Clubbing: Awesome Tapes from Africa at The Deaf Institute

Coming to The Deaf Institute in May is a very special analogue club night: Awesome Tapes from Africa is a night of little-known music from across that great continent. The event is the brainchild of musicologist Brian Shimkovitz. In 2006, he visited Ghana and became hooked on the country’s music, which was mostly sold on cassette. On returning to his native Brooklyn, he launched the Awesome Tapes from Africa blog, to share this music and his experiences. Since then, he has travelled all over Africa and collected yet more cassettes. He began to perform at clubs and festivals using twin tape decks to DJ (or should that be TJ?). For this tenth anniversary tour, Shimkovitz will be drawing on his vast musical archive of genres such as highlife, fuji, benga and tsonga. There’ll also be uniquely African takes on disco, hip-hop and soul.

Fri 13 May, The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE, Tel: 0161 276 9350, 11pm – 3am, £8 (adv.), seetickets.com