The distant barking of a dog has become a familiar welcome for regulars at The White Hotel. Once you pass the perpetually-littered Dickinson Street, having been met with barbed wire and graffitied fences, you will find the front door, contrarily located at the back. It’s easy to see why Salford’s most distinctive venue might pose an intimidating presence.
Projections of films you’ll probably never see, an old upright piano, toilets that are… well-used. The White Hotel finds identity in its aggressive non-conformity. Yet whilst the green tape placed over our phone cameras and cage-like structure in which the DJs perform threaten to be mere pretentious props, what’s striking about The White Hotel is its absence of ego.
The crowd is engaged and enthusiastic. The sheer diversity of ages, sexualities, races, genders, and fashion, mean that even those repulsed by arty-farty pretentions can probably find a home here, too. Many venues pose as hotspots of inclusivity (inclusive only to an aesthetically ‘cool’ elite), but here there is a genuinely accommodating atmosphere. The bartenders are friendly and considerate. People yap in the smoking area about music. For all its quirks and gimmicks, the community that The White Hotel fosters really is all about the music.
This night commanded especially high expectations.
SVBKVLT are a Shanghai-based record label and music collective founded by Mancunian Gaz Williams, who moved to China and ran the widely celebrated venue The Shelter, and has since exported back a slice of its soundscape. The label has garnered considerable attention within the electronic music community. Their music has been endorsed by artists including Aphex Twin, and recently Hyph11E, one of the label members DJing in Salford, performed before Björk and Mica Levi in Reykjavik.
SVBKVLT are renowned for the diversity of their artists and musical offerings. Just this year, their releases have ranged from ambient meditations on corruption within the Iranian government, to grime and bass inspired by the Icelandic landscape. Thus, when the night’s line-up was announced, featuring artists from across the globe, each with their own distinctive styles and genres, it appeared characteristic.
We enter the fog.
Through the purple-tinted smoke, the silhouette of Hyph11E appears, busily tweaking the EQs with purposeful precision. Pearson Sound’s ‘Hornet’ sets things in motion, providing a buzzing buoyancy and crispness that permeates throughout Hyph11E’s selections. Breaking free from the wearisome paradigm of four-on-the-floor crowd-pleasers, her pulsating, bass-driven selections crackle with energy. She is not afraid to let songs breathe, but even in their lull moments there is a sharp inflection of menace, of something bubbling underneath.
Her music exists on the brink – there is a sense that at any one moment she might completely shell it down if she so desired. Instead, she takes us through a dizzying journey of techno, breakbeat, and grime, before her set culminates in a high-tempo blend of breaks and lush, reverbed synths.
A few moments of silence pass, leaving the crowd itching for more. There are some spirited pleas for “Music!” It would almost feel against its own ethos for The White Hotel to give the crowd what they expect, and in fitting with the venue’s teasing non-conformity, DJ Anderson do Paraiso’s set sees a surprising shift in tempo.
If Hyph11E’s set can be defined by its eclecticism, Anderson do Paraiso’s can be instead by its cohesion. Belting out many of his own productions, he manufactures a hypnotic blend of frantic Brazilian vocals, piercing cowbells, and suspenseful, shuddering bass. Somewhat amusingly, this was his first performance outside his home country of Brazil, swapping sunny Belo Horizonte for a former garage on an industrial estate in Salford. He quickly makes himself at home, performing with bravado and conviction.
Yet, I suspect The White Hotel has the same main event every night; not an artist, but its booming sound-system. The introduction of Manuka Honey at 4am is punctuated by the arrival of that main event in full flow. Solid ground becomes a scarce commodity. Subwoofers swell, rattling the old garage doors with penetrating sub-bass. Manuka Honey’s mixing is breathless, whipping us through tune after tune of reggaeton-inflected techno, until a snarling dubstep track earns the first wheel-up of the night. It’s a thoroughly satisfying performance.
As Swimful’s hard-hitting grime closes the night, we exit through the entrance, the sky having turned a royal blue, our ears ringing, but able enough to receive a cheerful thank you from the bouncers on our way out. Love it or hate it, Manchester’s most ‘intimidating’ venue is also its most charming.
