Have you ever been to a music festival and come away afterwards, so enthralled with the carefree sense of abandon you’ve experienced that you’ve thought “I’d love to run one of those?”
Most of us come back to our real worlds of work, university, school, family, lack of time, money, and experience and soon forget about the idea. However, for the organisers of Good Weekend – a new independent festival based in Woodmancott, Hampshire (on the same site that hosted last weekend’s relocated Blissfields and pictured above) – the idea stuck. So in the summer of 2010 the Good Weekend crew started thinking seriously about running their own festival, bringing their own individual skills and experiences to the table to create this new event.
"We've picked a range of our favourite bands and DJ's to entertain the festival-goers, and we are really looking forward to giving a stage to and exposure to some of the best up and coming local talent. Friday will be a big old rave-up with Hint, Benny Boom and Parker on the Main Stage and some of the best new indie and electro on the outdoor stage. Saturday will start with a folky vibe and will climax with what is sure to be a no nonsense set from Art Brut; Greco-Roman Soundsystem will then take the party into the night,” says James Bacon, Artist Liason and Booking Manager.
The festival line-up hosts a number of acts that have appeared on Breaking More Waves over the last couple of years including Nedry, Worship and Lighthouses plus there are great bands such as Hot Club de Paris, Kurran and the Wolfnotes, Hold Your Horse Is and Lulu And The Lampshades. So if the likes of Glastonbury, Reading and V Festival seem too overwhelming or just too damn expensive, Good Weekend offers an alternative option at a reasonable price for the two day event – just £40 plus a small booking fee.
Attending a first year of any festival can always be a gamble. Anyone who was unlucky enough to go to Zoo 2008 could probably attest to it being the worst festival ever. Yet the few thousand who trooped over to Robin Hill Country Park on the Isle of Wight in 2004 remember fondly the very first Bestival, which despite its elements of chaos, very empty campsite and lack of any significant audience for many of the artists was very much a “You just had to be there,” moment. It was clear even then that Bestival was onto a winner and that in years to come this was an event that could only get bigger and even better.
Check back here after the 22-23July when Good Weekend runs and we’ll be bringing you the Breaking More Waves review. In the meantime, we’re streaming songs from three of the bands we recommend that you can catch. If you fancy coming along, grab yourself a ticket here.
Suffused with upwardly-rising late-night beats, mellow electronics and the Bjork in a fishtank vocals of lead singer Ayu, post-dubstep trio Nedry are back with a new single Dusk Till Dawn. The track represents the first fruits of their on-going labours to create a second album, the follow up to Condors, which we featured a number of tracks from on the blog in 2009/10. We’re not sure if there’s any link to the film of similar name, but we would like to think that George Clooney would approve.
Dusk Till Dawn is dagger-trippy, both unsettling as it is beautiful, perfect for that late-night after clubbing bus ride home whilst there’s still some adrenalin pulsing through your veins.
As Nedry slowly build towards the album they’ve booked a few live slots. Catch them in London at Huw Stephens presents at The Social on March 8 or an XFM Xposure gig on March 10 at Camden Barfly. The band will also be at SXSW in Austin Texas.
Dusk Till Dawn is free to download legally from this link for the time being, until the the bands label Monotreme officially release the song on 14th March - plus the evocative dreamy video streams below.
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.
After reviewing Nedry live just a few days ago, it’s time to revisit the fusion of sounds that forms their three-piece collage, but this time in a beefier, darker rock venue in Portsmouth; this time as support act to 65 Days of Static.
The Nedry blend of glitchy beats, dubstep wobbles and ambient bliss for the post-rock generation provides for a well matched support slot, the band also sharing the same record label. Lead singer Ayu sports a 65 Days t-shirt whilst she skips and bobs around the stage with an ingenuousness that is charming, her wailing floaty vocal creating soaring melodies, the words unimportant, her voice used as another instrument amongst the mix of hyperdub twitches. Behind her the two male members of the band caress laptops, electronic drum pads and all manner of knobs and dials like two epileptic office IT technicians on a big night out. It’s not all geeky electronics and effects though; to give variation on tracks such as Condors electric guitars are pulled out and used to create pummelling angry repetitive riffs, reminiscent of Death In Vegas. It’s reasonably experimental but always interesting and never disengaging.
So where do Nedry fit as a band ? They straddle so many genres that they simply cannot be pigeonholed easily - a good thing. Songs such as the sorrowful sounding Apples and Pears have sounds that glide effortlessly between gentle folkish guitar and twisted heavier 4am sub-bass. Their music veers off in different directions yet never feels or sounds unnatural or forced. It’s as if they have taken a map, cut it up, glued it all back together wrongly and yet still get to the end of the journey without anyone noticing how the roads weren’t in the right place.
Third on the bill at a slowly filling venue is always a difficult place to be but there’s a confident sense of pick and mix with what Nedry do in the live environment. Combined with Ayu’s vocal (the Bjork comparison is inevitable) and her innocent stage presence, they convince a few 65 Days of Static fans that it’s time to raid the piggy bank to buy a new album.
As a live experience visual stimulation can often be the downfall of laptop wielding bands, particularly in small venues. Unable to hide behind banks of hypnotic lighting or multi-media visuals, all that is often left is the spectacle of watching some vacant looking individuals twiddling knobs.
Nedry (pictured) overcome these problems with their secret weapon – their Japanese born singer Ayu. Like a small child she dances and skips around the stage with a complete lack of self-consciousness, clawing at the air like a cat. She is strangely compelling to watch. Her voice is a ghostly wail, reminiscent of a more spectral Bjork, echoing and looping through effects pedals. The two male members of Nedry also give it their all, heads and bodies bobbing in unity, wrestling with their technology - a synchronised downtempo-dub-step-glitch-rock-trip-hop groove machine. Nedry are a complex mix of experimental noises, beats and riffs that challenge the ears, and despite the computerised base from which much of their sound emanates it never feels anything less than organic and loose, jetting off in different directions at any given moment. Scattered is full of evil rampaging blasts of fuck-you-backwards guitar anger, whilst Apples & Pears is more graceful - a fusion of simpler soft guitar work, clipped beats and low-end frequencies. Innovative, progressive and visually engaging, Nedry defy the idea that geektronica doesn’t work without the camouflage of additional imagery or videos to distract.
Support band Worship are a little more familiar sounding - there’s a sense of new-seriousness about their Radiohead-esque songs. Like Nedry they are driven by laptop based instrumentation but this time with a more traditional guitar sound. Lead singer Tim has a brooding, soul-stirring vocal that floats over the Berkshire bands atmospheric music. Worship may not yet be fully formed – not every one of their songs being fully captivating, but they’re weightily polished. It probably explains why despite their infancy they were recently invited to play a live session on BBC Radio One, despite not having yet released a single. There’s a sense that Worship are a band who are still discovering themselves in terms of audience engagement in live performance; despite a chirpy hello and an announcement that this is their last show for a while, watching them feels invasive and voyeuristic. It’s almost as if they are in the recording studio and the audience have been invited to peep through the keyhole to preclude their shyness. There is no doubt however they are highly competent and have a good deal of substance in their music – the staggeringly good In Our Blood being a deft pulsing example. As we said before, file in the drawer marked ones to watch.
Now if you read this blog regularly you will know that Nedry have made a number of appearances. This is because listening to their music is like lowering yourself into a gold mine - all dark, but full of beauty; the deeper you immerse yourself in it the more you find. Out of that mine Nedry have lifted a new video to accompany Swan Ocean, a track from their debut album Condors. Subtle, dreamy gentle guitars, soft tapping beats and trippy, cryptic vocals that hint of “Spring in the garden” and “Summers that keep singing into the sun waves,” form the ingredients of the song. There's even a few words of what we believe to be Japanese in the middle section if you listen carefully.
The video for Swan Ocean is constructed from thousands of pieces of paper cut and shaped then filmed in stop frame animation. The words that must be used to describe this work are simple but effective.
Heavy late night beats, shuddering dubstep basslines, ripples of guitar, ethereal female vocals, subtle moments of post rock heaviness and nods to artists such as Massive Attack, Portishead, Death In Vegas and Burial, these are the sounds that form the debut album, Condors, from London based trio Nedry. Originally self released as an internet only recording last year, Condors attracted attention from Monotreme records and has now been re-released to include a CD version.
It’s very easy to get trapped into defining a record as sounding modernist or even futuristic only for cynics to pull out one hundred and one artists that already operate in the same genre. Certainly the references named above, together with Bjork and Four Tet are musical comparisons, but Condors is also undeniably forward thinking, fresh and totally of the moment, but it doesn’t lack the depth that is often associated with such terms.
The album may be relatively short with just eight tracks, one of which the gracefully ambient Four Layers of Pink, only clocks in at a minute and a half, but better to keep things within a tight quality control regime rather than find an album that noodles itself off into shadowy indistinct corners. Condors is an album that stays sharp by delivering tracks such as Shattered. It starts with a heavy ghoulish bass not so far from the seminal Portishead song Strangers before wrathful riffing guitars crank things up for a fight with broken Windowlicker styled drum and bass beats. It definitely has a hint of sounding like an Aphex Twin remix. In fact talking of remixes, we can imagine Nedry providing a neat line in this field of work. Their track Squid Cat Battle could well be what La Roux would sound like if Nedry took Elly Jackson round the corner, had her up against the wall and pressed her buttons roughly. Not all of Condors is aggressive though. For the most part it is enduringly pretty. Tracks like Apples and Pears with its folktronic tempered beats are dreamy, whispy and downright haunting, partly due to the heavenly vocals of the Japanese singer Ayu who brings a flowering femininity to the whole affair.
Condors is a very urban and ultramodern sounding album, full of dark sub bass headphone beauty. It’s not always an easy listen, but is worthy of your concentration. You can order it here.
Last October we introduced the dark sparse beats of Nedry (here), a trio that make a sound that we described as the ‘soundtrack of modern day dreams and nightmares.’ Since then Nedry have increased their profile with dates in Japan, a live session with Huw Stephens on BBC Radio One and very recently have been featured as New Band of the Day on the Guardian website. Now the good news is that Nedry are about to re-release their album Condors in a physical format through Monotreme Records on February 8th. The band are also due to play a full UK tour supporting new label mates 65daysofstatic in May and we very much hope to bring you a review of one of those shows.
Prior to all of this Nedry have issued a new video for album track A42. It’s a primitive midnight seduction where jittering hop-scotch beats, dirty head-music bass sounds and Ayu’s astral Bjork-like vocal mesh together to create a beautiful yet macabre modernism. The video was created by Juzz Media in an abandoned Polish warehouse late last year and suits the bands innovative sound perfectly. Right now there seems to be a rising of a new vanguard of artists who are taking the evil beats / dubstep / down-tempo template but manipulating and warping it into their own sonic shape. The XX , Esben and The Witch and Worried About Satan are just three other acts who are developing this progression with success, and Nedry are certainly another to add to this exciting list. Here is A42 by Nedry.
Back in the early nineties as the second summer of love drew its hedonistic acid curtains and the dark dense noise of trip hop and dub of acts such as Aphex Twin, Portishead and Massive Attack reigned it look liked the future was electronic. It wasn’t hard to envisage a world where the laptop ruled, the guitar merely subservient. However the luddite resistance of grunge and brit-pop put pay to that; and as the noughties come to a close we look back at a decade where the way music is recorded, promoted, distributed and sold has changed massively, but the music itself hasn’t. From the rising of The Strokes and The White Stripes who passed the baton to The Libertines and a host of second generation indie Brit-Pop bands through to the Arctic Monkeys, music in many parts has become a traditionalist art form rather than a progressive one. There has of course been a backlash this year with synth pop standing hairspray tall, but even much of this has had an incredibly in for the kill revivalist feel.
Which brings us neatly to Nedry . Nedry at the very least sound like the future. Take the heavily haunting A42. Full of dubstep shuddering, ghostly vocals and erratic twitching beats its electrified earshot stands out - the soundtrack of modern day dreams and nightmares. Whatever your view on dubstep, one has to acknowledge that it is one of the most influential new genres to appear this decade, now heavily influencing the mainstream. Whilst Nedry may take elements of dubstep in their sound, certainly not everything they do can be classified under a simple genre heading, their music is refreshingly more inventive than that.
Nedry are a three piece from London consisting of Matt and Chris on keyboards and guitars and Ayu on vocals, loop station and percussion. They make dark sparse electronica formed out a warped late night ambience. Their sound can be discovered on their download album Condors. Here you will find Apples and Pears which takes a soft pastoral guitar line then threads and stitches light beats and a soft focus lullaby Bjork-ish vocal to create something quite floaty and water like, before a midnight meditative bass kicks in. Where The Dead Birds Go is a short devilishly ambient industrial piece, the sound of a giant punching at sound waves. Then there’s Swan Ocean, a track which is formed from a music box of sounds and sharp beats overlain with a voice that is spectral and spacey. It’s all rather good stuff and has been picked up by Huw Stephens on Radio 1 and Tom Robinson of BBC 6 Music.
With their current body of work Nedry are never going to enter the mainstream. However for those who think that standing in a field with eighty thousand people singing Sex On Fire is a living hell and that music should at least attempt to do something original, then a relationship with Nedry could be a beautiful thing.
