MIXTAPE

WORDS: HENRY CARDEN

Hello! Henry here. I’m a music manager and festival promoter based in Teesside. My management roster includes Cattle & Cane, Dylan Cartlidge, Jodie Nicholson, Mt. Misery and a brand new artist called Blue Lupin. I also do some mentoring/artist development and have worked with Llovers, Komparrison, Sarah Johnsone, Eve Conway and Eyeconic among others in that capacity. Alongside that, I co-promote Twisterella Festival and put on the odd gig here and there… If you’re not already familiar with it, Twisterella is an award-winning (I know, right!?) multi-venue music festival which takes place every October in the heart of Middlesbrough. This year, we’ve got the likes of Benefits, The Royston Club, Swim School, Panic Shack, Bull, Prima Queen and Sick Joy heading to Teesside on Saturday 8th October. Excitingly, we’re also doing our first ever outdoor summer Twisterella event, with the Class of 2022 at Middlesbrough Town Hall Courtyard on Saturday 6th August featuring eight of our favourite regional acts: ZELA, Jodie Nicholson, Moon Wax, Twist Helix, Joe Ramsey, Shakk, Mt. Misery and Jen Dixon. Here’s a few tracks I can’t wait to hear live at the show.

www.twisterella.co.uk / www.quietcrown.co.uk / www.twitter.com/henrycarden

SHAKK & EYECONIC - IT’S A VIBE

Shakk has to be one of the North East’s best kept secrets and I really hope that changes soon. He doesn’t deserve to be a secret! This track picked up Clash Track of the Day and a play on BBC Radio 1 Xtra, which I’m hopeful is a sign of things to come for Shakk. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Eyeconic might join him for this one, but even if not, this catchy homage to 90s garage is sure to get the crowd moving.

JODIE NICHOLSON - MOVE

I’ll always have an immense soft-spot for this track, as it was the first new song that Jodie and I worked on together. It was recorded remotely during lockdown with an amazing producer called Tim Bran. He was in his studio in London and Jodie was in her house in Hurworth. The result is an incredible track that has opened up so many doors for Jodie. We released it at a time where playing live or even leaving the house wasn’t really possible, so we had to be quite creative with our release strategy. Fast forward two years and it’s had nearly 300,000 streams on Spotify and 20 national radio plays across BBC Radio 6Music and BBC Radio 1. I couldn’t be prouder of Jodie with this one and it sounds so good with her full band line-up!

MOON WAX - IT’S REAL

There’s something joyous about watching Moon Wax live. They’re the perfect summer band and they’re all ridiculously talented musicians – I can play a few different instruments to a reasonable-ish standard, but when I watch Moon Wax play, I sometimes just start laughing at how effortless they make everything seem. Billy the guitarist/frontman is ‘Boro’s answer to Nile Rodgers. Unbelievable stuff.

JOE RAMSEY - ANOTHER DAY

“Should I be as happy as I am right now?” – such a great lyric, written in the context of actually having some good things happen during lockdown. A song essentially about the guilt of enjoying life during the pandemic, for me, this is Joe’s best track and it always sound ace live with Rossy on the drums giving it so much energy and life.

MT. MISERY - SSA

So, I’m using my managerial privilege with this one! It’s an unreleased track and I don’t actually know what this song is called, but the file they sent me is called SSA-MASTER V1.MP3 so let’s run with SSA. It’s going to feature on a 12” vinyl compilation released by the wonderful Prefect Records later this year and it’s probably my favourite ever Mt. Misery track. It’s like Teenage Fanclub meets The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. What a combination.