Mark Lanegan Band & Gaz Coombes To Headline Calling Out stage at Kendal Calling

Having sold out all tickets a huge 5 months in advance, Kendal Calling are announcing even more acts for this year’s huge 10thbirthday lineup.

Headlining the Calling Out stage on the Sunday night this year is none other than grunge legends Mark Lanegan Band. Having been a member of Screaming Trees and Queens Of The Stone Age as well as collaborating with the likes of Isobel Campbell and Greg Dulli and of course his work as a prolific solo artist, his distinct baritone voice places him as one of the most distinctive artists in the world.

Taking to the stage to headline the Friday is ex-Supergrass hero Gaz Coombes. Following the demise of his previous band, his solo career has gone from strength to strength not least represented in his latest album Matador, eleven tracks showing an artist at the top of his game and full of raw, powerful pop.

Kendal Calling are also excited to announced the lineup for Bondax & Friends over on the Glow Tent. Festival favourite Lancashire duo Bondax will be joined by a DJ set from beat manufacturing electronic twosome DJ Maribou State, Sheffield Black Butter signee Kidnap Kid, Grammy nominated multi instrumentalist and producer Jax Jones and young UK producer Grades.

Elsewhere, incredible English psych-rockers Temples will take the main stage for what is sure to be one of the stand out moments of the weekend and The Sunshine Underground return to the festival to headline the Woodlands Stage on the Sunday night. Also joining the lineup are Kim ChurchillPropellersJesca HoopHabitatsFrancisco The ManGramotonesNew Palace TalkiesRhainDRONE X VEEDCollectors ClubSteve LevineChadelicsTime For TCactus KnifeSecret Company,Bruising and Loyle Carner across the festival’s array of stages.

More artists announced for Secret Garden Party 2015

Enigmatic Australians The Cat Empire have a reputation for buoyant live shows and are always a big draw when they visit the UK. Their mash up of Cuban salsa, ska, reggae and pop becomes something joyous and truly original whenever they take to the stage. Angus and Julia Stone are also Australians; a brother/sister duo whose heartfelt and textural folk/blues is beginning to make big waves in Europe. Their recent self-titled album co-produced with the legendary Rick Rubin is the highest-charting by the duo to date, reaching the top 10 in several countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Public Service Broadcasting are more familiar to UK festival goers.  They made quite an impact on their debut, combining a wonderful mix of electronics, guitars with vintage public service information samples. Their brand new follow-up album, The Race for Space, takes as its theme the exciting late ‘60’s American-Soviet exploration contest, mingling evocative archive footage with harmonizing electronic soundscapes.

Merriment and Participation

The Secret Garden Party is all about a magical immersive experience and everything a for 2015’s event nods to this year’s arts & expressions theme ‘Childish Things.’ Content includes:

Giant Parades – Visual Spectaculars – Boating Lake – 24 Hour Woodland Parties – 14 Live Music Stages & 6 DJ Stages –  Goat Racing – Aerial Displays – Toys & Games – Art Installations – Mud Wrestling – Revelries & Merrymaking – Fire Walking – Sanctuary & Hot Tubs – Massage Area – Guerilla Science – Floating Dance Floors – Wild Swimming – Little Gay Brother Bar – Paint Fights –24 Hour Toad Hall Bar – Live Theatre & Comedy – Organic Food Stalls – Intellectual Exchange & Mart Dialogues  – Camp Fire Tales – Dance-Offs – Poetry Slams & Spoken Word – Kids’ Area – Fine Dining

Full lineup announcement:

THE CAT EMPIRE

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – ANGUS AND JULIA STONE

TEMPLES – BEARS DEN – BERNHOFT – PALMA VIOLETS  – IBEYI – SAY LOU LOU DARWIN DEEZ  ROOTS MANUVA – THE ACID – HINDS – CHARLOTTE OC HÆLOS – GENTLEMANS DUB CLUB – 8:58 (ORBITAL’S PAUL HARTNOLL) – ZOLA BLOOD – YAK – EKKAH

  THE MAGIC GANG – LAUREL  – KIKI BUN – LITTLE BARRIE  – FURS – FICKLE FRIENDS  BEATY HEART  PLUTO SHERVINGTON – EAVES – MEANWHILE – KAWEHI – LUSTS  VESSELS – BLACK HONEY – THE MOON  LOLA COLT – BEANS ON TOAST

WILL AND THE PEOPLE – GULF – BEN UFO/JOY ORBISON – RICHY AHMED

They will join as previously announced;  JUNGLE – KATE TEMPEST – CARAVAN PALACE – JACK GARRATT – MARIKA HACKMAN – JAGAARA FLYTE – ELDER ISLAND – MENACE BEACH –and IYES

Liverpool Sound City 2013 Review

Liverpool Sound City is a determinedly different festival. The line-up reads like a roll call of this summer’s biggest acts, and though it runs awkwardly from Thursday to Saturday (it’s an industry conference, much like South by Southwest), there’s enough programmed outside of the working week to make decisions hard.

I’m sidled up by a buzzing espresso machine in Bold Street Coffee, as one half of the Collectors Club give their third performance of the day. On a Friday night in Liverpool, I’m aware this is a pocket of relative calm. “You say you don’t but you want to go out tonight.” Billed as indie-pop, it’s an acoustic set: two guitars, two mics, two men. Or boys, the median age of the room 21 at best.

Lead singer Joe Smithson says he’s pretending to be Justin Timberlake, by way of acknowledging a vague similarity between single ‘Wanna Be You’ and the pop royalty’s ‘What Goes Around… Comes Around’. A sense of humour seems to characterise the Middlesbrough band. “Don’t you want me, want me like I want you?” Understated songs about tears and longing suite the space, and music spills through an open door into the busy street. Outside, it’s as alluring as the smell of just-made coffee (or of garlic mayonnaise from various takeaway spots lining the road).

The café sings along to a pleasing cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’, and afterwards people clap, something I’ve noticed increasingly absent in live settings. We’ll cheer, yes, but people tend not to want to put down their drinks to applaud. The room erupts with good-time classic ‘Under Pressure’ at the end of the set. It’s a smooth transition with the kind of high production values that typify this festival.

Next up on Bold Street is Dan Croll, whose latest release ‘Compliment Your Soul’ aims to do just that. I hear Phoenix, but unlike Paul Simon, Burt Bacharach, and the Dirty Projectors, the French outfit are not among his known influences. The band play a few bars of ‘Wonderwall’ (Oasis, no other), as Croll quips “We’ve all had a bit to drink.”

Buttoned-up and bespectacled, the sometime Liverpudlian sings folkily from the heart – “Oh mother, it’s all thanks to you… I’m gonna miss you.” ‘Home’ gets me too. It’s plucking at heart strings, but Croll offsets any melancholy by instructing guests to take their shoes off at the door, “‘cause it’s impolite not to, you’ll be damaging my floor, ‘cause it’s my home.” This track smacks of Australian singer-songwriter Josh Pyke, but that’s mostly my homesickness talking.

Croll’s is a talent that makes you want to pick up an instrument and learn, goddammit! Fans shout for ‘Marion’ and he obliges. He’s interested to hear what other acts the audience has seen so far, and even gives the café’s breakfast menu his endorsement. It’s a mighty wholesome musician that references porridge mid-set. There’s a smile as he thanks the band – “Nobody introduces me, but that’s okay.”

A few streets over and pushing midnight, French natives Concrete Knives are working the Kazimier Gardens stage. Six-strong, they sound their full number with thick bass, edgy synth and ample reggae throwbacks. A cover of Ini Kamoze’s ‘Here Comes the Hotstepper’ rounds out their cool credentials, as do school yard echoes in tracks like ‘Brand New Start’ and ‘Greyhound Racing’.

Around the block, headliners Everything Everything can be heard long before they are seen. I spot the queue first of course, the warehouse that is Liverpool Academy of Arts already at capacity. Theirs is a complex sound borrowing from many genres, which goes someway to explaining a wide appeal. Dressed in trademark boiler suits, there’s something unignorably Coldplay about the group. It’s likely a comparison they hate, but it’s only praise.

Rapid-fire delivery from fontman Jonathan Higgs is also something of a signature, his voice not classically appealing but captivating all the same. “Yeah, so, um, wait a second!” The urgent pace of breakthrough single ‘Cough Cough’ is in sharp contrast with lilting piano on ‘The Peaks’, but each is entertaining.

My night ends with Temples fronting a packed-out second storey Leaf. It’s enjoyable enough, and a fan in the crowd tells me emphatically that their neo-psychedelic rock is melodramatic. “Melodramatic,” he yells over the reverb, “can you spell it?” Yes, I can, though I suspect he means theatrical. It’s hard to see the bands’ faces for hair.

As with any festival, the interest is as much in journeying between stages, friendships forged waiting for a toilet cubicle or at the bar, and the random exchange of hats, sunglasses and other sundry attire. The beauty of an in-city event might be that you can go somewhere else entirely during those inevitable programme gaps.

Saturday brings bright skies and an excuse for a courtyard barbeque at Heebie Jeebies pub. Aussie act Deep Sea Arcade look and sound rock and roll, right down to bassist Nick Weaver’s finger gloves. ‘Girls’ is an easy favourite, and the all-male act display a knack for taking things to double-time, then back again with ease. The set ends quickly, a teaser for debut album ‘Outlands’ (although ‘If The Devil Won’t Take You’ sounds distinctly better live).

Finnish elctro-folk lady Sansa follows, and I’m amazed by what she can do with her voice (and feet). Lyrics trade primarily in matters of the heart, most overtly in the track ‘Boys’ – it goes “boys, boys, boys, boys, boys.” Her real talent is in recording live guitar and vocal samples, singing with two mics at times, and mixing these on-stage. Her jazzy scatting is equally impressive.

Night brings the frantic garage of local boys Broken English, who look as slick as they sound. The audience knows every word, too. I so often worry for drummers – do they get the recognition they deserve? This drummer looks disarmingly young, but he’s skilled and owns the role. The Kazimier plays host to London-based Mind Enterprises, appearing here as a duo. These guys could play a much later set, their chest-thumping, bassy electronic chords reminiscent of an abstract, more melodic Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs.

Mind Enterprises

Popular indie act French Films are on form in requisite leather and denim jackets, so it’s a shock when singer Johannes Leppänen confesses he feels sick. “I actually threw-up on the way here.” How very rock and roll. Along with the festival’s second Justin Timberlake reference, Thomas J. Speight offers one of Sound City’s most memorable moments when he takes his set off-stage and into the audience for lovesong ‘Joni’. He offers to play a “quiet or a fast one” to close his spot, and two lads at the front shout “Both!” in perfect unison.

Toward the end of Liverpool Sound City Delphic’s set is fittingly showy, three minute singles drawn-out to six and seven minute long tracks. I stay long enough to hear ‘Red Lights’ and ‘This Momentary’, where jack-knifing beats build to the refrain “Let’s do something real.” Mount Kimbie are playing across the street, lauded as one of the festival’s best. It’s the first time I’ve heard them, and their eclectic electronica demands a second sitting (and a third, and fourth – you get the gist).

Transforming familiar urban spaces with those things about festivals we love best, Liverpool Sound City is an emphatic win. Leave your cares at home, and enjoy.

Check out the photos here

Bastille joins Sound City lineup

Last year saw Mercury Music Prize winners Alt-JJake Bugg and Django Django perform before the bands released critically and commercially acclaimed albums later in the year and previous performances have included early shows from Florence and the Machine, The Maccabees and Ed Sheeran.

BastilleThe most exciting prospect in indie for a long time, Bastille, recently entered the UK album chart at number 1 with their debut album, ‘Bad Blood’ and have been confirmed to appear at Sound City.  Bad Blood is full of triumphantly melancholic anthems, epic sounding instrumentation and lyrics that combine intimate stories and conversation and their clever pop has cast Bastille as leading lights in the current resurgence of guitar music in the UK.
 
Sound City is committed to providing a platform for emerging musical talent and new confirmations include the fuzzy guitars and chunky synth riffs of On an On, the psychedelic sounds of Temples, the dance floor friendly beats of local boys Tea Street Band, the effortless marriage of rock and electronica that is Duologue and hotly tipped Liverpool band Loved Ones.  By The Sea, All We Are, Broken Men, Bird, Nadine Carina, Ady Suleiman, Concrete Knives, Sun Glitters, Mutiny On The Bounty, Afternaut and Silent Sleep also join the bill.
 
The line-up for this year’s Sound City is hugely impressive and will feature very special shows from Noah and the WhaleDexys and The Walkmen, all of whom will be performing in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.  Other acts not to be missed at Sound City include Everything EverythingAlunaGeorgeMelody’s Echo ChamberUnknown Mortal OrchestraKing KruleMount Kimbie, Thee Oh Sees, Drenge and Oneohtrix Point Never as the globes most pioneering musical adventurers descend on Liverpool for the first festival of the year.
 
Sound City is a snapshot of everything that is vital in music right now.
 
LINE UP TO DATE
Noah and the Whale / The Walkmen / Dexys / Bastille / Everything Everything / Enter Shikari / Thee Oh Sees / Darwin Deez / Delphic / Mount Kimbie / Reverend and the Makers / AlunaGeorge / Dutch Uncles / King Krule / Oneohtrix Point Never / Future Of The Left / Toy / Wave Machines / Egyptian Hip Hop / Stealing Sheep / Drenge / Savages / Melody’s Echo Chamber / Unknown Mortal Orchestra / Ian Prowse & Amsterdam / Darkstar / Outfit / Swim Deep / Alessi’s Ark / The 1975 / PINS / Wolf People / Theme Park / Jetta / Hawk Eyes / Bipolar Sunshine / Loom / Deep Sea / Arcade / The Family Rain / Blackeye / Skaters / Splashh / Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs / Dan Croll / Soley / Lulu James / Arcane Roots / Still Corners / Luls / Hands / Wild Smiles / Mikill Pane / Bebe Black / Jacob Banks / Murkage / Bo Ningen / Big Deal / Amateur Best / Night Engine / Fossil Collective / Marmozets / Hacktivist / Brolin / Mind Enterprises / Golden Fable / Neck Deep / Likely Lads / On An On / Temples / The Tea Street Band / Duologue / Loved Ones / By The Sea / All We Are / Broken Men / Bird / Nadine Carina / Ady Suleiman / Concrete Knives / Sun Glitters / Mutiny On The Bounty / Afternaut / Silent Sleep