Green Man Festival 2012 : Review

This review (a shortened version of it) appeared in the Daily Post on August 24. The photos I took aren't great. They were taken on a 300 year old camera phone... The much better videos were by the excellent Folly of Youth -- on their site you can also read a much more in depth and, basically, better review of Green Man Festival 2012. So you should probably just go there now.

GREEN Man Festival is in the middle of nowhere. Well, not nowhere, people live there. It is a beautiful place smack at the foot of the Sugar Loaf. A babbling brook here, a old oak tree there.
The latter of those, situated by a glistening pond, proved a wonderful Hot Toddy Rum Ting-influenced sleeping spot while fellow campers orchestrated a 500 person strong synchronised dance routine near the Walled Garden stage.
But beyond taking a long time to get to, the festival’s proximity to anything else is outstripped by the difference in atmosphere from almost any other event.

Mowb-a-hoop.

It was a feeling brought home with a bang when confronted with footage of the shirtless, sunburnt revellers at V Festival. Or the state thousands of sun worshippers left Brighton beach in over the same weekend.
Sure, there were shirtless people. When it wasn’t raining it was baking hot. But more often than not they were pushing a pram. Around 72% of the time they had a ponytail rather than a shaved head.
The mix of good people, beautiful surrounds and activities was one of the event’s finest assets. Testament to that is making it around 200 words through a review without mentioning music. Which was, frankly, incredible.

Brooding.

Celebrating its tenth year in ineffable style, Green Man 2012 let you in gently with the charming Greta Isaac. Who, at 16, was accompanied by a confidence usually reserved for the more battle-weary of singer songwriters.
Just as confident and almost equally as young, Penmachno’s Sen Segur then let us down the road of delightful reeled in psych and prog, making stops at Brian Jonestown Massacre and Gorky’s along the way.
Their last song has a bugle in it, which was great. Also, Mr Huw was playing with them -- he sat down a lot and played a maraca, like a tired Bez/Joel Gion type.

Sen Segur.

Unfortunately for Wrexham’s Mowbird, the worst rain of the weekend was reserved for their 45 minute slot. Fortunately for those who braved the conditions they were treated to a gloriously trashy set of jilted surf punk.

Mowbird.

A lightening fast rendition of labelmates Sex Hands’ Way No Way was enough to give you blisters. A nearby bar which provided shelter from the storm was as busy as any spot on the site all weekend. Ace.

Joanna Gruesome later did something of a similar ilk, but blessed with much kinder weather. The results sent a few more pining looks to the halcyon days of 1992 and was considerably more indebted to the past that Mowbird. Still, they were very young and very (very) fun, it is just difficult to imagine them putting any foot forward when both legs seem so rooted in the 90s.
To close the first night, Cate Le Bon shimmered, flattening the Nico, Velvets and Fall records that formed her and then folding them into the most wonderful noise, the ghost of Syd Barrett smiling with approval at her shoulder. Equal parts hypnotic and haunting, the Penboyr-born songstress provided the best thing – myself, at least – would see that weekend. Probably all year.
It left me frothing at the mouth. Flapping in the mud like a still-live fish that had fallen off a passing truck.

The worst photo taken of a Cate Le Bon gig ever.

Later, during Mr Scruff, dancing in the mud proved a step to far for weary legs.

An early Saturday morning provided the Colwyn Bay-raised Sweet Baboo. A full band including brass section blasted cobwebs away in joyful pop blasts. The vocals were cracked and charming drawing an impressive crowd for such and early set (11.30).

Sweet Baboo.

The multi-instrumental Yann Tiersen later unleashed a psychedelic barrage of synths and strings. Set apart from the Parisian folk of the Amilie soundtrack the audience may have been used to. It was joyfully loud and accomplished. If not brash, it was powerful and kinetic.

[For some reason the site will only allow one Youtube video per post. But you can see Cate Le Bon playing Green Man in impeccable style here]

The second night was closed by Metronomy for an appropriate festival singalong. The Bay and The Look proved more than accepatable for the willing audience. You Could Easily Have me, a pogo causing peice of wonder.
Biggest, or most packed, crowd of the weekend was reserved for Alt-J. But where ths Cambridge foursome fell ever so slightly flat Cardiff’s Iselt destroyed. Unashamedly avant-garde This Fortune and A Bear On His Own battered and brised their way through a mid-afternoon lull. The performance culminated in what was the only acceptable way with one of their number perfectly executing a Klinsmann dive through the mud at the feet of the audience.
Jonathan Richman performed as only he knows how. A crowd pleasing set including Let Her Go Into The Darkness and Old World from one of music’s real and most untranished of gems.
Often funny and unabashedly lovable he is unafraid of the most simple of sentiments. His confidence was infectious and in a way summed up a weekend in the Black Mountains. Great music, good times and hardly an idiot in sight.
I very much want to go back. Now.

Race Horses, Daily Post August 17

Below appeared in the Daily Post on August 17. Race Horses' album, Furniture, is released on September 10. It is Solid Gold Pop. They also play Festival Number Six in Portmeirion in September.

THE RACE Horses of today are different proposition to the one that released Goodbye Falkenburg in early 2010. At face value, their numbers have swelled to five and they have signed a record deal.
Beyond that – and via common opinion – the Aberystwyth band have spent the last two years fine tuning their pop sensibilities. A new album, Furniture, due next month, does little to dispel rumours.
“Goodbye Falkenburg was more a collection of songs, it felt like more of a mash. This is much more direct and there’s a lot more space to it,” explains drummer Gwion Llewelyn.
“Furniture is more rhythmic and based around melodies. Meilyr, his words are quite strong and direct so we wanted to work around that.
“These days bands seem to go with what’s happening on the scene. That’s not what we want to do. It was a group thing and we’ve not worked like that before. We sat together and experimented with a lot of stuff and lot of different sounds.
“We have loads of MiniDisc full of just terrible experiments and sounds that we made in the run up to recording.”

Singer Meilyr Jones adds: “All the new music I was hearing seemed to be hidden behind reverb, behind a veneer of cool. We wanted to make something much more stark and direct.”
According to the drummer, the addition of harpist-turned-guitarist Mali Llewelyn and percussionist Dan Bradley has added an extra dimension to the band on Furniture. The album is pin-sharp, inspired by Roxy Music, Soft Cell and Dexy’s Midnight Runners – also by the disco at the youth hostel they were staying at during recording sessions.
“It was full of Spanish tourists dancing to Michael Jackson,” says guitarist Dylan Hughes. “We were there on the dance floor trying to work out why it sounded so good, analysing Quincy Jones’s production and thinking, how did he get that hi-hat sound, or that groove?”
Llewelyn adds: “It was recorded in a weird way. At some point in the studio we were quite surprised how some stuff came together. It was a really fast process, only about one week in Elephant and Castle in London.
“The result is very energetic – we recorded it almost live so you can feel that, hopefully. With the words like they are the melody has to be strong. That’s important. It’s all about getting people to move get a Michael Jackson groove on it or something. Pop melodies that people can relate to.”
On the subject of lyrics – which cover feelings of frustration and the erosion of relationships – Meilyr Jones sourced inspiration from the likes of DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy.
He says: “It’s about people that spend a lot of time together gradually starting not to see each other... If you put a picture on your wall, over time it dissolves into the background. It’s the same when you’re living with someone; they become an object over time.”
Furniture is out September 10. Race Horses Play Festival Number Six, Portmeirion on September 14..
Here is Marged Wedi Blino for your enjoyment as well.. It's not on the new album But it is great.

Pulco. Daily Post August 3

This appeared in the Daily Post on August 3. It's about Pulco.

SINCE the dissolution of his former band at the turn of the century – darlings of the Peel session Derrero – Ash Cook has plied a trade in intimate home recordings.
Going by the name Pulco, he is known as much for his music as he is for his prolificacy – so much so that many describe Cooke’s music as a document of his day to day life.
“I say throw the window open and get the kids to play in the room at the same time.” he says. “It is the bits in the background that are important, I feel. The sound of life going on behind the music. It’s normal, the sounds of your life.”
What is usually a very personal blend of lo fi folk and psychedelia, recently, has opened its doors to collaboration.
“When I was with Derrero we did a bit of spoken word recording with Patrick Jones who is the brother of Nicky Wire from the Manics. He’s like this dark poet from the Welsh valleys. That’s when I started doing it myself... At the end of last year I had a load of poetry and that’s when I got other people involved.”
The idea gave birth to The Man of Lists. Cooke sent three poems each to nine different artists for them to treat as they saw fit. Results range from drone, slow piano and synth to near-tropical rhythm.
“It’s a collection of people I’ve met in my career and through social media. I sent them the poems that I had recorded on a Dictaphone and said: ‘You can do with them what you like’.
So it is an album of nine people and I’m the tenth – my input is really quite minimal.”
He adds: “The interesting bits were new arrangements where they’d cut my words to fit. There’s stuff there that I maybe didn’t pick up the first time or, through repetition, have given the poem a completely different meaning.”
Social media has also provided him the opportunity to connect with his audience. His case is somewhat individual, but he provides a brighter, almost hyper-local, side to the argument for giving music away for free.
“Not being in a band anymore, I gave up editorial control a long time ago, I just put it out there. That’s my style, or my niche, if you will... If you’ve got weaknesses, like if you’re not particularly good at guitar, use that as your strength. There’s no point in being something your not... When I started in the late nineties, the only real way you found out about music was through sitting in the bath, reading magazines. You didn’t have to take that many risks.
“Now it’s brilliant, it is so easy to send files to people. When I give stuff away for free you see the emails of people who’ve downloaded it. After they’ve taken some stuff, you see the same address will come back and pay for something at a later date.
“The relationship is a lot closer. There are fewer fans but they’re people who are your friends. Before, I never knew who were buying my records now I know all of them. I think that’s very healthy.
“I am lucky, though, that this is not my sole job. Not everyone is in that situation. If I can make a few bob out of it then that’s good.”
For more visit pulcomusic.com