FORK Creating Your Next Favourite Gig
Manchester, UK 06/06/26
FORK played a gig in Off The Square, Manchester on June 6th. It was a set that had the room holding its breath and the headliner swearing over the need to follow. FORK are a DIY four-piece band formed from the corners of the city. They contain an analogue synthesiser, a double brass section, a rebuilt vocoder and a home-made pedalboard used like another synth.
FORK played a performance, but it was their music that took the lead - not the members. The music filled one from the crown of their head to the soles of their feet. Sometimes, the frontman pointed.
It wasn’t exactly rock music that FORK played, and it wasn't exactly indie but some secret third thing. They described themselves as “post-punk… real post-punk?” but I don’t think that is particularly true either. Post-punk is a completely changed format to the punk movement. It now relates to a specific style of bands and the arts-scene which doesn’t apply to a band like FORK. They don’t use fashion or visuals to create any kind of statement.
It was made clear when we chatted over a pint that these guys are not interested in how they think they should sound or be as a band. Three-quarters of the band have not studied music past secondary school (not that this shows, whatsoever). They create everything from scratch; everything that they do is intrinsically them. The gig did not need to focus on harmonies, or the clashing of melodies and notes. It was DIY in the purest form, everything connected simply because they wanted it to. They “intuitively agree on what can come next” as I was told.
They specifically tried not to talk politics within the interview but that quite spectacularly back-fired. There is no world without politics, hence there is no art without politics. It has a hand in everything. As an alternative band FORK are clearly left-leaning. They feature political lyrics and put them into a modern syllabus.
FORK are determined to do something different in an over-saturated world. The biggest compliment that they have ever received is a sound engineer remarking upon how they have never mixed a band like them before. There are so many words that get put together nowadays to try and label everything. I’m sure I could apply that to FORK to try and describe their sound, but that is only another signal of over-saturation. FORK are re-inventing. In the 60s, they might have been a jazz band. They are doing what they can to create something new and good at the same time. It has to be experimental in some form and it has to be done from scratch. FORK have achieved exactly this - and done it brilliantly.
There are some upcoming gigs for FORK, they are trying to break out of the Manchester music scene following in the lead of their sound. They never want to “sound [like it’s] over-produced” while still “squeezing as much as we can out of each other”. The upcoming release of ‘END OF THE WORLD, for now’ will be the biggest proof that FORK are true to their word. This will be on all streaming platforms on July 17th.
When I saw FORK play after our interview, it was the second time I had seen them play in a week. They made it so easy to lose yourself in what surrounded you. It wasn’t the rhythm section making you want to dance, nor was it the sonic field being filled from top to bottom; it was something you had never heard the like of before. It wasn’t young musicians grabbing life by its teeth and bringing a different energy to the stage. It was more of a humbled giving of their life’s creation in that moment.
Photo by @cubistsphere.
