Have a terrible feeling I've used that joke here before. What the hell, it's brilliant, one more time won't hurt.
TINDERBOX FESTIVAL, 16/6/12, The Old
Wharf, Cropredy
There are three activities that rural
Oxfordshire excels in: voting Tory, playing Aunt Sally, and running tiny music
festivals. Alongside Truck and Cornbury,
on any given summer weekend you can find a strange little festival somewhere in
the county, with friendly musicians playing to small gaggles of happy
listeners. About half of them are run by
Phil Garvey, seemingly. However, even in
this environment, Tinderbox stands out as an oddity. In what is essentially someone’s garden just
outside Cropredy, a small clutch of customers could listen to some
experimental, primarily improvised music, sup a pint or a cuppa and eat a
burger. And that’s it. Nobody selling funny hats, nobody trying to
tell you about the social situation in Borneo, no hastily concocted extreme
sports, just a gazebo with some leftfield music, and a few dozen ears to give
it a chance. And, at least one pair of
ears can confirm that the quality was incredibly high.
Ostrichbox, a trio of composition students from Birmingham, open
the day with three laptops and some glitchy, post-IDM rhythms. Much of the set consists of pretty but inessential
sonic baubles, all metallophone ostinati and tinkling bells, but there are
moments of bleak beauty when a forlorn vocal enters, and melancholy melodies
play against the chirrups and hums.
This ghostly folk song technique is built
upon by Sounthend’s Lost Harbours,
who wrap guitar, flute and primarily wordless vocals in a wraithlike mist of
reverb and delay. If you want the
soundtracks to Once Upon A Time In The
West, Twin Peaks and The Wicker Man distilled and served
chilled, this excellent act should fit the bill.
In the US, the history of free and
improvised music seems to be closely allied to revolutionary and race politics. Here in the UK, it always seemed closer to
light socialism, gardening and theatrical pranksterism. Bolide
bear this out, a clattering Art Ensemble of Brighton blowing hell for leather,
but more interested in making each other chuckle than spreading a message. The set is a squalling, ersatz space ritual,
but despite the presence of myriad reed instruments, a gong and some fetching
kaftans, this isn’t one of Can’s ethnological forgeries, it’s more like musicological
fuckery. Jon Hassell’s Fourth World
technique involved taking global folk musics and immersing them in expensive
Western gloss, but bands like Bolide offer a Fifth World, in which elements
from across the planet sound equally cheap when smeared together in one long
faux-freak blast. It’s a more realistic
vision of international cultural exchange, and it sounds a damn sight more
entertaining, too.
Temperatures, from London, are another highlight, pitching drums
and bass against vintage electronic hums sourced form a large analogue rack
that may or may not be in tip-top condition.
Certainly, the electronic pulses have the wayward quality of an awkward
child, and much of the fun of the set is the pull between tight rhythms and
sloppy sonics. The bass especially
sounds as if it could morph into a self-conscious school swot jazz funk at any
moment, whereas the vocals are tiny distorted guttural fragments, the logical
conclusion of Alan Vega’s bargain Elvis schtick. An act that creates lots of intrigue from
minimal materials.
It seems harsh to give the worst review
to the act that has travelled the furthest to perform to such a small crowd,
but Sylvia Kastel and Ninni Morgia from
Italy – seriously – have the least to offer, in their mixture of cave-drip
guitar and wailed ululations embellished by vocal treatments and guitar
pedals. There are enjoyable moments, the
odd Fred Frith guitar flurry, or a ring modulated swoop, but the set feels like
a parade of effects rather than a musical event. Hell of a lot of ear-drilling treble, too,
for a chilly afternoon.
We’ve seen festival organisers Red Square a couple of times, but
today’s set is the most satisfying, perhaps because they’re playing on home
turf (literally), rather than at the bottom of a Friday night rock lineup. Their new drummer plays more straightforward
rhythms than his predecessor, but these actually work wonderfully, providing a
solid backdrop for simmering free guitar and some lightly ‘traneish sax lines
that disappear into a labyrinth of digital effects. They’re the band who pitch their
improvisation closest to rock dynamics, Ian Staples’ compressed guitar sound
owing far more to Hendrix or metal shredders than to Derek Bailey. They occasionally get bogged down in a
rhythmic furrow, and the odd tempo switch wouldn’t hurt, but the final track
is a surprisingly groovy number, bridging the gap between Maceo Parker and Evan
Parker, so this is a small criticism.
Ian, however, is wearing a deep red outfit and sky blues shoes; oh dear,
bring back the kaftans.
Shatner’s
Bassoon are a five piece from Leeds,
and are easily the most technically minded of today’s acts. They have plenty of all-out free passages,
but also some tightly arranged heads and traditional jazz solo spaces. There’s a Hancockesque Rhodes sound ladled
liberally, and some nods towards supper jazz, reggae and even calypso in the
maximalist compositions, proving that sense of humour is as high on their list
as a sense of exploration. After a day
of music that tended to clamour or drift, it’s refreshing to see a rhythm
section signalling complex breaks, and a feel for traditional structural dynamics. Shatner’s Bassoon are funny without being
silly and musically intricate without being introspective. Chris Morris would be proud.
Funnily enough, festival closers Space F!ght, from York, sound as though
they could have been used by Morris in the background to an episode of Jam.
They place textural guitar and sax over crisp, Black Dog style beats, to
create an avant-comedown music of jazz fragments and deep sonic horizons. In a way their set might have worked better
after a long day of sunshine and energy, rather than an afternoon of huddling
away from the rain, but they still create a diverting sound world.
And as we walk all of ten yards back to
the car, Tinderbox makes us think of The Streets’ lyric, “You say that
everything sounds the same/ Then you go buy them”. Anyone who’s moaned about the
corporatisation of music festivals and predictable lineups, whilst being
strip-searched in the queue for their five pound can of Tuborg, should check
out next year’s Tinderbox: you might discover some of the best music you’ve
ever heard, or you might hate every second of it, but you’ll know you’ve seen
something created with love and honesty...and you might even get a free cup of
tea if you ask the lady behind the counter about her herb garden...
