Anyone hear that Guy Garvey documentary on the radio? The one about Manchester rain influencing Manchester music? It was good, like, but it kind of felt a bit like a great idea in search of validation: yeah, it rains, and yeah, there’s Joy Division.

But Manchester is more than trenchcoats and millstone grit.

Jim Noir is a lil blast of psychedelic sunshine from the first-third of the M62 (we hate it when people say Manchester’s at ‘the other end of the M62′. Fuck off it is. That’s Hull.)

Anyway, we digress.

Noir’s playfully subverted the Manc dourness we all love, and has created a couple of albums’ worth of folk that’s dangerously bordering on a Davyhulme Dylan tip.

His name’s really Alan Roberts - but the Noir moniker suits his neo-psychedelia noodlings, and his willful border skirmishes with every musical genre under the sun/clouds.

A thoroughly modern multi-instrumentalist, songsmith and folk star, Noir pitches up in the increasingly excellent Static Gallery next month.

Expect well turned hooks, repetitive and dangerously addictive chord structures, and glossy electronic pop with more than a nod to The Beach Boys and Byrds, but with beats straight outta,well, the Hacienda. And, come to think of it, that wasn’t exactly known for its miserable music either.

Hey, maybe we’ve got Manchester all wrong.

Jim Noir, 3 December
Static Gallery, Roscoe Lane