Sounds From The Other City Preview

THERE'S a fair amount of 'City' currently being thrown about Greater Manchester.

This year will again welcome an intriguing and eclectic mix of new musical talent: Sways Record’s Kult Country and Bernard + Edithcritically lauded punk girl band PINS

Manchester City are spanking everyone, the 'Class of'92' have just bought out Salford City FC, there's the Castlefield-based Summer In The City Festival 2014 in July (the one that Morrissey may, or may not, be headlining), Dig The City, MediaCity, EventCity, City-City Bang-Bang and Salford's tenth annual Sounds From The Other City festival (SOTOC) on Sunday 4 May.

Taking place on May Day Bank Holiday weekend, it's great news for those worried about laborious Monday hangovers.

The festival is a 'celebration of new music and performance, uniting the cream of the national and international scene with some of the city’s finest independent promoters, collectives and club nights.'

Islington Mill

Devoid of the overpriced larger, tedious mainstream music and sodden fields of the multitude of more corporate upcoming music festivals, SFTOC is housed a stone’s throw from Deansgate, along the Irwell on Salford's Chapel Street.

Events will be held in a host of grand and unfamiliar venues along the street including: Sacred Trinity Church, St Philip's Church, Peel Hall, The Old Pint Pot, The Crescent, The King’s Arms and the wonderfully distinctive Islington Mill amongst others.

In previous years the festival has played host to household names like the Ting Tings, Marina and The Diamonds, Alt-J and Sampha.

This year will again welcome an intriguing and eclectic mix of new musical talent: Sways Record’s Kult Country and Bernard + Edith, the latter celebrating their EP Poppy (below), critically lauded punk girl band PINS and minimalists Adult Jazz top the bills, supplemented by a host of other acts so alternative it'd make BBC 6 Music sound like Capital FM. Beyond the music there'll also be a 'Saturday TV' themed series of events at Islington Mill (think Blind Date and Family Fortunes), a record fair and DJ sets at The Deli Lama and an appearance from The Volkov Commanders, whoever they are, popping up and causing bother around Salford.

SFTOC is a celebration of Salford’s growing stock as an artistic hub, it’s worth checking out this area before the inevitable gentrification of forward-thinkers disillusioned by the increasingly developed Northern Quarter.

If you don't believe us, NME magazine said of the festival: "SFTOC itself is the truest representation of what Manchester music is today." And when have the NME ever been wrong? They voted Outkast's Hey Ya no.3 in the best songs of the last fifteen years? Hmm...