Truck 2008 Pt 3

And onto Sunday...Oh, This Is Seb Clarke turned out to be anything but, but I never found out who they actually were, so I'm leaving that bit in.

Chefs will tell you that many different dishes can be created with the same base sauce. Mephisto Grande are like that. As a duo they’ve got the basic recipe down - free reed drones, brimstone Beefheart growls and bludgeoning rhythms – but today they’re augmented with skronking sax and members of The Oxford Gospel Choir for a dense slab of Pentecostal rock, featuring the best cover of “Frere Jacques” ever. If the vicar of Steventon had got on stage during this and announced we were all going to hell, the local church would have been filled with repentant sinners by tea time.

This Is Seb Clarke have some excellent burgundy Beatles suits, and create some decent straight up trio rock that’s a bit like half of The Hives, but the programme had promised us 12 piece horn driven heaven, so we slope off feeling hard done by.

If anyone wasn’t sure what a kora was, Jali Filli Cissokho explained it to us; he then explained how one plays it with four digits, just in case nobody was yet flawed by the man’s talents. The rippling cascades of notes he plucks from this African harplike instrument are as succulent as they are impressive, and can seem heartbeat simple or cortex complex depending on where one focuses. Perhaps his voice, though sweet, is a little limited, but then again as he comes from the story-telling griot tradition, maybe understanding the lyrics would have helped. It hardly matters when you can lose your Sunday afternoon exhaustion in this impeccable playing. If you saw anyone walking round Truck with their jaws dangling open, they probably hadn’t got over Cissokho’s set yet.

On Sunday the Pavilion was given over to Piney Gir. Not wanting to venture in between sets in case she makes us do cross stitch or dress up as a raccoon, we edge into a strange hinterland at the edge of the campsite, full of non-musical attractions, including craft demonstrations, a cycle powered entertainment system (sadly closed at the time) and a little hut where a frankly petrifying man attempted to draw us in for some lessons in “woooing” (sic) whilst scratchy easy listening played. We also get to see the large number of Truckers who like to hang out in the campsite all day, playing footie and strumming guitars: quite an expensive way to camp out with your mates, but each to their own. In search of another subset of Truckers, some children explain that the playbus is fun, but would be better if it drove around, and that Truck is a good festival because they “saw a tractor”.

We return in time for Bordervillle, who are excellently dressed as if they’ve come from a time travelling wedding, except Joe Swarbrick who looks like a boy band Edward Scissorhands. Dead Kids should be watching this outstanding set – this is how you do pastiche and genre melding. In some ways it’s a parody of 70s pomp bands like Queen, and Broadway musicals, but it’s also a celebration of what can be great about those things, presented with imagination and a well-rehearsed flow. The sort of arch and theatrical act that makes you want to describe them like a Victorian playbill: “A vaudevillian confection of sonorous majesty” it is, then.

Luke Smith’s set is delayed because of generator problems. Doesn’t matter, we’re happy just to stand and listen to him talk, seeing as he’s the most erudite and charming man at the festival. The music might well be somewhat derriere garde, stemming from music hall ditties and 70s MOR, but as an extension of Luke’s chummy personality it works perfectly. Nobody else here would pen a tune like “You’ll Never Stop People Being Gits”, ridicule their bassist, take the piss out of audience singalongs, and still come out looking like the nicest man in town.

We’ve always admired KTB, but never really been that excited by her. Good, therefore, to see her as part of the excellent folk quartet Little Sister, doling out melismatic harmonies, acoustic tapestries and hot Appalachian fiddle licks. They somehow manage to get some of the audience doing forward rolls round the field, which is no mean feat when we’re this tired.

Les Clochards are sadly not mentioned in the programme, and misadvertised outside the Pub Tent, so it’s not surprising they start playing to a mere scattering of listeners. Their tasty Gallic café indie sound soon draws in passers by, however, because nobody could resist that mix of syrupy vocal, French accordion and fluid bass. Also, that’s Peter Momtchiloff from Talulah Gosh and Heavenly on guitar, should you have your I Spy Book Of Jangle Pop on you.

“Come and see The Nuns tomorrow”, says a flier tout on Saturday. Your smug reviewer answers, “OK, as long as they’re an all female tribute to The Monks”. “Yes,” she replies, “yes they are.” Put us in our place, didn’t it? If you don’t know who The Monks are, you’re stupid. They are one of the finest alternative rock bands, and quite possibly the first. They started in Germany in the early 60s in an attempt to create an anti-matter Beatles, and they’ve influenced approximately everyone who’s any good, ever. They’re the only band better than The Fall, according to Mark E Smith, which is unprecedented praise. The Nuns’ set is good, but doesn’t quite capture the full distorted grandeur of the originals. A celebration of, rather than an alternative to, The Monks.

Neil Halstead, from Slowdive, feels somewhat guilty about playing acoustic guitar on the shoegazing bill. “I don’t even have a pedal,” he admits. No matter as he performs lovely smoky wisps of song that keeps the small crowd happy. Nothing onstage to explain why he’s held in reverence, perhaps, but something rather lovely all the same.

Scotland’s Camera Obscura are so twee and melodic, we imagine that Swiss Concrete are backstage with their diary open ready to catch them. At times they’re like The Sundays, but more twee, or like The Cowboy Junkies, but more twee. They’re good, but they’re really twee. There’s no synonym for “twee” so we’d better stop now.

Ulrich Schnauss fills the barn with delicious vox humana keyboard washes and synth squiggles, which are underpinned by drum parts, until he sounds like a cross between Klaus Schulze and 808 State. The trouble is that the beats sound kind of tired, especially in the Barn’s reverb, and it may have been better to let the drones do the talking.