Nadeem Din-Gabisi, dressed in a lion mask like Tiger Mendoza’s cousin, may be Saturday’s highlight. This low-slung Brit-hop set (key reference: Roots Manuva) is glorious, and the lyrics eruditely explore everything that is good and bad about this country - the track title ‘Pub Lunch’ sums that up, and it sounds something like one of the lighter productions on Skull Disco. He samples the Parry’s ‘Jersualem’ and even quotes Morrissey - if he wanted an example of something from Britain that’s both great and an absolute embarrassment, he hit the bullseye.
The Supernormal cabaret makes a welcome return, and this year we get lip-synching divas, absurd comedic turns, and some surprisingly earnest and lovely Moroccan song, but MC Ginny Lemon is still the highlight, managing to make slurring a tune with a fish on your head seem like the funniest and most subversive act ever.
Kalkin are a highly original drums and fiddle duo. Their first number has snatches of jigs but tears along relentlessly, as if the film Speed had been set in a folk club. There is also a whiff of Velvet Underground in a churning mid-paced track, but they peak with a wistful Gavin Bryars-type exploration accompanying a 6-note piano loop, which finds new angles on every repetition, some murky and dark, some bright and soaring. Meat Strap on Friday cover equally broad terrain, sometimes fragmented funk we christen Wacko Pastorius, sometimes like a sashimi chef slicing up Slint with James Blood Ulmer seasoning. They also have inscrutable dedications, including “for the man who invented athlete’s foot”. They add a double bass player, then a flautist - we leave wondering whether they'll continue to expand exponentially and burst the Red Kite tent. Zoh Amba is even more unpredictable, a few opening minutes of solo sax skronk acting as a Wire-reader's Trojan horse to sneak some acoustic songs somewhere between Michaelle Shocked and Neil Young ont the main stage.
Rainham Sheds invert the Lixenberg Performer-Audience Gambit. Their set starts with a hand-stitched alt groove which is partly like 90s Fall, but mostly like a bladdered and belligerent Bis, whilst vocalist Kate Mahony rolls through the crowd towards the stage with a chair she is part wearing, part fighting. When she gets to a mic, she screeches and wails like an ill-tempered baby, before letting the audience take over the honours. This is pop music as late-night pub car park argy-bargy, terribly messy but open to all.
Coffin Mulch on Sunday play death metal, and they like playing death metal, and we like hearing them play death metal, because they play death metal really well. Sometimes, you don’t need to do anything new, you just need to do it monstrously loudly. Contrast this with the slightly more stately Meatdripper, a stoner/doom quartet who can hit quite a surprising groove: have you ever had the urge to shimmy your hips whilst the loud overtones trouble your bowels? In true Supernormal fashion, as we enjoy this onslaught a man in a Greggs onesie outside the tent is helping someone dressed as a tea table rearrange pink wafers. Probably they were dislodged running away from furniture scourge Kate Mahony.
We’re expecting Big Farmer, a band featuring members of Supernormal’s build crew, to be a good honest garage racket, but although they have a hardcore heart, there’s a lot of wit and space on display. The nearly spoken vocals lean slightly towards Idles, but they’re less gruff, and the second number’s delivery sounds weirdly like Eddie Argos, if Art Brut took more cues from Fugazi.
Brìghde Chaimbeul plays the Scottish smallpipes, and although all compositions are sourced from Skye, she makes intriguing arrangement decisions. One piece is so slow it is probably counted in beats-per-month, whilst another swirls round and round a couple of motifs like bellows-blown techno. Is that a smoke machine wreathing her head or mists magically transported from a Munro? We don’t know enough to say where the trad tunes end and Chaimbeul’s inventions begin, but we know this is exceptionally beautiful - and being blasé about boundaries is where we came in, right?
If we’re being true to ourselves, Supernormal is our favourite festival. Looking out for others, we strongly advise you all attend next year. Make it happen! Hell, it even only rained for about 20 minutes...
