Massive Nun///

Blending electronic experimentalism and live improvisation in the service of abstract musical dramaturgy, Manchester-based collective MASSIVE NUN aim to provoke and surprise. We develop interventions that engage with and reflect on the spaces where we perform, allowing for unexpected and profound moments of audience connectivity. Our membership and configuration shifts from performance to performance, with an array of contributors supplementing a core of eager regulars.

Following a 2024 residency in Llandudno, the NUN held a three-day workshop at RNCM Manchester, culminating in a sonic exploration of personal space(s) through instruments, voice, musical toys and nightlights. A subsequent residency led to a performance at 2026’s CURIO music festival, taking audience members through a psychedelic reflection on disco music.

We draw on an array of practices and genres including contemporary classical, drone, noise and performance art. This eclecticism allows for flexibility and surprising meeting points between diverse musical worlds, at the interstice between the confrontational and the approachable; the familiar and the uncanny. Our improvisatory approach, built around loose structure and rehearsed moments, allows us to approach performances freely: ideas emerge and unfold from the space and from each other. Anything could happen at any moment.

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