Polar Bear/Dirty Projectors/Lucky Dragon

April 1st - 7:30pm
Mint Lounge, Oldham st
Tickets: £10 - available from Skiddle.com

Tickets now on sale!

This next installment of Freedom Principle fun is going to be a very special night, three fantastic and contrasting acts to enjoy, I just can't wait!

Polar Bear are a post-jazz band led by drummer Seb Rochford, who also features in the lineup of Acoustic Ladyland. They cite Deerhoof, Pit Er Pat, Thelonius Monk, Beethoven, Radiohead and Bjork among their influences and the music they make borders on drum and bass, electronica and dance music. In 2005 they were nominated for the Mercury Prize for their second album, Held On The Tips Of Fingers (Babel), which was also deemed one of ‘100 jazz albums that shook the world‘. Their eponymous new album on Tin Angel has received unanimously favourable reviews, including in the Indepedent (4/5), the Guardian (4/5), Uncut (8/10) and on DrownedInSound (8/10).

New York’s Dirty Projectors are quite simply one of the best live bands we’ve seen. Fronted by Yale graduate Dave Longstreth, they have released three albums including 2007’s Rise Above, an album that completely reimagined Black Flag songs. Earlier this year Dirty Projectors signed to Domino Records - and it is rumoured that they will release two albums in early 2009. They were last in town supporting Wire during this year’s Futuresonic festival, meaning this will be their first appearance in a year. They’re expanding their lineup from a quartet to a six-piece for this show.

Finally, Los Angeles-based experimentalists Lucky Dragons make what we believe is their Manchester debut. The duo of Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara have been making music for ages (18 releases and counting) and are currently signed to London label Upset the Rhythm. We’d file them close to Black Dice, Ariel Pink’s Haunted House, YACHT, High Places, Mt Eerie and Panda Bear. Catch them live to decide for yourself.

This very exciting evening will be a co-promotion with the Hey! Manchester.

Portico Quartet

Wednesday 26th of November
Mint Lounge, Oldham st
Tickets £10

Portico Quartet are four young musicians from South London. They describe themselves as an indie band that plays post-jazz, and their unique sound has won them fans from Gilles Peterson to Radio 4 and Notion to BBC Music Magazine, and seen them claim Time Out’s Jazz, Folk and World Music Album of the Year. They were nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize too, impressing with their performance at the award ceremony.

The quartet are Jack Wylie (soprano saxophone), Milo Fitzpatrick (double bass), Nick Mulvey (hang and percussion) and Duncan Bellamy (drums and hang) - and it’s the mix of ethereal saxophone, flying saucer-like hang (imagine an otherworldly steel drum), clattering drums and earthy double-bass that gives their music it’s inimitable, beautiful sound. Their hang-inspired, trance-like repetitive patterns propel the band into stranger pastures than most: invoking memories of Philip Glass and Steve Reich’s gamelan-inspired minimalism.

Their dance-friendly, melodic post-jazz was honed busking across Europe and playing in unusual spaces such as churches and galleries. A weekly session at the South Bank and residency at the Brixton Ritzy earned them a cult following and inspired London’s hippest jazz club, the Vortex, to start a label to release their music. Sessions on XFM and Radio 1 followed and a storming set at the Glastonbury Festival had Q hailing their ‘danceable chamber jazz soundscapes’.

The Times said that they were ‘floating somewhere between jazz and modern classical music’, adding that ‘this young group make a strikingly original sound‘. Allaboutjazz said that their album, Knee Deep In The North Sea, was ‘mellifluous, exuberant and jaunty, full of catchy tunes and strong hooks‘, while Straight No Chaser believed Portico Quartet were ‘like nothing you’ve heard before‘ - ‘a band who make experimental and adventurous music sound wonderfully accessible‘.

Also playing at this special event is Gothenburg’s classical/experimental/ambient one-man-band Library Tapes, whose new album, A Summer Beneath the Trees, was awarded 7.9/10 on Pitchfork.

Plus local support comes from;

The Hunter/Andreae Quartet, mixing improvisation, cinematic soundscapes and rhythmic melodies

The Farthest Thing, a guitar/violin/electronica project fronted by Matt Farthing:


This is a co-promotion with Hey! Manchester.

Tickets from WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk, Skiddle.com, Piccadilly Records on Oldham Street, Zavvi in the Arndale Centre, Ticketline Box Office in St John’s Centre, Liverpool, and on 0161 832 1111.