Fat Out is a passionate champion of the underground, dedicated to discovering new music to produce captivating live shows for both artists and audience alike, aiming to promote a combination of challenging, intense, experimental, queer and downright rowdy music.
Fat Out Fest is our flagship event that we have produced in Salford since 2011. Since this first incarnation, the festival has steadily grown to become an ever evolving celebration of the underground, platforming alternative and queer music and visual art.
Collaboration is at the core of Fat Out’s agenda and we continue to seek to grow our knowledge of musicians, visual artists, record labels, festivals and like minded humans to work with on producing consistently unique events.
HERSTORY
Fat Out is a live music and festival promotion based out of Islington Mill in Salford (Greater Manchester). Founded by Emma Thompson in 2008 and co-directed with Verity Gardner from 2009-2017, Fat Out is now part of From the Other.
The first Fat Out shows were in Manchester at venues such as Cafe Saki, Club Phoenix and Tiger Lounge. 2010 saw Fat Out cross over the River Irwell, stumbling into an old cotton Mill that became our spiritual home. From the early shows at Islington Mill with Master Musicians of Bukkake and Wolves in the Throne room to the 2024 edition of Fat Out Fest, the Mill has played a huge part in sustaining us, giving space to make noise and experiment.
2013 saw Fat Out challenge ourselves to produce their first international event at the Silent Barn in Brooklyn, NYC. This event brought together NYC based musicians and visual artists based in the UK for a night of one-off, transatlantic collaborations.
In May 2015, Islington Mill cemented our long growing love affair by offering Fat Out a two year programming residency in their critically acclaimed event space, an amazing opportunity that aimed to allow for fresh ideas and entrepreneurial growth. From May 2015 to August 2017, Fat Out gained full autonomy over the creative programme and venue management of Islington Mill’s club. Renaming the space ‘The Burrow’, Fat Out transformed the Mill’s world class venue into their new home and over the course of their residency had an incredible array of national and international artists perform on their stage.
In 2018 Fat Out joined Outlands, a national experimental music touring network. Initially made up of 8 partners from across the UK with the collective aim of championing the genre-resistant bringing adventurous interdisciplinary music to the forefront. Fat Out produced the 6th Outlands tour, a collaboration between IMPATV & Qujaku which was developed during residencies in Japan & UK and then toured around the Outlands Network in November 2019.
Since 2008 Fat Out has promoted shows for artists such as Swans, The Bug, Boris, Russian Circles, Saul Williams, Bohren & the club of Gore, Gnod, Jarboe, Melt Banana, Charles Hayward, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tatsuya Yoshida, Wolves In The Throne Room, and Lydia Lunch.
Our previous collaborative partners include Tombed Visions, Opal Tapes, Basilica Hudson, The Quietus, Supersonic Festival, Bollox, Box Records, Counterflows, Upset The Rhythm, Frixxxion, Erased Tapes, BBC Philharmonic, Grove, Zakia Sewell, The Fat Zine and more.