On Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 August 2014, KRAAK venue in Manchester UK will play host to two days of celebrating female strength in musicianship and live performance as the ECLECTICA PROJECT launch event takes place over that weekend. The Eclectica team will present live music, DJs and guest speakers from across the UK and beyond, to officially introduce this new project designed to advocate equality for women and minorities in all industries.
** FIRST WAVE OF CONFIRMED ACTS NOW ANNOUNCED!! **
Live: DELOOZE / THE WITCH HUNT / SKINNY GIRL DIET / HYSTERICAL INJURY / ESPER SCOUT / ACRE TARN / MIZKAI / CAT BEAR TREE / and more TBC
Guest DJ set: SOPHIA HAMADI (of OPALE) / and more TBC
SATURDAY 2 AUG // 3PM – 10:30PM @KRAAK, Manchester (M1 1DB)
SUNDAY 3 AUG // 2:30pm – 11:30PM @KRAAK, Manchester (M1 1DB)
- 2-DAY EARLY BIRD PASS on sale now HERE >>
- Join & invite friends to ECLECTICA Facebook event page HERE >>
- Join ECLECTICA FB page HERE >>
- Follow ECLECTICA on Twitter HERE >>
- This is an 18+ event
- This is a non-profit event. Funds only go to cover costs of event. Any profit will be announced and applied to future Eclectica events.
FIRST-WAVE ACTS
In opal fields, you have to pierce through layers of rock to discover a gem. Opale’s first album L’Incandescent holds a single direction throughout the 35-minute duration and is graciously supported with a band of cold and melancholic analog keyboards and soft, haunting voices. Nowhere to go and nothing to feel is the single story sung in English, French, and Spanish. Through cities of light and the waking of lost spirits, Opale will take you on a trip that may be your last.
Paris-based Opale released their first EP under the name Playground on Stellar Kinematics in 2012. The album included a collaboration with Ensemble Economique’s Brian Pyle. Since then, Sophia Hamadi and Rocio Ortiz have recorded beautiful sounds within L’Incandescent and have toured throughout Europe, Canada and the USA. Sophia will be flying in for a special DJ set on the Saturday night.
After successfully reaching 100% of their Pledge campaign, London’s DeLooze released Glass Army on 14 April to a slew of praise from the likes of MTV, BULLET Magazine, Clash, Hunger Magazine, BEAT, The 405 and more.
The progressive brainchild behind this movement is musical and visual artist Stacey DeLooze. With a growing fan base, and assisted on her journey by artists, including Chris Hayden & Tom Moth (Florence + The Machine), Cedric LeMoyne (Remy Zero, Alanis Morissette, Gnarls Barkley), Mikko Gordon (Atoms for Peace), and Mercury nominee Liran Donin, Stacey has founded a unique musical project, exploring what she sees as the essential juxtaposition in our glass-like fragility.
A project by Leeds-based pairing Louisa Osborn and Chris Mulligan, the group’s grimy, sludgy output has been impressing the local music scene for the last few years. Essentially a garage blues two piece, there are shades of The Cramps here in the way that the band add a raw sense of menace to their disturbed riffs.
The Witch Hunt sound like The Kills when they really were just two artists locked in a room to engage their emotional trauma with guitars and a drum machine. All stomping blues riffs and sneering vocals. In Chris’ own words: “We’re a bit like the Dead Weather, The Kills, PJ Harvey and Queens of the Stone Age put together.”
Possibly THE most exciting band in the UK, Skinny Girl Diet are a fierce girl gang from London. The teenage threesome formed in 2011 and have gone from strength to strength. In an exciting turn of events, they’ve been persuaded to emerge from the capital to take on the rest of the UK, and the world, for that matter.
“This music is wonderful: brash, unafraid, reared and raised on my peers (Babes In Toyland, Heavens To Betsy, old school grunge). Female. Teenage… Riot Grrrl, like I always understood it … i.e. female empowering, and not scared to experiment with new musical forms, and not rooted. Exciting, because this music could go anywhere. Thereʼs a Tumblr blog full of cat pictures and vaguely menacing attitude. Of course there is… Nathan from The Gossip would LOVE this – itʼs Gothic, grunge AND teen female.” EVERETT TRUE
“A female Pixies with similar almost spoken word vocals but with added thrash.” BENJAMIN SPIRO-HUGHES
Hysterical Injury are a noise pop bass drums duo from South Wales via the West Country UK. Formed in 2007 as a three piece, they are now brother and sister Annie and Tom Gardiner. They have played hundreds of shows and supported many great bands including Lightning Bolt, Marnie Stern, Men, She Keeps Bees, Mike Watt, Black Pus, The Primitives, Katie Stelmanis (Austra), Screaming Females and many more.
They are one of a kind in that they intertwine unusual melodic lines, big bass riffs and beats mashed from every style. It makes them hard to pigeon hole but if you have to ask, BBC Radio DJ Steve Lamacq said, “They kick up a thrash pop racket” and Venus Zine in the US hailed them as “Our generation’s Sonic Youth.”
Esper Scout are an experimental rock band based in Leeds, driven by an enthusiasm for harmony, guitar textures and dynamic rhythms which create “warm dynamic songs with dense textures and vibrant hooks” (Vibrations). Through their blend of memorable melodies, riffs, breakdowns and progressive builds as well as heartfelt, precise and clever lyrics which balance weight and depth with accessibility and charm, their sound is simultaneously reassuring and memorable but also curious, engaging and exciting by equal measure. With songs and performances that drift through moods from lively to sombre, you will easily be drawn in, hooked and willingly shook up by the captivating foursome.
“We are a sum of two halves, founded by chance and brought together to realise our musical craft. We love beauty and we want to create something beautiful. We’re explorers.“
Mizkai began life as a petri-dish of sugar solution in a secret laboratory nestled somewhere in the quaint British countryside. Created from a complex compound recovered from the furthest reaches of space, she was destined to one day awaken and brainwash the populace with cute, hypnotic lo-fi soundscapes.
The stultifying conformity of clean and polished modern production led Mizkai to turn away from DAWs and instead, re-imagine modern compositions by utilising the raw, lo-fi sounds of dusty archaic games consoles. The nostalgic and charming sounds long since forgotten in modern music provided the creative outlet needed to create the amalgamation of past and present that defines Mizkai’s style.
Veering somewhere between DIY punk and indie-pop, Cat Bear Tree pull varied influence from the likes of Sleater-Kinney, Bloc Party, Bikini Kill and Electrelane. Writing and recording together since 2011, Zoe Konez (guitar and vocals), Claudia Mansaray (bass and vocals) and Sarah Smith (drums and vocals) have been busy building a dedicated following, whilst cementing their place in the list of new generation, all-female bands to look out for.
Drawn together by their shared love and passion for music; this intriguing band has built up a reputation for being one of the most exciting live bands of the moment and have won the hearts of tastemakers at the likes of Amazing Radio and BBC 6Music. Their no-nonsense raw live shows are bursting with energy, showcasing an intriguing layer cake of breathtaking three-part vocal harmonies, post punk flavoured musicianship and evident chemistry between band members.
RELATED LINKS
- Press release on the 9 April Eclectica preview event @Manchester
- Photos & words on the 9 April Eclectica preview event @Manchester
- Interview by TYCI with the Eclectica organiser & Shatterjapan Chief Editor
- Enquiries & volunteers & donations: team AT eclecticaproj.com
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