Date: Saturday 2nd February 2019

Time: 2pm - late, panel taking place 3pm - 4.30pm

Location: The Peer Hat

Tickets: Tickets are £10 plus booking fee. Available here.

The Manchester Folk Horror Festival returns, this year taking in a host of new and interesting participants. There's a slightly more hauntological bent to the music, some real surprises and a host of independent films.
The festival will take place on 2 February 2019 at Northern Quarter venues The Peer Hat and Aatma, 14-16 Faraday Street, Manchester. Live performances will start at 3pm and film screenings will start at 6:30pm. Tickets are £10 plus booking fee (unless purchased on the door) and limited to 222.

The current folk horror revival in British cinema, reflects a wider trend of re-discovery and re-enchantment. The Peer Hat will be looking to reflect this phenomenon, with not just a programme of music and film, but also activities and workshops.

'Part of the festival will include a panel discussion featuring academics and experts, organised on behalf of HAUNT Manchester by Julian Holloway from Manchester Metropolitan University, who will also chair the panel'

Julian Holloway (Manchester Metropolitan University) will chair the panel

Julian is a lecturer in Human Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. His main research expertise lie in the geographies of religion, spirituality and the occult. Alongside these major interests he has published on spectrality, haunting and monstrosity. In more recent work Julian has become interested in geographies of sound and the sonic apprehension of space and place. Each of these research topics are connected by his theoretical interest in embodiment, practice, affect and materiality. Beyond his academic interests, Julian is a part of Flange Circus, a hauntronica and experimental rock band whose music debut album, Abandoned Glow was released in 2017 on Future Noise Recordings.

Andrew Michael Hurley (novelist and author)

Andrew Michael Hurley joined Manchester Metropolitan University as Lecturer in Creative Writing (Fiction) in 2016. Andrew Michael Hurley has lived in Manchester and London, and is now based in Lancashire. His first novel The Loney was originally published by Tartarus Press, a tiny independent publisher based in Yorkshire, as a 300-copy limited-edition, before being republished by John Murray and going on to win the Costa Best First Novel Award and Book of the Year at the British Book Industry Awards in 2016. His second novel, published in 2017, is titled Devil's Day – and he talked more to HAUNT Manchester about it here.

Chloé Germaine Buckley (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Chloé Germaine Buckley is Senior Lecturer in English at Manchester Metropolitan University and a member of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies. Her research specialisms include 19th Century Gothic, Contemporary Gothic, Weird Fiction, Gothic Games and zombies.

James Thurgill (The University of Tokyo)

James Thurgill is a cultural geographer and lecturer, currently based at The University of Tokyo. His work spans across geography, literature, cultural studies and folklore – with a key part of his research focusing on the affective geographies of absence; in particular folklore, memory, place, spirituality and their spatial workings. He often utilises sonic, visual and auto-ethnographic approaches to his studies, allowing for creativity and experimentation.

Darren Charles (Folk Horror Revival)

Darren Charles is an administrator and founding member of The Folk Horror Revival: https://folkhorrorrevival.com/ - a group which began online just over four years ago, seeking to create a community around exploring and collating Folk Horror culture, starting with the UK. He also has set up a range of ‘Unearthing Forgotten Horror’ events, which expanded into his ‘Unearthing Forgotten Horrors’ series of radio shows. Music is another key way in which Darren explores Folk Horror; he is one of the founding members of The Dead End Street Band, is half of electronica outfit Equestrian Vortex, goes under the musical guise of Fuad Ramses Exotic Caterer and is part of the Mortlake Bookclub. He also co-owns Psychic Field Recordings.

Morag Rose (The Loiterer's Resistance Movement and The University of Liverpool)

Morag Rose is the founder of The Loiterers Resistance Movement, which is a Manchester-based collective of artists, activists and wanderers interested in exploring Manchester through psychogeography, discovering hidden stories of the city and aiming to increase awareness of the spaces around us. She is also a lecturer at The University of Liverpool.

Other features of the festival include:

HEARTWOOD INSTITUTE

The work of Jonathan Sharp, Library / Production Music Composer and sound designer from the North-West of England. Having been making music for decades, Heartwood Institute represents Jonathan at the height of his powers, producing Hauntronica of exceptional, lasting power. Simply unmissable.

HAWTHONN

Hawthonn are squared firmly within the imminent. Drawing inspiration from Scarlett Imprint founders Peter Grey and Alkistis Dimech, the depth of sublime musings upon the goddess Babalon and her coming and the rich and dark folk tradition of the imagined - "A fantastic voyage, exquisite beauty, shrill dissonance, soars, crashes, flails in impossible depths, triumphs, cries, static electricity, thin, hollow, achingly alive, incantations of human fragility and grace".

ALULA DOWN

Alula Down is an experiment in folk song and minimalism, with voice and with instruments made of wood and reeds. It is the duo project of Mark Waters and Kate Gathercole, longtime players in Heed the Thunder, Sproatly Smith, Vaginapocalypse and with Nick Duffy (the Lilac Time, Bait, We are Muffy). Alula Down is part of an active community of folk musicians and artists in Herefordshire (Weirdshire, Ruralcore). The community is an important source of inspiration, and regularly plays host to a wide range of visiting artists.

BELL LUNGS

A one-woman band who has been carving a unique post-folk sound using layered vocals, electric violin, guitar, tuned percussion, field recordings and effects. Shifting transcendental soundscapes set a backdrop for snippets of songs, musing upon rural idylls, post-industrial heartlands​ and​ online culture infused with psychedelic and improvisational elements.

TOM HOLLINGWORTH / CHELSEA HARE

A huge favourite of us here at The Peer Hat, Tom is a vision scarred artist, for whom sound is but a tool for the expression of otherness: "Disarming, uncanny moments of theatricality sit comfortably alongside more downbeat moments of introspection. Tom’s incredibly funny and poetic lyrics provide a tremendous thread through the blizzard of fairly schizophrenic musical styles... but Tom’s voice is unmistakably his own".

JAYNE DENT

Her music represents a kind of bringing together of traditional folk and electronic music. Using her voice and the body as the main instruments alongside the concertina and bodhran, she manipulates and loops sound to create a uniquely weird-pop music. Nestled among original compositions are arrangements of traditional folk songs; chosen for their grippingly strange storytelling.

KEPIER WIDOW

Alexander Roberts is well established within the world of drone and dark ambient, having crafted a near-overwhelming discography that has appeared on numerous labels, including Invisible City Records, Cruel Nature, Psychic Field Recordings, Still Heat Recordings, and Reverb Worship. Kepier Widow offers a wide and obscure range of sounds. Crushing lows and distorted synth tones unravel with aggression... twisted bell tones reminiscent of classic horror unsettle and intrigue.

Further features:

Stranger Than Life (strange life drawing)

Films

Ritual