Manchester based songstress Natalie Blooms is an original, eccentric artist, talented vocalist and songwriter who has always written songs to communicate her feelings and thoughts about life.

Her voice and songs were discovered by two families who got her singing regularly at church and her first gig in Manchester where Natalie took to the stage with her guitar and finally shared her hidden songs.

Commanding the crowd with her warm, fiesty, rebellious raw and infectious voice and persona she later has gone on to perform with her backing band at various high profile venues and gigs in and around Manchester and London including The Roadhouse, The Ruby Lounge, MOHO supporting Bez from the Happy Mondays, Night and Day, KRO, The Blue Cat Café and Monkey Chews for NME and Q Magazine acclaimed nights such ‘Friends of Mine’ and ‘Ear Music’.

Natalie aims to achieve acclaim, gig the world and become a threlanthropist like Dolly Parton.

Natalie’s distinctive, warm, rich vocals are evocative showing she has a serious appreciation of soul, jazz, blues and pop heroes as well as song writing greats. Her vocal influences include Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson, Young Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf, Lauren Hill, Etta James, Elvis, Joss Stone, Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone. Her song writing influences include Dolly Parton, Carole king, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchel, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Sade, Alisha Keys and Nikka Costa to name but a few.

Lyrically fresh and uncompromising Natalie writes about life in an honest raw, bold, quirky and often humorous cheeky way.

“(Natalie Blooms) plays soulful jazz with a blues twinge…(and is) already building up good word-of-mouth, playing in and around south Manchester and further afield”. Susannah Wright, South Manchester Reporter.

Natalie will be performing alongside her full band in the evening at Matt and Phreds!

www.myspace.com/natalieblooms

With two independent recordings released, “All Wrapped Up (2006)” & “The Franchize (2007)” Briggzy has gone on to release a list of free downloadable CD’s for anybody to listen to. What a nice bloke.

Briggzy has appeared on many radio stations across the country including All FM, Salford City Radio, BBC 1xtra and Lust FM. The biggest opportunity yet for Briggzy was performing as part of the FCUK “A New Movement” tour in which he was the support act for indie band “Underground Heroes” at the Manchester Academy.

Who knows what lies ahead for Briggzy, he’s about to release his debut album “Gingerfication” and he’s currently working on his group Out of Order’s debut album “Sorry for The Inconvenience”.

www.myspace.com/briggzyuk

Their single, “Cool as a Courteener”, was up for release at the end of July with copies available at gigs and through their online shop.

Their superb 11 track debut, mastered at Blueprint Studios in Salford, includes the catchy “This Is England” and the riotous “We Both Shagged The Same Bird” and “Shady Bastard”. Need we say more?

They’ve supported The Inspiral Carpets in previous guises and have come together to form The Minx.

The next few months host some great shows for The Minx, who still have more up their sleeve yet to come.

You can contact the band for album and gig info via email (chrishaddon@live.co.uk) or through their Myspace at www.myspace.com/youminx

She took her ‘Neon Tokyo Geisha Girl’ act and performed at the notorious Ruby Room Tokyo. Peculiar has also recently toured in America, singing her songs on Hollywood Boulevard, Venice Beach and at the ‘Burning Man’ festival in Nevada.

Watch out for Girl Peculiar’s new video “Illegal Summers” filmed in Bulgaria – she has also just recorded her T.V debut including a couple of songs and an interview for MUTV to be screened in early October on Terry Christian’s Sunday Morning Worship show. She recently opened for The Fall at Manchester’s Academy and is being touted as one of the Northwest’s most original female artists.

For more info+songs visit: www.myspace.com/girlpeculiar

Now, they bring you the best of their finds in the form of “This Week’s Gold“, a blog dedicated to the finest disco edits, funk, hip hop, reggae, indie and electronica this side of Oxfam. Their bi-monthly clubnight at The Deaf Institute in Manchester has fast been gaining a reputation for the best in sleaze-core disco and eclectic beats since its launch in 2009, and understandably so – This Week’s Gold is a labour of love like no other.

Their music is a blend of acoustic, upbeat folk, orchestral string arrangements, a jumping rhythm section and the occasional humorous lyric.

Kamal Arafa will feature on our Oxjam Takeover 25th October Festival. Catch them here.

(Ben Ambridge, University of East Anglia; Adam Comstive, University of Central Lancashire; Iain Mitchell, University of Nottingham and Hywell Dinsdale, University of Manchester) who, In 2008, were brought together by a tax-free UK-government research grant, with the aim of investigating advanced issues in theoretical mathematics.

Building on seminal work by Braithwaite, Aitchinson, Bulloch, Cummings and O’Hare (1997), the group has been locked away in a secretive research facility believed to be somewhere in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, developing new hypotheses around the associative principle and group theory.

They have previously worked in collaboration with a cellist (currently at the University of Aberdeen) on advanced string theory.  This is something they may attempt again in the future, depending on the demands of their funding bodies, and how bored their giant brains become.

The research group have ventured into public to give presentations of their findings at widely-respected international conference venues such as ‘The Deaf Institute’, ‘The Chorlton Irish Club’ and Fucked Up Thursdays at Dry Bar. The group is open to collaboration with other, similarly bright, minds and is currently preparing a number of pieces ready for publication in 2009.

Current research includes an investigation of bonding and group theory scheduled to take place on September 10th 2009 at Rain Bar.

The band consist of brothers  Neil and David Newport with Ady Batt manning the live drums.

Things have been moving very fast in a short space of time for these guys, so far this year they have released 2 singles on embryonic  Manchester label Station Dynamic (”She Machine” and “Is It Isn’t It”). This has seen rave reviews, backing from BBC Introducing and some really good press coverage.

They have already shared the same stage as Roisin Murphy, Roni size reprezent, Ladyhawke and have played a sell out show at this years Manchester International Festival alongside Delphic.

With more releases and a busy schedule to come who knows what’s in store for these “battle hardened Militant Analogue beasts” (Quote Article Manchester Evening News).

Farmer Bill has been feeding the chicks for a quite a while now around Manchestermostly. The NME once said this band were “articulate” – never a truer word has been written – they certainly know and understand a dictionary worth of words. They use loads of these (words) in their songs. Their songs sound like denim and are very retro.

Checkout their Myspace page.