ROWF! ROWF! ROWF!

Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th August 2009, 2pm – 1am
Islington Mill, James Street, Salford

Weekend tickets £15, day tickets £10 from www.ticketline.co.uk, www.wegottickets.com and www.myspace.com/goldenlabrecords

Golden Lab Records is Manchester’s best-known experimental music label and has been releasing records and promoting gigs by improv, psych, drone, noise and free-rock artists since 2005. Rowf! Rowf! Rowf! (named after the label’s catalogue numbers and the sound of everyone’s favourite dawg) is its annual blowout. Year-on-year the festival has brought some of the most vital, out there musicians to Manchester and now, for the second year running, to Salford’s Islington Mill.

Last year’s event saw the likes of Richard Youngs, Magik Markers’ Pete Nolan and Vibracathedral Orchestra’s Mick Flower altering states of audience consciousness to the point of ecstatic oblivion. This year is shaping up to be an equally mind-bending event, spanning the spectrum of the counterculture.

So, all under one psychedelic roof, you get the Brooklyn-based garage noise-rock genius of Blues Control, the glorious folk traditionals of Bradford-based musician Stephanie Hladowski and the brain-melting abstract sound art of Brighton’s Blood Stereo. Former Vibracathedral Orchestra member Bridget Hayden will be blasting out droning guitar mantras, the Sonic Youth supporting duo of Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides will be there, giving us a slice of Taj Mahal Travellers inspired minimal flute and drums, and the free-rocking, horror show that is Manchester’s own Gnod will take us all deep into the k-hole.

Those of you who’ve been before know the score. For those who haven’t – if you like the idea of opening your ears to sounds you won’t ever hear on mainstream radio, this is a must-see event. There’ll be as many opportunities to sit and hazily gaze at your navel in some kind of wigged-out trance as there will be to throw down some freaky shapes. There are only 300 tickets available for this year’s festival and they’re likely to sell out way in advance, so if you want in, you’d better be fast.

As well as back-to-back live performances, there’ll be the opportunity to shake it well into the small hours courtesy of the Gnod Disco. Expect a potent brew of krautrock, japrock, exotic psych, deep dub, freakout rock and even a spattering of rare soul for those of you who crave a little smoothing-out of brain matter once it’s been frazzled to a crisp. Plus there’ll be a ton of sweet merch on offer, most of which you’re unlikely to find in any of Manchester’s record shops. You’re likely to find as many homemade tapes and CD-Rs on offer as you are LPs and CDs – most as rare as rocking horse shit.

End the summer the way all summers should be ended. Zap your mind.