CityLife

Electrik

YOU make a name for yourselves creating one of Manchester’s best loved club nights; tour the world; make beautiful music; and launch a festival. In Croatia.

Not ones to rest on your laurels, you come home and launch a bar. In Chorlton. The sparks are flying at Electrik, the publicsocialhousecafebar launched by Luke and Justin Unabomber in Chorlton earlier this month.

“Me and Justin thought about this for at least a decade,” says Luke.

“We knew we’d do it, but these things take time. When Electric Chair finished it was a liberating experience – it made all these back burner projects realisable. The festival happened, and the same with the bar.”

They decided the Northern Quarter was out – too crowded – and adopted Chorlton; opening two doors down from Dulcimer in the former Revise.

Danish-inspired

The refit was substantial but the resulting bar is simplistic, with a Danish-inspired design: all functional wooden seating, a cluster of red leather chesterfields, a bold orange back wall, pendant lights with glowing filaments and lots of wood.

The vibe is low-key, kind of daytime, thanks to the canteen-style chairs.

This isn’t a replacement for the club night, the home for the next Unabombers’ residency.

In fact, there’s no DJ booth at all, though there will be some “event-led stuff” in time.

Instead of live music there’s a free jukebox. “It was something that we were really clear we wanted,” said Luke.

“Having DJed for years in a bar you can feel sometimes that the music is too loud; one or two people have control over what’s played. This was a more egalitarian way of doing it.”

The options are a bit special: obligatory Manc anthems (see Joy Division) plus exclusive unmixed compilations from Electric Chair friends former guests.

The space is already on the move.

“There are more sofas arriving, a coffee machine, artwork queuing up to come in, we’ll be doing food,” says Luke.

“We want something that will grow organically, week after week.”

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