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Day: 23 March 2012

Feature: Manchester University Music Society

The Manchester University Music Society (MUMS) is one of the largest and most active music societies in the country, with over 400 members and more than 55 concerts a year. At this time of year, most societies are winding down but we’re moving towards one of the more busy times of year. We’ve had loads of concerts before Easter and we’ve still got three concerts, the country’s largest student-run music festival and two international tours to go!

Last week, the String and Chamber orchestras dazzled us with music from the Czech Republic, a symphony by Haydn and Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta. The concert as part of the New Music North West festival also saw the premiere Kevin Malone’s Angels and Fireflies for String Orchestra and recorder, played by soloist John turner, an internationally renowned performer.

Last Friday, Ad Solem, our elite 27-strong chamber choir, gave a concert of pieces by English composers. From Renaissance works by Tallis to modern composers such as Philip Moore, the concert demonstrated the group’s versatility. Ad Solem regularly perform with professional groups like the Hallé orchestra and they will be touring Estonia this summer.

Following sharp on the heels of Ad Solem, the Manchester University Wind Orchestra (MUWO) performed on Saturday. The band is wholly unauditioned and as such is open to players of all standards who want to make music and have a good time doing it. Their concert this term was themed around Rome and they played works both written especially for Wind Orchestra and some arranged for the ensemble – such as Berlioz’s overture to Le Carnaval Romain. As well as making music together, MUWO is also about having fun and the band is off to Yorkshire this weekend to collaborate with the Sheffield University Wind Orchestra.

If that wasn’t enough, we’ve still got two concerts to go! Following on from successful gigs in Bristol, London and Club Academy last month, the University Big Band is returning home to the Martin Harris Centre on the 20th March. Under the direction of Patrick Hurley, the band will be taking the Centre by storm again with its full complement of saxes, brass and rhythm playing plenty of popular standards from the big band repertoire.

And finally, the Chamber Orchestra will be performing Mahler’s 4th symphony – arguably one of the best symphonies written in the twentieth century. The concert takes place on Friday lunchtime, for FREE. If you’ve never been to a classical concert before, this would be a great introduction so come along at 1pm to the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama!

After Easter, we’re collaborating with our sister society, the University of Manchester Chorus, performing Tippett’s Child of Our Time and Sibelius’ 7th Symphony on April 28th. The University Chorus is a 300-strong non-auditioned choir that has singers both amateur and experienced from Manchester. With more than 400 people performing, we have to move from the Martin Harris Centre and into the grand Whitworth Hall just to fit us all on stage.

Finally, we’d just like to tell you about our summer music festival, Estival. Estival is the largest student-run music festival in the country with 10 concerts in just 4 days – this year it takes place on June 5th-8th, the very last week of term. All of our ensembles and groups have a concert, and there’s everything from a newly-written opera to a grand symphonic symphony. A great way to finish the year and welcome summer!

If you’d like to find out more about MUMS, visit their website or go to their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Live: The Megaphonic Thrift @ Ruby Lounge

The Megaphonic Thrift
Ruby Lounge
11th March
2 stars

The Megaphonic Thrift, an indie shoegaze band from Bergen, Norway, haven’t drawn a massive crowd to their gig at Ruby Lounge. In fact, the headcount is probably around 15.

The male and female voices compliment each other as the echoey vocals harmonise over the rhythmic guitar riffs and, as many sounds mingle together and the stage lights begin to flash, the music becomes enjoyably disorientating. There is an enchanting precision in their deconstruction of guitar melodies but I can’t help dispute NME’s ‘face-meltingly intense’ assessment as they are, simply put, just not that radical.

The strobe lights continue intermittently but the stage remains more or less in darkness which, together with the smoke machine, means we are hardly permitted a glimpse of the band’s faces. This impersonality begins to irk me somewhat, the band simply going from one song to the next with barely a pause between them, a “thank you” if we’re lucky. I’ve always thought the perks of a sparsely attended gig were humour, real engagement and an increased rapport with the band. The Megaphonic Thrift offer us none of that. While some think idle chatter on stage is gimmicky and detracts focus from the music, I am wholly of the opinion that a good dressing room anecdote never undermined anyone’s musical talent.

For me then, although the standard of their pleasant melodic patterns stays constant, their performance lacks excitement. Save for the sole drunken man dancing at the front, band and audience become akin to boys and girls at a school disco, awkwardly evading interaction and gazing, predictably, at their shoes.

The Megaphonic Thrift – Tune Your Mind

Album: Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball

Bruce Springsteen
Wrecking Ball
Columbia Records
4 and a half stars.

Seventeen studio albums in and Bruce Springsteen is still delivering first class albums – does age have no effect on this man? Wrecking Ball is perhaps Springsteen’s angriest album yet, grappling with themes of injustice and economic decline so those expecting tales of long summers night are in for a shock. Not only is there a change in tone lyrically (take the song ‘Jack of all Trades’ for example: “If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ’em on sight”) but musically we’re also in very different territory from Working On A Dream.

The album showcases an eclectic mix of songs, from Irish flavoured folk tunes like ‘Shackled and Drawn’ to the trademark Springsteen anthems in ‘We Take Care of our Own’. There is of course a sad, but fitting, reminder of the passing of Clarence ‘The Big Man’ Clemonts in the song ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’, featuring his last contribution on record and what a contribution as he plays the trademark sax solo, the type of which has come to define the E Street band’s sound.

It’s amazing that Bruce still sounds, and performs, as if it were 1975, but even more remarkable for me is the fact he can produce an album of such relevance and vitality at 62. Believe me, this is no half-hearted, run of the mill piece of work. For most fans, a classic artist’s new material is not necessarily something you want to see on a set list, but come May I will be looking forward to hearing these tunes delivered by the sheer magnificence of the legendary E Street band.

Bruce Springsteen – Jack of All Trades

Album: School of Seven Bells – Ghostory

School Of Seven Bells
Ghostory
Vagrant Records
3 stars

The third album from School Of Seven Bells finds them on more streamlined form than ever. Gone are the tribal influences which made their debut, Alpinisms so compelling, and the album is also a track shorter than their sophomore effort Disconnect From Desire. However the most obvious absence is third member Claudia Deheza, whose departure during the touring of that album may account for the band’s newly pared down sound. Her sister Alejandra makes an admirable effort to compensate for her absence however, with heady, polished vocals that are never anything less than commanding, and, on standouts such as current single ‘Lafaye’, genuinely ethereal.

On previous albums, the band have seemed overly concerned with chasing the meditative bliss/mysticism which the shoegaze scene is often parodied for, whether in the eastern-tinged guitar excess of ‘Sempiternal/Amaranth’ or with vague mantras such as  ‘Allow yourself to be relieved’. Here they are guilty of no such indulgences, with tracks rarely exceeding a comfortable 4:30 length, and Deheza at her most direct lyrically. The band have described the album as a series of conversations between the character of Lafaye and the ghosts of her past, and while this might sound like a recipe for tedious introspection, the results are pleasingly straightforward. Lines like “You take my love and leave me empty/And all you feel is a fist of draining sand” aren’t going to set the world alight, but are all the more appealing for their simplicity. Long-term fans also shouldn’t fear that their latest incarnation is bereft of the beats that made them such an intriguing prospect in 2008. Sonic maestro Benjamin Curtis’s rhythms are more propulsive than ever, particularly on album closer ‘When You Sing’, which somehow carves out its own unique take on the slow burning template established by My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Soon’.

School of Seven Bells – Lafaye