The August List – Night & Day Café, Manchester (3rd November)

Oxford Country and Folk

Story by Matthew Murray

04/11/2025

It was one of those nights at Night & Day when the bands almost outnumber the crowd, but everyone’s too polite — or too curious — to care.

The August List, rolling in from Oxford with a country-folk heart and an experimental streak. Their fiddle looked like it had been borrowed from the future, but the sound was warm, earthy, and sincere. The harmonies between the rest of the band and the lead singer — a woman with a voice that can do tenderness and twang in equal measure — were beautifully balanced. At one point she broke out a harmonica, adding a plaintive edge to the set’s middle stretch. At time they echoed Girlpool’s lo-fi intimacy, all wistful charm and quiet power. Only ten or so people watched, but it didn’t matter. The August List played like they were headlining somewhere much bigger — and, for a few moments, Night & Day felt exactly that. Encoded Frequencies opened proceedings – though “band” might be overstating it. A one-man operation armed with pedals, beats, and a slightly manic glint, he stitched together soundscapes that felt half DIY techno, half bedroom existentialism. He closed with a new track, which will apparently appear on a 'Freshly Squeezed' podcast next week. Vinyl and T-shirts were also on sale for anyone wanting to prove they were there first. Next up, In Crooked Wonderment, a group that could only have been formed by theatre students. Their set veered from death-metal growls to chirpy singalongs with gleeful abandon. A fantastic vocalist led the charge, backed by a drummer who looked born to upend gender clichés, and a bassist wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask for reasons best left unexplored. At one point, a guitar rigged to sound like a warped piano (possibly using sponges?) added to the spectacle. Somehow, it all worked – their single Regicide has clocked over 300,000 streams, and for once, you can see why.