Field Day Guide 2010
The Volkswagen Golf of festivals: small, relatively cheap and fits a lot in the boot.
Field Day is like the Volkswagen Golf of festivals. It’s small, relatively cheap and can fit a lot in the boot. A lot of bands. It even has four doors.
Wait, no it doesn’t.
Max Tundra
Max Tundra is a man called Ben Jacobs who is a classically trained pianist and an expert at replicating the precise sound that would be made if Daft Punk were to slowly become insane. If you haven’t yet seen or heard him, you have not yet experienced every existent echelon and pitch on the sound spectrum, all at once. Using a garrison of instruments of various sizes and technological calibre, and the raw power of dance, Tundra will strive to create several musical odysseys in a single set, while singing about finding girls on Google image search, in the background of a picture of a church. He released his latest album in chicken soup format. It was delicious.
These New Puritans
Irrevocably cryptic and huge fans of numeracy and unwarranted punctuation marks. Fortunately, this creates some of the most leftfield, though also some of the most interesting and inspired, modern music, generally incompatible for comparisons with music from any past era. See, in particular, first album Beat Pyramid. Then, be sure to catch them on Saturday.
Atlas Sound
Deerhunter’s Brian Cox’s unfettered labour of love, after two excellent albums, continues to march on strong. Cox’s ‘stream of consciousness’ songwriting process makes for an incredibly conscious, versatile and spirited musical palette. A second corollary is a unique take on songs when performed live, often abstracting the themes through pitch or simply filing them down to the core.
Phoenix
Everyone uses synths. Everyone. Anyone can plug a synth in the wrong way or into the wrong amp and get an ego boost because they’ve created a “new sound”. It’s not new. It’s stupid. Since synths, seemingly on their own, have saturated music to the point of profanity, It’s refreshing to see Phoenix use them simply in the service of some virtuous funk. Expect not to stand still crossing your arms while watching them.
The Fall
One of the very last, irrepressible remnants of original punk, with 28 albums written to date, kept alive largely by Mark E. Smith’s biting acerbity. Blink and you’ll miss them. At least, this version of them.
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