Episode 29 is the first of a two part mix series by Manchester music and arts collective VAM. Izzy Bolt, a VAM founder and resident DJ has put together this mix and has come on the blog to talk about the intersection between art, music and running events in the rainy city. You can find out more about Izzy and VAM in the interview below.
Hi Izzy, thanks for coming on the blog. Can you tell us about VAM? Who makes up your collective and how you all came together?
Hey Liam, thanks very much for inviting VAM onto your platform. It’s really great what you’re doing ! VAM is a collective set up as a platform for visual artists, musicians, and audience to share and experience creative ideas. The collective encourages artist to perform and collaborate at events without promoter restriction such as a set genre. We do have quite a big focus on digital art forms. VAM events are opening up a space for equal appreciation of live visuals and music in Manchester. I do most of the curation of the events and organise the venues and our group get togethers.
My friend Annie Feng is an abstract photographer and has helped with loads of the artwork, our content for the Facebook page, some installations and generally being really supportive person to have around.
Aleksander Brayanov has been helping out for a while and is a really skilled VJ and projection artist, his project is ‘CHEX visuals’. Rosa Methol has been there from the start helping us with our projects and organising events. Quite a few people have drifted in and out of the collective. It’s open for anyone to get involved in at any point, we have a group on Facebook open for anyone who wants to join and see what VAM is about and contribute some ideas 🙂
Has there been any specific party of event that holds a special place in your heart? An event where everything’s clicked and you’ve thought this is sick I wanna put on events all the time.
For me, VAM’s first birthday was quite a special one. Using Partisan as a space for this was really nice to return to. Very cosy vibes and low pressure environment. I get so nervous running events, being around large groups of people can sometimes be overwhelming for me as I am naturally more of an introvert at heart. I find it quite difficult to keep track of everything going on.
But by the time the 1st birthday came around I think I had learnt how to be more relaxed and go with the flow! Things seemed to go more smoothly for me with this attitude. I like to allow things to happen but have a general plan of how an event is going to run. We collaborated with Test Card and Meraki collective last year, running some larger events at The Lowry and The Great Northern. This was a great experience and I felt so proud that artists who had been involved at VAM events got the chance to play to large audiences with a high quality of production behind them.
VAM describes itself as a ‘Manchester-based artist collective set up as a platform for visual artists, musicians, and audience to share and experience creative ideas’. How do you present this mix of mediums during an event?
Mixing art forms and mediums at events is ideal for me personally as I like to combine different sensory elements to bring a new level of audience experience. This can be a unique experience for an audience who might be used to going to an event and experiencing purely one element of arts, visual exhibitions or a gig.
The performances and events that have always stood out to me in the past were audio visual, performance art based events. For example, random ‘happenings’ in crowds, dance pieces and interactive installations. The structure of this is very loose. What installations and artists who appear at events depends on everyone’s availability really or who has work ready to share. I have spent a lot of time trying to reach out and raise my own awareness of what art forms people practice in Manchester and who is practicing these. I still feel like I am scratching the surface, however, I can feel a nice sense of community forming around the events.
I was always interested in what students Manchester School of Art were doing, for example, on the Interactive Arts course. TV Babies collective made an amazing cake sculpture for the birthday party, this collective’s art takes the form of video, sculpture and sounds.. Worth checking out! We’ve also had students from the school design some of our event artwork.
VAM celebrated its 1st birthday in December. How have you found arranging events in Manchester? Do you have any other collectives you work closely with or any venues that you really like to put events on in?
As I mentioned earlier, Partisan has been so welcoming for VAM. The Eagle Inn was also so fun to put a show on there, we’re going ahead with a street party there as part of Sounds From The Other City Festival’s fringe events! We have a larger event that we’re focusing on currently.. Trying to secure alternative accessible spaces is a challenge.
Right now we’re in conversation with an amazing international festival called Teorema, their past recorded performances are definitely worth looking at. We work with Test Card and a lot of artists perform at our events as we share a similar vision. Marge Powerhouse is an event led by Marge Girdzijauskaite who is doing great things and has helped us out a lot with our events.
Moving on to your mix, how did you approach your 90 minutes?
The mix I’ve recorded includes music that’s all related to Manchester in some way or another! I want to continue promoting the talent in the area. We’re really lucky to have a diverse and thriving electronic music scene in the city. The quality of producers coming out of the area is so high! Having a mixture of DJs and live musicians at the events is really important.
Are there any tracks in your mix you wouldn’t mind sharing with our readers?
Of course I can share! We recorded this mix before this interview so I’m trying to remember which ones I’ve included haha.. I’ve included Afrodeutsche’s remix of Day Dreaming by Marie Davidson. Some tracks from Acre’s ep Hollow Body. A track from Henzo, Spirit Summoned, upcoming producer with a new release on the label Super Kitchen!
There’s an unreleased track from Joe Beedles. Which is something people may not have heard anything like before. Tracks in the mix from Iceboy Violet who performed at one of the VAM events. Their tracks are so raw and vulnerable, much like their live performance style.
A really long ambient track from Daniel Ruane, one of the vamily, who performed at the very first VAM event at Aatma in 2017, and continues to support us since. Included a few from some artists who have consistently been releasing quality electronic music out of Manchester, At It Again from Demdike Stare’s new album and a bit of layering used with All End off Autechre’s NTS Sessions.
Looking ahead in to 2019 what have you got planned for VAM collective are their any events or big bookings you can tell us about?
There’s two events in my mind… Firstly the VAM / Sounds From the Other City Street Party at the Eagle Inn in Salford, this happened the other day (5th May).
The Eagle Inn has been really kind to us and a really adaptable space to use with quality sound, the staff are lovely too ! We recently hosted a street party outside the venues and it went off
One of them in autumn which is an international collaboration, with preparations starting to form. I won’t reveal too much until the plans are finalised, all I can say is that we’ll be taking over unique venues then bringing things closer to the heart of Manchester. Keep an eye out on our Facebook page for the details later in the year!
For now we are doing some live streams including live visuals and mixes which you can watch on the Facebook page.
If you liked this mix check out episode 5 from Traffic MCR founder Ayrtan.
