This weekend is by far one of the clubbing highlights of the Autumn in Manchester, with some extraordinary line-ups across the city, some lurking in the shadows with dark and brooding techno capable of warping your reality to within an inch of its life and on the other hand some pretending that Halloween doesn't exist by booking Chic and Nile Rogers to funk out some songs about being family and making everyone want to talk about 'feelings'. Quite the contrast, but whether you're a Halloween goblin, dressed as a sexy cat or donning a white suite and pretending to be Nile himself is neither here, nor there. The bottom line is, (as Stone Cold would quite rightly say) this week's club nights are right off the top shelf and theres an abundance of quality DJ talent plying their trade and conjuring up endless lashings of tunes and beats promising no tricks and purely loads of treats.
Friday 1st November
As the weekend begins, there's a whole host of Friday night delights to look forward to. Homoelectric is a Manchester institution. It is quite simply one of the best club nights the city has ever seen. After throwing an obscene amount of killer parties at Legends (RIP), Homo Electric has turned Nomadic, roaming the city looking for venues that suit the night's alternative, underground ethos. The venue for tonight's party has now been revealed as Antwerp Mansion in Rusholme, sure to give this instalment of Homoelectric a suitably down and dirty, house party feel perfect for its marauding crowd of homos, heteros, don't knows and disco ASBOs.
Friday rolls on and Under are back at Gorilla. The chaps from Under have yet to fail at this party throwing malarkey and continuously provide bookings that excite the underground house and techno troops across Manchester. This Friday sees them bring one of the founding members of the Detroit based genre smashing techno family, Visionquest. Shaun Reeves along with Lee Curtiss, Ryan Crosson and Seth Troxler (who have also both played in Manchester within the last two weeks) started Visionquest and turned it into the label, live act and genre busting forward thinking conglomerate that it is today. He joins Under at Gorilla for a monster Halloween special this Friday. Find out more.
The Warehouse Project presents Bestival has undoubtably one of the best line ups of this season. Headline slots for Hot Chip, Chic Ft. Nile Rogers and the maniacal kings of cuts and party mash up 2manyDJs are just the tip of the iceberg for the Warehouse Project this weekend. Bestival head honcho Robdabank is also ready to step it up and mix it up at Victoria Warehouse alongside the likes of TEED and Toddla T. The lavish production values of the warehouse project alongside a line up worthy of Bestival itself brings those lucky enough to have a ticket, one of the hottest club nights of the year.
Saturday 2nd November
On into Saturday, and there is still plenty of weekend left to go at, with an abundance of decent dance floors to discover across Manchester. Metropolis at Gorilla has tonight invited a past and future, hyper hybrid combination that threatens to blow the roof off the Oxford Road Club. Wilkinson is a brilliant up and coming talent who appears has the magic ability to turn every production into drum and bass gold. Marky is quite simply a legend of the game with such respect across the scene that if we were to name all the labels he has releases on we'd miss the gig entirely. Monster drum and bass at Gorilla this Saturday.
A short drive up the road and The Warehouse Project has taken a turn to the dark side and trippy experimental techno electronica beats seem to ebb and flow through the bare brick walls like a river of gothic, melodic musical madness. The line up is curated by Four Tet and Caribou, both known for their incredible production and remixes of some of the most popular electronic tracks of all time. This is a quite different affair to the bold rainbow coloured, fancy dress inspired Bestival banter from the night before. This will undoubtably be a musical masterclass of alternative and abstract melody and rhythm filling The Warehouse Project with a air of mystery that is rarely found in clubs nowadays. They are joined by masters of their trade in Doom, Daphini and one to send the Radiohead fans into a uncontrollable frenzy ,Thom Yorke.
Sunday 3rd November
Sunday has a habit of finding out out who's the phoney tough and who's the crazy brave, and we know which camp we fall into; as those lovely chaps from Mute! are going to be teaming up with Sunday party producers Hideaway at Cord. They're providing free grub, free entry and Dale Howard headlining, so have a disco nap and head out to the Northern Quarter where you can pretend Monday doesn't exist, for a few more hours at least.
Manchester is going to produce yet another brilliant mid Autumn weekend of top electronic music. There's plenty more going on across the city, you can check out the full weekend's listings here.
