This spring we’re supporting the Musicians’ Union with Levy Market Mixtapes which sees a host of local record labels, venues and other independent music organisations each putting together a playlist for the market. We’ll be releasing a new mixtape each week and asking you to donate to the Musicians’ Union Coronavirus Hardship Fund.
We’re back in town tomorrow with another Levy Market Shop & Go, with a host of small independent businesses popping up to sell you some top-notch food, drink, arts, crafts and all other manner of wonders (including our brand new Levy Market hot sauce!)
And accompanying your browsing the latest playlist in our Levy Market Mixtapes series: tunes for you to enjoy whether shopping at the market or while at home with your purchases.
This time round we have Ad Hoc Records, one of our city’s most important independent record labels in recent years, who bring Manchester’s new music and its unique sense of underground cool out into the world and do a damn fine job, with artists like ZULA and Alps 2 hitting playlists on BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra, 6 Music, Rinse FM and everywhere where good tunes get played.
Ad Hoc was set up in 2017 with a mission to empower some of the incredible up-and-coming electronic talent which has emerged with a distinctly Mancunian DIY spirit influencing their sound, helping them make their mark on their city and beyond.
Their market mixtape is quite simply a banger party. With this Saturday looking a little on the rainy side, we advise you to brave the tempests for those crucial market purchases, head home, crank the tunes up to the max and have yourself a blow-out Levy kitchen disco.
You can listen on Spotify right here.
And remember: all of this music was written and recorded by artists who, for over a year, have not been able to perform live. At all. This is the main source of income for almost all musical artists and the lifeforce of the UK music industry. So if you like a song you hear – why not buy the artist’s record? You could even order it direct from the Ad Hoc Shop? Did you also know that Spotify, while it has a reputation for not being the most lucrative platform for its artists, now allows them to feature a ‘Fundraising Pick’ link on the top of their Spotify profiles, allowing you to pay them direct for their music?
More urgently, you can also donate to the Musicians’ Union Coronavirus Hardship Fund which we’re asking all our customers to support if they can this spring.
The Musicians’ Union provides small grants of £200 to musicians in urgent financial hardship. They have distributed over £1.3M to members via their hardship grants since April 2020, but there are many more who are still in dire financial circumstances.
So when you visit the market at the weekend, please enjoy listening to the sounds of your city, take them home with you and make a donation if you can – anything at all can make a difference. We’re all looking forward to live music returning later this year – let’s do what we can to ensure that there are people there to play for us.
