Every year on the first Sunday in May, Chapel Street, where Manchester city center meets Salford, comes alive with DIY art, music and spectacle during the Sounds from the Other City festival. It is a vibrant public celebration of the ‘community spirit and collaboration’ that, according to co-director Emma Thompson, sustains much of the region’s alternative culture.
“Collaboration is at the heart of what we do, of Greater Manchester as a city,” says Thompson. “People come together, and it crosses genres and art forms. Without that, Sounds from the Other City wouldn’t have been around for 20 years next year. The compensation we offer isn’t huge, but people really support it and do it out of love.”
Thompson is candid about the challenges faced by those who make experimental art: “It’s precarious. It feels unstable.” Costs are high, affordable space is scarce and financing is “very competitive.” Such forces are literally reshaping the creative landscape. Manchester’s Northern Quarter still has quirky, artsy hangouts, but general bars and restaurants dominate. Leftfield culture is migrating to the edges of the city – or to Salford.
For the past 18 months, the band WH Lung has been based in Salford’s Islington Mill, a complex of artists’ and makers’ studios. Keyboardist Tom Sharkett says that at a time when you “have to be crazy” in many ways to pursue a life in music and the arts, it’s inspiring to be surrounded by people who are “doing cool things to get the right reasons”.
Islington Mill opened in 2000 and has recently been expanded with new buildings, including an adjacent trading estate. “The Mill feels like it has been given a new life. It feels strong,” Sharkett says. This also applies to the creative power of Manchester and Salford more broadly. There are many obstacles, but the urge to create great art remains.
Music and nightlife
Manchester music right now is as vibrant as it’s ever been post-punk – from Anz to Space Afrika, Blackhaine to Sockethead, Mandy, Indiana to Michael J Blood. Much of this is due to the nurturing influence of The White Hotel, a former garage near Strangeways Prison. In contrast to the dull gentrification of modern Manchester, this unique entity (scruffy venue, great sound, art school ethos, nightly rave energy) has created space for new music to grow. “It’s a very important space,” Thompson says.
In the Northern Quarter, but in a similarly creative area, club and performance venue Soup proves that all you need is a basement, a red light and, in addition to feeling, a program that challenges the audience.
In these relatively obscure corners, music is encouraged to get weird
Other city center venues defying convention include punk and indie havens Star & Garter, Aatma, Peer Hat and Peste (see Drinks section below). But more and more interesting things are happening just outside the center, often in unexpected places.
Two of Manchester’s most important base locations: the Old Abbey Taphouse, on a science park in Hulme, south of the city centre; and DBA on Cheetham Hill in the north – are historic pubs that now serve as club and music venues. “If you stood outside the DBA,” says Sharkett, of this traditional Victorian barge, “you’d have no idea what’s going on inside.” He once took experienced Glaswegian DJs Optimo with him: “They saw it all but loved it.”
In these relatively obscure corners, music is encouraged to get weird: in the warehouse location Hidden; Salford’s Eagle Inn; the musically speaking N/OM; the garden; and partial at Islington Mill. Affordable, inclusive and home to “a huge range of LGBTQ+ events”, the Partisan Collective is one of the city’s most exciting venues, according to Thompson. “It’s a glorious place.”
art and culture
At 24 years old, Salford’s Islington Mill remains an essential creative centre. The public events are led by Partisan, which hosts club nights, exhibitions, discussion groups and creative workshops, and the “radioactive queer bar” Mirage. This bar-gallery-event space is home to genre-fluid evenings of art, performance and experimental music, from outfits like Kunstlicker and Short Supply.
Also in Salford, the artist studio Paradise Works hosts regular exhibitions (access by appointment), as does Oceans Apart, a contemporary painting gallery at OA Studios (by appointment, mainly at weekends).
In central Manchester, visitors can spot pop-up exhibitions in multi-functional spaces such as Studio Bee. HappeningInMCR runs a “micro-gallery” in the alternative retail emporium Affleck’s Palace, and the foyer of the Great Northern Warehouse leisure complex (which already houses a collection of illustrations by artist Stanley Chow) will soon feature work by 30 creatives, based on the location of GRIT Studios. MCR’s new space.
For more established contemporary art there is the Castlefield Gallery, currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, and ESEA Contemporary, which showcases work from East and South East Asian heritage. Jane Jin Kaisen’s current Halmang exhibition explores themes provoked by the female seafood divers of the South Korean island of Jeju.
Book lovers in the Northern Quarter can explore the LGBTQ+ bookshop Queer Lit, or Anywhere Out Of the World, which focuses on philosophy and poetry – and hosts similarly thought-provoking music events on the top floor. Nearby Village Books is a celebration of pop culture magazines and periodicals and houses a neat exhibition space in the basement.
Drink
Would you like to drink differently? You’re in the right cities. There are exceptional cocktails at Schofield’s (currently number one on the UK’s Top 50 Cocktails Bars list); natural wine at Curb and Flawd; and incredible beer at Port Street Beer House, the Marble Arch or Smithfield Market Tavern. Further off-piste, the trading area behind Manchester’s Piccadilly Station (dubbed the Beermuda Triangle by local brewery Sureshot) is home to taprooms from Track, Cloudwater and funky, mixed fermentation explorers Balance Brewing & Blending.
Fancy some cultural stimulation with your pint? In Salford, the Kings Arms is a real beer pub and theatre; YES is a student-friendly complex with bars, performances, DJs and pizza; and there’s a legendary underground record store, Eastern Bloc. In the evening the latter turns into a late bar for techno larks. Prefer guitars? Head to Oldham Street pub and music venues Gullivers, the Castle Hotel and cafe bar Night & Day, which recently resolved noise issues with Manchester City Council.
The Peer Hat is a brilliantly run-down boho pub – a haven for all ages, away from the shinier, more commercial aspects of the Northern Quarter
Newer venues include the Peer Hat, a brilliantly run-down boho pub and basement venue focused on fringe scenes. It’s a haven for all ages, away from the glossier, more commercial aspects of the Northern Quarter – somewhere, Thompson says, where promoters can put on weird, loud things. “It’s intimate enough, it can hold 20 people and it feels great. You can experiment. You need that.”
A little way north, on the outskirts of Ancoats, lies White Hotel spin-off O! Peste Destroyed is a beautifully designed (ecclesiastical chic) bar, record and bookshop dedicated to cardinal work, with exhibitions and art installations in the basement. On Fridays, DJ Conor Thomas leads drinkers on deafening excursions into downtempo electronica, frazzled pop edits and everything in between. A1 cocktails served by friendly bar staff complete this gem of a bar.
Food
Manchester’s food scene is growing at an astonishing rate, with distinctive independent restaurants often setting the pace. A medium wrap from Go Falafel is still the best way to spend €5.50 in the Northern Quarter. The meat-free half of the menu at nearby Asmara Bella, a cozy, laid-back Eritrean and Ethiopian bistro, is a similarly tasty boon for vegans and vegetarians, as is Piccadilly’s Bundobust, with its Gujarati sharing plates.
Idle Hands has everything for coffee and brunch. Pollenbakery cafes are also good. On the other side of town, Grub is hidden in an old light industrial unit, with a bar and creative events space (home to the likes of the Cultplex cinema and Floating Art classes). The quirky, upcycled beer garden houses street food traders.
Manchester’s food scene is growing at an astonishing rate, with distinctive independent restaurants often setting the pace
For something a little more refined, Another Hand on Deansgate Mews offers great plates of roast cabbage in cider, smoked mussel and pancetta cream, or butter bean cacio and pepe. At the nearby Exhibition there is food from three different cuisines, including Baratxuri, a compelling tribute to the Basque Country.
Higher Ground is perhaps Manchester’s most special dining experience. Using heritage and rare ingredients from small producers (including Higher Ground’s partner, Cheshire Market Garden Cinderwood), chef Joe Otway creates dishes – coal-roasted pork, yellow peas and sprouted cabbage, or leek with smoked cod roe and thyme – that Although simple in design, they are generous, surprising and intense in taste.
Stay
Set around an impressive five-storey atrium in Ducie Street Warehouse, Native Manchester’s 162 aparthotel rooms are fashionable, comfortable spaces. The sharp aesthetic (post-industrial via Copenhagen) continues in the vibrant public spaces on the ground floor. DJs provide the soundtrack to the weekend and the spaces host events ranging from film screenings to pop-up vintage sales. Doubles from £100 B&B.
Also handy for the Northern Quarter, Cow Hollow is a stylish 16-bed boutique hotel. Clever use is made of the building’s 19th century industrial heritage, with iron castings and winding gears as features. The small, glamorous bar is reminiscent of Rimini or Ibiza Town. Doubles from £99 B&B.
Sounds From The Other City is on May 5tickets £40 plus booking fee