El-P - Cancer For Cure

By Ben Dufton

Former Company Flow man El-P’s third/fourth (my research is inconclusive – do people include El Producto’s jazz album High Water in his general back catalogue?) studio album Cancer For Cure comes five years after its predecessor, the much vaunted I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead.

In the intervening years, a few things have changed – for one, El-P put his label Def Jux “on hiatus”, removing the previous platform for such releases and necessitating the move to Fat Possum Records.  Some things, however, have not changed.

Cancer For Cure shows that El-P’s production chops are very much still intact and his world-view is no less dystopian.  The tracks on show here are just as claustrophobic and pervasive as those on I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead. For example, opener ‘Request Denied’ is near three minutes of 65daysofstatic-esque build up before El-P welcomes you back to his world, spitting his words out quick just in case someone is listening in.

Guest stars Danny Brown and Killer Mike – the latter fresh making his own El-P produced R.A.P. Music album – provide a new sound in the whirling miasma on ‘Oh Hail No’ and ‘Tougher Colder’ respectively, bringing you back to attention, as I occasionally found El-P’s raps getting lost in the noise, another layer in the sinister soundscape.

On ‘The Jig Is Up’ El-P proclaims; “I wouldn’t want to be a part of any club that would have me”.  It is possible that this attitude of isolation is what is making El-P stand creatively still – Cancer For Cure is really very good, it will likely get better over the years as did I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead; but that is kind of my point – I find it all too similar, like I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead Pt II.  No bad thing; and I suppose “Why change a winning formula?” applies, but I guess I expected El-P to change it up a little.

Eh - La Fase Del Sueño Intratable

By Kenny McMurtrie

Barcelona’s BCore finished off 2011 with too few releases to warrant writing them up but having begun 2012 with a more exciting set of albums now seems a good time to collect them together and pass comment.

Starting off then we’ll begin with Suzy & Los Quattro. Sadly the best thing about their Hank album is the band’s jokey name.  Style-wise the quartet occupy sub-Blondie territory (Marina & The Diamonds are likely a fair current UK comparison). Mid-paced songs with no real edge, all rather safe and controlled. Next for your delectation comes Eh! with La Fase Del Sueño Intratable, one of those instrumental albums regularly described as soundtracks for unwritten films. Translating as something close to “intractable sleep phase” this collaboration between 11 members of various other Spanish groups sounds for the most part like Mogwai turning the distortion down and drafting in a string quartet and some brass to come up with the bastard child of Ennio Morricone and John Zorn.  On reflection this is a lot better than remembered from listening to it pre-Xmas.

Changing the pace a tad October saw the release of possibly the best metal album I heard last year (and ok I heard very few) in the shape of Moksha’s Sang de Roure. Ten tracks sung in Catalan (which matters not a jot as it could be anything) they occupy the same musical territory that Max Cavalera generally prowls around – short, sharp and enjoyably brutal. The band’s name is apparently Sanskrit for liberation and there’s certainly enjoyment to be had in letting yourself get carried away to this album. At the other end of the spectrum Barcelona’s Oso released Sealand back in January.  Now a quintet this English-sung album is a decent bet if you’re into the likes of Bon Iver or Sufjan Stevens. Personally I found it a bit of a wimpy drag of a record for the most part but the song ‘Barbazul’ is quite fun and ‘Mountains’ isn’t too bad with it’s Red Indian/martial drumming and slide guitar.

March 2012 saw a veritable flood of releases with three coming out around the middle of the month. Cuzo’s Alquimia Para Principiantes (Alchemy for Beginners), the group’s third album, is a pleasing blend of stoner rock, Krautrock and psychedelia in the vein of Goblin or Can. The title track is a solid six minutes of riff-based freakout but there are plenty of calmer, spacier parts throughout the other seven tunes to allow for moments of reflection. Post-punk gets a look-in next with Betunizer’s Boogalizer. Less hardcore than the trio’s debut album from a couple of years ago, this collection benefits from a looser though no less exuberant sound and the inclusion of a bit of funk in their expanded palate. Fugazi at their most urgent is a good touchstone, particulary on track three ‘Imagina que matas a Jota’ (Imagine killing Jack). Calming things down to the basics of a bloke and an acoustic guitar (give or take the odd tom tom etc.) Joan Colomo, a veteran of 20 or so years in the game, rounded off the month’s releases with the whimsical and summery Producto interior bruto Vol.2. The likes of Beck and Syd Barrett come to mind on the quirkier songs in this batch of 14 whilst in the bigger sound of ‘De luz y de color’ things lean more towards the likes of Edwyn Collins and on the effervescent ‘Ebri’ you can’t help but think of The Cardiacs.

Finally we round things off in April of this year with the debut album from Fanny Roz – Prend Son Souffle Et Saute!! Whilst not maybe a name that will escape jests in the UK, these 11 songs, billed as a trip through her life story to date, float between jazz and chanson in a pleasant enough manner and one can imagine her setting up shop in Edinburgh of an August to battle it out against the likes of Camille and others doing the burlesque/cocktail lounge/Weimar thing. At least her tunes are all her own.

Willis Earl Beal

By Russell Warfield

May 16, 2012

“It’s really fitting that we’re in the Tabernacle tonight, because you’re all now in the Holy Church of Willis Earl Beal.” It’s an audacious opening line to an audacious opening in general – choosing to orate a favourite Bukowski poem (which he claims to read before every performance, for inspiration) before launching himself into a completely unaccompanied rendition of his street-blues stormer ‘Wavering Lines.’ Whilst his debut record Acousmatic Sourcery – recorded in hyper lo-fi conditions while slumming it in Mexico City – saw Beal largely delivering with a disappointing, whispered reservation, tonight’s stage show is a commanding powerhouse of a performance, channelling the spirit of LP highlights like ‘Take Me Away’ (although that particular track is absent from tonight’s set) and Beal’s electrifying, a cappella, hand-clap videos that did the rounds online before the album’s release. First studio misstep aside, Beal does actually have the goods, and delivers them in fine form tonight as conclusive proof.

Since it’s clearly Beal’s centrepiece – and frequently his only instrument – it’s his voice which grabs attention most readily and most confidently. The frequent comparisons to artists like Tom Waits are far from unfounded, and it’s his sheer range of expression which is perhaps most impressive: moving from bottom-of-the-lungs sustain to throat-scorching anguish in the space of a single line. It makes his performance incredibly involving, arresting and even narratively dramatic; many of these songs working in a traditional-blues storytelling mode, unravelling on a stream of consciousness momentum, rarely pausing for chorus. But aside from this voice, he accompanies himself with a backing track (on a hilariously hipster-retro reel-to-reel thing) of chewed up melodies and strained guitar lines – a device which, with the added oomph to the rhythm through the PA, works a lot more strongly than it did on record. One of the true set highlights, however, comes in the form of ‘Evening’s Kiss,’ for which he pulls up a chair and rests his guitar on his knee, slowing the tempo from the recorded version but ramping the emotion and intensity to maximum – a spine tingling piece of beautiful vocal work with delicate guitar support.

It’s a shame then, that Beal’s most engaging modes of delivery – a cappella and guitar accompaniment – are the ones he uses least frequently; instead spending most of the set painting his vocal over the top of those backing tracks. To be sure, this still permits Beal to dazzle and beguile with his swooping, powerful vocal work and effortless confidence, but – especially owing to the wordiness of much of his lyricism, and the repetitive nature of his song structures – it’s hard not to wish that he wouldn’t consider dropping the tape and having the courage to perform more organically, perhaps even through spoken word on occasion. Because as Beal moves through his electrifying encore with an enthusiastic audience accompaniment of hand claps and foot stomps, it’s clear that Beal is at his most dynamic when engaging with the here-and-now, real sounds made by present humans – even if that’s just himself. Not too many artists have a vocal which can captivate so fully with such little embellishment, and so it’d be great to see Beal with a fuller confidence in his own bodily abilities, and not needlessly clouding his delivery with murky lo-fi backdrops.

Scissor Sisters

By Nia Thomas

May 16, 2012

Scissor Sisters returned to the stage at Shepherd’s Bush (or “Shepherd’s Minge” as Ana Matronic lovingly referred to it) last week to preview songs from their new album Magic Hour.

Support act Little Boots kicked off the evening with a set of old singles alongside songs from her next album. Opening with the song that brought her to early attention, ‘Stuck on Repeat,’ and first single ‘New in Town,’ both receive an enthusiastic response from the audience. It’s a shame that the crowd’s enthusiasm is not matched. Little Boots, known for her skills as a songwriter as much as a pop star, doesn’t seem to be completely comfortable with herself onstage which is where so many of her contemporaries excel. She then performs two new songs ‘Headphones’ and ‘Every Night I Say a Prayer,’ the latter sounding like a great Kylie song with handclaps galore. Both showcase a more disco direction. Songs like ‘New in Town’ and ‘Remedy’ remind the crowd that Little Boots knows her way around a great song even if she doesn’t make an original mark on them. She closes with ‘Shake,’ similar, in many respects, to ‘Stuck on Repeat’ in its icy electro flavour, which suits her more than the pure pop she co-writes so well.

Scissor Sisters, on the other hand, have everything from stage patter to old songs perfected and they burst with infectious energy when performing their new songs. The band bound on to the stage with frontman Jake Shears dressed like a sexy bee performing ‘Any Which Way.’ New, Pharrell Williams-produced track ‘Inevitable’ makes its mark and is followed by ‘Take Your Mama,’ a big singalong moment, during which guitarist Del Marquis sounds incredible. After premiering ‘Let’s Have a Kiki’ a week before, it’s exhilarating seeing a song that’s been an obsession for merely a few days performed perfectly with a dance routine, headsets and backing singers/dancers (‘Matronicons’) joining them at centre stage. Azealia Banks collaboration ‘Shady Love,’ which rhymes Obama with Madonna has the same cheekiness that oozes throughout Kiki. Ana Matronic’s solo performance of ‘Skin This Cat’ is unexpected but excellent, with the Matronicons dancing either side. This is followed by Jake performing ‘Mary’ by himself, providing a more downbeat moment in the middle of the party atmosphere. Their encore consists of their latest single, the Calvin Harris-produced ‘Only the Horses’ and debut album-era fan favourite ‘Music is the Victim’ and the set finishes without a dull moment.

Time And Space Machine

By Stef Siepel

The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

‘Heading for the Fair’ by Saint Etienne (Time and Space Machine remix)

I love the start, that rolling bass does wonders, just gets the thing going really. Not sure if he aims for Chinese sounds there, but that is what it makes me think of. At 1:20 Richard Norris (aka the Time and Space Machine) kicks it into higher gear, and I’m almost expecting someone singing “Chiiiinaa daarrrrling” at one point or another. Its got that Eighties synth and space vibe going on that I think is really fun and which I think is good to hear again a bit. Especially with such a build, as Norris does a nice job of changing it up every so often (and more often than not he takes the pace with him). It has the variety, it has that hypnotic balearic thing going on, it’s got pace, and it’s got a certain thing to it that hooks you to the song: in short, it’s quite a lovely listen to this remix of a Saint Etienne tune.

‘Au Seve’ by Julio Bashmore

Julio Bashmore gets the house going with this one. Immediately it throws the vocals at you (and strong vocals they are), and it gives you a good beat. Then, at thirty seconds in, Wow, not sure what happened there. It goes synthy tribal or something, which sounds like its come straight out of a Casiokids tune (with the difference that it would fit there). I’m not sure, it just seems like this would be a fabulous house tune if it weren’t for that quite awkward sound that jumps in and never leaves. I really like the strong vocals and I’m not sure if he tried to stay clear of the fray or not, but sometimes you can do too much to be different I reckon. And despite that new angle, it does come close to repetitiveness I would say. I’ll congratulate him on his new label and with three quarters of a good song though.

‘Perfect World’ by Gossip (Rory Phillips remix)

Rory Phillips takes on Gossip and starts out light and catchy before he throws a nice bass in there to get your hips shaking a bit. After a minute Ditto’s voice comes in (with quite the restraint), and I think Pillips does that very well. And this way it really fits nicely in this kind of disco atmosphere Phillips has build for it. Ditto’s voice isn’t the only thing that is restrained, the whole song isn’t really all out I must say. The main ingredient really is that bassline and the beat, on top of which you’ve got Ditto’s voice and some lighter sounds to give it a bit of seasoning I suppose. The end product is a nice, lower paced song with some nice vocals there to give it some highs, though on the whole I’m not sure I’ll be talking to my friends about the song next time I’m hitting the clubs.

‘I Travel To You’ by Bepu N’Gali (Todd Terje remix)

Todd Terje immediately throws the beat in there to make sure it is danceable from the get go. A nice little guitar comes in, and soon enough the song has got this really funky vibe going on. Those background vocal thingies give the song some flavour as it rides the beat, and just after two minutes it ups the ante with some more African sounds to get a-dancing to. At 3:00 we get some percussion in there for a moment, though I’m more thrilled with the horns that start arriving. Terje really builds it up, as he continuously adds both instruments as well as pace to the song to keep the dancefloor alive. At 4:30 it gets more horns (I LOVE HORNS), and if the dancefloor isn’t rocking at this point I don’t know what would be needed to get it going. I’m surprised that at one point he doesn’t strip it down to build it back up again, one would think you can’t keep building for nine+ minutes. And just after the moment I’m thinking that he luckily puts the percussion to the fore to give the people some well-deserved rest. Now, the only thing he needs to do to make this song an astounding success is build it back up again to amazing heights, but it seems he uses the last three minutes to slowly bring the song to its close. Which is another option, and surely, the song still is a monster jam, though I think the ending minutes make it a bitch to mix.

‘With You’ by Flight Facilities feat. Grovesnor (Extended mix)

I love Flight Facilities. Last year one of their tracks was one of my favorites of the year, and now they’ve come back with another catchy and synthy affair called ‘With You’. First they come in with the beat, but after a minute they establish the synth and the “real” mood of the sound. Then Grovesnor’s slick vocals join in, and they epitomize what Flight Facilities is about: catchy tunes that are delightfully easy on the ear. It must be something you can order in Australia, for those synth-pop guys over there just know how to combine catchiness with listenability. Just a lovely track that I could have on repeat the whole darn sunny day long.

‘Keep Giving Me Love’ by Pitchben (Jamie Lidell’s Lovers remix)

I actually remember seeing Jamie Lidell on the back off that mega hit he had at a festival some — what is it? — seven years ago or so? When I was a vibrant young man and Lidell looked like he was going to be the most popular thing ever. Since then I’ve turned gray and his popularity has taken a nosedive (both, thankfully, slight exaggerations), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t go to festivals anymore, and hopefully it doesn’t mean that Lidell can’t churn out good songs anymore. Don’t expect a club thing with this one though, because it isn’t, but it is quite a nice song indeed in my opinion. Love the vocals, he’s got that, and they are sure put at the front of this one. I like the jazzy vibe it gives (jazzy in the broadest sense of the word…), and it really is a whole different take on the song. Nicely made, easy on the ear, yet a totally different package than for example the Pitchben remix that was placed in this column a few weeks ago. Nice.

St Etienne - Words And Music By St Etienne

By Greg Salter

Saint Etienne understand pop music. They know that all the clichés about pop music are essentially true – that it soundtracks the most important, pivotal moments in your life, that hearing a particular song or melody can immediately take you back in time to those moments so that they never really leave you, and even become a part of who you are. In a way, Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs didn’t need to make an album like Words And Music By Saint Etienne for us to know this – the band began (even before Cracknell joined full-time) by fusing post-acid house dance elements with ‘60s and ‘70s pop and ‘80s synths and have, over 20 years, created albums that sound like patchwork, subversive, unrelentingly melodic histories of popular music.

For all their decades of dedication to the cause, the band have never sounded quite so in love with pop music as they do on Words And Music By Saint Etienne. This is a wistful, heady album dedicated to the way pop music inhabits our lives, or the way our lives in habit pop music – check the map of Croydon on the sleeve doctored with song titles for road names, landmarks and stations, and Cracknell’s assertion in album opener ‘Over The Border’ that she “used Top Of The Pops as my world atlas”. The songs move without a care through genres, from ‘60s chamber pieces to pulsing modern chart pop (care of Richard X and Tim Powell) and the effect is a bit like flicking through a collection of 7s built up over years and playing one after the other or, indeed, scrolling through the cover flow on an iPod.

For much of its run time, Words And Music By Saint Etienne effortlessly toes a line between this genre-hopping, a fair amount of nostalgia and hook after hook after hook. The largely spoken word opener ‘Over The Border’ would be twee if it didn’t cleverly pinpoint the tiny details of growing up obsessed with Top Of The Pops, music magazines and buying tapes from Woolies, an experience possible from the mid ‘70s to the very early ‘00s. Similarly, ‘Heading For The Fair’ and ‘Last Days Of Disco’ ache with memories coloured and perhaps distorted by pop songs, while also managing to be fairly extraordinary pop songs in their own right. Not all the album is rooted in the past however – ‘I’ve Got Your Music’ captures the sensation of putting on a pair of headphones and escaping (“I feel love in digital stereo”) and album standout ‘Tonight’ the anticipation and sheer joy of gig-going. These are moments that could happen at anytime, songs about the continual, ever-present power of pop music, and it’s testament to the band that these songs could easily soundtrack the kind of moments they’re written about for listeners in 2012.

It bears repeating – though Words And Music By Saint Etienne does deal in nostalgia (an obsession for both musicians and music writers, it seems), it puts those feelings into brilliantly constructed pop songs that feel partly indebted to the past and its emotions, but also resolutely now. Saint Etienne don’t need to disguise a lack of hooks with atmosphere or tape hiss like the majority of younger acts – on the album’s second half, ‘Popular’ is a crisp, leftfield pop gem, in the mould of the songs Xenomania used to chuck Girls Aloud’s way a couple of years ago. And then there’s ’25 Years’, which is probably the most melodic rumination on mortality you’ll hear in a while (unless Morrissey is planning on working with Calvin Harris on his next album) – it’s full of euphoria as well as melancholy, just like the best pop songs. And on top of that, it encapsulates the way Saint Etienne are thinking about music on this album – pop songs as memories and milestones, but also possibilities and hopes, whole futures.

The Invisible - Rispah

Now Playing – twice every week, a roundtable of our writers will give their views on some of the recently-released new tracks. It’s as simple as that! If you want to tell us what you think of the song, feel free to leave a comment below.

Track: ‘Protection’ by The Invisible

Average grade: 5.8

Kenny: Five and a bit minutes worth of nothing particularly inspiring. The guitar sound at times made me thing of early U2 as it chunders along with the lyrics circling around ideas of shelter, protection and being taken under someone’s wing (when you can make them out). 4/10

Richard: The system is broken, everything is muffled and distorted, and the atmosphere is desperately morose. The Invisible have created an artistically minded subtle manipulation of the senses with ‘Protection’; a lesson in corrupted percussion, and intricate instrumentation.

‘Protection’ gets very special indeed around the two and a half minute mark, a genius blend of atmospheric goulash as everything whips around  and storms in through the ear canal. 8/10

Tom: The Invisible have good beats.  If you want intelligent, complex, polyrhythmic fun these guys deliver.  ’Protection’ is let down a bit by lyrics and a tune that don’t reach the same heights, rather predictable.  But the rhythms give this track all its atmosphere, and make it worth 5 minutes of your time. 7/10

Stef: I really liked their first album and thought there were some expertly crafted songs on there (I even interviewed them, mind you). This one, though, I find it hard to enjoy it. It all seems so muddled, so on one level that it just seems that everything blends together into a big mush. 4/10

MV + EE - Space Homestead

By Kenny McMurtrie

Oof! Rather like when you miss a downward step and have cause to make an involuntary noise upon reconnecting with terra firma, so un-met expectations can also force an audible reaction. Having very much enjoyed 2009’s Drone Trailer from these guys I was therefore left on the couch making something approaching said noise right from the off with this new release, Space Homestead (MV + EE‘s 32nd album since 2001 apparently).

Whilst the sound in general was what I’d expected, things just seem to lack the general warmth and sensitivity of the earlier releases. Track 1 is merely a short instrumental named after 1960s British horror actress Barbara Steele for some reason and from there on things just drift along in the normal trippy fashion with languid guitar parts, gentle drums and echoing, phased vocals. All nice enough and totally inoffensive but as a result unexciting and hard to sell to anyone not already into the likes of Beechwood Sparks, New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Bongwater or anything in between.

The nine songs in the package fail to push any emotional buttons (a near constant feature of Drone Trailer) although the extended guitar solo of track seven, ‘Too Far To See’, lifts that song head and shoulders above the rest by achieving the feat of managing to sound like some Grateful Dead outtake – clear as a bell descending into distortion as you picture the sun rising over Death Valley. All too short though at only four minutes. I’ve got my fingers crossed that album 33 finds them back much more on form.

We’ve asked some of our writers to preview a few of this year’s festivals that they’re most looking forward to; to offer some idea of what the event is about, and to pick out a few bands and artists that they’re most excited about seeing perform. In this installment, we take a look at the End of the Road affiliated No Direction Home; the newly revamped Field Day and its sibling event The Apple Cart Festival; the inaugural Nova Festival, and Somerset’s Sunrise Celebration.

No Direction Home – by Nick Cowan

Website / Tickets

No Direction Home is a brand new festival from the makers of the much-loved End Of The Road (sadly, nothing to do with Boyz II Men). Expect everything that EOTR is renowned for – great acts, atmosphere and general all-round pleasantness, and all taking place on 8th–10th June in Sherwood Forest. There’s plenty to (friar) tuck into with highlights such as the multifaceted Andrew Bird, the folktastic Dirty Three, Richard Hawley, The Low Anthem and Veronica Falls, but the real draw is the promise of stress free festival-going. Like its sister festival, No Direction Home is that precious thing: a manageable size that makes discovering music an achievable treat, rather than the arduous chore it can seem when drudging round some of the bigger festivals. On top of all that, there’s a bunch of non-music stuff to do, including literature and comedy areas, a cinema and a host of fine foods and ales to sip by the campfire. Roll on summer.

Nova Festival – by Jimmy Blake

Website / Tickets

‘There has never been a worse time to start your own music festival,’ warns the blogosphere – and it’s probably right. But neither the collapse of established festivals nor an impending summer of ‘God save the Queens’ have stopped the intrepid organisers of new festival Nova from doing just that. With the South Downs as a backdrop, Nova promises a diverse range of performance from film and theatre to comedy and poetry all without even a hint of over crowding. Combine all this with hot tubs, an on onsite pub and musical highlights like Jessie Ware, Ghostpoet and tUnE-yArDs and its no surprise that early bird tickets have already sold out. Grab your wellies, because Nova is ready prove everybody wrong.

Field Day – by Sam Cleeve

Website / Tickets

This year’s Field Day should see the festival undergo something of a fresh start. Despite coming under heavy criticism in previous years for herding punters into a space the size of your nan’s backyard (perhaps unfairly – room has been restricted by the £8m Heritage Lottery refurbishment of Victoria Park), this year they’ve been able to expand the site once again. The lineup is as strong as ever – whistling polymath Andrew Bird and Balkan kingpins Beirut head up proceedings, while you can expect your buzz-band quote to be filled by Grimes and Theme Park, and the electronic side of things to be taken care of by the likes of Rustie and SBTRKT. With further enticement in the form of Scandinavian wunderkinds When Saints Go Machine and Brooklyn comic book sage Jeffrey Lewis, there’s little reason to stay away.

The Apple Cart Festival – by Russell Warfield

Website / Tickets

With Field Day having carved itself a robust reputation for providing incredible music in the heart of London one Saturday a year, it’s no wonder that it’s started to bleed into the Sunday as well. Although the park will be the same (albeit with a few empty plastic cups picked up, I’m imagining), The Apple Cart Festival does a great job of distinguishing itself from its sister event, cultivating a far more family-friendly atmosphere, and a much less music-orientated focus. Putting as much focus on the cabaret and the comedy as they do the musicians – featuring names like Sean Locke and Phil Jupitus – Apple Cart shapes up to be a very Sunday-ish Sunday festival indeed. Not that they’re scrimping on the music front, though – legendary acts like Billy Bragg sit on the line up alongside last year’s gut-punch provider Josh T. Pearson. There’s a narrower, more acoustic focus to Apple Cart compared to Field Day, but there’s no less eye for quality. And there’s loads of magicians too.

Sunrise Celebration – by Sebastian O’Dowd

Website / Tickets

Another year passes and festival season is round the corner, which can only mean one thing: making my way down to Bruton in Somerset for Sunrise, known for its green eco-friendly identity. This eco-friendly vision of theirs is inspiring and the return of the Solar Dance Village which runs around the clock just goes to show how well they use this solar power. Kitted out with 6 arenas and 35 venues and stages, one would expect a hefty lineup indeed, and that’s exactly what you get. Mungo’s HIFI will feature Soom T and Mr Williamz, with their reggae riffs accompanied with deep dub, while Laid Blak from Bristol bring a diverse unique sound to the stage – also a must see. The ASBO disco is set up with style and a host of beats and tunes on tap to keep you up all night, and Goodgroove, who is very much one with the funk, also deserves a mention. With a dose of electronica such as The EGG and Gaudi it’s safe to say that if you are in pursuit of happiness and fun you may look no further: Sunrise is the place to be.

Smoke Fairies - Blood Speaks

By Kenny McMurtrie

A solid and weightier release from the girls of Smoke Fairies this time and ‘Three Of Us’ is a fantastic track, with its swooning vocals and simple but effective guitar solos. Whilst the video for that song looks to have been filmed by the sea either in East Anglia or along the south coast, it is the flat, near featureless landscapes passed through by train in a few sequences within it that the album as a whole seems to identify with. A sense of being in between one thing ending and another beginning pervades the work viz the line “There’s a version of the future hanging close above my head, but I can’t get to it” in track number nine, ‘Version Of The Future’.

It’s not often either that you hear falling in love being mentioned as something of a negative (unless maybe you’re reading some Michel Houellebecq) but, in ‘Take Me Down When You Go’, “something dies” when you do so. Not that that’s to say the tone of the work overall is negative. An almost childish curiosity about the world and what wonders one’s journey through it will hold seems to be the overarching theme of the album. The folkier elements of the duo’s sound are still very evident throughout but added to those is a heft of a darker hue, albeit one on a par with that found in a Grimm fairy tale.

This release then represents a significant step forward in the development of the talents behind it and should by rights raise the pair’s standing in the awareness of the wider music buying public in the coming months.