We pop in on Delta Alaska, who are like nothing else than a blythe AOR version
of Oxford’s Scrappy-Doo pop wastrels, Secret Rivals, and end up with Josh Kumra, a young man with a
surprisingly eloquent vocal delivery, who isn’t above showboating or swiping a
tune form MGMT to keep the party going.
Not a chart-topping act we expected to get excited about, but Josh is a
talented, professional performer who deserves to capitalise on his sudden
success.
Oh, and, speaking of which. Late on Saturday the staff at the Rapture
merchandise tent tell us they’ve not sold a Fixers album all day.
Inconceivable when this outstanding, gorgeous record has only recently
been released after a long delay? If you
saw their set, then no. A hundred times,
no. As if to prove our claim that past glories can never be relived, Fixers
contrast last year’s joyous, epochal Truck performance with what can most
generously be described as a wonky drunken stumble somewhere in the rough
vicinity of their songs. Jack Goldstein
spends some while slurring into the mike about how he isn’t sure if this is a
“festival” or a “festiVAL!” The set is a
hiLARious disasTER, put the random emphases where you like, Jack, old son.
Over in the Barn, Spring Offensive are snatching Fixers’ local hero crown, sharpening
up the angular points, and dousing it in pop sugar. They have a knack of writing vast music
with the drastic emotional pull of a Hollywood blockbuster, and making them
sound subtly intimate. It’s a trick Clock Opera could do with learning, as
their set is far from bad, building heart-wrenching songs on slightly fidgety
rhythms, but it becomes two dimensional and predictable long before we wander
away.
Jamalot is a small tent hosting DJs and a
few live acts – it also has a couple of very comfy sofas, which we make
grateful use of once or twice over the course of the festival – although it’s
hard to know who’s on when. We’re not
sure if this is because a dance tent is on the periphery of the organisers’
concerns, or because the sort of people who book a stage like that don’t quite
get round to arranging the acts before the programme copy deadline. Judging by the timetable outside the tent,
which is so randomly inaccurate it was probably created by John Cage with the I Ching and a box of twelve inches, we
lean towards the latter interpretation.
We do, however, manage to see funky jazz outfit The Heavy Dexters, over an hour later than advertised. Like the Disco Pimps, they could do with
adding some proper filth to their sound, but their saxophonist does have
lovely, conversational phrasing, and they also do a pretty cheeky arrangement
of “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, so it’s a close but clear victory at the final
count.
The very second their set is finished,
beatboxer Pieman takes over. It takes us a few bars to realise the chunky
beats are coming from a man’s mouth, not the DJ. Of course, as with most beatboxing, turntablism
- or arguably live hip hop in general - the show is a showcase of techniques
and effects rather than a cohesive artistic statement, but in the face of
someone who can make a righteously flatulent dubstep bass like that with their
lips, our criticisms evaporate. Top
stuff.
Nipping back to the Barn we hear what
sounds like a cross between metal and techstep drum ‘n’ bass from Turbowolf. Then the track stops and we think we must
have imagined it. Regardless, the rest
of their greasy cartoon heavy rock is infectious fun.
Tim
Minchin isn’t funny, and The Guillemots don’t really seem to be
delivering, probably due to Fyfe Dangerfield’s throat infection, so we return
to the Barn for Future Of The Left. We think we’re scribbling lots of insightful
notes about their angular hardcore, but in the morning we discover we’ve just
written “Grrrrrr” for twelve pages. Two
things are sure: a) when they add a buzzing, two finger keyboard to their
sound, it’s like a hideously brilliant cross between Bis and Atari Teenage Riot,
b) when they finish with an unfeasibly distorted, disgusted and dystopian
Mclusky track, it literally recalibrates our ears so that we can’t listen to Mystery Jets. Seriously, don’t recall any of it. We think they were probably harmless and
vapid and bouncy and perfectly acceptable, but we have no real memory of doing
anything whilst they’re on except replaying the preceding ten minutes in our
minds.
Sing it.
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