From Live at Leeds to Dot to Dot to Brighton's world renowned Great Escape, multi-venue festivals are the blockbuster weekends that so many of us wait for patiently for most of the year. Often overlooked is Norwich Sound & Vision Festival, by far the best of its kind the East of England, and improving with every edition. A host of new artists have been freshly announced for this year's weekend, which takes place in October, so without further ado, here are our top 10 picks from the line-up.
2015 saw Latitude Festival’s tenth anniversary pass in a flash of sunshine and surprise appearances from the likes of Thom Yorke and Ed Sheeran. Twelve months on, the buzz that could be felt last year is notably absent, but the weather is just as delicious and with a three-day plus programme of music and art to dig into, who could complain?
Where have
you been living if you don’t know Let’s Eat Grandma, the two Norwich teenagers with
a passion for all things weird? Launching their debut album I, Gemini in style at Open, it’s plain
to see that these two bright young things are on the cusp of something big.
Ginny Dix is our opening act. Her solo
vocal/piano performance is delivered nervously, but a lathering of audio
effects nudges the set from generic to intriguing. It’s downbeat and beautiful,
for fans of Shura and Daughter. Up next is Birds
of Hell, a wonderfully interesting character (a.k.a. Pete, as he introduces
himself). Visually he could be Jesse Hughes portrayed by Noel Fielding, or
something equally abstract yet dashing. And the music is just as whimsical.
Snake noises, bells on shoes and samples of dead relatives are all twisted
together in a pastiche of temperamental storytelling, made real through a dry
voice and a dryer wit. Different tones and narratives accompany each song, but
a downbeat, spoken-word drawl is present throughout. Leonard Cohen, John Cooper
Clarke, and Kate Tempest are all valid comparisons, but in this reviewer’s
opinion you’d really be best to catch him live and decide for yourself.
Headliner
time can’t come soon enough for Let’s
Eat Grandma’s first hometown performance in far too long. Tonight, Open brims
with fans new and old, all united with anticipation for the show we’re about to
see. As the unmistakeable drum clicks of Deep
Six Textbook pound into the room, 16-year-old Rosa and 17-year-old Jenny
fall into character with heads hung low and faces obscured by thick hair. They
don matching outfits head to toe, the images of space splattered across their
tops adding to the mystical ambience. A row of friends and fans are sat eagerly
just in front of the stage, creating a wonderfully intimate atmosphere.
Eat Shiitake Mushrooms is led
into seamlessly. The intricacy of the track feels muted slightly in a live
setting; the synths and sequencers that bubble and mix organically on record
have a much more 2D feel tonight, but this quality does add to the cosiness of
tonight’s performance. And, with delightfully amusing stage personas coupled
with astonishing musical skill, no one could say it’s not entertaining. Between
the two of them, keyboards are played, recorders make an appearance, there’s a
mandolin, a glockenspiel, guitars and a drum-kit, any of which can crop up at a
moment’s notice. The girls run back and forth around the stage multiple times
per song, sharing instruments and interacting in ways seen rarely in any
popular bands today. There’s a little roughness around the edges in places, but
the ornate control and choreography these two young performers hold is truly
awe-inspiring.
Rapunzel closes act one with a bolder
sound than on the album, courtesy of a little kick-drum action, before Sink leads into the second half of the
show, with a more hip-hop feel compared to the ethereal flurry that we’ve experienced
so far. It gets one of the best reactions as the most ‘pop’ sounding song in
the set, as well as one of the more lyrically driven. The epic monster that is Donnie Darko closes the show in a thirteen-minute
extravaganza of beeps and blips, layered gradually over one another with guitar
murmurs and keyboard buzzes mixing in accordingly. The duo conduct their
signature handclap routine, when they’re not lying perfectly still on the
floor. Or twiddling with pedals and boxes sat cross-legged and seemingly
oblivious to the audience, making for a bizarrely voyeuristic experience, as if
we’re all sat together on a bedroom floor trying to make music together. It’s
beautiful and fun and absolutely unlike anything else you’ll see in the pop
scene today.
The
show ends with a synchronised “thank you” – the pair’s only adlib in the whole
performance – before rapturous hometown applause marks the end of a truly
special evening.
Label: Transgressive Release Date: June 17th, 2016
Two teenagers from humble Norwich releasing a contender for album of the
year seems unlikely. And yet, that’s what Let’s Eat Grandma have done with
their extraordinary debut ‘I, Gemini’. From the haunting introduction in Deep Six Textbook we’re led through an
exotic adventure to a childlike neverland with saxophones, keyboards and all
manner of other obscure noises sound-tracking the journey. Eat Shiitake Mushrooms twinkles and pounds like a swirling mist, Sax in the City hops between ethereal
vocals and gilded brass wobbles, and Chocolate
Sludge Cake whistles like a mountaintop wind before dissolving into a
space-age nursery rhyme. Welcome to the Treehouse
in its two parts is the record’s crowning gem. Lush percussion fits elegantly alongside
piercing vocals and keyboards that whine celestially, before an abrupt and
thunderous close. Structure isn’t a concern of Rosa and Jenny’s. They flit from
verse to verse without a care in the world for build-ups and choruses. It’s innocent,
innovative and above all else completely different from anything you’ve ever
heard. Vocally, Soak and Lorde are close comparisons to the delicate whispers of
‘I, Gemini’ but the truth is, Let’s Eat Grandma have crafted a true masterpiece
which will exist in its own right for a long time to come.
The clocks have changed, the sun
is out, it seems that spring is well and truly upon us. And better yet, as we mosey
through 2016 into sunny April, it’s not just the daffodils that are coming into
bloom. Some of the most exciting new acts on the circuit are bursting into life,
budding with fresh new musical blossoms in preparation for festival season,
which rumbles away promisingly on the horizon. Here are some of my picks of the
best new tracks you should check out this month.
YAK – HARBOUR THE FEELING
YAK are more of an enigma than a
band. Every song they release is unique, the only consistent factor being the vigorous
urgency running through the distorted guitars and gritty vocals. Harbour the Feeling may be one of YAK’s more
structured masterpieces, but genius-in-the-making Oli Burslem and company still
bend the norm through snarling riffs and hypnotically repetitive lyrics. There’s
even an accompanying video with a real yak in it. Sort of. Check it out now for
scenes of prog-rock lunacy and the odd celebrity cameo.
FFO: The White Stripes, TOY, Fat White Family Live: Birmingham (11/05), Sheffield (12/05), Glasgow (13/05), Manchester (14/05), Leeds (15/05), Reading (17/05), Bristol (18/05), Leicester (19/05), Southampton (20/05), Oxford (21/05), London (24/05) Facebook / Twitter
THE BIG MOON – CUPID
It’s apt that this London quartet
previously changed their name from ‘The Moon’ to ‘The Big Moon’, as all of
their happy go lucky singles are delightfully enormous. Cupid is about “a boy dressed as an angel downing cartons of
pineapple juice to make his spunk taste good”, guitarist Juliette Jackson tells
DIY. A bemusing yet innocent anecdote, and one that makes for a fantastic
single, which opens serenely before erupting into a crashing brawl of hormones
and tropical fruit. These gutsy rockers are on the road as well – definitely
worth catching in a town near you.
Norwich isn’t known for a lot of
things, but hopefully soon the ethereal music of Let’s Eat Grandma will change
that. The duo, comprising of best friends Rosa and Jenny, are only in their
teens but already they’ve signed a record deal with Transgressive and appear on
the cover of this month’s Loud and Quiet. In the latter, Stuart Stubbs describes
lead single Deep Six Textbook as, “a down-tempo, slightly psychedelic alt. pop
number full of wide-open space and pinned-on a drum track played somewhere in
the middle distance”. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
If you haven’t heard of Black
Honey, you are missing out big time. Hailing from Brighton, the four-piece are as
cool as they come. Izzy B Phillips fronts the outfit, a fireball of sass and
sex appeal in flares and a beret, with boys in leather manning guitar, bass and
drums. The highly anticipated All My
Pride ups the ante in this group’s narrative, detailing a failed
relationship lyrically but telling a much bigger story in the delicious Britpop-y
instrumentals, which will worm into your brain and have you begging for more. Fortunately,
that’s just what we’re in for, as the four-track Headspin EP follows at the end
of the month.
After wowing the crowds at SXSW
with his stunning acoustic tunes last month, London singer/songwriter Isaac
Gracie has released Songs From My Bedroom,
featuring five such recordings. Leading the release, Terrified is an intimate and raw number, which showcases Gracie’s coarse
vocals and terrific songwriting skill. The rest of the EP follows suit, with an
echoic fascination wrapping around haunting lyrics. He has a short tour plotted
for next month, an absolute must-see if you feel like catching a sure-fire star
in the making.
FFO: James Bay, Lana Del Rey, Jeff Buckley
Live: Live at Leeds (30/04), Birmingham (09/05), London (10/05), Bristol (11/05), Liverpool (13/05), Newcastle (14/05), Glasgow (16/05), Brighton (19/05)
