicated much of their professional lives to the study of this music. All of us have engaged in the process I outlined above: working with and learning from archival material, as well as travelling internationally to learn and perform with great Klezmer musicians and scholars around the world including Yiddish Summer Weimar, KlezKanada and Yiddish New York. However, I think the UK Klezmer scene has marked itself out to be a really forward thinking and progressive one. The London Klezmer Quartet have written lots of their own repertoire which stays true to the tradition whilst being exceptionally fresh and original. String duo, Fran&Flora brought a 21st century sound world to traditional and archival material by incorporating innovative and experimental production techniques into their album Unfurl. In my own work, I have begun an experimental duo project with Klezmer drummer Simon Roth to explore the stylistic language of Klezmer through an improvisational lens”.

How does being Jewish influence you as a musician?

Anna: “Whilst I don’t believe that one has to be Jewish in order to play this music and engage with it in deep and meaningful ways, I feel that my Jewish heritage is in part what drew me to it. I was brought up in a secular home in the middle of the Hasidic community of Stamford Hill and so the sounds of Friday night and High Holy Day prayers were in my ears from an early age. Despite the totally secular upbringing, I have always felt culturally connected to Judaism – my dad raised us on a diet of year round matzah snacking and the Marx Brothers. I also experienced a lot of anti-semitism at school which I think in many ways shaped my identity and brought me closer to my Jewishness. When I started playing this music in my late teens, something clicked. I felt I was able to express myself in ways that came much easier to me than the classical music I grew up playing. It just felt right somehow; like I had been wearing the wrong sized shoes up until that point”.

How did studying at Manchester University influence your career?

Anna: “The two biggest influences on my career so far were my studies in ethnomusicology, anthropology, and participatory music in theory and practice. The ethnomusicology course taught me to think critically not just about music, but about wider social and cultural issues. In particular, it taught me to see the ways in which certain narratives dominate and shape our perceptions and world view. The Participatory Music module solidified my early ambitions of wanting to use music in ways beyond performance that would positively impact society. I have worked and volunteered in a wide range of settings, from concerts in care homes for the elderly to workshops with residents in Immigration Removal Centres. The majority of my work currently comes through Newham Music Service working with children and young people with Special Educational Needs. At the moment I’m also part way through the application process to train as a Music Therapist at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama”.

Can you tell us a bit about Songs from the Stamford Hill Shtetl?

Anna: “This is a project I started writing in 2017/18 while living above a shop on a parade of ultra-orthodox and Hasidic owned business in Stamford Hill. I plan to write a Klezmer tune for each of the shops that I formed a relationship with and present it as both an interactive website with a combination of illustration, music and words as well as a live performance that will combine storytelling and music. I’m interested in the various tensions that are at play within this project. I am composing and playing Jewish music about a community for whom I am prohibited to play for or with because of my gender. It’s also interesting to think about the ways in which different communities relate to this particular form of Jewish music”.

How has the pandemic impacted your work?

Anna: “Before the pandemic I was in rehearsal for and due to start a run of show called Indecent at the Menier Chocolate Factory. The show’s music written and devised by Klezmer fiddle player Lisa Gutkin and it was an amazing piece of theatre by playwright Paula Vogel about a Yiddish play and its unfortunate history. The production is currently on hold, as are most of my other performing projects: I have’t had a gig since May when I played for my parents and their neighbours on their street. The only work I have now is in schools but even that is pretty limited. Many schools either cancelled their provision or severely restricted it due to the bubble systems. Its hard but there have been silver linings: in particular I’ve been developing my compositional voice over this time, becoming more familiar and fluent with music production on Ableton Live and creating some new and interesting sounds. I’ve also had time to play lots of Bach: seeing as it was written to be played solo, its the perfect soundtrack to a pandemic. Not sure whether my housemates would agree, but it’s keeping me sane and stimulated at least”.

How did you get involved with the film project with the Manchester Jewish Museum?

Anna: “Through my dear friend and unofficial mentor, Francesca Ter-Berg – the cellist and multidisciplinary artist who makes up one part of the duo I mentioned earlier, Fran&Flora”.

What will you discuss in your film?

Anna: “Some pretty similar things to here but in more or less detail. Insights into the ways in which artists think and feel out their craft – a bit like going backstage at a show maybe?”

What do you hope people will take from the film?

Anna: “Hope and excitement for the future: not just for the UK’s Jewish music scene, but the return of live music and performance in general. We all need it”.

What Does the Future Sound Like? is one of a series of events from Manchester Jewish Museum ahead of its re-opening in Spring 2021 following a £5 million restoration. The films are available to watch online from 10-15 December 2020. See website for details.

Songs of Arrival stories of Jewish refugees in Manchester

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MACFEST, now in its third year, is the brainchild of Qaisra Shahraz, a Mancunian muslim author, whose aim, in the wake of the Manchester Arena terror attack, was to construct a festival aimed at building bridges and confronting negative stereotypes, by celebrating the range and history of the arts in Islam.

When it closes (with a musical finale at the Whitworth Gallery on 26 January), this year’s MACFEST will have showcased 50 diverse cultural events, in venues all across the city.

Tonight, the studio at the Lowry is sold out for an evening of Turkish and Sufi music. First up, introduced with disarming charm and warmth by Aziz Ibrahim (formerly of legendary Manchester bands, Simply Red and the Stone Roses), is the Sabha Ensemble. Based in this city and specialising in Turkish music, tonight they welcome Turkish singer, Gulcin Bulut into their ranks.

Their 30 minute set is catchy, welcoming and accessible, warmly received by a diverse audience; the highlight for me being an upbeat setting of a Rumi poem (whose title, speaking of a wise man’s humility, translates as “I don’t know”).

The rest of the evening belongs to Al Firhaus, a quartet (a quintet this evening for reasons I’ll explain) of highly accomplished musicians, led by violinist, Ali Keeler, playing an impressive range of Sufi poetry set to music from around the Mediterranean and beyond. One beautiful number is actually an adapted Celtic folk tune, accompanied by sacred praise.

The set opens, as is tradition, with a brief recital from the Quran, gently and tunefully sung by Keeler’s son, who has travelled down from Iceland to take part. The rest of the ensemble comprises Youssef el Mezghildi (on qanun), Salam Vives (cello) – both from Spain – and Omar Benlamlih (darbuka and vocals) – from Morocco. Although we are in a sense being treated to an evening of sacred music, there is little formality – the audience is invited to clap and sing along (and there are smart phones everywhere, videoing the performance).

The message is of devotion and joy, and of tolerance between the ‘peoples of the book’ (Jews, Christians, Muslims). Understandably, many are there to reconnect, for an hour or two, with their culture of origin, but please remember that the ethos of MACFEST is to be open-armed and welcoming.

Come along; learn a little about your muslim neighbours and the vast range of their diverse cultural heritages. Have a slice of cake and a chat. Follow the MACFEST hashtag: #SpreadHoneyNotHate

MACFEST was at The Lowry on 18 January 2020.

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