Nocturnal Polyphony

The music of Manchester, UK, is infamous. Successive waves of artists and bands from the city and its region have had their sounds travel around to many different parts of the world. These sonic exports have reflected the changing dynamics within the city itself (Haslam 1999). From the latter days of its industrialised boom to its post-war contribution of 1960s groups, then its angular and motoric post-punk influence through its ecstasy-fuelled ‘Madchester’ era, perhaps the peak of its provincial power, and into the diverse musical kaleidoscope of the present day. Like many cities around the globe, the grand narratives that emanate from Manchester have proved important in shaping how the city is perceived and, by extension, heard. Yet a city is much more than the officially recorded sounds it emits. The everyday soundtrack of buses, trams, pigeons, people going about the ebb and flow of urban life provides a typical backdrop against which the staccato rhythm of construction work or the shrill vignettes of emergency vehicles add their fleeting flourishes to the sonic palimpsest of the city. In this talk I consider how the practice of nightwalking can support a form of mobile music-making through its capacity to both perform within and relate to the nocturnal city via the entanglements that occur between the body and urban landscape, sound and migration, presence and identity.