Artists I liked

Otoboke Beaver, Gurr, Fable, Gabrielle Aplin, Dead Pretties, Aldous Harding x3, Pins, Dronningen, Rose Elinor Dougall, The Avulsions, Tired Lion, Byrde, Pumarosa x2, Life, Dream Wife, The Kills, Public Service Broadcasting, Gold Class

Artists that were okay

J.W.Paris, Yon Aka, Molly, Emme Woods, Fazerdaze, Bite The Buffalo, ILL, Flamingods, Slotface, Kane Strang, Hey Charlie, Olympia, Puma Blue, Our Girl, Abattoir Blues, Hazel English, Emily Barker, Education, Mata, Like A Motorcycle, Locks

Artists I won’t be going out of my way to see again

Skott, Dream Nails, Cherry Glazer

Best Gig

May is Great Escape month. With my poor blogging, I didn’t keep track of the bands I was seeing as well as I should have, so the number of bands I saw this month was much larger than recorded. Few new bands stood out. But there were some excellent highlights this month with a number of my favourites such as The Kills, PSB, Pumarosa and Aldous Harding. I think The Kills was probably my highlight of the month.

Best new band

Gurr

Albums of the Month

• Parasite (EP) – The Coathangers
• The Witch – Pumarosa
• Party – Aldous Harding
• Popular Music – Life

Best photo

Artists I liked

Xenia Pestova, British Sea Power x4, The Blinders, Sorry (previously Fish), Phobophobes, Peluché, Harpo Smith, Nadine Shah, Seán McGowan, Pumarosa, Novella, Average Sex, Thurston Moore, Hand Habits

Artists that were okay

Shawn James, Blue House, Sophie Hutchings, Arthur Lea, Lorenzo Masotto, Rose Elinor Dougall, Vinyl Staircase, Sam Rabin, Ten Tonnes, Karen Elson, Maxïmo Park, Dhrala, Amber Arcades, Sugar Candy Mountain

Artists I won’t be going out of my way to see again

Britain

Best Gig

British Sea Power took me on a mini tour of the UK. As always, they were excellent. Nadine Shah returned with a fantastic new sound. My highlight though, was the excellent Pumarosa at the Oval Space.

Best new band

There was no outstanding new band this month.

Albums of the Month

• Rock N Roll Consciousness – Thurston Moore

Best photo

Okay catchup time. I fell behind early in January and never caught up.

This month’s bands

Bands I liked

The Wharves, Ultimate Painting, Sarcasm, Iceage, OAE Experience Ensemble, Menace Beach, Half Waif, Rose Elinor Dougall, Echobelly, Asylums, Freak, Cabbage, Black Honey, Sacred Paws, Pixx

Bands that were okay

Girl Ray, Shards and Strange Boy, Love Buzz, Alice Barlow, James Canty, Little Cub,

Bands I won’t be going out of my way to see again

Josh Vine, 924s, Throwing Snow, 

Best Gig

January was a really strong month. But the highlight was Black Honey, Cabbage and Freak. Although my view of Cabbage has since changed, at the time, I thought they were the real deal. Black Honey, were excellent as always.

Best new band

At the time, it was Cabbage. But due to the issues later in the year, I’ve no plans to see them again.

Albums of the Month

• Terrorist Synthesiser (EP) – Cabbage
• Young, Dumb and Full of… – Cabbage
• Lemon Memory – Menace Beach
• Stellular – Rose Elinor Dougall

Best photo

Unfortunately, I then messed up. I’d knew Ultimate Paintings were playing at the Lexington. Their album’s has grown on me over the last few weeks so I made an impulsive decision to give My Sad Captains a miss and to try and catch Ultimate Painting’s set. But it was 2240 when the bus reached the Lexington. So I’ve decided to head home early. I should have stayed at the Shacklewell. Especially as I’ve seen Ultimate Paintings a few times this year already.

Marble Ray(s?)

Rose Elinor Dougall

BSP had managed to put together a wide range of talent for the festival:

Friday

Goodnight Lenin, John & Jehn, Bo Ningen*, Race Horses*

Race Horses

Saturday

Sharp Tongues, My Sad Captains, Tom White, Basia Bulat*, Phantom Band, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis* and Modern Ovens

My Sad Captains

Tom White

Basia Bulat

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis

Sunday

Alessi’s Ark, Matt Eaton*, Rose Dougall, Erland & the Carnival*, I Like Trains, Metronomy

Matt Eaton

Rose Dougall

Erland & the Carnival

I Like Trains

and of course British Sea Power headlining the Friday and Sunday nights.

The whole weekend was fantastic, if a little cold. With Tan Hill’s staff doing an fantastic job of keeping the food and drink flowing. BSP’s choice of bands (ably helped by Mark Riley) was absolutely spot on. Although some of the music wasn’t to my taste, none of it was bad. Some, such as Rose Dougall had previously failed to impress me, yet here with a full band, worked. Matt Eaton without his band, preformed a random set in the bar accompanied by Noble that could have been a disaster, but turned out to be a refreshing ‘down to earth’ set. Everything just seem to work.

The standout performances for me was ‘Race Horses’ with their energetic indie pop sound. Tom White’s amazing performance where the stage wasn’t big enough for him, was a performance where even if you didn’t like his music, you couldn’t help but enjoy. Basia Bulat’s amazing voice helped the Americana inspired indie sound lift the audience (she’s Canadian). Probably the biggest surprise was the amazingly talented Kitty, Daisy & Lewis who brought us a big enjoyable slice of rockabilly. All the members of the band are from the same family, including Mam on double bass and Dad on Guitar. With the kids able to move between all the instruments, I wonder what home sounds like in the evenings.

Most of the bands were so good, that since returning, I’ve bought several of their albums (indicated by * in the lists above).

Moving on to the main event. British Sea Power played two sets. The First on Friday night and a second set on Sunday. Despite Sunday’s set being affected by a power cut, both sets were more than up to par. On both nights, the highlights were the fantastic encores. Sunday’s included Yan and Noble crowd surfing and then hanging from the rafters during the energetic 20 minute performance of Lately.

Following BSP’s first set was Rose Dougall. (ex pippettes). A simple quite set, with Rose on keyboard and a single guitarist. To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed by the set. The quiet understated set showed some deficincies (for me) in her voice. Far too often her voice sounded a little too much ‘Kate Nash’. Which I didn’t feel suited some of her songs.

After Rose, BSP rejoined the congregation to play the complete ‘Man from Aran’ set. The ‘Man from Aran’ is the soundtrack to a 1930s B&W fictional ‘documentary’ about life on the island of Aran.

I’m a big fan of the ‘Man from Aran’ album. Although it’s clearly an BSP album. There’s some good music on it that seems to draw inspiration from ‘minimalistic’ classical composers such Arvo Part. Much of the album uses of simple repeating musical patterns that often grow into much exciting climatic themes to accompany the on screen danger.

So that BSP can follow the film, they sat throughout the set facing the screen. An unusual approach and disconcerting at first. But once you realise that you’re meant to be watching the film and listening to the music, and not watching the performance, you soon get used it. Throughout the 70 or so minutes of the film. The music always felt right. Perfectly conveying the onscreen action.

All in all, a very enjoyable performance and one I look forward to seeing again.