Mark Kozelek and Animal Collective come to Manchester

Tuesday 30 October
Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon)
plus Neil Halstead (Mojave 3, Slowdive)

Mark Kozelek has recorded six studio albums with Red House Painters, four solo albums, and two with Sun Kil Moon. Kozelek's harrowing lyrics give unflinchingly detailed accounts of pain, despair and loss while the lengthy accompanying music is slow, intense, dissonant and bleak.

Throughout his career Kozelek has been interested in the re-working of other artists songs until they are virtually unrecognisable, examples of such are AC/DC, Modest Mouse, Simon and Garfunkel and Paul McCartney to name a few.

However its not all doom, gloom and intensive music
Kozelek has also dabbled in acting; friend Cameron Crowe cast him as a member of 'Stillwater' in Almost Famous as well as an appearance in Vanilla Sky and in 2005 he appeared in Steve Martin's film Shopgirl.

Also Neil Halstead of Mojave 3 shall be playing a wonderful one-off solo set to open the show, you may recognise him from the shoegazing heroes that were Slowdive.

The Dancehouse, Oxford Road, City. From 7.30pm.
At the time of writing there are still tickets available here.

Saturday 3 November
Animal Collective
plus Special Guests

Yes its the one and only Animal Collective! Promoting the release of their eighth album 'Strawberry Jam' the band will be playing at the rather fancy New Century Hall.

The band need no description really do they? Their ever-changing sound is to difficult describe, maybe the new Beach Boys? Of late the band have been playing as a three piece but who knows what to expect...but their live set now includes songs from drummer Panda Bears recent hit album Person Pitch (almost certainly set to be Piccadilly Records album of 2007 in their soon to be published yearly round up). Tickets are available here.

Get your tickets whilst you still can and tune in next month for Gig Guru's top picks.

New Century Hall, Corporation Street. City. From 7.30pm. £14