Featured image: Carolina Faruolo

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Pound-for-pound, Manchester is one of the world’s best music cities. The arrow of time didn’t stop its flight once (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? came out. Even the swaggering bucket hat brigade aren’t so fixated on the Stone Roses that they’re resistant to new bands – see the local popularity of Affleck’s Palace for proof.

There’s a constant seam of new music being mined from Manchester’s underbelly. While stadium headliners have been thin on the ground in recent years, the quality coming out of rehearsal rooms and studios and laptops is as strong as ever.

Below is a list of nine unheralded songs from Manchester-based musicians, all of which emerged since the turn of the decade. 

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Cameron Goon, ‘Penelope’ 

How many tunes have the audacity to plonk a finger pop into the mix? Cameron Goon fires them out at judicious moments – before a chorus here, signalling a drop there – to elevate what is already a great slab of pop into a goofball classic. 

‘Penelope’ is the stand-out track from the University of Manchester computer science graduates’ I Want to See Everything EP. The fact that he has just 38 monthly Spotify listeners is a gross injustice.

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Puzzle Thumbs, ‘Let’s Hustle’ 

Next up, Puzzle Thumbs has just one listener on Spotify, which unless the algorithm has miscounted, must be me. 

He’s an attic producer with a staggering line in intricate basslines and obscure samples and without wanting to overegg the pudding too much, ‘Let’s Hustle’ is a funkier take on The Avalanches cut and paste jobs. While this comes from his Bandcamp exclusive Hey Days debut album, his most recent project was releasing a new single every month throughout 2023.

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Caoilfhionn Rose, ‘Readiness is All’ 

With a voice that could smoke a salmon, Caoilfhionn Rose released one of 2021’s most memorable albums in Truly. ‘Readiness is All’ sees the Didsbury songsmith in unstoppable form, weaving layered vocals and instrumental flourishes into a lovelorn tapestry.

It’s 3:29 of absolute perfection, and it’s likely that there’d be celebratory candlelit dinners held in its honour if Caoilfhionn (pronounced ‘Keelin’) ever extended it to the ten-minute mark.

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Ghoulish, ‘Comedown Chorus’ 

With a monthly residency at YES and admiring nods from the UK dance press, Ghoulish (aka, Adam Harper), isn’t afraid to splice genres. Starting off immersed in dubstep before edging towards UK garage, his shapeshifting is at its most realised on the current Weekends Goodwill EP. 

For ‘Comedown Chorus’, think Overmono channelling the world-weary social commentary of Irish producer Jimbo Jones. It’s a stunning piece of work that warps and wefts the boundaries of what’s possible.

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Cruush, ‘As She Grows’

Manchester has never been a dream pop or shoegaze hotbed, but Cruush have found themselves at the vanguard of a fresh cluster of UK groups with humongous pedalboards. 

Pick of the bunch is the 2023 single, ‘As She Grows’. Riding along on choppy guitars, syncopated drums, and dense layers of Amber Warren’s vocals, it bodes well for their upcoming Nice Things Now, All the Time EP and headline slot at Gullivers.

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Snooker Season, ‘The American Office’

Lockdown was the cue for local lo-fi hopefuls, Ron, to change their name to Snooker Season. As well as a new identity, they came out of the enforced break with a breezy new EP, the title track of which would become their signature tune.

Inactive, presumed split, since their last gig in 2021, ‘The American Office’ is a lesson in how to mix deftness with daftness. In another universe, it could’ve been an early b-side by The Fall if a youthful Mark E Smith had been this obsessed with Dad’s Army, Porridge or Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.

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International Teachers of Pop, ‘Flood the Club’

Can’t dance? Don’t worry, this’ll sort you out. 

Forged in Sheffield but uniting around Manchester, International Teachers of Pop are just that: a group of music teachers. They’re not any old music teachers, though. Dean Honer hit the UK Top 10 as a member of All Seeing I, Leonore Wheatley fronts The Soundcarriers, while Adrian Flanagan has flirted with cult status for almost 30 years.

Even among their arsenal of ironic floor fillers, ‘Flood the Club’, from their Pop Gossip album, pokes its head above the rest. Plus, they donated all proceeds from the single to the venerable Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. 

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Co-Pilot, ‘Swim to Sweden’

Speaking of Leonore Wheatley and her endless talents, here she is again, this time linking up with Al Roberts (aka, Jim Noir) for a swirling dip into electro-psych. 

The duo had been sitting on their Rotate debut album for years, before finding it down the back of the settee and remembering its potency. Lead single, ‘Swim to Sweden’, is their most immediate tune but is still packed with complexity and Wheatley’s innate knack for a hummable hook.

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Martial Arts, ‘The New House’

So fresh that it hasn’t been released yet, the only place to hear this is to catch Manchester’s most talked about new band in the flesh. And make sure you do, because they’re outstanding.

‘The New House’ has a chorus so simple, so effective, so irresistible that it’s almost inconceivable that nobody has written it before. You’ll be singing along before its victory lap. Time will tell as to whether the recorded version conveys their live energy, but until then, it’s a cracking excuse to get out of the house.