Delphic redefine Manchester sound (From The Bolton News)

Delphic redefine Manchester sound

10:12am Thursday 11th March 2010

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THE first thing you notice about Manchester band Delphic is that they don’t sound like, well, like a Manchester band.

There are no riff-perfect homages to Oasis here, no desperate attempts to look and sound like Ian Brown and certainly no harking back to the Madchester “glory days”.

“It does sometimes seem to be a bit of a rarity,” says guitarist Matt Cocksedge. “The band came out of a desire not to sound like that. When we were growing up there were so many bands sounding like Oasis or the Stone Roses — it was really boring. The whole Manchester thing is a bit of a blessing and a curse.”

Instead the trio fuse the soaring guitars and melodies of fellow Mancunians Doves with the sort of giddy electronica that demands you make a fool of yourself on the dancefloor.

“We had a really clear idea of the kind of music we wanted to make — we didn’t want to rush anything, we wanted to do it right,” says Matt.

“We’re lucky because we have a deal where we have our own label within Polydor, so we get to keep a lot of control. We just want to make sure we’re able to do what we want to do — we don’t want it to be corrupted.”

Visually too there is little evidence of their hometown. Whereas most Manc wannabes (yes Kasabian, we do mean you) appear to live in their parkas and display a rabid unwillingness to wash their hair, Delphic are sharply styled, with Matt’s glasses in particular the cause of much praise in the blogosphere.

“Like the music was a reaction against what was going on, the clothes and the aesthetic was the same — we looked at what was going on and did something different,” he says.

They’re obviously doing something right. Their “homecoming” show at Sankeys on Wednesday has sold out, they’ve just announced more live dates and they were named third on the BBC’s Sound of 2010, just behind the “future folk” of Ellie Goulding and Greek-Welsh diva Marina and the Diamonds. It’s the position held last year by Florence and the Machine who, it could be argued, did much better over the last 12 months than the first and second-placed Little Boots and White Lies.

Matt, however, seems a little bit baffled by all the attention.

“There’s so much furore surrounding this list, I find it a bit strange,” he says. “As a music fan you don’t like being told what to like, but I think music critics get a buzz out of trying to predict the next big thing.”

It looks like this time they might just have got it right.

• Delphic play the Ritz, Manchester, on Friday May 21. Tickets cost £12.25, available from ticketmaster.co.uk. New single Halcyon is released on Monday.