Manchester’s cool new kid on the block 2022 NQ is celebrating it’s first birthday this April with a weekend of treats to say thanks! It’s been a great year! After subsiding a successful 12 months in the already thriving city, it’s safe to say, they stood their ground and have soon become one of Manchester’s most sought after locations for exhibition spaces, club nights, film events and more. In celebration of this fantastic achievement, 2022 NQ are bringing you four totally different birthday revelries, so you can come down and join in the fun however you please.

Kicking off the birthday shananigans, Thursday 11^th April see’s 2022 NQ become host to the ‘Ex:ample Magazine Hip Hop Exhibition Launch’ The launch of this retrospective exhibition focuses on the theme of hip-hop and the b-boy culture of Manchester, and will showcase photography from some of the best Ex:ample contributors, including Air Adam, Al Baker, Gary Brown, Jody Hartley and James Mernagh. A selection of DJ’s will be on hand to aid memorabilia road, transporting you back to manchesters rich hip hop history.

The following day sees the birthday celebrations continue with an extra special cinematic experience with a free Jamesons whiskey and unlimited popcorn. 2022 NQ will be transformed into a popular music forte with the critically acclaimed LCD Sound Systems’s final live performance ‘ Shut up and Play The Hits’ being shown first. Proceedings follow with ‘Iceland: Beyond Sigur Ros’ produced by Manchester indie film outfit, Serious Feather. DJ support comes from the Generic Greeting Collective.

To end the weekend on a happy birthday high, Saturday offers a double whammy of daytime and nighttime entertainment with the third installation of ‘The Manchester Print Fair‘ being held in the space first. Featuring over twenty local and regional artists, designers and crafters, original handmade prints will be on sale, as well as live screen printing workshops for those wanting to indulge their creative curiosities. Continuing the fun until the early hours of Sunday, Unabombers will be joining in the festivities for an all night long party, providing a delicious journey through the most lustrous and soulful recesses of dance music.

Tickets for all events are available here: www.skiddle.com/2022nq

As the august bank holiday weekend commonly goes in Manchester, the weather was unfortunately very wet and pretty miserable! But seeing as we haven’t had a summer this year, and since the rain doesn’t faze us hard skinned Mancs, the party shall go on! With umbrellas and minimal clothing, we made our way to South, where we were greeted by the lovely Matt, chief organiser and partner in crime with fellow techno brain Sam.

First on the menu was the delicious starter; Mark Santangelo, a cheeky chappy with a spicy coating of dark tribal beats. He was warming up the room nicely and it quickly began to fill up. We had a little stomp then went outside for a cig, where we found the most amazing smoking area, complete with bar and new york style alleyway. If it was a bit hotter and less rainy, it would have been quite a trendy spot to chill in but standing underneath a generator trying to avoid the raindrops was a bit more Nono than Soho. Never the less, it was a pretty cool space.

After a little chat with Jon Rundell outside, (the full Interview will come soon), the main course was prep’d and ready to be revealed. He took his rightful place behind the decks and received a warm welcome from the crowd. Mark Santangelo had warmed up their bellies nicely but the people wanted something a little heavier! Playing “Danilo Vagorito – I Saw The Light” and “Tapesh & Maximijan – Clown (Alex Tepper Remix)”, his tunes were a great mixture of current techno, tasty tech house and some of his own well produced tracks. He’s one of those DJ’s that has his own style… And the tribal notes of the Balearic isle were ringing through all his tracks. Towards the end of his set I could hear him bringing in “Knick Knack” which is a song that I have incredible memories of and hearing it played in Manchester was just incredible. Who cares about the rain… Ibiza had just arrived and had brought the sun, sea and sand with him!

It was a fantastic night, the organization was un-fault-able (don’t know if that’s a word), the crowd were loving it and the music was dark and seductive. Everyone I spoke to had a really good evening and can’t wait for the next one! I certainly had a good time… As the prayer dance doesn’t come out for just anybody!

Digital Wax will be returning to South on Novemeber 23rd… Keep tuned for the special guest announcement and further juicy details…

**Edit by James

Just have to say a huge thank you to Matt and Sam for starting a terrific night. Hopefully the masses will realise how good the music is, the crowd of music enthusiasts and general party-goers at the gig seemed to love it and the DMM team had a great night. Another huge thank you to Jon Rundell for taking the time to chat to us outside, an honor meeting such a legend, humble and down to Earth but then smashed the tunes out as if he was playing a packed out Space. Check out Jon’s latest track released on Intec Digital, Revival.

Another HUGE thanks to Chantelle and Lauren for the photos, we’ll upload more at the weekend, bit of a technical issue at the moment

 

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Photo Gallery from the night on our Facebook Page!

The night that we’ve all been waiting for is just 3 weekends away! Digital Wax will be coming to south on the 24^th August to present something Manchester has been lacking in… Techno. In just 18 days, South will open it’s doors and it’s floor space to hundreds of thirsty clubbers with a hunger for anything that’s not deep and melodic! On the line-up for this incredible event is the one and only Jon Rundell, known for being Carl Cox’s right hand man… He’s going to play some tasty Ibiza grooves that will bring a bit of the white isle over to our not so summery Manchester! Movement Uk resident Mark Santangelo and Matt Cooper are also on board to wind the crowd up and then wind them up some more. Digital Wax promise it will be ‘so good you don’t go to the bar’, and we think it’s going to be amazing, I’m extremely excited, as I think music has got a bit too deep recently, and somebody needs to rock the boat! Actually, lets take the boat to the high seas and party on with a bottle of rum and no life jackets!

We talk to Matt and Sam who are the incredible creators of this night… But we now know them by… Waxy… Mr Wax… Digi… Dee and D Wax. Here they tell us their future plans for Digital Wax and why they are bring techno back to Manchester.

So how did you guys meet?

Sam: We were both friends from an early age and used to mix together back in the days of belt drive turntables and the album that really made us fall in love with Dance music was when Carl Cox released Fact. It was very much an underground movement then and even now some of the records on that album are still played to this day.

Matt: We also used to go clubbing back in the late 1990’s in the days when Trance and Hard House was at the forefront and organised parties together then. We were then very much into the Nu-NRG sound and Tony De Vit and his live in Tokyo album had a similar impact. At the time the energy of his sets was unequalled and the sound being touted now by Jon Rundell, Carl Cox, Christian Varela and Nicole Moudaber has a lot of these similarities.

Why did you decide to bring a techno night to Manchester?

Sam: After going to Awakening in 2010 and seeing Carl Cox at WHP last year we looked for a regular night locally that we could party at drew a blank. There was no reasonable explanation reason why this was the case. For us it is perfect party music and we could not stop smiling at both these nights every time the next record came in. This then gave us the motivation to bring this sound here on a regular basis. Manchester is thriving at the minute in terms of deep house but there seems to be a real opening for a tougher edged party and we set up Digital Wax with this in mind.

Matt: We want to emulate  the recent atmospheres we have found at parties we have recently been to in Europe such as Awakenings (Amsterdam) and Space (Ibiza). At these events we have experienced a real energetic, upfront and vibrant style and we thought it was a shame we had to travel to Europe to get it. That’s when we decided we should bring these experiences to our beloved Manchester.

What do you think is missing from Manchester’s nightlife?

Sam: Manchester is great and with places like Sankeys and WHP you have 2 of the best clubs in the country. This year WHP have a couple of parties that are similar to our sound in particular the Carl Cox party and event that includes Adam Beyer. We will be attending these no doubt but want to bring this style and sound to Manchester on a regular basis.

Matt: Manchester has a very vibrant and diverse nightlife that caters for all tastes, however there aren’t any nights regular nights on at present where you can experience the European party vibe. We think now is a good time for Digital Wax to introduce that vibe.

What made you choose South as the club to host the event?

Sam: For us South has so much untapped potential and we are 100% sure it is going to be the next big venue in the North in terms of Dance Music.  There are already some big nights starting to realise this with WHP, Drop the Mustard and Zutekh. It has a feel to it similar to Mint Club in Leeds and with it’s pre-installed funktion one system it is perfect for a night like this.

Matt: South is quickly getting a reputation for the quality of its venue and events held there. We felt that the venue was the perfect fit for what we are trying to achieve as they have an awesome Funktion One sound system. This coupled with their professional management and promotions team made South our first choice. We are delighted that we can hold our events at South and feel Digital Wax and South are well matched.

Are you excited about having Carl Cox’s right hand man Jon Rundell headline the event?

Sam: When we set this up Jon Rundell was the first choice for us and we were over the moon when we managed to secure him. He has some massive gigs this summer and we’ve managed to book him straight after his set at Carl Cox’s Revolution Recruits @ Space. He also heads up Intec Digital with Carl Cox so represents the European sound we are going for perfectly. We also wanted to book someone with an international presents and his summer roster includes Ultra Music Festival, Sonar, Tomorrow Land, Space and Eden so people are coming to watch someone who really does understand the big occasion.

What other nights have the two of you put together?

Matt: We both ran the afterparty for Gategrasher/Insomniacz at The Howard in Sheffield back in the late 90’s Early 2000’s and last year had a stint running warm up parties for Colour and Micron under the Home From Home guise.  We are really glad we started small and worked our way up as it gave us an insight into running an event.  It certainly opened our eyes and without that we would not have understood the level of work it takes to get something like this off the ground

Whats next for Digital Wax?

Sam: We have already booked the DJ for the second party and he is one the biggest stars on the scene today. To give you a clue he played one of the main areas at the Awakenings festival this year but that is as much as we can say at the minute. We will be releasing details of this very soon.

Matt: Currently we are in talks with some leading European and UK brands about bringing them to Manchester but again can’t say too much and these are way off coming to confirmation. If we so manage to get these confirmed it will be massive and that is an element we want to keep going. The element of surprise and keeping things new and fresh.

Thanks Matt and Sam for talking to us, we can’t wait for this… It’s going to be massive! And we urge any djs/promoters to send their demos/interest to matt@homefromhomepromotions.co.uk as they are going to take off and want you to get involved!

Follow @digitalwaxmcr on Twitter and Like their facebook page

P.s… Check out the July Promo Mix they have made for the event and the really cool Jon Rundell Digital Wax Promo he made a few days ago.

Deemed at the future Swedish House Mafia, AN21 & Max Vangeli have soon become two of the most exciting and dynamic music duos on the scene! Known for their ever impressing electro sets and progressive house backgrounds, the pair are well on their way to huge levels of success, as they put their knowledge and skills together to create some immense big room tunes! With their highly anticipated date with Eddie Halliwell on 14th August for Fire It Up at Papaya, on the island of Pag, Croatia and the hint of an album on the way… We chat to the lads to see what else has been happening and what they are getting excited about this year.

So, firstly have you guys had the pleasure of visiting Croatia before?

Of course! It’s an AMAZING place!!!

For anyone who hasn’t witnessed an AN21 & Max Vangeli set, what can they expect from you guys?

Lots of energy and drinks being poured in the booth! It’s all about energy from us!

One track you’re sure to play for Fire It Up?

Our collaboration with the AMAZING Julie McKnight – “Bombs Over Capitals”

What’s happening with Size Records this summer?

Big things but the main thing is our album of course! Steve has a lot of amazing records he is going to push as well on his end!

With the end of The Swedish House Mafia imminent, do you think Steve will be spending more time on the label?

OF COURSE! That’s going to be the main focus for sure!

Dance music will need a new DJ super-group soon, who do you think has got the goods

Well we don’t like to consider ourselves as a full time group as we do a lot of shows separately. But who knows, lets hope it’s someone from the SIZE family J
What’s been the highlight of 2012 for you guys so far?

Working on and finally finishing our album! Super excited to finally have the fans hear it.

If you could bring back someone from the dead to work with on a track who would it be?

Hmm probably the King of Pop himself, just so we can say we did something with such amazing talent! All the girls will be ours J

If you could go back in time five years and give yourself some advice, what would it be?

Learn to play an instrument from day one!

What’s the greatest EDM track of all time?

Probably “Daft Punk – Da Funk”

Who’s the bigger studio geek?

Both equal geeks, but Antoine is more of a geek in general haha

Who’s got the best footwear?

Hmm probably both of us

Best dance moves?

The fist pump vs the air piano at the same time synchronized?

Who moans the most?

DEFINITLY, Antoine!

Who would win in a boxing match?

Haha it will all depend on how drunk Max is probably.

One of you is late and missed a flight, who is it?

haha “no comment”

Finally a message to the fans that are hyped up to see you at Papaya?

Love you guys soo much!  Can’t wait to see all of you!!!

For all the information on the Fire It Up dates at Papaya -

http://fireitup.co.uk/croatia/

After the success of the launch party in Liverpool, Jacks House has decided to come back to its home town with an extra bit of va va voom and sex appeal. Having been to a few of the clubs in Wigan, I can honestly say, it’s not for me. But I think the tables are turning as house music is back on the map, giving the town some variety and something a little bit addictive!

The Event is brought to you by DJ Peter Piorun and HedKandi saxophonist; Tom Da Lips, who will both join forces to create a night of sexy house music. Peter has played some of Ibiza’s hottest venues including HedKandi bar and Eden as well as playing at some home comforts including Circo and Garlands in Liverpool. Not only will there be music and live sax, Friday 27^th July welcomes G-Percussion to Jacks House for the first time, for live Percussion to tap along to. Gareth has played alongside some of the biggest names in the industry including Radio 1’s Danny Howard, Eric Prydz, Judge Jules and Pete Tong.

For just £3 all night, get yourselves down to Revolution in Wigan for a funky, fresh, feel good night.
VIP Booths available upon request to ensure you enjoy the night in comfort…

TXT: 07921688338 or Email: info@ppem.co.uk

All VIP booths come with waitress service and the option to purchase a drinks offer/promotion once in the club
Doors 9pm – 4pm

FOR GUESTLIST…

TXT: 07921688338 or Email: info@ppem.co.uk