Bestival 2010 - Review (Part 2)

After the limited opening of the Bestival site on Thursday night, Friday found punters exploring the magnitude of the warped wonderland. Walking between the hundreds of multi-coloured flags, castles in the sky bonfires, flame throwing industrial spider shaped stages and cocktail lounges complete with comfy sofas and Bollywood sunshades it was easy to see why Bestival has become such a success. It continues to sell out to bigger crowds each year as other smaller festivals have struggled to grow - for not only is the music line up exciting and eclectic, but the visual delights of the grassy hills of the Robin Hill site are spectacular.

I Blame Coco on the main stage couldn’t be described as such. Her standard stage banter “How ya doing,” and “Hello down there,” didn’t gravitate towards anything but the ordinary, as did her disappointingly average mid-tempo pop rock. Her slightly hoarse and flatly dulled vocal failed to convey any real emotion, and whilst her band was competent there was no sting in the tail.

“If you fancy a dance, you’re in the right place,” announced Silver Columns from the Spider stage. Their Scottish bleeps and grooves lost the hardcore ravers who wanted something faster and more intense, but instead the band were supplemented by a group of punters dressed, possibly ironically, as Chav rejects. These GLC imitators produced some spectacular co-ordinated dancing on the raised podium stage front. When the duo’s megaphone wielding, siren blazing electronica finally came to life with the Bronski Beat / Hot Chip disco groove of Brow Beaten, it was both the band and the chavs who took the applause.

The dancing continued with Unicorn Kid. Having asked everyone to move forward, “because we’re gonna have a dance party,” the new-chip tune prince in Bart Simpson T-Shirt and lion hat brought the energy of an old school rave turned up to a modern warp factor 10 - this was elated laptop craziness. Dream Catcher was glitchily supreme and new single Wild Life divided the young (at heart) from the old. Seeming to want to forcefully create a hole in the stage with his wiry body Unicorn Kid was a highly charged assault of nutty bounciness.

In the Big Top Delphic were somewhat more restrained in their stage presence, preferring to let their music do the talking. Whereas some of their earlier shows (such as here) didn’t really take off, at Bestival they reached the celebratory highs their music strives for. Doubt provided a hands in the air moment and as Red Light merged seamlessly into it, Delphic hit the majestic realms that we predicted they could achieve (here). “Nothings wrong today,” the band sang blissfully on Counterpoint. They couldn’t be more correct.

Next up the Big Top overflowed with punters trying to catch a glimpse of The XX. The Mercury Music Prize effect demonstrated its pulling power and Bestival was the bands unofficial after party. It seemed that everyone had gate crashed. Backed by their trademark illuminated X’s the now three piece showed just why they have touched and engaged people. “I can’t tell you how happy we are to be here,” smiled Oliver Sim before a mass sing-a-long to VCR. Whilst acts like Delphic and Unicorn Kid both create music that is obviously and almost deliberately uplifting, The XX’s set was even more euphoric, even though it was created out of something brilliantly gloomy.

Hot Chip continued the upbeat mood, with their 5th appearance at Bestival, minus Joe Goddard who was on band-leave following the recent birth of his child. Ditching anything that resembled a slow song, Hot Chip played all the hits, with Alexis Taylor sporting his pearly-king-geek-chic and rather comically Goddard appearing via a TV screen. Starting with Boy from School, songs such as Ready for the Floor, One Life Stand and Over and Over kept the electronic buzz kids smiling.

It was left to Dizzee Rascal to close the main stage. Dressed in a Nirvana t-shirt Dizzee covered all bases with his band delivering music that ranged from reggae, rock, pop, disco, soul to old school hip-hop. Hooky, catchy and fun, it was also a little lowest common denominator, but such music snobbery didn't apply to most of the crowd who were happy to bounce to the happy heavens as Dizzee announced “Where’s the f*ckin’ mosh pit crew?” Bonkers finished things off - undeniably a great British pop song - funny, quirky and energetic as Usain Bolt after ten Red Bulls - it left everyone with a sweaty smile.

Lounge on the Farm 2010 - Review

There’s a very relaxed vibe to Lounge on the Farm festival, Merton Farm near Canterbury. The sun helps this atmosphere - it shines powerfully all day, but the new local authority licensing restriction that limits punters bringing their own alcohol onto site is also a significant factor. With the smell of cow pats not far away and a market area that retails only locally produced food (even the farm itself sells edibles made from its own livestock - a properly sustainable burger that hasn't travelled hundreds of miles in production) Lounge on the Farm has a welcoming local / village feel. Inflatable cows hang from the steel frame of the huge cowshed that forms the main stage and punters sit by the bandstand at picnic benches soaking up the rays and enjoying delicacies such as kipper in a bun and Russian stuffed vine leaves - not your typical festival food.

Whilst the majority were in attendance for the full three days, Breaking More Waves was at Lounge on the Farm 2010 for just one day; the motive being that Moshi Moshi and Wichita Records host the small Sheepdip Stage on the Saturday.

Things open at the Cowshed Stage with a sample from Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped. As the words “I ain’t gonna take it no more,” boom out Liverpool’s Kids On Bridges plough through a short set of booming chest vibrating electro-pop. The band seem totally out of place with the general organic vibe of the event with members sporting a blue metallic hoody, bleached blonde hair, sportswear and shades. The skewered slabs of disco synth on Check Your Head add a sprinkle of gold dust, but it’s just too damn early for most. A case of wrong place wrong time.

Alice Gold fares a little better - flicking her golden locks backwards and forwards in a demented fashion to her blend of adult friendly FM rock - although her strong passionate voice loses something in the empty echoing heights of the cowshed.

A walk past the farms flag lined sweet corn fields leads to the sunflower covered bandstand where The Momeraths are giving a gentle lesson in everything twee and lower case. Xylophones, quietly cute vocals and summery girl-boy melodies, they’re like the long lost cousins of Belle and Sebastian circa Tigermilk, and go down rather well with the sun-kissed crowd who are busy consuming Kent ice cream and cider.

Heading under canvas, The Sheepdip Stage is where the too cool for school fashionista’s can be found. In sweltering and rising temperatures of 30 degrees centigrade there are kids here wearing retro jumpers - they’ve either left their brain in another field or have a very good deodorant. Veronica Falls try to bring the temperatures down by adding icy attitude with their lo-fi early 80’s U.S styled indie garage rock, complete with shambling guitars, flatly sung female vocals and pouting red lips. There’s a significant number of bands mining the C86 gone stateside genre right now, and Veronica falls are digging with the rest of them. One for the old-school indie elite.

“You’re such an attractive festival crowd - I thought you were all going to mingers,” announces the leopard print clad Elizabeth Sankey of Summer Camp with a smile as the band begin their experimental pop. No doubt after three days of sun and cider by Sunday evening there will be less beauty and more mingers. Summer Camp get only moments in before the sound cuts out. A few minutes of frantic action by sound technicians sort the problem and the band recommence their woozy Beach Boys influenced synth-layered pop. The band are motionless verging on invisible and it's left to Elizabeth to be the star of the show, her voice clean with an almost country-esque twang. There’s a charm to what Summer Camp do, even though occasionally they let muso cleverness get in the way of pop sensibility. If they can keep the shackles on they could be as beautiful as the audience.

Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit draw the biggest audience of the day so far -albeit it’s still bums on grass at this point - and are incredible. Johanna and Klara have a raw, enchanting quality in their live performance that as yet they have not fully replicated in recorded form. Using just delicately picked acoustic guitar, autoharp, keyboard and drums their sound is quietly romantic - their mournful harmonies sounding agedly ghostlike. When they sing acappella “I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’m turning myself into a demon,” on Tiger Mountain Pleasant Song it’s breathtakingly moving. Ending with rich majesty of I Met Up With The King, their voices in turn gravely and lullaby smooth, it’s no wonder that the crowd applaud for an encore.

Besides the pullover wearing indie boys Australia’s Sarah Blasko has also arrived in the Cow Shed from the school of inappropriate festival attire. Wearing a blue tartan dress and leggings she announces “I didn’t realise it could get this hot in England.” Despite her fashion fail she is quirkily engaging with her puppet-like dancing, unselfconscious marching and note perfect songs - the spectral wail on All I Want is particularly affecting, a snow capped misty mountain romance, even on this sweltering day.

It’s inevitable when the weather is this warm that this is going to be the main talking point of the day, and so it continues. “Has anyone got sunburn?” questions Rebecca from Slow Club as a packed Sheepdip tent slowly melts. Slow Club are never going to be a slick pop band - their ramshackle unpolished country-rock-folk -skiffle style is part of their charm. Today at least they manage to get through their set of both old and new songs without any of them breaking down halfway - that in itself is a result for them. From yelling gang hollers to sweet harmonies Slow Club have it easy - most of the crowd are ready to lap it up, even if Rebecca notices that one man in the crowd is screwing up his eyes and shaking his head negatively - she suggests he’s right though - “essentially, we’re shit,” she mocks. Songs such as Trophy Room with it’s acoustic thrash and pensive “Oh oh oh,” sighs oppose this argument -the single man in the crowd was wrong.

The top end of the site pays host to the Farm Folk stage, where a mellow crowd rests on hay bales under pink drapes. Looking like a younger David Bowie or James Dean, Alan Pownall and his band play a set of fine well crafted songs that are perfect for this near sunset moment. His sound is warm and mature, laced with violin and gentle percussion. Occasionally there’s a reggae lilt to his tunes, elsewhere they’re of the more heartfelt singer songwriter style. Explaining to the audience that he was late getting here due to traffic, it seems his journey was worthwhile.

As night falls the Sheepdip stage alters its musical direction from indie / folk / pop to vibrant electronic geekiness. The numbers in the tent dwindle, but it leaves more room for dancing. “At least my nails had time to dry,” jokes a member of Silver Columns after a late start due to the dreaded technical hitches. With flashing lights all over their microphones and kit, their relentless electronic burbles sound a lot like a humorous high energy Hot Chip, and on Brow Beaten -a song which really deserves a shot at the charts re-release -a modern day Bronski Beat. Bridging the gap between audience and stage, one of their number hauls a drum into the crowd and plays from the floor to the bemused faces of onlookers.

Gold Panda continues the geek-core dance revolution wearing a T shirt emblazoned with a Tampax logo. Waves of ambient noise give way to gentle electronic chimes, crackles and then stuttering jerky beats of brilliance. His futuristic flow gets the crowd dancing spaz-like - by the time he wraps things up with Quitters Raga the temperature has been cranked up a notch again.

It’s left to James Yuill to finish the small crowd who remain off. We’ve called James the thinking mans Calvin Harris before, and this seems to be truer than ever. The bespectacled high priest of geek electronica rolls out electro-pop / folktronica bangers by the bagful under a beautiful vision of kaleidoscopic slides. It may now be midnight, the temperatures may have cooled outside, but Yuill ensures that Lounge on the Farm continues to sweat it’s head off until the very end of the day.

Lounge on the Farm 2010 - what an absolute scorcher.

You can see more photos from Lounge On The Farm 2010 by clicking here.

Silver Columns - Yes, And Dance

Pop music is about fantasy. Fantasy is about sex. Sex is about imagination. So in the minds eye the hip wiggling, Bronski Beat referencing, glitterball Hi-NRG disco stormer Brow Beaten by Silver Columns provides the hedonistic dream of rubber clad boys cruising for action on the dance floor.

Silver Columns provide this non-reality and many other illusions on their debut album Yes, And Dance – a collection of electro-groove pop songs not far removed from Hot Chip – another band who like Silver Columns released their debut album through Moshi Moshi records. Laced with dance floor pulses and sequenced bass lines to get things moving, Silver Columns add quirky studio trickery and effects over the top to make Yes, And Dance as much fun sitting on the sofa as out in the club. There’s enough variation from heady disco numbers to more plaintive tunes to provide a full listening experience.

So you get a rubbery Blue Monday era New Order on Always On, the lonely spaced-out choirboy groove of Columns, the sound of robots copulating with arcade machines for a minute and a half on It Is Still You and the sharp travelling rhythms and beats of Cavalier - a song that conjures images of speeding train journeys. Each track is a little disco fantasy created by androids with a heart.

Of course this is all just reverie. The reality is that Silver Columns are Adem Ilhan from Fridge and folk chap Johnny “Pictish Trail” Lynch – two regular(ish) musicians who have built Yes, And Dance out of studio bound computerisation. They are not alas, as far as is known, a musical version of C-3PO or in the case of Brow Beaten a greased up gang of cock thrusting electro-queers. However sometimes the reality is better than the fantasy – and whatever visions Yes, And Dance creates, it’s a solid, sometimes eccentric piece of dancefloor fun.

Silver Columns - Cavalier

Take one repetitive line of danceable robotic conveyor belt synth, some electromotive whirling sounds and some call and response vocals and voila you have the new single from electro-pop boys Silver Columns. It's called Cavalier. With a rhythm that, rather like Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, conjures up images of long journeys it’s no surprise that the video for Cavalier features significant footage of roads, although the word autobahn sounds so much sexier than roads don’t you think?

The duo’s debut album Yes, And Dance is due for release soon and as we rage down into festival season Silver Columns are cropping up for you to cop off to a significant number of times. Catch their squiggly quirky double shuffle at Great Escape in Brighton, Dot to Dot, Lounge On The Farm, Isle of Wight, Lovebox, Green Man and Breaking More Waves favourite end of summer hoe down - Bestival. Line up clashes permitting we’ll see you down the front for at least one of those. Are you dancing? We’re asking.

Camden Crawl 2010 - Preview

Today, a new feature. Besides bringing reviews of all the music festivals we attend this year, we will also be previewing them and selecting five acts for your perusal. First up - Camden Crawl 2010.

Camden Crawl is now one of the many one-wristband-multi-venue-multi-gig events that have sprung up on the UK music calendar. The first was way back in 1995. Back then Camden was an obscene but strangely alluring indie mecca where markets sold cheap jackets, vintage clothes and fashionable junk. Not much has changed in that respect, except the word indie has now become obsolete - we now live in a world where Scouting For Girls are referred to as ‘commercial indie’ and wearing a check shirt and skinny jeans from Top Man appears to define you as ‘indie’.

Breaking More Waves attended its first Camden Crawl in 1996. Back then it was a one day, small scale event with just a handful of bands, limited number of venues, lack of corporate sponsorship and no queues. In 1997 the event expanded to become the Intercity Crawl, and a fifteen pound ticket gave access to six venues, a CD featuring all the bands playing and the pleasure of seeing groups such as The Warm Jets, Vitro and a fresh faced non-stadium indie rocking Snow Patrol. There were also corresponding events in Manchester and Glasgow. Our endearing memory of that year was of passing a gaggle of Kenickie members staggering down Parkway full of glitter and alcohol as well as watching a huge colossus of a man called Tiny from a band called Ultrasound play to a half empty Town & Country Club and being rather glorious.

After 1997 the Crawl laid dormant until resurrection in 2005. Now an annual two day event the bands that help move tickets are no longer alternative acts such as The Wedding Present, Bis, and Scarfo but the hugely commercial Sugababes, Calvin Harris and the Lost Prophets, the whole fracas being sponsored by Gaymers. It’s fair to say that whilst essentially Camden the place hasn’t changed significantly, the Camden Crawl very much has.

Last years crawl was heavily criticised by some reporters, particularly the NME’s Jamie Hodgson who wrote this scathing blog. Other reports we have received suggest that nobody really knew what was going on or where, The Guardian calling it “A riot of miscommunication.” It doesn’t help that one of the main photos on the Camden Crawl website shows punters queuing rather than actually watching and enjoying music. Not a good omen. Like some other multi-gig events in the UK it appears that the art with the Camden Crawl is first to be organised - be prepared to get to the venue for the band you want to see early, and second not to take the name too literally (and by that we don’t mean wear knee pads) instead limiting the amount of crawling you do by minimising your venue swapping. This then lowers the risk of potential queues and missing bands.

We’ll be returning to Camden for our first crawl in thirteen years and reporting back at the start of May. But for now here are five acts appearing at the event that get the Breaking More Waves seal of approval.

Samuel Chase

Samuel Chase first appeared on this blog (here) back in October, although then he was known as Samuel and the Dragon. The dragon has now flown, leaving one of our favourite singles of last year, the beautifully isolated Diamonds on a Boat as a haunting memento. Samuel now continues, with some incredibly soulful, sombre and atmospheric demos on his Myspace. Think of the slo-core melancholy of Japan and Portishead and you’ll be getting somewhere close. An album is due to follow later this year.

Clock Opera

Fresh from supporting Marina and The Diamonds earlier this year, and with one of the more low-key nominations in our Ones to Watch 2010 list, Clock Opera have still played less than twenty live shows. Yet their glorious mash up of home made samples and beats, chopped and repackaged to form crescendos of beauty has us very excited about the band. A new single A Piece Of String is due for release in June, the follow up to their debut White Noise. Lyrically the song explores the relationship between a ventriloquist and his dummy. Last July we said "We love Clock Opera more than our own children." That is because Clock Opera are creating music of the highest order.

Smoke Fairies

Hailing from Chichester, Smoke Fairies are the towns only musical exports of worth since Hope Of The States. They create smoke-laden, sultry, medieval folk-blues songs that sound as if they are from another time and place. Having recorded with Jack White the duo are set to support Laura Marling across the USA immediately after the Camden Crawl 2010.

Stornoway

How could we not mention Stornoway ? The finest band from Oxford since Radiohead, Brian Briggs and his merry men are another one of Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch 2010 and will be releasing their album Beachcombers Windowsill in May. Full of simple acoustic based songs and sung with a clear honesty, Beachombers Windowsill is the sound of stepping outside into a glorious spring day. They may be a little too ‘nice’ for some, but for others they will make hearts flutter.

Silver Columns

Silver Columns are Adem Ilhan and Johnny Lynch. Adem plays bass in post rock / electronic band Fridge whilst Johnny is also known as the Pictish Trail - a folky sounding singer songwriter type. Together as Silver Columns they produce pounding cool disco anthems such as the Breaking More Waves approved Brow Beaten and forthcoming single Cavalier. It’s one of those side projects that actually seems to be better than the mains. Serving it up - groovy.

Silver Columns - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

Anyone remember Bronski Beat ? With so much music referencing the eighties at the moment we’ve been a little surprised that nobody has scooped up the pulsing high energy disco sound that Jimmy Sommerville and co brought to the charts and given it a high end noughties production make over.

But now someone almost has. Silver Columns are a new act that we know absolutely nothing about but the last few days have seen their tune Brow Beaten dance hyperactively and playfully through the blogosphere, and with good reason. Brow Beaten is a technotronic piece of electronic propulsion , verging on chip tune, that struts proudly straight to the dance floor and shakes its booty big time.

Nothing else is known about Silver Columns, their Myspace and Facebook pages giving absolutely nothing away, but the act - who are possibly a duo, have remixed Peter, Bjorn and John, Fever Ray and a Metronomy tune and Joe Goddard from Hot Chip has been involved in a remix (below). Check out the original version of Brow Beaten on Silver Columns newly formed Myspace or on blogs that host downloads, shake your hips, and then watch with interest for further developments.

Now where's our copy of Age Of Consent ?