Weekend at Bernays'

Here's my review of the amazing Supernormal festival.  It's in the latest Nightshift, but you can read some extra stuff here that there wasn't room for.  Even bearing that in mind, there are some acts I saw but didn't write up - there's just so much to experience at SN, you need a whole magazine to capture it.  But, if by some miracle any reps from Grigg, Kelly & Sneddon, Bellies!, Kinlaw & Franco Franco, Jon Collin, Steph Horak, Handle, Roman Nose or Golden Oriole are reading, I enjoyed your sets; if anyone involved with Secret Power or Jessica Higgins are reading, sorry, not so much.

To get the pun in the title you'll need to visit the site and keep your eyes peeled.  My advice is to visit Supernormal next year regardless, it really is ace.

SUPERNORMAL, Braziers Park, 2-4/8/19

FRIDAY

We’ve attended our share of festivals, but Friday at Supernormal is the most delicate wristband application we’ve ever experienced.  There’s also a nice programme for £1, “or whatever you’ve got”.  Yes, once again, despite featuring acts that scream at us as vehemently as Wackford Squeers guest-hosting Infowars, and despite a queue to meet Satan in a caravan longer than that to meet Santa at Macy’s, Supernormal has proved itself to be the friendliest festival in existence.  Staff are constantly helpful, even the gloriously stoned barman who finds the names of all the drinks unfeasibly hilarious, and we’re treated as welcome guests rather than walking wallets.  In return, as if to prove that decency engenders decency, the audiences are some of the most receptive we’ve been part of.  Sarah Kenchington’s bike-propelled instruments, including ping-pong ball bagatelle percussion and aquatuba, are received so rapturously she visibly blushes, even considering malfunctions (her set mostly sounds like a Wookie in labour, which may or may not be the desired effect, but is quite an experience).  Similarly, we witness Ugandan wedding party musician Otim Alpha arrive on Sunday afternoon, clearly uncertain about the tiny shed onto which they’re unloading, only to see them beaming thirty minutes later as their Casio bangers instigate one of the most rapturous receptions of the weekend.

The performances begin on Friday afternoon with a slightly sparser crowd for late additions Nape Neck, whose mantric rants are no wave, but without the wave.  We especially enjoy their bassist marching on the spot like they’re in an am dram reading of Kipling’s “Boots”.  Rather more refined, but still intermittently serrated, is Bug Prentice, featuring Oxfordshire’s own Ally Craig on vocals and guitar, and guest bassist, Jenny from Lucy Leave.  The music is often twitchy and angular, but the true glory is Ally’s voice, a wry crooning rasp, like warm wind through ironic pampas.

Sealionwoman in the Barn brings forth waves of crepuscular jazz-folk, from just voice, double bass and all the reverb, finishing the set like Cocteau Twins at a funeral in a culvert, but it’s HAQ 123 who bring our first visual treat.  Despite two of their members being too young to get into most gigs with their ages combined, they play a sterling set of Sabbathy metal, enlivened by the presence of a fully berobed Death and some sort of rave Kermit.  They then announce an official stage-diving section after the set has finished, a revolutionary step forward in gig efficiency only a genius could come up with; these kids will probably be billionaires by the time they’re 35 (or underwater, depending on which predictive model is correct).

Sexton Ming’s Porridge Van, an act even more baroquely stupid than their name, ups the ante by starting with a doom glove puppet show we christen Punch & Jud0))), and moving on to full inscrutable mumbling noise panto, but set of the day award goes to Gwenifer Raymond, who, in sitting on a stool head down in concentration, has zero theatrical presence – unless you count hilariously swearing like a dyspeptic docker between numbers  -  but her beautiful tangles of guitar and banjo notes are stimulating enough on their own, conjuring images of Appalachian chase scenes and crazed blues arachnids spinning downhome Mandelbrots. 

Henge’s reverby stoner psych, with a whiff of classic longform rock as hinted by a Neil Young T-shirt, are probably the band most in the Supernormal wheelhouse, and are strong, with bonus points for an unexpected shakuhachi solo, and the singer’s white powdered face, instigating a game of Ghost Or Baker?  File them with Norwegians MoE who turn in a dirty chunky set we originally think of as amphetamine doom, before realising that’s just rock music –not everything needs a new genre name, even at Supernormal.  However, we’re not sure what to call Mark Vernon’s melancholy collage of old cassette messages and ambient tones, something like an 80s Scanner who could only pick up conversations by stealing answer machines and dictaphone tapes. He also adds some eerie Sea Devils dictats by talking whilst deflating a balloon into his mouth.  Sift on the tiny BEEF stage are equally spectral, telling a fractured tale of Northern Ireland border crossing ghosts, but the macabre atmosphere is undercut by the amusement of watching them squint at their scripts and remember that night time is generally dark.