Bands to check out at Field Day

Off to Field Day this Sunday?  The Victoria Park festival is many things - a village fete; a Shoreditch scenefest – but above all else it’s a treasure trove of emerging musical talent, spread across five thrilling stages.  With band times and stage line-ups now available, you can plan your day accordingly.  Nearly every act’ll have their merits, and some are already well-enough known.  But here are four less familiar bands I thoroughly recommend you catch:

The Big Pink  (19:00 – Stage 4: Adventures in the Beetroot Field)
Proponents of a jangly, grandiose ‘post-rock’ noise that sounds, well, important, The Big Pink pack a elegant, digitally-enhanced punch.  On With You, the singer (no idea if it’s Milo or Robbie!) lets out occasional burnt-out screeches to accompany his standard boom as guitars and keyboards team up in shimmering tandems like mirages on an open road. Crystal Visions distantly reminds of Ian Brown’s funky phase with its echoey vocals and tremulous background sounds, before morphing into something altogether glummer. Dominoes is the bruiser of the bunch, a much less complex chant-a-long either side of melancholic, strangely quiet verses.  These are epic, lavish soundscapes of songs, ones that may not make for love at first listen.  But they’ll get you in the end…
www.myspace.com/musicfromthebigpink

Mumford & Sons  (18:10 – Stage 4: Village Mentality)
With their spindly-sounding acoustic guitars, relentless redneck rhythms and often gloomy subject matter, Mumford & Sons seem certain to be a 12-piece country outfit, the type that’s clad in nice, but slightly mildewed, shirts and impossibly cool boots, hailing from a one-horse town called Tulsa or Tookema or Tucson. But in fact – despite one of the band being called Country – they’re a four-piece London act. At the start of the year I tipped Mumford & Sons for fame unbridled, envisioning that the quartet’s beautiful bluegrass epics would catch on quicker than it takes to say Arcade Fire. Perhaps their songs are a tad too intense, or it could be the lack of a real catchfire anthem; whatever the reason, fame has thus far been elusive.  New friends ought to be won at Field Day though, especially with the band’s placement on the folksy Village Mentality stage, perfectly suited to their songs’ dizzying highs and terrible troughs.
www.myspace.com/mumfordandsons

First Aid Kit  (12:00 – Stage 4: Village Mentality)
I can imagine this going a bit wrong: First Aid Kit, songs as fragile and maddeningly beautiful as a rare butterfly, are first on the Village Mentality stage, one likely to be sparsely populated with half-asleep punters still catching up on last night’s gossip, and at an hour scheduled to be a bit damp to say the least. Stockholm sisters Klara and Johanna’s music is spirited, and captivating given the chance, but it’s also quiet and the siblings may struggle to gain an attentive crowd.  I hope I’m wrong (I often am), though; these are dainty, pretty melodies, complete with coquettish vocal sounds and graceful instrumental sections, that deserve full attention. Make the effort to catch FAK and you’ll also hear their gorgeous cover of Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, one I consider better than the excellent original.
www.myspace.com/thisisfirstaidkit

Sian Alice Group  (13:40 – Stage 3: Adventures in the Beetroot Field)
Distant death knells; keyboard thuds that descent to fizzy, fuzzy, nothingness; a trinkling jangle like an alarm clock on marijuana; seemingly uncontrollable waves of electronica… over all this cornucopia of musical weirdness frontlady Sian Ahern sings a graceful tribute to sunrise, and that’s just one song discussed. A sixpiece when live and again fitting the impossibly vague category of ‘post-rock’, Sian Alice Group pair up quirky, avant garde sounds with ethereal chords, and then sugar the whole thing over with saintly, seductive vocals. Motionless has a thumping percussion base and soaring peaks; Contour floats dreamily above an intent, constant wall of instrumental sound, one that builds and builds in decibels before exotically tailing off again to begin afresh.  On record it all feels a bit remote and elusive, but I suspect in live format the experience is total. So if you’re in desperate need of new favourite band, one that’s esoteric, unheralded, complex and plenty fricking cool, look no further. 
www.myspace.com/sianalicegroup

Also well worth a peek is the epic, pulsing electrica-rock of Errors (13:30 – Stage 1: Eat Your Own Ears), Wild Beasts‘ (17:45 – Stage 3 – Adventures in the Beetroot Field) lush, languid and goosebump-bothering Northern pop, and the suspiciously simple, rarefied pop refrains provided by The XX (15:30 – Stage 5: Bloggers Delight), about whom I recently gushed here.

Have a great day!

MP3s:
The Big Pink – With You (zSHARE)
Mumford & Sons – Roll Away Your Stone (zSHARE)
First Aid Kit – Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (zSHARE)
Sian Alice Group – Motionless (zSHARE)

Beanos closes early

Further to my earlier post, I’m sad, really sad and sick in fact, to report that Beanos record stores has now closed.  Said owner David:

“Last week we announced the imminent closure of the shop at the end of August. However, a very shrewd record dealer has made us an offer we cannot refuse for all of our stock and, today, we have accepted the deal. Since BEANOS has no stock left we are officially CLOSED.  Thank you for all your support through the good times and even through the not-so-good times – David”

It’s a real shame, and a sad day for music in Croydon.

Speech Debelle – free live gig on Friday 31 July

Mercury-nominated Speech Debelle teeters between rap, hip hop, spoken-word and the smoothest jazz.  Beautifully supported by a background band, these are songs that tell wistful, warm tales of South London lessons and make fiercely personal admissions.   A recent invite to the fabulous Book Slam night provides an idea of quite how narrative-driven and complete her tunes are.  I’ve yet to catch her live, but the idea of listening to those profound stories and drifting along with the soft swoon that accompanies each thrills me. I see a candlelit, slightly smoky room, eyes agog and mouths agape, and a cold, wicked world safely locked outside.

Whether it’ll be quite like that remains to be seen, but one thing’s true: Speech is playing the Southbank Centre this Friday.  It’s a clone of an evening, fusing the experimental electro night, Trouble Tune with regular live music show Friday Tonic.  Speech will be on at 8.30, in support of jazz legend and equally rare talent Soweto Kinch. How much does it cost?  Precisely nada – you just need to squeeze in.  See you there…

Live date:
Fri 31 July – South Bank Centre (info here)

Speech Debelle on MySpace (including gigs streamed live via UStream)
Speech Debelle’s website

MP3:
Speech Debelle – Searching (zSHARE)

Buy Speech Debelle’s Speech Therapy here (Play.com)

Farm Festival – a review, including hats, hogs, Babyhead, Right Turn Left and Post War Years

spent last weekend at Farm Festival, a small gathering held in a picturesque, cider-loving Somerset backwater, a couple of valleys over from Glastonbury’s Worthy Farm.  In this modern English world of seemingly infinite annual festival options, from the mighty to the mini, Farm Festival is decidedly located at the humbler end of the spectrum: what it lacks in big names, it makes up for in frugality – the whole thing cost a piffling £28.50, including the festival, two days’ camping and reservations fees.  By comparison, Glasto was £175 this year, WOMAD cost £122 and Lovebox in Victoria Park, a two-day affair without camping, retailed at £75 for both days - all of those prices still shorn of booking charges, too.

In its fourth year and with proceeds going directly to an excellent charity (Practical Action, which provides pioneering technologies to needy souls in the world’s poorer countries), Farm Festival is also cosy, friendly and, praise be, easy. There’s no long, rucksacked slug from car to campsite, there are no huge crowds to inch through in order to get vaguely close to a live act, there are decent sanitary facilities and there’s fine, inxpensive tuck, including the local speciality of hog roast: a man-sized fistful of spit-roasted pork crammed into a bun. Perhaps that’s why, as well as youngsters, 20-somethings like us and older folk, plenty of families were in attendance. Certainly all seemed safe enough. I heard no reports of robberies, and, barring one scuffle and a Devon-hating band, witnessed no animosity whatsoever. Happy times indeed.

Safety and simplicity earn good marks, but easily Farm Festival’s chief virtue is its quirkiness. Everywhere I looked, something creative and eccentric was taking place. There was a Mad Hatters tent, themed to Alice in Wonderland, and offering pom-pom making, egg-and-spoon races, karaoke and a fun quiz at various times during the day. There was a small crazy golf course to which I tragically did not bring my A-game. There was a skittles lane and a giant human-shaped structure constructed from lilos. There was a stall where you could design bags, and another offering ‘hangover-cure’ massages. And, best of all, there was a hat competition spread across the two days, leading to some hilarious, and breathtakingly imaginative headwear. I saw crocodiles drinking cider, a legion of lampshades (see picture below) moshing to reggae, loaves of bread putting in for a par-four, addled astronauts and the occasional passing brigadeer, sheikh, Eiffel Tower and Navy captain. Each and every one of these drew the same response: intake of breath, then wonderment and finally a broad, delighted smile. Dancing to a banjo-based cover of Boney M’s Ra Ra Rasputin in the company of pirates, builders, wizards and huge bananas ranks as close to paradise as I’ve been in many a year. All this is consciously similar to the Bestival festival’s mentality – but on a much smaller, more intimate level. 

You’re probably wondering what kind of music Farm Festival provided?  The answer: a real range.  Indeed, the event’s rather an audio jamboree, as sonically diverse as it is sartorially. I heard dub, dance, folk, anti-folk and reggae; rap, blues, bop and electro pop; and more or less everything else in between. The best-represented genres were perhaps rock and ska, but in truth the soundscape was as muddied as the walks between stages, and the boundaries as blurred as my eyesight after each night’s trip to cider-land and (painfully) back. (We’re talking real Somerset cider here, too, not that mamby-pamby Magners stuff served with half an ice sculpture to Clapham softies.)

Looking at the Farm Festival line-up in advance, I’d heard of a total three acts: and that from a geeky loon who spends too many hours in darkness reading blogs, and attending sparse concerts in grubby London corners. Many of my fellow attendees didn’t recognise a single name on the line-up. All of which was no surprise, given the festival’s tiny cost and tinier size. But it was also no problem – for being introduced to a bumper load of new music is ever a good, indeed a great, thing. Well, mostly great – some of the performances on Farm Festival’s shoebox of a main stage were laughably woeful, with out-of-tune singers and ill-chosen chords. One band were so noisy and odious that I felt like I was watching a Boris Karloff hammer horror metres from a triggered car alarm. Other acts had scarcely more quality, but crucially brought real humour and warmth to proceedings, accepting their limitations with roguish charm, and delivering ribald, uproarious anthems to wet eyes and wetter armpits. I particularly enjoyed ‘Jesus is a Gay’, although I sadly didn’t catch the offending band’s name.

I definitely will, and plan to, return to Farm Festival. The clash with the Secret Garden Party festival is unfortunate, but at a fifth of the cost, a fraction of the effort and scarcely any less fun, I know to which bash I’ll be tempted towards next year.

Among all this fabulousness and cacophony, three bands really stood out for me:

Babyhead
On first inspection, Bristol-based Babyhead were a group of white boys doing boisterous reggae – rarely a good thing in my limited experience.  Ten songs later, and I realised I’d been right about their skin colour and gender, but little else.  Typical of Farm Festival, Babyhead’s sound bounces around, but it’s predominantly a mellow dub and ska blend, full of Caribbean-sounding rhythms, echoey vocals, thick drums and earthy bass sounds, and rhythmic chanting: a languid racket that could undo the worst hangover (an evidence-based observation). Their songs contain intelligent lyrics and the slow, wiry grooves positively beg you to loosen that waist and do some awful skanking.  From Babyhead’s website I can glean that they’ve been around ten years, via a soap opera of changing sounds and line-ups, and that a second album is imminent. It seems their name is slowly spreading, and that’s richly-deserved on the evidence of last weekend.

Right Turn Left
In many ways RTL are a simple beast: there’s a singer, a bassist, a guitarist and a drummer, and they make melodic rock. For a couple of songs I thought thoughts like ‘so-so’, ‘average’, ‘not bad, you know?’, that sorta thing.  But then I looked down, and found my foot tapping furiously and hands rapping against my hip to the beat.  The sun came out (always a good sign).  The crowd thickened (ditto). And the songs got better and better, enlivened by some amusing between-song banter.  Each had something a bit distinct about it: a sudden all-band chorus; a curiously-silent intro; a gorgeous riff… and here I realised was a band which, while perhaps not setting my world on fire, can certainly improve it some. And on we went, guided by singer Jim’s lovely voice and some fragile chords of slippery beauty or fearsome funkiness.  They played tight, they played well and, based in Tooting, they can sure play for me again. 

Post War Years
This wasn’t a total surprise: PWY were one of the three acts I did know about before.  Festival headliners, they played on Saturday night straight after a lively set from DJ Vadim, which had in energy what it lacked in variation. In short, a challenging slot. But, after a quietish start, boy did the London quartet do well. What stood out was the edginess and esoteric nature of PWY’s sounds; their songs rarely follow a set pattern, opting for passivity and self-reflection when you anticipate histrionics, and then suddenly reverting to brimstone and balderdash once you’ve accepted the ambience. Keyboards make metallic clangs, guitars trinkle, trinkle some more and occasionally explode like volcanoes, and Tom, Simon and Henry’s vocals soar and fall with balletic elegance. It’s blissful, and far more creative and classy than anything else at the festival.  All that before The Black Morning, a percussion-based bruiser that sounds a little Coldplay, a tad Guillemots, a smidgen Glasvegas and a lot like no-one at all.

Live dates:
Right Turn Left: Fri 31 July – The Selkirk (Tooting)
Post War Years: Sat 1 August – Proud (info and tickets here)
Post War Years: Thurs 20 August – Ginglik (info will be here)
Right Turn Left: Tues 1 September – Catch

Babyhead on MySpace
Right Turn Left on MySpace
Post War Years on MySpace

MP3:
Post War Years – The Black Morning (zSHARE)
Right Turn Left – Lost At Sea (zSHARE)
I asked Babyhead if they’ll provide MP3 but they didn’t bother to reply

Buy Post War Years CDs here.
Buy Babyhead CDs here.

Andrew Bird adds extra London date

The weird and wonderful Andrew Bird has added a second date at the Union Chapel, on the 11th of November. Famously using esoteric instruments - glockenspiel, wurlitzer and tape loops – Bird deserves to be equally recognised for his soaring choruses and unusual song compositions, full of serenity and sudden bursts of energy, Donnie Darko-style lyrics, delicate chords and impromptu whistles and sighs.  His is a mesmeric, magical sound, and I can’t think of a better venue for it than the eerie old Islington chapel that awaits.

Live date:
Weds 11 November – Union Chapel

Andrew Bird on MySpaceAndrew Bird – Oh No (zSHARE)

MP3:

Buy Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast here (Amazon)

Field Day – a few tickets still left

The Field Day festival takes place this Saturday, and surprisingly there are still a few tickets left for those wanting in on the action.  Held in Victoria Park, near Mile End, it’s a festival positively brimming with new and emerging musical talent, spanning indie, folk, electronica, hip hop, dance and many other worldly sounds.  Tickets are £32.15 including all the add-ons.

Field Day has something of a chequered history, perhaps explaining why it hasn’t filled with weeks to spare.  Its debut in 2007 was marred by a lack of space, bar service and toilet facilities, leaving everyone rather grumpy.  Last year’s sequel was much better logistically, but suffered inclement weather: tropical downpours of the sort all too familiar recently.  As Glastonbury has shown, revellers can take a long while to forget the wet; Glasto 2008 only filled at the last minute after the 2007 wash-out.  Even so, I found last year’s Field Day a lot of fun, and would really recommend it – the folk are friendly, the village fete-atmosphere endearing, and the line-up exceptional.  My only criticism last time round was that the timings seemed to be a tad off, affected by some last-minute cancellations, so it was tough to schedule in all the acts you wanted.

This year there’s a brand new Guardian Tea Room Tent and a new art area with drag queens.  Additional joys include an onion-peeling contest and London’s best brownies… but you want the line-up don’t you?   Here it is, shamelessly plundered from the recent Field Day email, with big names emboldened:

Eat Your Own Ears DJs / Errors / Fennesz / Final Fantasy / First Aid Kit / Gaggle / Jon Hopkins / Mogwai (Only English Summer Festival Show) / Santigold / Skream / The Horrors / The Temper Trap / Allez Allez / Crispin Dior (AITBF) / Devil Made Me Do It / Four Tet / King Charles / Micachu And The Shapes / Mystery Jets / Plugs / S.C.U.M. / Sian Alice Group / Stopmakingme (AITBF) / The Big Pink / The Invisible / Wild Beasts / Fanfarlo / James Yorkston / Juana Molina / Malcolm Middleton / Mumford And Sons / The Thing / Toumani Diabate / Wet Paint / Woodpigeon / Aeroplane DJs / Audion (Live) / Delphic (Live) / Erol Alkan / Fake Blood / JD Twitch (Optimo) / Little Boots (Live) / Wild Geese / Casper C (AITBF/Bloggers Delight) / Drums Of Death (Live) / Greco-Roman Soundsystem / No Pain In Pop DJs / Rusko (DJ Set) / Skull Juice (Bloggers Delight) / The XX / Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs / Work It.

What more persuasion do you need.  Tickets here.

I’ll blog on some suggested acts to check out later this week.

PS: The Official Field Day After-Party is at the Old Blue Last, featuring two electronica tips for 2010: the fractious finery that is Gold Panda and the very mellow whimsy of worriedaboutsatan – details here.

Thoughts on the NME Radar Tour line-up

The line-up for the second NME Radar Tour of the year was announced last week, and I must say it looks a good’un.  

From bottom to top, on the card are Neon Gold electro pop kids Yes Giantess (formerly just Giantess – this confused me and my iTunes for ages), American five-piece Local Natives, the satin-cloaked sounds of Marina & the Diamonds and, headlining, London’s own Golden Silvers. 

There’s plenty of talent here but also, perhaps more importantly, diversity.  Marina’s mostly sprawling and rambly songs perfectly emphasise her fabulously deep Welsh tenor, rich with coal and dragons.  By contrast, Yes Giantess swim in an over-populated electro-pop pond (full of eels?) and it’s questionable whether they have enough uniqueness to get fished out, even with the infectious single Tuff’n'Stuff.  But here’s a big stage just waiting for them to make a claim for elevation. Local Natives are much heartier of sound, and it’ll be fascinating to see if they’re any bit as good live as the SXSW Festival reports suggested earlier this year.

As for the Golden Silvers, peddling a folksy, keyboard-laden alternative pop that’s perfectly suited to lazy North and East London bohemia (and which also went down screamingly well at Glasto this year), this a trio who now seem set fair for big things. Why? Because the main event on the NME Radar tour in spring was La Roux, a lady who, while boring the knickers off this blogger, has unarguably since smitten the masses.  NME, of course, takes full credit for this.

So all in all, it looks like a crackerjack of a night.  I’m a little surprised Golden Silvers are considered a bigger draw than Marina, but NME’s probably a better judge of widespread public knowledge than I am.  They should both do well out of it, anyway, and I expect tickets to go quickly.  I’m sure getting mine rapidamente.  Here are the complete dates:

Sat 26 September – OXFORD O2 Academy
Sun 27 September – SHEFFIELD Sheffield University Foundry
Mon 28 September – MANCHESTER Academy 3
Weds 30 September – YORK The Duchess
Thurs 1 October – GLASGOW Oran Mor
Sat 3 October – NEWCASTLE Northumbria University
Sun 4 October – STOKE Sugarmill
Mon 5 October – LIVERPOOL Liverpool University Stanley Theatre
Weds 7 October – PORTSMOUTH Wedgwood Rooms
Thurs 8 October – BRISTOL Thekla
Fri 9 October – COVENTRY Warwick University
Sat 10 October – WOLVERHAMPTON Civic Hall Bar
Mon 12 October – NORWICH Waterfront
Tues 13 October – LONDON Koko
Weds 14 October – BRIGHTON Concorde 2

Tickets are available here (Ticketmaster).  For the Koko gig, try Koko’s website here.

Golden Silvers on MySpace
Marina & the Diamonds on MySpace
Local Natives on MySpace
Yes Giantess on MySpaceGolden Silvers – Arrows of Eros (zSHARE)
Marina & the Diamonds – Video 17 (zSHARE)
Local Natives – Sun Hands (zSHARE)
Yes Giantess – Tuff’n'Stuff (zSHARE)

MP3s:

Jack Peñate announces October tour dates

I really admire Jack Peñate – he’s taken his former, quite chart-friendly, gaggle’o'girls-style, pocketed the fun, interesting elements, and thrown all the ordinary, predictable stuff out of window in favour of a gloomier outlook.  It might mean no more Capital FM (no idea if he’s on this or not) or scaling giddy heights in the charts, but it definitely ensures he’s making good music.  Songs like Tonight’s Today are quite zany and offbeat, with strange structures and echoey, aloof vocals, and without easy-satisfaction choruses.  You have to listen harder and more repeatedly to fall for these tunes, and that makes it much more worthwhile when you do.

All of which makes it good news that Jack’s announced a 1o-date UK tour in October.  The deets are thus:

Sat 17 October – DUBLIN Village
Sun 18 October - BELFAST Spring & Airbrake
Tues 20 October - GLASGOW Arches
Thurs 22 October – BIRMINGHAM Rainbow Warehouse
Fri 23 October – MANCHESTER Warehouse Project
Sat 24 October - LEEDS Met Uni
Sun 25 October – NOTTINGHAM Trent Uni
Tues 27 October - BRISTOL Anson Rooms
Thurs 29 October - LONDON The Fridge
Fri 30 October - SOUTHAMPTON Uni

Pre-sale tickets are available right now from here. Tickets then go on general sale at 10am tomorrow (Tuesday 28 July) from See Tickets.

Looking at that list and the few that I know, it seems that while Jack’s not packing out the foremost venues, he’s still playing some pretty big auditoriums.  Fingers crossed the tour’s a success.  Personally, I’m sure looking forward to seeing Jack play at Bestival.

Jack Peñate on MySpace

MP3:
Jack Peñate – Every Glance (zSHARE)

Wilco announces November stop in London

Exciting news to end the day on: Chicago band and eternal reviewers’-favourites Wilco have announced a date at the Forum in Kentish Town in November in addition to an existing commitment at the Troxy.  Tickets for the latter, on sale from tomorrow, will likely go like the hottest of hotcakes.  Get in there now!

Live date:
Tues 25 August – Troxy
Weds 4 November – Kentish Town Forum (buy tickets here)

Wilco on MySpace

Wilco – Impossible Germany (zSHARE)

Buy Wilco records here (Wilco’s website)

Starsmith’s debut minimix released by Neon Gold – free download

And talking of Starsmith (hope everyone’s noticing the fine thematic linking of blogs tonight!),  Neon Gold has released his debut minimix: “a five-minute mash-up of the biggest jams of the past, present and future”.  It’s apparently here to rock our summer, even though that seems to have long ended. Anyhow, meteorological musings aside I can confirm it’s a pretty rocking way to spend 300 seconds, and that it confirms that Starsmith a) likes his pop, and b) has an ear for a tune.  The tracklisting is as follows…

 … and the mini-mix is available for free download via Neon Gold Records here.

Starsmith on MySpace