For anyone who suffers from FIFOMO (festival-induced-fear-of-missing-out), Standon Calling is ideal. It’s like a pocket-sized version of Latitude, borrowing the Big Top and the mix of modern music with nostalgic pop acts, or Wilderness, borrowing the purple domed stage, the need for hot tubs and gastronimical treats. It has the feel of an epic house party, being set in the grounds of a 16th-century manor house 30 miles north of London.
Camp Bestival, curated by DJ Rob da Bank, has taken place at Lulworth Castle in Dorset since 2008. It’s now an institution of sorts, rammed to the gills with ageing ravers pulling around colourfully decorated trollies and paying over the odds for “reimagined Eritrean street food” and the like. It is, as I’ve written many times before, the Waitrose of festivals but that’s no bad thing. An easy-to-ridicule, surface middle-classness masks a haven where parents and children can enjoy the wild, colourful, surrealist carnival of festival-land together, as well as a plethora of good music.
Nestling amid the area in the woods where they have the gong baths and the kora-makers and back massages was an art installation by Graeme Miller - basically, you lay back on a trolley while an intern/elf pushed you through the woods while you ponder the underside of leaves and the sky. WOMAD does give you a different perspective anyway - a welcome respite from post-Brexit, pre-Trump xenophobia - and as a live celebration of global musical treasures it remains unmatched.
"Jazz,” said Keith Jarrett once, “is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple." For an audience, it produces a never-to-be repeated event: yes, you were there, and you didn’t miss it. One of the pleasures of seeing a group at the peak of contemporary jazz like The Impossible Gentlemen is to witness that joyous, open-minded and defiant spirit. In six years of existence, and now presenting their third album, the trust between the members of the group has visibly deepened. There is also a sense they are evolving, that they can and will go still further.
As the album featuring Simple Minds’ first Top Twenty single, “Promised You a Miracle”, 1982’s New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) was aptly titled. After the success of the next single “Glittering Prize”, it hit number three in the album charts. Five albums in and three years after their first single, Simple Minds were indeed touching gold.
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” sang John Cale in the droning voice of Major Tom. Whether the spirit of David Bowie was indeed hovering over the Albert Hall for this impromptu memorial late-night Prom is not easily answered. The shape-shifting Bowie who stayed ahead of the game was honoured in a set lasting nearly two hours and covering 47 years of music-making from 1969 to 2016. But anyone hoping to catch a spacemobile back to 1973 was not to be humoured.
Detroit techno music is important. Any student of the club music of the modern age knows this. The sound that fermented among the majority black population of the decaying industrial city in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as disco's last remnants fused with the avant-garde experiments of Europeans who were first getting their hands on synthesisers and drum machines, went on to change the world. It seeded the UK's rave explosion, jungle, drum'n'bass and all the electronic experiments that came after.
The indie scene isn’t currently enjoying a peak period but FEWS’ debut album, Means, which came out a couple of months back, makes as close a case for tight, post-punk guitar songs played by skinny guys as anything released this year. Part of this is undoubtedly down to producer Dan Carey, whose work with multiple acts, from Bat For Lashes to Kate Tempest to Bloc Party, shows he knows how to capture the best of an artist. But last night the Sweden-based four-piece had to prove they could hack out a persuasive live set on their own.
This month we’re just going to get straight into it. It’s summer, the sun's out, no time for waffle, just slap a disc on the turntables and wallow in the richness of the sound. Below 42 vinyl releases are reviewed, with no genre boundaries maintained. There should be something there for everyone. Dig in.
Eerie Eerie (Tee Pee)
Since achieving international success in the final years of the 1980s, the late Cesária Évora has dominated much of globe’s perception of music from the Cape Verde (officially Cabo Verde). This fascinating pair of releases reveal other aspects which may not have caused similar world-wide waves. Crucially, they're hugely enjoyable.