Last month we posted the new Teeth song See Spaces and almost overdid it with the alliteration, calling it a shimmery synth space anthem and superb stuff. Since then we’ve participated in our first (and probably only) circle pit whilst watching the band live and played See Spaces out on our local community radio station show that that we participate in bi-weekly - Express FM’s The Guestlist. (You can listen to the latest edition by clicking here, it features Breaking More Waves until Wednesday night at least).
Now Teeth - a band who take the 'laptop punk' label to a whole new level with just one man doing very little with that single laptop and a vicious drummer - have uploaded this glorious green techno gunge video to accompany the song. Tonight they play with Sleigh Bells at the Lexington. If you were there, raise your hand, we’d love to know your thoughts.
Moshi Moshi release the single next week. Our original post of the track was here.
Saturday at Latitude 2010 brought a touch of early morning rain that disappeared shortly before the live music started. From thereon it was another day of sunshine rays and sunblock.
Pat Grossi aka Active Child may produce solemn frozen electronic hymns, but his engaging smile and greeting of “morning campers,” to those who had turned out early for his set at the leafy Sunrise Arena belied the idea that he was some sort of gloomy chill wave monster. Plucking at his harp whilst his laptop added beats and washes of weighty eighties influenced synth sounds, his eerie falsetto weaved its way through the trees during I’m In Your Church At Night, threatening to call out the forest ghosts. It was a devine sound and Grossi knew it - kissing his harp at the end in thanks. The music of Active Child may be coldly computerized, but his words are often warm, human and emotional, from “I’m so far away from the warmth of your body,” to “take shelter in my arms.” Finishing with When Your Love Is Safe, his icy sound managed to warm the soul.
Over at the Lake Stage 18 year old Rachel Furner was the latest young pop hopeful bashing out songs such as Human Nature - a ditty about how you can’t help who you fall in love with - on her keyboard. She was clearly enjoying herself, full of youthful positivity and big smiles. It’s hard not to like her enthusiasm, but easy to dislike her songs a blend of highly commercial X Factor meets Scouting For Girls blandness. She can sing, she’s sassy but she offered no delight other than mainstream hollowness.
Not everything mainstream need be hollow, as the next act - Clare Maguire (pictured above) - proved. One of our Ones To Watch 2010 Maguire positively boomed out her songs to the “crazy Latitude people,” as she described them, with a voice awash with soul and richness. Ain’t Nobody, Shield and the Sword and Last Dance were all incredibly potent, fully justifying the argument that real talent still counts in the music industry - Maguire having been signed to Polydor Records. She also helped continue the Fleetwood Mac revival following the emergence of Lissie and Florence and the Machine’s recent Glastonbury performance of The Chain, by delivering an immense version of Big Love. Forget X-Factor. Forget Britain’s Got Talent. The real deal is Clare Maguire.
“I believe in guitars, bass, drums, three minute songs, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen and rock ’n’ roll,” Frank Turner passionately announced from the Obelisk Stage before getting the crowd to yell back “I believe,” to his own musical religious mantra. Turner may not be a patch on Presley or Springsteen - but his set is workmanlike, honest and full of conviction. His acoustic strum-thrashes delight those at the front who sing along to every word, and its hard not to be moved by the touching Long Live The Queen- a positive song about a friend of his that died.
The reformed James get things exactly right for their late afternoon slot. Starting with the song Bubbles the best track from their inconsistent album Hey Ma, their now bald and goateed singer Tim Booth sang gloriously “I’m alive,” and it felt like a new birth for the band. “We were going to do lots of new ones, but......,” he joked before leading his group through a greatest hits set that included Ring The Bells, Sound, Sometimes, Laid and inevitably Sit Down, which he performed off the stage (see video clip below). It was perfect for the time of day and became a joyous crowd pleasing celebration of the bands career. Booth danced like a madman, contorting his arms and body in a trance like state and during Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) pulled a John Travolta Saturday Night Fever pose as he sang a line about the actor. Good to have them to have them back as Bruce Forsyth might say.
Back at the Lake Stage Nedry brought something of a very different nature, their heavy trembling basslines and edgy beats getting heads bobbing. Lead singer Ayu was resplendent dancing childlike in in a pink shiny dress as she wailed and chanted playfully, her two laptop whiz-kids Chris and Matt rowing in rafts of post-dubstep illustriousness. Ending with a new slightly more techno-laced track than what they have produced before they no doubt won a few new fans.
Riot-electro-art-punks Teeth continue to divide opinion. With simply a single laptop, live drums and the robot-effect vocals of Veronica So their raw intense bleepy shouty d.i.y sound left some audience members shaking their heads, whilst others, at the encouragement of the band formed a circle pit - the kind of thing you would expect at a metal gig rather than a rather more sedate festival - although this circle pit did feature children and placid forty year old men - this was Latitude after all.
Back to the Obelisk stage, the festival was about to witness its most controversial performance. Alice Glass from Crystal Castles looked like a crazed vampire in a Smiths tour t-shirt. She vacantly stared at the audience, swigged from a bottle of Jim Beam and shrieked over the digital hardcore and dirty rave blasts that emanated from Ethan Kath’s box of electronic tricks, backed up by a live drummer. News of the rape that occurred on Thursday night had slowly spread around the site and Alice angrily urged that all rapists should be castrated before launching herself into the full-on mosh pit. After crowd surfing for some time she pulled back and shouted “You touch my tits, I kick you in the f*cking head,” before lashing a series of blows down on one audience member. From thereon Glass barely sang at all, instead she prowled the stage, knocked over a drum riser and exited to a number of boos from the back of the crowd. Provocative and with a performance more akin to Reading Festival than Latitude, if nothing else Crystal Castles know how to grab headlines.
Musically opposite to Crystal Castles, Obelisk stage headliners Belle and Sebastian brought a lot of love and fun to Latitude 2010. Playing their first show in four years the Scottish twee indie-pop heroes charmed with humour and great songs. Stuart Murdoch joked that he was going to take his top off, but “That would be like walking in on your dad in the shower.” Later he explained that the band had been having bad dreams about playing live again - that their guitars turned to jellyfish or his tongue into a cactus. Another dream involved Latitude itself and Murdoch turning to guitarist Stevie Jackson and saying “play Jumping Jack Flash.” They then turned the dream into a warped reality and rock out to The Rolling Stones number - a moment of surreal crowd pleasing. Wheeling out many of the classics - Funny Little Frog, Judy And The Dream Of Horses, Fox In The Snow, Legal Man, I’m A Cuckoo they then got a crowd of young fans from the front row up on stage to dance during The Boy With The Arab Strab. Whoever said that only big rock bands, anthems and huge light shows could work as a headline set at a festival begone. A victory for the small people.
From the sublime to the ridiculous the last musical entertainment of the night finished with Gaggle on the Lake Stage. Bearing weird colourful headpieces, face paint and banners that declare “This Is Merely A Distraction From The Inevitable” the 17 piece all female alt. choir spat out “How can tell if my mans a liar,” with venom, bemusing the crowd that had gathered to see them. Rather like other multi-member costumed bands such as The Polyphonic Spree, Gaggle are an interesting diversion because of their uniqueness, but this uniqueness is not particularly addictive. A ‘must see’ once - but that is enough. For now they remain a one trick pony.
With that Saturdays musical entertainment at Latitude 2010 was over. Until the next day where amongst others Mumford and Sons, The Antlers and Grizzly Bear awaited.
This post is our last for about a week, as we take a break - our first since Christmas.
In the meantime we’d like to draw your attention to one of our favourite tracks of the moment - See Spaces by Teeth. Teeth are Ximon Tayki, Simon Whybray and Veronica So and we first wrote about them when we caught them live last June here. At the time their stage incarnation was a vigorous work-out of brawling punk-girl vocals and short spunky d-i-y electronics. In Veronica So Teeth had a highly charged aggressor of a front woman who seemed to know nothing except to go for it full tilt on every song. She was a grenade with the pin pulled - an explosion of violence, sexuality and dance.
Later in the year Teeth picked up a small level of fame after hacking into Lady Gaga’s Twitter account - the password unbelievably was the name of one of her singles.
See Spaces sees Teeth move forward to a higher level of sophistication than what has gone before. From riot girl electronics to a shimmery synth space anthem in just over a year, this is top level stuff. In what almost seems to be a statement of this new maturity Teeth have also dropped the three exclamation marks after their name - from Teeth!!! to just Teeth. Ultimately however they punctuate their name doesn’t matter - See Spaces is a supreme track.
See Spaces will be released on the 16th August 2010. The three piece will also be supporting the fantastic Sleigh Bells at a one off London gig at the Lexington in the same month. Based on our experiences of both bands live it has the potential to be one of the most riotous shows of the year. You can listen to See Spaces from the stream below - do it now, you won’t regret it.
Winterwell Festival is a small independent festival held in a secret location in the rolling hills of the Gloucestershire countryside. Promoted through word of mouth and via use of a website that you can only access through the use of a password, it may on first impressions sound a little elitist. However Winterwell is far from that. If anything it breaks down barriers between people, with a friendly atmosphere more akin to a big party in someone’s back garden than your typical festival. With virtually no backstage area, no artists wristbands, laid back security, and full on space themed fancy dress on the Saturday afternoon, Winterwell presents an eclectic mix of live bands and DJ’s that make you wish that every festival was like this. Add in a vintage clothes stall, an old fashioned 1920’s glamour cup cake shop and tea room, a restaurant with a roof terrace serving Sunday roasts, big white letters up on the hill spelling out the festivals name Hollywood style and free hot showers, and you are all set for a fine weekend.
Like any other good festival the backbone of Winterwell is fine music, with both Moshi Moshi Records and the Electroacoustic Club helping to curate the line up. Then early on Saturday evening legendary DJ Norman Jay lands in the field dressed as a space hopper to bring big cosmic party tunes and sun to the assembled aliens, storm troopers and intergalactic groovers (video clip from the back of the site below - planets courtesy of Breaking More Waves ) following a well received saucy burlesque routine from Agent Lynch , who from being dressed as an astronaut quickly stripped down to her saucy space boots, showed us the moon and some strategically placed silver stars.
“It’s lovely to be in this secret location that only the military know about,” jokes Brain Briggs, lead singer of Stornoway, referencing the military jets passing by during their set. The planes are not the only things flying though. Stornoway positively soar into the air with their pitch perfect pastoral pop. Every song they play is economically endearing, from the tranquil Fuel Up to the groovy bass of I Saw You Blink. Mixing acoustic agility with trumpets, cello and the occasional banjo on We Are The Battery Human, Stornoway have no weak link whatsoever.
Breaking More Waves has gushed excessively elsewhere on this blog about Slow Club , and at Winterwell whilst musically they are effective with their twangy tweeness they seem a little non-plussed with the whole affair. It's almost as if the band are keener to get off stage than stay on it, asking how long they have left with twenty minutes still to go. However, Wild Blue Milk is beguiling and tender with its call of “Come take me home,” and It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful is the kind of song that in an alternate raw country pop world would be number one for three months.
Fanfarlo arrive late, but soon catch up with a big broad sound encompassing sweeping trumpets, swaying fiddles and regal double drumming. Their brand of noble indie folk pop is rich and full, occasionally hinting of Arcade Fire without the bombast. Later, over in the Sizzle Suite yurt UFO’s fly overhead whilst John Crampton brings stomping tequila soaked blues from steel guitar and harmonica to a totally up for it crowd. It’s one of those moments when performer and audience feed off each other, every song a sweaty and a hollerin’ vein busting swagger to the stars. For something of a less tense nature Shona Foster sings with a mature, elegant and warm vocal, like a more earthy Beth Gibbons from Portishead with added soul. She plays dark jazzy quirky and enchanting songs with a very English feel against a backdrop of precise vaudeville circus instrumentation and wins several hearts.
Earlier in the day for those who like a more mainstream guitar band, Animal Kingdom satisfy neatly adding a vocal somewhere between Mercury Rev and Keane to set them apart from some of their peer group, although for Breaking More Waves it is only their Sigur Ros meets Snow Patrol song Chalk Stars that moves. It could be their Run or Hoppipolla. We wonder how long it will be before the tune is picked up on a TV advert or suchlike and played to death until it becomes intensely annoying.
One of the many beauties of Winterwell is its musical diversity. For example, from folk, blues, rock and soul we move on to rebellious lap top ravers Teeth !!! with their space ball crushing sound. The're a band who are bound to divide opinion and many make a quick exit as they start, but amongst those who remain there are several who dance like mentalists on an electrocuted dance floor. They are a riot of spazzy energy, with lead singer / shouter Veronica spending as much time spinning herself round in dizzying circles in the audience as on stage. Despite being a complete mess, we like them. A lot.
Winterwell also has its fair share of dance action that continues late in to the night. We were disappointed with Metronomy a few weeks ago at the Great Escape Festival and not keen on their new line up, but after the sun has set, fairly lights twinkle and a hedonistic sliver space suited crowd jerks and stutters like raving chickens. There's still life in these dance dudes. Don't beam them up yet. Late night party thrills are also provided by the Moshi Moshi crew bringing all manner of tunes and vibes to the mix for a full on disco in the Bar-Barella tent. Further crazy shake your hips madness is witnessed when Smerins Anti Social Club play the outdoor stage and create brass-a-plenty chaos, mixing it with a collection of festival friendly vibes from ska to funk to drum and bass. Bodies are seen flying all over the place with big smiles cushioning the flailing limbs. Phew.
Based on an ethos of like minded people coming together to share a great weekend, Winterwell succeeds as a true secret independent boutique festival. It is the opposite of the mass media influenced corporate beasts that thousands of punters will attend this year, and is all the better for it. Shhh, just don’t tell anybody else. Ok ?
