I headed down to Bristol for Simple Things festival this bank holiday, and had a pretty good time. Having been stuck in a house for a few days with two poorly housemates, I was glad to get out and away from Nottingham for a couple of days; however I hadn’t quite escaped their sickliness and managed to contract some sort of virus that made my legs feel like lead whilst being plagued by a horrible nauseous feeling, which didn’t make for very good festival-going, but I did what I could.
First of all, I’m going to start off by saying that Simple Things does not cater to those whose legs ache. The venues were pretty far apart, and I’m not shy of walking a fair distance! However, this couldn’t be helped, so given my condition, we stayed around the Thekla and the O2 Academy for the majority of the day.
After collecting our wristbands, we headed to the Thekla to catch Gaggle. Or so we thought. We waited patiently whilst Talk in Colour disco-ed with a harp and bopped with a cello, but Gaggle were nowhere to be seen. Oh, what’s that? I had got the venue completely wrong, well done me. After mentally kicking myself very hard in the foot, (my achey legs couldn’t manage it) we waddled over to the O2 Academy to catch Still Corners.
Playing in a tiny room where the inbetween-bands DJ felt it appropriate to blast tunes at clubnight decibels, Still Corners were a moody-looking bunch. Championing hazy, soothing vocals against just-audible surf-inspired guitar nuances, it seemed fitting that they were playing against a backdrop montage of psychedelia-esque images. At times, I felt as though I could have put money down on the beginning of a Blonde Redhead cover, whilst an ebbing feel of Broadcast was present throughout, Still Corners were a lovely listen.
Food break – we went to Wagamama’s. Never order the ramen from the kid’s menu; the staff look at you as though you’re an idiot and I would have had the same taste and saved money by licking the kitchen sink.
Tall Ships. Now there’s a band I’ve seen countless times who have not once disappointed. A band billed to appeal to those who like: “Loop pedals, big hits and naughty nights out,” the handsome Falmouth boys managed to fit a good range of stuff into such a tiny play slot, from the frantic mathy cluster-fuck of ‘Beanieandodger’, to the slow-burning, swelling refrain of Chemistry, to the brilliantly looping, crescendo-building, ‘Hit the Floor’. The highlight of the set has to be Vessels, which has the capability of raising the hair on the back of the neck of even the most emotionally-inept. The audience singing, “a vessel, to carry you and me, now sits at the bottom, the bottom of the sea” straight back to the band was a wonderful instance that won’t be forgotten any time soon.
I managed to run next door and grab a peek at Grimes, hotly-tipped for this year. Full of confidence, Grimes played with an energetic demeanor; she seemed genuinely excited to be on-stage and seemed to be having fun looping and playing her music to a packed-out O2 Academy.
Team Me were by far my favourite act of the day, and lived up to every expectation that I had after repeatedly listening to critically acclaimed EP ‘To the Treetops!’ and nothing else since its release. The band opened with the anthematic, choral ‘Weathervanes and Chemicals’, and managed to cram in several tracks from their EP, which was released February this year, including ‘Riding My Bicycle (from Ragnvalsbekken to Swrkedalen)’, ‘Show Me’, ‘Patrick Wolf & Daniel Johns’, ‘Dear Sister’ and my personal favourite, ‘With My Hands Covering Both of my Eyes I am Too Scared to Have a Look at You Now’. One might describe them as a ‘Scandinavian Arcade Fire for a generation in need of urgent optimism’, and good god, do we need it right now. If you haven’t listened to their debut yet, make sure you do over here.
Heading downstairs to catch Death in Vegas, you’d be forgiven for mistaking the acclaimed 90s electronic outfit for muzak. I’m not sure whether it was the venue, or the sound, or just that the 90s was two entire decades ago. There was a minor peak amongst the troughs in that I felt as though I was lost amongst a scene from ‘9 Songs’ during the performance of ‘Hands Around My Throat’. Sadly, the similarity ends there as I didn’t go home and indulge in beautiful, artistic and explicit sex with a fellow music-lover. Ho hum.
Managed to snake my way into Errors for just one song (‘Pump’) despite a packed out venue and a one-in-one-out fiasco, before claustrophobia getting the better of me. It’s great to know that the Glaswegian four-piece are still going strong and I was very disappointed to have missed what I have heard was one of the festival highlights.
Following Errors, I weaved myself between Planningtorock and Man Like Me. Yet again I was left disappointed by Planningtorock, I really feel as though the O2 Academy let down a lot of the acts on the main stage; Janine Rostron’s voice just didn’t seem to carry as well as it should have in such a large venue. Man Like Me luckily played ‘Oh My Gosh’ early on in their set, which is all anyone really knows of them, right? Although a fun, live band, it almost felt as though they were taking their ‘fun’ and repeatedly shoving it in my face whilst I fought against a crowd of sweaty fun-lovers, all having fun together in one tiny room. Except, instead of that being what happened, it was a parody of that. (Grumblegrumble, I was tired and sick, it probably wasn’t a reflection of the band, don’t hurt me Man Like Me fans.)
I acknowledge that this review has turned decidedly negative, please remember that I was a sick person, and all of this standing and enjoying things was getting a bit too much for my legs. I did manage to muster enough strength to get myself over to the Thekla forFactory Floor, however, and I’m glad I did; they turned out to be phenomenal. Playing to a full-room (seeing as Squarepusher was playing at the same time on the other side of town), the three-piece seemed detached; the guitarist played her guitar with a bow, there was a drummer at the front of the stage (screw you, convention!), a pad of things was hit repetitively with a drumstick, and then the guitar, and then back to the pad of things; and the noise. The noise was a wall of pulsing, dark, impenetrable bass-y synth, accompanied by dead-behind-the-eyes vocals and the occasional, subtle change in dynamics that leads you to think the song is going to explode into something even bigger, but it never quite does.
All in all, Simple Things is a great, all-day festival, and seemed to go off without a hitch, given it’s only in its second year. The only disappointment was the lack of the promised ‘secret venues’, but I suppose even if there were secret venues, my legs wouldn’t have taken me there.
What are you doing this bank holiday Sunday? What does one do on a bank holiday, besides the obvious and celebrate a day off for the banks? Well, cancel your day of celebration this Sunday, and make your way down/up/across to Bristol for Simple Things festival.
The line-up is pretty diverse, with genres spanning electronic to psych-folk to post-rock to glitch to scandi-pop (our very favourite kind of pop), there will be something for everyone, and who knows, with the promise of ‘secret’ venues, you might come across and fall in love with something you’d never have even dreamt of watching before.
Date: Sunday 6th May.
Time: 2PM-4AM. That’s right. FOURTEEN HOURS OF MUSIC.
Place: Various venues (‘existing’ and ‘secret spaces’) across Bristol.
Where do I sign up?!: Tickets are £35 with a £3 booking fee. You can buy them here.
Who to see….
Team Me
If you’re a regular 405 reader, or even if you only drop by for a cup of tea every now and then, you will know that we BLOODY LOVE TEAM ME.
Grimes
She needs no introduction; it’s going to be packed, get there early.
Boy Friend
A friend of ours once said that an ‘egyptian wrinkle’ sounded really rude. We can’t even begin to fathom what he was attempting to refer to, but the song ‘Egyptian Wrinkle’ is beautiful, otherworldly and chilled. Nothing seedy here, no siree. Definitely ones to watch whilst drifting in and out of post-dinner bliss.
Stealing Sheep
Self-described as ‘Folktronic indie-pop’, Stealing Sheep have been making waves this year, with excitement building for their up-coming release in the Summer.
Gross Magic
Returning to the early 90s, Gross Magic manages to blend rough, distorted riffs with a rocky-horror pop sensibility, and it’s catchy as hell. We’ll be making sure that Gross Magic is at the top of our list at Simple Things, having missed him at various venues over the last six months, it’s damn time.
This train of thought is something I quite-oft find myself lost in. I know that not many people can imagine how their future will be, only those who are brave enough to ‘commit’ have their lives planned out with the structure of Architecture or Medicine or Babies. A combination of a childhood obsession with the literature of the phenomenon of psychics, heartbreak and a whimsical and fickle attitude to, well, everything has probably encouraged this way of thinking to mature with me.
As the end of my Undergraduate career creeps ever-closer, I find myself wondering what I will end up doing once I have graduated. I’ve got tickets for ATP. That’s December sorted. My Birthday is in August, we’ll probably go to Field Day. I have a rabbit to look after too, he’s a good constant… but money? I could always revert to relentlessly educating the general public on the dangers of paracetamol overdose, I enjoy that I suppose.
It’s times like these (when I should be writing my dissertation) that I find myself looking at various career options; it could be worse, I could be wasting my days away on Facebook, right? It’s a viable strain of procrastination. Right now, I am thinking about this.
Those who know me even vaguely will not be a stranger to the fact that I love cats. Yeah yeah, you probably loved cats before me, I know, but if you happen to have a copy of the relaunch issue of Risk & Consequence (and if you don’t, why don’t you?), just go ahead and COUNT the cat references. My housemate quite rightly pointed out that the entire magazine is a clever concealment of passionate pro-cat propaganda, and what’s worrying is that it was a completely subconscious effort.
Longcroft Cat Hotel is described as “The first boutique hotel group - for cats”. Providing luxurious, comfortable surroundings for your kitty whilst you holiday, the Longcroft Cat Hotel is the creme de la creme of cat luxury.
Room-wise, your favourite kitty is spoilt for choice; from the ‘Poppy Suite’, a room designed for the more feminine of our feline friends, to the ‘Bonsai suite’, complete with tranquil garden scenes, ideal for Zen-master kitties, there’s something for everybody.
Wrought iron beds, a choice of delicious meats on the ‘A La Cat’ menu, served, no less, on bone china, you can enjoy your time away safe in the knowledge that you’re not the only one having a purr-fect time.
SO.
Who wants to open an Ibiza Rocks-type Cat Hotel? There must have been times when you’ve thought, “Shit. If only I could go to *festival name* this year; it’s curated by one of my favourite bands/labels/promoters and the line-up is phenomenal. If only there was an alternative hotel for cats that I could send Biscuit to that weekend! Oh well. Looks like it’s just us again, Biscuit.”
I’m serious. My dissertation deadline is in less than a month and I’m falling further and further into a pit of career-despair. Why stop at cat hotels? Why don’t we promote an ATP-style festival for cats at our complex whilst we’re at it. We’ll get Hipster Kitty to curate it.
This guy can DJ:
You know where to find me. (If you don’t, I’ll be in the University library, rocking back and forth mumbling something about psychics and The Future whilst furiously inhaling catnip).
Do you remember a few years ago, when Foals were all over Skins and the haircut du jour was ‘The Yannis’ and math-pop was the ‘in’ thing to do and the genre spawned an entire generation of mediocre, semi-boring ‘math’ bands that neither enthused nor entertained anybody? Then Gallops and Adebisi Shank came along and blew every other cheap imitation out of the water. Well, now, we have The Cast of Cheers, blowing the remainder of the cobwebs away from a really dusty, forgotten genre-corner. Or something.
We got to The Bodega a little late, (it was my housemate’s 21st birthday and she was getting ready and I felt bad rushing her so I had to grin and bear it), so we (regretfully) missed local heroes, Alright the Captain. The Cast of Cheers promptly took to the stage and played an utterly frantic set; from The-Song-That-Everyone-Knows Family to Kitsune-released Goose, the Dublin four-piece entertained the audience of The Bodega with a host of tracks taken from their debut album Chariot. The highlight of the night was definitely I Am Lion, a repetitive, DFA1979-inspired looping clusterfuck of heavy bass with a syncopated, simple chord progression. There’s a definite nod to Battles in I Am Lion,which on paper, (or page, if you will), should sound like a futile effort, but I find that they reference well; the cyclic bass and guitar build-up progresses quickly alongside tight, hypnotic drumming. Almost post-rock in places, it’s difficult to try and pin down the genre they’re channeling in any one song; they’re almost certainly math-pop, but they recklessly tread the line between so many genres and do so at a hasty speed.
It says something that the crowd seemed decidedly more enthused by The Cast of Cheers than the night’s headliners, Theme Park, which is a great shame, because Theme Park are really bloody good too. They just didn’t manage to inspire as much dancing. If you get a chance, I really recommend that you see The Cast of Cheers on this tour; it’s inspiring to see an emerging band playing intricate riffs so tightly and energetically; there was definitely on-stage jogging at one point. The Cast of Cheers; they play great music, and they have admirable stamina.
Despite being around for years (2009 saw the release of double-a side Storm/Love’s Dart), Django Django have only just made it round to releasing their debut album. It seems that spending the last three years ‘under the radar’ has done them some good, with the band producing a near-perfect pop record.
Django Django (so good they named it twice) has been tipped as being a contender for ‘album of the year’ already, with it gaining mass critical acclaim and a healthy ‘buzz’ on music websites, er, web-wide, it was not surprising to see that the Dalston-via-Edinburgh quartet were playing to a room-full at the Bodega; a sold-out show, no less.
Whilst waiting for Django Django to take to the stage, I overheard many patrons attempting to define their sound. It seems that I’m not the only person who struggles to describe them; “A modern Pink Floyd?” “Really, er 60s? It’s difficult!” were just a couple of frustrated attempts at an explanation that were within earshot. They’re definitely not wrong, but Django Django have an incredibly diverse range of sounds. Hailing influences seem to be The Beta Band (the band’s drummer, David Maclean is the younger brother of The Beta Band’s John Maclean), simple surf-psychadelia (in a similar vein to that of The Beach Boys), and perhaps more distinctively, primary school music lessons (albeit with very talented, musically tight children). There’s definitely a spaghetti western influence as well. It is really bloody difficult to describe them succinctly, fellow gig goers, I feel your pain.
Appearing on stage in matching t-shirts, the band played a host of tracks from their album, which range from the hypnotic (Hail Bop), to the interestingly tribal and Egyptian-influenced (Skies Over Cairo). Default is presented via stuttering/chopped vocals, what sounds like a modem dial-up tone and a distinctly memorable blues-rock guitar riff, whereas the more organic Love’s Dart features clippity-clop coconut and vibra slap percussion. With such variation across each track, it would be difficult to NOT have fun at one of their shows; there’s something very Clor-esque about Django Django, with hints of Hot Chip in places too.
Live, they are fun to watch, swapping instruments and bopping around in time with the music, shaking various percussion instruments at great speed, some which I haven’t seen since Primary school. Their sound is complex, yet definitely not oversaturated; you can hear every nuance. Surprisingly, the whoops and cheers from the audience really complimented the band’s chaotic aural aesthetic, which includes the sound of crickets and an air raid siren, amongst many other familiar yet unplaceable sound bites. Despite the many goings-on, each track sounds well thought-out and intelligently put together, you wouldn’t think that such an array of noises would sound anywhere near cohesive, but Django Django somehow manage to pull it off.
Django Django really do put on a fantastic show, the best I’ve seen in a long time, and even managed to overrun the Bodega’s ‘strict’ curfew of 22:00, much thanks to audience demand for an encore. Returning on stage to close the night, they remarked, “Well, we couldn’t leave it at that, could we?”, before aptly playing album-closer Silver Rays.
If you get a chance to see Django Django, (they’re playing at Nottinghamshire’s very own No Direction Home festival), then make sure you do, if only for the challenge of trying to concisely summarise their sound. If you do a better job than my attempt (and I admit, I’ve done a really poor job), I would love to know.
Django Django played at The Bodega on Friday 24 February 2012.
Local three-piece Alright the Captain set the ambience for the night by playing their set centered around a red light on the floor of the Bodega. Imagine fast-moving, dirty math-infused guitar riffs against distorted bass intertwined with rhythmic drumming, then picture it all shifting to an interlude of thoughtful, atmospheric post-rock build-up. All of this is accompanied by an aptly-timed strobe light, a combination which should throw you completely off your feet with confusion, but manages to instead drag you into the band’s captivating performance.
Taking to the stage next was Tangled Hair, 2/3rds of which are ex-members of Colour. They seemed a little tired, but managed to power through a strong set, including tracks such as Campfires and fan favourite Trains are Broken. Much to the prayers of former Colour fans, they sounded pretty much the same: mathy guitars set against brutal drum riffs with a jaunty, unstable tempo. However this time around they’ve stripped back the layering that usually comes with such a genre, leaving us with the core. They played a good set, but it was perhaps their apparent lack of energy which seemed to leave the audience a little bewildered.
Tera Melos finally took to the stage as the night’s headliners. I admit to not doing any research before seeing them, as I wanted to surprise myself; with the promise of ‘punk jazz’, ‘wild shifts of time’ and an ‘unconventional’ performance, I wanted to hear what the band had to offer live first. It’s difficult to pigeon-hole their sound, at times they reference ‘surf-pop’ whilst at others declare a more lo-fi/garage-y goings on, with the build-up and structure of a lengthy post-rock song, but imagine the genres swapping every 20 seconds or so.
Despite the frustration of such chaos, it certainly takes some talent and concentration to operate a stage full of electronics, samplers and effects pedals whilst finger-tapping the fret like a mad-man. Perhaps seeing Tera Melos in the context of their recordings would have not been such a bad idea after all, seeing as throwing myself in at the deep end put me amidst a confusing wall of looped, math-infused riffs layered into an incomprehensible jumble.
Tera Melos (Latin for ‘a thousand melodies’, aptly enough) did however put their full energy into the performance, leaving barely a seconds rest for applause before racing into the next amalgamation of raptured chaos, and although I found myself a bit dazed by the sheer size of the tracks, I did enjoy trying to keep up with them.
Tera Melos, Tangled Hair and Alright The Captain played at The Bodega on Friday 10 June 2011.
Label: Too Much Information Records Release date: 09/08/10 Website:Performance on Myspace
After releasing debut album, (We Are) Performance in 2007, Mancunian four-piece Performance went away for a few years. Billie Marsden left to pursue other projects. Joe Stretch released some novels. Joe Cross helped produce and write songs for Hurts and The Sound of Arrows. Now it is with a hefty sigh of relief and upon a stomach full of excitement that I receive the announcement that Performance are releasing things again.
Unconsoled seems to be a grasp at breaking the mainstream, stripping their electo pop sound right down to reveal a middle of the road indie piece of average. The track is introduced with Stretch singing over what sounds like a promising chord progression; it sounds like it’s going somewhere and that it will explode into an anthematic, foot stomping tune. However, it soon reveals itself as very samey, with no more than a few chord changes throughout the entirety of three whole minutes, basically, once you’ve heard the introduction, you’ve heard the song. It really doesn’t get any better. Despite this, Stretch still manages to convey a perfect sense of urgency in delivering his intellectual lyrics, punctuated as they are with the band’s trademark morbidly-depressing insights. Removing all trace of synth-pop that was emblematic of previous releases, it certainly seems that Performance are going in a new direction for their second album, and even though Unconsoled seems to be a bit, well, boring, I look forward to hearing what else Performance have in store for their fans.
