The dark sound is back again. As alternative music distances itself from the fall out of landfill indie and the lightweight, shadowy corners are being explored by many.
Nika Roza Danilova is a tiny, pale skinned platinum blonde better known as Zola Jesus. This striking looking lady is digging her own industrial crypt of morbid yet majestic electronica. Synth stained with the sounds Siouxsie Sioux, Joy Division and nightmares, the emotional gloom-pop of Zola Jesus is cavernous in its simplicity.
She prowls the domed and mirrored sophistication of Brighton Ballroom, her small frame bending over to force out a sirens wail of powerful cold opera-blues vocal as if it hurts. It’s incredible that something so big can come from one so petite. Her songs of love, lovers and loss range from the sad emotional calls of Sea Talk “I can’t give you what you need,” to the darkly womb like pulse of Night which offers comfort with Nika singing “So don’t you worry, just rest your head, ‘cause in the end of the night we’ll be together again.”
Her songs lack significant variation, but her performance is fully absorbing. At one point she stands off stage in the corner of the room like the finale of Blair Witch, seductively caressing her hair and the wall to a bleak beaty soundtrack, before letting out a blood curdling scream. Later, cradling a candle in a glass dish she pours the molten wax over her hands before slowly brushing it off – the dark cloaked sorceress casting a spell perhaps.
There’s magic to Zola Jesus – her voice and stage presence announce an emerging talent. If she can add a little more variation to her epic formula then black could well be the new gold.
Our second ‘catch up’ post of the day features another band who we named in our Ones to Watch list at the end of 2009 - Mirrors. The pulsing synthesiser based band inked a deal with Skint records earlier this year and whilst we were having a break last week sneaked out a new single - Ways to an End.
When Mirrors originally came on the scene Kraftwerk comparisons were inevitably rife - suits, motionless performance and keyboards meant that there was always a danger that Mirrors would be seen as just a parody band. However the video for Ways to an End, which was filmed in the Duke of Yorks cinema in Brighton, shows how the group have developed visually at least - watch how the lead singer jerks like he has a pair of jump leads attached to his backside. You certainly would have never seen Ralf, Florian, Karl or Wolfgang grooving like that. Musically maybe Ways to an End sounds a little too stuck in the 80’s, but it will no doubt appeal to fans of the genre - who Mirrors will find themselves facing in their masses when they tour with OMD in Europe in November. The band describe Ways to an End as a ‘seething, waterlogged, saturated yet sprightly groove.’ We consider it more akin to a bubbling synthetic voyage into robot-groove where science lab and disco merge. Judge for yourself whilst watching the video below.
As the UK summer festival season draws to a close our attention focuses on one of the most insane, ridiculously fun, yet fully credible events on the calendar - Bestival, on the Isle of Wight. Because of its fancy dress, late night party spirit and sense of mischievous humour Breaking More Waves has a long standing love with the festival, having been one of the few who has attended every year since its inception. The first year of Bestival has gone down in history as one of those ‘you had to be there’ weekends. A totally non-corporate event, it was like a chaotic village fete combined with a psychedelic private dance-party set in a kids adventure park. Memories include finding organiser Rob Da Bank realising that he had no overnight staff and would have to take on the roll of security himself, one of the Cuban Brothers jumping off stage into the crowd fully naked before running off into the sunset, morris men dancing, drummers drumming, an impromptu can-can dance on the grass, a huge wicker frog being constructed in the middle of the site and hundreds of punters chasing their tents across the campsite as they battled with gusting winds on the final night.
Then there was the music. It set out from the word go with an eclectic mix that characterises every Bestival - from a Kate Bush tribute act on the main stage to Mr Big Beat himself - Fatboy Slim. Then there was the Isle of Wight's own The Bees tripping the light fantastic plus a then little known Hot Chip learning their groove. That year, in 2004, it won the Virtual Festivals award for Best Small Festival - an award that due to its expanding capacity (this year 40,000+) it certainly doesn’t qualify for now.
Bestival has now reached the status that rather like other established expanding festivals some regular Bestivalites complain that the festival has changed for the worst, has lost its original spirit and has just become about money. Certainly Bestival has changed as it has got bigger, but it is still a long way from being a corporate whore such as V or Reading Festival. The acts that play the main stage are bigger and more commercial - this year sees Dizzee Rascal, The Prodigy and The Flaming Lips headline - but in order to survive Bestival has had to grow. If Rob Da Bank still had bands such as Boomclick, Quantic Soul Orchestra and Ori Jah Nal playing the main stage as he did in 2004 and provided the attention to detail in the sites art and visual aesthetic that his team still do, he would have probably gone bust a long time ago. This would have especially been the case after the horrendous weather that turned the 2008 event into the worst mud bath since Glastonbury 1997 and 1998 where there was a need for significant subsequent landscaping and restorative works to be carried out to the site at huge costs.
Following these deluges in 2009 Bestival relocated its main stage away from its traditional location at the end of ‘Besti-valley’ to higher ground. It wasn’t a great success - problems with sight-lines for punters and sound clash issues with other stages led to a significant number of complaints. So for 2010 the Main Stage finds itself in its third location, lower down the hill but with new improved drainage to the site should the weather wizard be unkind again.
In place of the old main stage one can now find the Afterburner, familiar to those who may have attended Glastonbury. Bigger and better than in 2009 this huge metallic spider shaped structure really comes into life at night time as huge jets of flame and special effects shoot out magically and forcefully lighting up the night sky whilst musicians and acrobats perform.
There’s a whole host of other stages and areas at Bestival 2010 as well. The Big Top will pay host to bands such as The XX, Fever Ray, LCD Soundsystem. A particular favourite of many Bestival punters is The Bollywood Bar with inside its hand stitched Indian designs, delicious cocktails and DJ’s such as Jakwob, High Contrast and David Rodigan lathering the crowd into a sweat, whilst outside on the grass there are day beds and silk umbrellas for relaxing on. Then there’s The Bimble Inn, The Polka Tent, The Rock N Roll Stage and The Bandstand many of whom are featuring bands blogged on Breaking More Waves. Ellie Goulding, Hurts, Beth Jean Houghton, Worship, Lucky Elephant, Delphic, Kid Adrift, King Charles, Silver Columns, Stornoway, Yuck and Unicorn Kid are just a few of the acts that have featured on the blog numerous times that are playing this years Bestival. In fact if Breaking More Waves was joined with a festival in the same way that towns and cities have twin towns, Bestival would be its twin of choice.
There’s also one further artist we should mention, as besides reviewing the festival for future blog publication, and tweeting from the event (follow us on twitter here for our updates from site) we’ll also be playing our own small part as an 'artist'.
When Q Magazine questioned why was the very uncool spikey haired 80’s keyboard pop star Howard Jones playing Bestival earlier this year, they obviously hadn’t done their research. The answer is that for the last 4 years a group of geeks and internet mavericks had been campaigning on the official Bestival forum for Rob Da Bank to book Howard Jones for Bestival. One of those geeks was the writer of this blog. Finally Da Bank had succumbed to the pressure and booked both Jones and a certain DJ Hojo Hits - the worlds only Howard Jones tribute DJ.
DJ Hojo Hits is our DJ alter ego. Bestival 2010 will probably be the last ever DJ gig under this name. When DJ Hojo Hits plays he will be joined on stage by many of the characters who campaigned on the internet for Jones to play Bestival, some of whom are flying in from as far as the USA to join DJ Hojo on stage and spin a tune or two. It will be a celebration of a stupid campaign that started as a joke and ended up going to quite extreme measures just to get Howard Jones booked for Bestival. It will be shambolic, very amateur but probably quite emotional. If you’re coming to Bestival please do come and support us - we will need all the help we can get. We’re playing in the Big Top at 6pm-6.45pm opening the festival on Thursday night, as part of the Back to the Phuture bill, and are going under the name The Sunday Best Forum Allstars, with Howard Jones appearing on stage at 8pm-8.45pm before La Roux and Dead Guy's DJ set. Janelle Monae, Heaven 17 and Villa Nah are also all playing the same night.
And should you happen to be in the Isle of Wight on Wednesday 8th September, the night before Bestival opens why not come along to Waverley Park Holiday Centre, Cowes for the un-official pre-Bestival party where you can camp for the night, catch 3 bands playing - Englane, Hurtz (not Hurts) and Pleasureade and dance your pants off to DJ Hojo Hits again in between the bands - entry is just £5 including camping - pay on the door at reception. You might even catch the writer of this blog wearing a bad 80’s wig, and doing something similar to what you see in the video below!
Finally, we will be previewing Bestival further on Portsmouth's community Radio Station, Express FM on the Guestlist show today Wednesday 1st September between 8pm and 10pm playing music from many of the acts appearing. Click here to access the station on line and then click on the Listen Live On Air box on the top right hand corner of the website to hear the show between those hours.
Bestival runs between 9th - 12th September and is totally sold out.
Music, being the fashionable and evolving beast it is, doesn’t hang around for long; particularly where blogs are concerned. Breaking More Waves took a short holiday and by the time we got back, there had been a deluge of releases, gigs, festivals and new songs that we had missed. So just for today we’re playing catch up with a couple of Breaking More Waves favourites that it would be a crime to ignore as well as our regular daily blog.
First up is Clare Maguire. After an incredibly long wait - we first wrote about the pale skinned songstress way back in January 2009 and then listed her in December as one of our Ones to Watch for 2010 - Clare Maguire is stepping out of the shadows. With a few selected dates supporting Hurts in October followed by an intensive slog around the country supporting Plan B, Clare is getting ready to slay the unknowing with her huge gutsy voice. Her debut single Ain’t Nobody will be released around the same time as the tour.
For now there’s a trailer video for the single, which at 37 seconds long, isn’t a huge amount, but like a singleton desperate for a partner, after 18 months wait, we’ll take whatever we can. The vocal reveals something a little similar to Sharleen Spiteri in its rich soulful sound, with menacing electronic music underneath. There’s also a remix of her song The Strangest Thing which we’re featuring as a download below. The Strangest Thing was originally given away as one of a set of songs from her original website back in 2009, but it has now been re-recorded for a further free download from her site, her vocal slightly lighter than the smoky and ballsy original which captivated with its minimalist but powerful approach. An album which we understand may be called Light After Dark will follow in the future.
Apart from the Grand National we’re not the betting sort, but if we were, we’d be putting some money on this tip. The form looks good (solo female singers continue to do well in the charts), she certainly can sing live (as we witnessed at her only solo show since leaving the studio following her work with Fraser T here), has a major label deal plus importantly her songs have the potential to appeal to a wide mainstream fan base. The Sound of 2011 ? Clare Maguire ? Possibly.
The dark sound is back again. As alternative music distances itself from the fall out of landfill indie and the lightweight, shadowy corners are being explored by many.
