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January 7, 2018January 6, 2018

BPREVIEW: Playback @ mac 07-24.01.18

Words by Ashleigh Goodwin

It often feels like there is a momentary hush over the city as we pick ourselves up off 2017’s floor and stumble into 2018. We could spend this transitional time recovering from the short-lived break, however mac is offering an alternative – welcoming in the New Year with Playback, ‘an interactive exhibition showcasing over 200 short films made by young artist filmmakers from across the country’.

Playback runs in mac’s First Floor Gallery from 7^th to 24^th January, open 11am-5pm from Tuesdays to Sundays. Admission to Playback is free. For direct info, including venue details and the wider facilities available at mac, click here.

Playback is a joint initiative funded by Arts Council England and the exhibition’s creator, Random Acts – a Channel 4 spawned endevour which launched in March 2017 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Playback aims to shine a spotlight on new work by providing support, funding and exhibition opportunities to ‘young artist filmmakers from across the country’. With some of these ‘remarkable and award-winning shorts’ being made within ‘in and around Birmingham’, Playback promises visitors ‘the chance to see the people, places and creativity of your city onscreen.’

The exhibition allows you to explore the bodies of work at your own pace, using interactive touch screens, and features genres including spoken word, comedy and drama. As mac’s website states, the films being exhibited at Playback ‘span a range of art forms and topics – from krumping and parkour dance shorts, to an animated tale of teenage love that unearths our desire to be as cool as the zines we read.’

Birmingham’s prominence continues to grow around the many aspects of film, with the city seeing an influx of location shooting on its streets as well as increasing ties to organisations such as the British Film Institute and Marv Films. Added to this, the number of ways to access film in Birmingham has grown significantly within the past few years, with cinemas such as The Electric, The Mockingbird and Everyman supporting independent, current and cult productions through their programmes. Events such as the Flatpack Film Festival and the Birmingham Film Festival have become annual platforms for filmmakers, often bolstered by a rolling calendar of events to celebrate and support initiative new works, such as those programmed by Flatpack: Assemble.

Playback has the potential to fit nicely between these established city operators, by providing support to independent artists with the ‘festival feel’ offered by the variety and quantity of pieces exhibited. It could be that Playback’s ‘USP’ is that it allows a more open and customer driven experience as you are free to examine whatever you choose, whenever you choose.

As well as its exhibition at mac’s First Floor Gallery this January, Playback is being toured throughout England in ‘major galleries, libraries and multi-arts venues’ – culminating with the Playback Festival 2018, to be held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts from 21^st to 25^th March ‘18.

Additionally, there are multiple Playback events to be held at mac Birmingham throughout January – including animation, film making workshops, and a live spoken word event.

Playback – coming to mac’s First Floor Gallery 04-24.01.18

For more on Playback at mac, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk/exhibition/playback

To view a list of all the Playback dates across the UK, visit www.ica.art/ica-off-site/touring-exhibitions/playback/about-playback-touring-exhibition-association-random-acts

For more from mac, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk

October 12, 2017

BREVIEW: Daphne @ mac 13-19.10.17

Words by Heather Kincaid / Production shots by Agatha A. Nitecka

Daphne was screened in Birmingham as part of the Flatpack: Assemble project, bringing industry showcases to the city. Daphne will be further screened to the general public at mac from Friday 13th to Thursday 19th October – for direct information, including showtimes, venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

The amorphous structure of Peter Mackie Burns’ feature-length directorial debut perhaps owes something to its origins in a 2013 11-minute short, Happy Birthday to Me. But there’s something oddly compelling about Daphne’s resistance to following cinematic convention, as though, much like its title character, it refuses to be pinned down and made to stick to a single, clearly defined course.

Cinematography by Adam Scarth feels as restless and detached as its subject, both moving passively from one scene to the next, apparently without much sense of where they’re going. And though some inevitably will, viewers aren’t asked to sit in judgement on the character or her story but merely to observe it.

Self-obsessed, single and spiraling steadily out of control, the misanthropic Daphne is almost as unlikely a ‘hero’ as you could imagine. Though she makes a show of independence, her spikiness is little more than a mask for her unwillingness or inability to take control of the life through which she drifts, instinctively ducking out of any encounter where she detects a whiff of change or serious commitment. Because she hasn’t thought of anything better to do yet, Daphne continues to meet up with old school friends she doesn’t really like, stumbles around in a drunken, drug-fueled haze, lives off takeaways she’s forgotten that she ordered and occasionally hooks up with strange men in whom she has no interest.

But when she witnesses a stabbing in a corner shop and stays to save the victim’s life, well… not much changes, actually. After the event, she takes up the offer of counselling, but not because she’s feeling particularly traumatised by what she’s witnessed. In fact, it’s the complete lack of an impact the incident has on her that makes her acknowledge that perhaps there’s something up. As she says to the therapist in a moment of uncharacteristic honesty, “I haven’t felt alive in a long time.”

In conversations around the film, there’s been a lot of emphasis on Daphne’s gender, whether in the form of comparisons with BBC Three’s Fleabag or in accusations of misogyny levelled at critics passing comment on her ‘likeability’. But while Daphne might be part of a new wave of women in film depicted with more unflinching honesty than we’re accustomed to, she’s certainly not the sort of character who’d see herself as any sort of feminist trailblazer. In fact, she largely fails to see herself as anything very much at all.

Arguably it’s this that makes her seem so resonantly real, but perhaps also is at the root of her sometimes being such uneasy company. Though Daphne’s dialogue is often cutting and she is someone who manifestly refuses to give a shit what anyone else things of her, it’s not so much anything she actively says or does that makes her difficult as it is her total inertia. It’s hard to decide what to make of someone who so clearly doesn’t know what to make of herself. This fragmented sense of self is visually indicated from the off, with a striking image of her descending an escalator beside a wall of mirrored strips that dramatically shatter her shifting reflection. That said, Daphne is so far from being unloveable that a bouncer who kicks her out of a club where she’s been misbehaving is enamoured enough to chase her down, ask her out and then decline her knee-jerk offer of casual sex in favour of pursuing something more meaningful. We see, too, that her friends and family are willing – determined even – to put up with her and remain in her life despite her self-destructive attempts to push them all away.

But quite apart from how her fellow characters respond to her, if you’re intellectually smug enough to laugh at her declaring Slavoj Žižek a “doughnut” as she chucks aside a book that she’s been reading just for fun; or at her revelation that she always thinks of Freud when doing coke, (and let’s face it, if you’re watching this film, you probably are) it’s almost difficult not to find her rather charming, spikiness et al. Then there are her magnificent, enviably spontaneous put-downs. “You, sir, are a fabulous cunt,” she says to bouncer David as she staggers away from him.

Daphne also breaks the mould of the gritty, social realist style of cinema it adopts. Rather than focusing on the disenfranchised working class such films are usually designed to champion, Mackie Burns singles out a member of the expanding modern-day precariat as his protagonist. As a well-educated and possibly once fairly well-off 31-year-old (when she remembers), she could serve as a sort of cipher for the instability and disillusionment of the millennial generation, promised a seat at the feast but fast discovering she’s been left with only table scraps.

At the same time, there are hints that she’s merely treading water above a darker underbelly of urban life, which threatens to flood into her world at any moment. For one thing, there’s the homeless man on the corner she knows by name, and for whom she makes up sandwiches at work. Then of course, there’s the lad who panics and stabs the owner of the shop he’s trying to rob in front of her. He tries to rob Daphne too, but tellingly she’s got nothing on her person he deems worth stealing.

Daphne doesn’t give us any easy answers, but the clues to the residual sense of self the title character still possesses are there to hunt for, littered through the story like a trail of breadcrumbs or scrapped leftovers from whatever concoction she’s been devising in the kitchen. On one level, the film might be considered a dark romantic comedy that comes in too late to fully flesh out one affair, and finishes too early to allow the next to blossom. But perhaps surprisingly, Daphne isn’t entirely without ambition: at the restaurant where she works, she asks chef Joe to make her his sous, only to be dismissed completely out of hand (“It’ll ruin your life”) and not for the first time, it seems. She’s clearly interested enough in the idea to spend her free-time testing recipes at home, admittedly only to wrinkle her nose and bin the lot, but the drive is still there. That she doesn’t press the matter further is mostly due to her complicated relationship with the chef himself, a married man with whom she’s clearly mutually in love.

Unsure how to deal with those feelings, she seeks solace in meaningless sex, while holding potential boyfriend David at arms length. Her view of love, as a deluded human attempt to impose meaning on a random universe, is reiterated often enough to sound as though she’s trying to convince herself, and when David calls her bluff on it he unexpectedly exposes real vulnerability – Daphne suddenly flees the scene like a frightened rabbit. Blink and you might miss it, but it’s also her serious decision to quit the job after Joe ‘fesses up his feelings that heralds the beginning of possible change on the horizon.

Meanwhile, she’s also determined to alienate herself from the one reliable figure in her life; having refused chemotherapy for an aggressive cancer, her mum has instead discovered faith and mindfulness, something which naturally frustrates her daughter. Then there’s the fear and self-doubt Daphne is contending with – in particular, her anxiety over not feeling enough about the man she saved to go and visit him. It takes her therapist to suggest that perhaps just doing something is sufficient, and enough of a feeling might well follow after.

Emily Beecham’s skill is in being able to subtly convey all this, without really saying a great deal that’s to the point. Scriptwriter Nico Mensinga’s razor sharp, bone dry dialogue is hilarious but also constantly evasive – it’s down to Beecham to present the character’s pain without ever soliciting our pity. The performance is at once distant and intimate, cold and moving, laugh-out-loud funny and rather tragic. Daphne lives and breathes through Beecham, lingering on in the mind long after the credits finish rolling, so much that you almost expect to meet up with her in your local pub, or maybe on the train back home.

Emily Beecham is backed up by a strong supporting cast as well, with Geraldine James as her surprisingly vivacious, terminally ill mum, Nathaniel Martello-White as a cheerily optimistic David, and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Daphne’s jaded boss and soulmate Joe, who similarly can’t quite work out how his life has ended up like this.

The unsung fifth main character in the film is London itself – a suitably messy and complex companion for Daphne, one vividly captured by Scarth. At times, the camera hones in on the squalor of poverty in England’s capital; at others, it hovers in a sky filled with gleaming clouds and glistening skyscrapers reaching out for something more. The film showcases the rich diversity of London with all its teeming masses, as well as the profound loneliness and anonymity of living there. One particularly striking, slightly hazy birdseye view has the cold, unsympathetic eye of CCTV surveillance, with Daphne staggering past faceless crowds and traffic blurs to create a dizzying, disorienting effect.

Refreshingly then, Daphne is a film that actively resists the conventional cinematic trope of turning points and inciting incidents that change a character’s life for good, instead preferring to just let stuff happen. In real life, epiphanies are generally a long time coming, even if we tend to remember them otherwise after the fact.

Like Daphne herself, the audience is required to sift through the mundane paraphernalia of everyday existence to find the meaning underneath, if indeed there is any. It might not fall in line with standard storytelling techniques, but Daphne is a skillfully drawn character study that provides plenty enough meat to chew on for its full 90 minutes, and long thereafter.

Daphne – a film by Peter Mackie Burns

Daphne will be screened at mac on from Friday 13^th to Thursday 19^th October. For direct information, including showtimes, venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

For more on Daphne, visit www.daphne.film

For more from Flatpack, visit www.flatpackfestival.org.uk

For more from mac, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk

October 10, 2017

BREVIEW: Absurdly Fabulous: The Improvised Episode @ mac 29.09.17

Words by Charlotte Heap

As an ardent Absolutely Fabulous fan I was apprehensive at how Foghorn Unscripted would reimagine the beloved sitcom in their feature length show, Absurdly Fabulous. Such familiar and favourite characters can be tricky to emulate whilst bringing new laughs, and shows using such well loved source material can depend as much on the audience’s appetite for absurdity as the actors’ talent.

Foghorn Unscripted, a company of local improv comedians and professional actors established in 2011, bases all of its performances on audience suggestion and their own imaginations. Having worked with University of Birmingham’s student improv groups in the past, I hoped that Foghorn Unscripted’s experience would bring a slickness to their show – especially as this particular production had been performed at least once before at mac.

Billed as the ‘episode that was never made’, five actors appeared on the Hexagon’s small stage to present Absurdly Fabulous; with so few female leading comedic roles, having the main characters played by men was an interesting choice. Eddie was excellent, as Foghorn’s Aaron Twitchen brought controlled chaos and quick comedy to the part. Less successful in drag was Patsy, with a focus on her gruff voice and lecherous ways but not enough effort given to the character’s familiar physicality and wit.

The show’s more minor roles were played with varying levels of success by the other troupe members. Saffy suffered somewhat, as Kit Murdoch (Foghorn Unscripted’s founder) played her slightly too saccharine for my taste, with not enough withering sarcasm. Murdoch’s energy was essential to keeping the show moving, but I felt her portrayal of Boris Johnson also missed the mark.

Claire Corfield played Bubbles brilliantly but was underused, whilst Ciaron Allanson-Campbell, noticeably lacking in confidence, was much better cast as the robotic Marshall than as Mother. I was hoping Absurdly Fabulous would elevate the satirical sitcom’s most famous characters, but instead the production delivered caricatures. And whilst Absolutely Fabulous’ trademark catchphrases featured heavily, Foghorn Unscripted were unable to recreate the razor sharp wit of Jennifer Saunders’ writing.

I felt the audience participation element was also more minimal than the Absurdly Fabulous promo material had promised. Scribbled suggestions from some attendees were placed in jars on the stage and incorporated into the show’s framework in a slightly clunky fashion, whilst pictures of audience members were brought into the show after the interval, with a gentle ‘roast’ going down a storm with certain members of the audience. However if you weren’t part of this, and didn’t know what people had been asked to suggest, the participation element was a little confusing and excluding.

The more scripted elements of Absurdly Fabulous landed, again, with varying levels of success. An ‘Alexa’ joke (using pre-recorded responses) was initially inventive and funny, but then felt prolonged and, at points, badly timed. In fact, timing, sound and blocking were all constant issues; the raucous nature of the source material demands a certain level of chaos, but the troupe struggled with minimal props (wig swapping led to awkward delays) and an overdressed set.

A clothes rail collapsed as too many characters made an overzealous entrance, and whilst Eddie made a joke from this mishap, the moment encapsulated the production’s failure to make good use of mac‘s Hexagon Theatre – an intimate space which can be wonderfully manipulated, but one that leaves little room for error. Costume changes in full view of the audience, and occasional difficulties in hearing what was being said, simply added to the unexpected amateurishness. However, the friendly local audience laughed loudly and a lot. But on a Friday evening, with an £8 ticket price, this Ab Fab purist was left a little disappointed. I laughed a little but I cringed more.

Perhaps my fondness for Absolutely Fabulous (alongside my familiarity with improv in my own professional context) led to especially high expectations, but Foghorn Unscripted promised ‘debauchery, fashion and celebrity’ with Absurdly Fabulous and this wasn’t quite delivered. Billed as the ‘episode that was never made’, I felt the improv troupe found the easy laughs but failed to fully explore the humour and potential inherent in such rich source material.

For more on Foghorn Unscripted, visit www.foghornunscripted.com

For more from mac, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk

September 27, 2017

BPREVIEW: Absurdly Fabulous: The Improvised Episode @ mac 29.09.17

Words by Charlotte Heap

Foghorn Unscripted, Birmingham’s own improvised comedy group, present another feature length show – Absurdly Fabulous: The Improvised Episode, performed for one night only at mac’s Hexagon Theatre on Friday 29^th September.

Doors open at 7.30pm, with tickets priced at £8 (£6 concessions). For direct event info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

Billed as ‘the episode they never made’, the mac audience can expect a re-imagining of beloved 90s satirical sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (Ab Fab to its friends). Foghorn Unscripted, a group of local ‘improv’ comedians and professional actors established in 2011, bases all of its performances on audience suggestion and their own imaginations. Given the raucous nature of the source material, fans should no doubt prepare themselves for some silliness (and presumably, more audience participation than usual).

It’s difficult, however, to imagine where Foghorn Unscripted may take the already established personas like Eddie and Patsy. Such familiar and favourite characters can be tricky to emulate, especially while bringing new laughs, and theatre productions such as this can depend as much on the audience’s appetite for absurdity as the actors’ talent.

Having run for more than 20 years, first aired in 1992 (as well as a recent feature-length film released in 2016) Absolutely Fabulous’s catchphrases and jokes will need a fresh approach from Foghorn Unscripted.

Like the TV programme, Absurdly Fabulous: The Improvised Episode promises to bring ‘debauchery, fashion and celebrity’. With a running time of 105 minutes, there’ll need to be some clever and surprising comedy to keep the audience on side. And for this lifelong Ab Fab fan, it’s fingers crossed that Foghorn Unscripted’s homage to Jennifer Saunders’ writing will be fittingly funny.

Forghorn Unscripted present Absurdly Fabulous: The Improvised Episode – performed in mac’s Hexagon Theatre on Friday 29^th September. For direct event info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.

For more on Foghorn Unscripted, visit www.foghornunscripted.com

For more from mac, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.macbirmingham.co.uk

September 13, 2017September 23, 2017

BPREVIEW: Beyond The Tracks – after parties, official/unofficial @ Various 15-16.09.17

Words by Damien Russell, Paul Gallear & Ed King

For the happy revellers of the Beyond The Tracks festival who are seeking more to finish off the night (be it Friday or Saturday), there are a number of opportunities to party harder and get more ‘bang’ for a buck (or ten).

There are the official after parties from the Beyond The Tracks team, alongside a few unofficial yet appealing enough alternatives to cater for the weekend long festival crowd. Read our BPREVIEWs below:

Oscillate Sound System @ Centrala 15.09.17

Inviting us to ‘regenerate’ after Beyond The Tracks’ space cadet Friday night, the Oscillate Sound System take over Centrala for an unofficial after party on 15^th September – the fledgling festival’s opening day.

Doors open at 11pm and close at 4pm, with tickets priced at £5. Not sure precisely who’s playing but you can bet there’ll be a DJ set from Messer Higher or Intelligence, you know from the Agency. And as far as my third eye can see it’s a pay on the door affair. Ah, life before Skiddle…

So, Oscillate..? By this point you’re either as unfazed as you were at word one, or you’re skipping down a serotonin sapped memory lane trying not to think of that song by Biosphere. La, la, la, the 90’s were a simple clubland love in with no scars… I don’t want to know what dream you had last night.

But if you need a helpful reminder (either way) Oscillate brought Orbital to Birmingham. So there’s that. And through their bi-weekly club nights at Bonds (as well as a few jaunts to the Dance Factory, Moseley Dance Club, some big-house-in-a-field-somewhere-in-I-think-maybe-Wales, and a disused gas container in Amsterdam) the Oscillate Sound System introduced a further litany of ambient/techno to the second city’s clubbers: Autechre, The Orb, Banco di Gia, Children of the Bong, Sun Electric, The Drum Club, APL, APL, did I mention APL..? I think they even booked Richard James a couple of times, not that that guarantees anything but God loves a trier.

It’s fair to say (and it’s been said by more than I) that Oscillate helped shape the dance music landscape of Birmingham in the 90’s, and left its left-of-centre fingerprints on the city’s club scene for some time to follow. You could argue that if they hadn’t someone else would have, but Scylla Magda and Bobby Bird were the ones that did – earning a dance music debt of gratitude that stands up over twenty years later.

Or to pinch a quote from The Observer in 1994: ‘To those in the know, including the 650 clubbers who frequent the club in Birmingham every other Friday night, Oscillate is the club of the moment, making waves far beyond the Midlands, and attracting clubbers from as far afield as London, Manchester and Edinburgh.’

Plus half of the head honchos at Oscillate are half of the head honchos in Higher Intelligence Agency (Bobby Bird) so all you need is Cheshire Cat and Sister Bliss to turn up and you’ve got most of Beyond The Tracks’ Friday night programme under one roof.

More a ‘second wind’ as opposed to ‘after’ party then… everyone back to Centrala on Friday 15^th September? Whatever the moniker it saves Shaun some tidying up.

For more on the Oscillate Sound System after party (unofficial) at Centrala on Friday 15^th September, click here.

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Way Beyond @ Suki10c 15.09.17

To continue the Friday night party directly after the festival’s opening day, Suki10c are hosting an unofficial first night continuance with ‘Way Beyond’, starting at 10pm and going right through to 4am. The event costs £6.00 including BF (booking fee, not boyfriend) on the mighty Skiddle or £8.00 on the door – showcasing sets from Earth is Flat, Bid, Skint Disco and Doktor Jekyll amongst others as yet unnamed.

Earth is Flat (or EiF) are two producers whose aim is ‘to make a non-generic style of music; using field recordings, traditional instruments and collaborating with people who share similar values’. They have shared the stage with artists such as Plaid, Kelli Ali, Luke Vibert, Coppe and Fungstorung and have performed in venues such as the Hare & Hounds, mac, and The Rainbow in Birmingham, as well as working down in the Big Smoke.

Bid is a DJ who started out in 2012, one who lucky revellers doing both ‘the main event’ and this after party will already have seen performing as part of the Leftfield Leftism 22 Tour. His debut release is due this year on the Download Generation label, showcasing his influential choice in the twisting and manipulation of breaks, beats and sounds.

Skint Disco is providing a DJ set in the form of Joe Reid – 28 year old producer from the Midlands, now residing in London. Skint Disco/Joe Reid has received props from major players such as Jam PRD, Wevaman, Hatcha, Funtcase, Kromestar,Seven, Bukez Finezt, Beezy, Enigma Dubz and Dubloadz all regularly throwing down his tracks. DJ slots all over the UK and gigs in Prague, Paris and Amsterdam have resulted in a mini-tour stateside with bookings in Seattle and Denver later in 2017.

The evening is supported by Doktah Jekyll, the resident DJ for Digbeth Dining Club and more, lining up a diverse sounding lineup of electronic music to see you through to the wee hours.

Even if some of the lineup are people whose stage names defy Google or any other form of research, this sounds like one of those events where those in the know will know to go, and those not in the know probably should be.

For more on the Way Beyond after party (unofficial) at Suki10c on Friday 15^th September, click here.

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Official Beyond The Tracks Friday night after party @ The Rainbow 15.09.17

Friday night’s official, ‘Moseley Folk approved’ after party is held at The Rainbow Venues’ Black Box. It will be starting at 11pm and the ‘you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here’ is at 4am.

This official after party is brought to us by Procreation – the erstwhile progressive/tech house club night started by Beyond The Tracks promoter, Carl Phillips, back ‘in the day’ – in association with Ransom Note. The event will see DJ sets from A Guy Called Gerald, Bawrut and Timothy ‘Heretic’ Clerkin, in addition to Phil Hartnoll (one half of the Beyond The Tracks Friday night main stage headliners, Orbital).

Even if you’re not into your dance music, the name Orbital is still bound to ring a faint bell. Okay, that may be because they were named after the London Orbital (or M25 as we would more typically know it) but Orbital (aka brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll) were renowned for their live improvisation, something of a rarity in the genre. But with five UK Silver records, one UK Gold record, four UK top 20 singles and even making it into the top 10 US Electronic Album Chart twice, it would be safe to say that improvisation or not Orbital’s music has appeal.

Perhaps the slightly less prolific of the brothers, Phil Hartnoll, has nevertheless taken his DJ sets to New Zealand, the US and around Europe. And that’s just this year. Now stepping straight from the Beyond The Tracks’ main stage, Phil Hartnoll will be hitting the decks at the Black Box in a rare UK solo show.

Joining Phil Hartnoll on the bill will be A Guy Called Gerald – a pioneer of the late 80’s UK Dance music explosion, whose website hails as ‘an iconic name in dance music’. But A Guy Called Gerald arguably kick started Europe’s acid house frenzy releasing the first UK acid house record, the ’88 classic ‘Voodoo Ray’ – following this with the iconic ‘Pacific State’, and laying down the blueprint for early jungle/drum’n’bass. And while not reaching the commercial heights of some of his contemporaries, the consistency and longevity of his releases demonstrate an acclaim that has endured for 30 years now.

Kicking it all off in 1987, A Guy Called Gerald had his ’own bedroom studio and was recording 90 minute tapes – probably one a week, so the equivalent of doing an album a week, everything from proto-acid sounds to experimental ambient fields’. And while his releases have slowed down somewhat over that last seven years, I hope that A Guy Called Gerald will bring the same energy of old to this 2017 live set. His 40 live show list for the year would imply that he will.

New kid on the block, the Madrid-based Italian Bawrut, will be preceding A Guy Called Gerald on the lineup – bringing his ‘wonderfully balanced line between classics and brand new tracks’. Bawrut’s 2016 release through Ransom Note has been hailed by Mixmag, DJ Mag, Test Pressing, and Data Transmission ‘as one of the freshest releases of 2016’.

Lastly, not least-ly, on is Timothy ‘Heretic’ Clerkin – one half of the amusingly named Eskimo Twins, who have been on the scene since 2009 releasing on Tusk Wax, My Favorite Robot & Relish, Throne of Blood and Ransom Note Records. Eskimo Twins formed around an appreciation of techno, classic house, indie, acid, and a lingering teenage love of metal – so those who know them will no doubt be wondering what Clerkin’s solo set may bring. One one way to find out; you know the drill

For more on the official Beyond The Tracks Friday night after party @ The Rainbow- Black Box, click here.

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Club L’Amour reunion @ Suki10c 16.09.17

The once haven for alternative shenanigans, described by Sam Lambeth as ‘an indie Byker Grove’, Club L’Amour comes back to the venue of its birth for a final, final hurrah on 16th September – giving the Saturday night noise monsters at Beyond The Tracks a comforting place to play until dawn. Well, 5am. Which is dawn enough for us.

There will be live sets from Riscas and Sugarthief, underpinned by DJ sets from the great, good, and garrulous who adorned the once Digbeth based indie night out. On the line up so far are MP3 jugglers: Kez Handley, Ben Clapton, Jack Parker, Arran Bick, Harley Cassiddy, Sam Lambeth, Tim Arstall, Tommy Greaves – with the ever inspiring ‘secret guests’ to kick it all off. TBC, I guess.

But following the fallout of a Saturday night festival line up that boasts Ocean Colour Scene, Maxïmo Park, The Coral, The Twang, Carl Barât and the Jackals, Jaws, Superfood this might be a more than appropriate place to greet the small hours.

Plus it’s a reunion, after Club L’Amour packed up its musical powder puff back in February this year. So what are you waiting for..? Oh yeah, there’s that festival thingy up the road to pop into beforehand… phew, and what a before party that’s going to be.

For more on the Club L’Amour after party (unofficial) at Suki10c on Friday 15^th September, click here.

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Official Beyond The Tracks – Saturday night after party @ O2 Institute 16.09.17

As if all this excitement on the Friday night wasn’t enough, there is another official after party on the Saturday night, post-festival, held at the O2 Institute in Digbeth – running from 11pm through to the wee hours of 3am. Mercifully a little earlier than the Friday night after parties, allowing us a little recovery before the final festival day.

Fresh from headlining Saturday night at Beyond The Tracks, Ocean Colour Scene’s Steve Cradock will take to the O2 Institute stage for a DJ set, alongside Paul Smith from Maxïmo Park. But kicking off the evening (morning…. depends when you get there) will be DJs Gav and Imran from Blast Off – a Wolverhampton institution which celebrated 20 years of clubbing in 2016 (despite ostensibly ending the indie club night in 2014, they have returned for numerous ‘one-off’ specials and Christmas/New Year shows. I suppose you can’t keep a good thing down).

Next up will be will be Dave Southam, a man made (in)famous as one of the DJs for Snobs, a well known Birmingham nightclub that promotes itself as offering ‘indie, rock’n’roll, alt pop and retro jams’.

It is clear then that the theme of this after party is the same as Saturday’s offering at the Beyond The Tracks festival itself: indie and lots of it. Kicking off at 11pm, festival goers will have plenty of time to cover the half-a-mile between Eastside Park and the O2 Institute when Beyond The Tracks finishes at 10:30. Tickets are £10 in advance, plus the usual booking fees.

For more on the official Beyond the Tracks Saturday night after party, click here.

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Beyond The Tracks comes to Eastside Park in Birmingham City Centre, running 15^th to 17^th September. Tickets for this event are £54.45 for individual day tickets, £145 for a weekend pass.

For more on Beyond The Tracks, including full festival details and online ticket sales, visit www.beyondthetracks.org