Lonelady
Manchester International Festival
Pavillion Theatre, Manchester
06/07/2011

There’s something hollow about veteran Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam’s claim that his series of curated gigs for Manchester International Festival are showcasing “new” Manchester music. Beyond the city names like Air Cav and Silverclub may not resonate hugely but they’ve been playing within its boundaries for some time, resolute in the face of an ever swirling shift in the region’s musical fads and trends. Certainly for the former, this feels more like long overdue recognition rather than fledgling breakthrough and they rise to the occasion with aplomb, their sound a towering concoction of post-punk bite submerged under more psychedelic shoegaze leanings.

Headlining tonight is Lonelady, who has fast become a Manchester act in name only. Whether by fault or design, the moniker of Julie Campbell has managed to sidestep her home town’s fascination with grouping their artists according to geography by simple dint of barely spending any time here. Even if the lean spatial minimalism that characterises her songs bares reminiscence at times to those great albatrosses of journo signposting Joy Division and (early) New Order, then it feels almost coincidental. Besides, Campbell strikes out on her own as a truly singular front woman, a stern silence falling between each track not, we think, because of a particular sullenness, but because she places a steely confidence in her music to provide ample recompense.

Which it does, aided in no small part by a drummer of remarkable syncopation, adding a wiry but firm structure that Campbell aligns her crystalline vocal to. Tracks like ‘Intuition’ are fascinating in their mini-battles between sleek pop glimmer and prickly aggression, the complete sonic exemplification of Lonelady’s own dynamic with her two barely lit backing musicians. While Lonelady may not be “new” – however you might categorise that – this sporadic appearance feels completely fresh; Manchester currently doesn’t have anyone quite like her – and she couldn’t give a shit about that.

Simon Jay Catling