About this Event

IRMA VEP



"Irma Vep is a loner, a joker, a roamer, a ribald construct riddled with both earnest anxiety and mercurial songwriting talent birthed by a young Edwin Stevens in Llanfairfechan, North Wales. Having since fully grown into Irma Vep and now residing in Manchester, Stevens' discography has expanded to document every aspect of his music, from ecstatically free group experiments to bare, sparse songwriting that cuts to the quick, shorn of ornament or pretence. No Handshake Blues is a homage to Llanfairfechan (Transylfechan to the locals).



Having bedded down into Manchester's bourgeoning DIY scene, Stevens moonlights in several other groups (Sex Hands, Klaus Kinski, Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura, Yerba Mansa…), bringing with him an instantly recognisable guitar language. However it's in Irma Vep that his most life-affirming, troubling and thrilling music is made. Much Irma Vep feels like what "classic" music should feel like if it weren't so Classic. Each record, each song and each performance exists as an evolving drama.



Edwin has toured the West Coast of America after being invited by Chris Johanson to play his Quiet Music Festival of Seattle and Portland. BBC 6 Music regularly spin his work. He tours the UK and Europe “butt loads”. Somehow he also finds time to run a tape label and put on gigs in Manchester under the ”Very Bon" moniker. Irma Vep performs solo, and also expands to a full band that includes Manchester legends DBH, Andrew Cheetham, Dave Rowe, Kiran Leonard and Dylan Hughes."



https://www.facebook.com/IrmaVepIrmavep/

https://irmavepirmavep.bandcamp.com/



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JON COLLIN



Jon Collin is the proprietor of Winebox Press – a UK company that makes some of the most incredible hand-wrought cassette packages ever... Winebox also puts out certain releases in "trade" editions, and Collin's High Peak Selections LP is one of the first. Acoustic string improvs of great abstraction, clanger and depth, recalling a certain vibe that Loren Connors once called his own, although there's no aping here. Lots of dizzy inventions of clustered strings that manage to maintain a certain melodic beauty for all their weirdness. There are even bits of wobbled slide and sustain that recall Fahey at his loosest. Totally boss. (Byron Coley, Arthur Magazine)



“This spine-tingling album by Jon Collin is six-string primitivism taken to a whole other level of wildness and intuition.” – Derek Walmsley, The Wire



“Across the four tracks on his second LP, Jon Collin reiterates his interest in mining the emotional potential of the guitar, utilising a vast grasp of the capabilities of the instrument... His grasp on the relationship between the resonant qualities of the hollow-bodied guitar and the wails of feedback and reverberation produced by the amplifier is extraordinary.” – Matt Krefting, The Wire



UPSTAIRS BAR

FREE ENTRY

9PM

18+