Sleeve Notes is a collaborative performance response to coincide with this year’s Record Store Day. Ten writers have teamed up with ten musicians to offer their take on how records have shaped their lives and thinking, each pair creating a brand-new track combining spoken word and music.

The pieces will be performed live by the writers and musicians at the International Burgess Centre in Manchester on the evening of Record Store Day – all precisely timed to coincide with you being able to queue and procure those all-important discs and hotfoot it over and grab a drink and take the weight off and chill out.

All tracks are available as a limited-edition cassette and a free download on Bandcamp.

The artists are writer and electronic music journalist Fat Roland, surreal poet Vik Shirley. ex-leader of the band Performance and novelist and lecturer Joe Stretch, poet Lauren McLean of the band Locean, novelist, and short story expert Nicholas Royle, short story writer David Gaffney, musician and writer Adrian Slatcher, poet and lead singer of the March Violets, Rosie Garland, UNESCO city of literature writer Dave Hartley, and experimental poet Sarah-Clare Conlon. Composers are Andy Hodson of Warm Digits, ex Ultravox singer and musician John Foxx, Billy Fuller from Beak>, artist Jez Dolan on double bass, Joe Cross from the Courteeners, record producer and DJ Fritz von Runte, The March Violets, Electronic musician Rickerly, Tombed Visions label head David McLean and Minimums.

Design by Zoe McLean  |  Thanks to Arts Council England for funding the project