Jane Weaver – OTL ’22

Abusing, evading, and obliterating 20 years of whimsical pop trends, Jane Weaver’s experience as a truly independent and resilient songwriter and sound-carrier commands respect and inspiration in equal measures.

Set for release in 2021, new album Flock is the record that she always wanted to make, the most genuine version of Jane Weaver, complete with unpretentious Day-Glo pop sensibilities, wit, kindness, humour and glamour.

As an unshakable figure in the UK’s experimental pop music landscape her self-propelled career has in recent years reached a critical zenith with unanimous praise for her work.

Raised on the enthusiasm and inspiration of Factory records founder Rob Gretton and counting Doves and Elbow as her early backing bands, Jane’s desire to cultivate and promote Manchester’s lesser-documented female musicians lead to her long-running Bird records imprint, releasing the earliest recordings of Cate Le Bon, Beth Jeans Houghton and Maxine Peake.

The Silver Globe was, in Jane’s own opinion, her most complete and realised commitment to vinyl to date and was released via her own Bird Records imprint in late 2014 garnering instant accolades.

Signing to Fire Records, 2017’s lauded follow up Modern Kosmology is a model student of second-hand Krautrock, female punk, hard-subbed new-wave, synthesizer skip-finds and unpronounceable worldly feminine pop that saw her reach another eureka moment.

Accumulated in the ‘Loops In The Secret Society’ AV tour bringing both albums together, a visual live album of the performance soon followed revealing yet another dimension to her creativity in the lab-friendly blossoming of the Weaver vision.

New album Flock is an untested fusion of seemingly unrelated compounds fused into an eco-friendly hum; pop music for post-new-normal times. Created from elements that should never date, its pop music reinvented. Still prevalent are the cosmic sounds, but it is a natural rebellion to the recent releases which sees her decidedly move away from conceptual roots in favour of writing pop music.

Jane’s lesser-known creative endeavours have also seen her contribute sound installation projects to labels via Manchester’s Boomkat experimental imprint, various international theatrical institutes as a film re-composer, as a compiler for Finders Keepers records, and as an author of children’s books based on her visual collaborations with Klunkclick (Yo Gabba Gabba / Bobby Conn).

Meanwhile her presence as a live performer has been requested by the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Guy Garvey (Meltdown), Laetitia Sadier, Richard Hawley, Josephine Foster and Gruff Rhys. Jane’s music has appeared in fashion campaigns for Chanel and Chloe plus a wide range of TV and Cinematic productions including the soundtrack to Kiss Of The Damned directed by Xan Cassevetes and on the award winning second series of Killing Eve.

Unreserved Seating | Doors 7.30pm