Review // Beacons Festival

I've been lucky enough to review Beacons Festival the past two years, this being my third, the angels at Crack and I Like Press allowing me to return for a weekend of raving, losing half of my life in a field, sampling some very nice ales and- of course-a whole load of babes and amazing sets. You can scroll down or click over here to catch it!

Review // Beacons Festival

Über hip gatherings on the capital’s durable green spaces. East Anglican, poetry-heavy weekenders that the Dads go crazy for. Surreal boutique festivals with mind-blowing stage productions. It feels like the UK festival market is more competitive than ever, doesn’t it? Beacons, which is in its third year and is set in the idyllic Yorkshire Dales, looks as if it could snatch the driving seat from many of its larger, more corporate contemporaries due to an amazing line-up and its presence in the conversations of many young music obsessives all year round. 

 Our weekend started on Thursday evening, with us immediately learning that there’s no better ice breaker between fresh-faced Northern folk than with the hilarious concept that is hip-hop karaoke. The contestants ranged from a mother joined by an infant wobbling under the weight of their rainbow-coloured earmuffs, to the local neighbourhood G giving Forgot About Dre his best shot.

Evidence of the demand for hip-hop acts at UK festivals emerged on Friday, with Irish rapper Rejjie Snow gathering an audience while performing tracks from his Rejovich EP alongside prospective album teasers. Action Bronson’s headline set on the Noisey stage drew one of the biggest crowds of the weekend. And as the Queens rapper delivered on-point, animated renditions of witty Blue Chips 2 tracks 'Silverado' and the Tequila-nabbing 'Pepe Lopez' to a rapturous response, the decision to host NYC’s biggest man in one of the smaller Noisey tent led to anxieties about safety, with photographers opting to climb the stage rigging rather than shoot in a spewing pit.
 Switching over to Daniel Avery’s three-hour mission on the Resident Advisor stage, the Drone Logic highlights and stand-out techno stompers such as Ondo Fudd’s 'Coup d’Etat' forbid the audience to stay still. Phantasy head Erol Alkan also swung by to blow-up the stage a day later, with the gnarly essence of Randomer’s 'Huh' calling us into a bottomless pool of uninterrupted bangers, as the acidic tinge of 'A Hold On Love' – transformed with a female vocal not present on his original Illumination EP – closed the tent in dramatic ecstasy. Under his Daphni alias, Dan Snaith also spoiled us with the track of the summer – the extended mix of 'Can’t Do Without You', which we heard played out five times over the course of the weekend.

Serving up performances from Joy Orbison, Wayward and Boiler Room’s Tasker, the Red Bull stage – which was complete with bar, couches and was housed in a converted shipping container – allowed DJs to veer away from structure thanks to its intimacy. Reduced to just one member for their Sunday set, Psychemagik treated the multiplying audience to both slow-burning (yet brilliantly housed-up) versions of Fleetwood Mac’s' Dreams' and 'Everywhere' which were made with the intention to light-up these kind of festival fields. As Hurricane Bertha blew in from the Pennines, Have you ever kissed the sunshine on Ditongo’s 'Walk Between The Rain' was contrasted with rumbles of thunder coming out of the speakers, bringing the air-punches high to the sky.
 As Sunday’s storm progressed, both the Argyll and East Leeds FM stages were cordoned off, and with the punk don of dance Andrew Weatherall’s ‘Love From Outer Space’ project being cut short, morale was dipping by the evening. Ever the professionals when the show must go on, the team rescheduled Cate Le Bon as Neneh Cherry braved the biblical mud with her Rocket Number Nine band. Cherry’s defiant enthusiasm saw her take the to fangirl side-of-stage position at Darkside – who followed and closed the festival in spectacular fashion for 2014.

And what about the culinary highlights? There was a whiskey tasting over lunch with blue-haired waiters, all shoe-less, that turned out to be surprisingly educational – not to mention tasty. Then there was the fabulous Dough Boys and Patty Smith eateries that had tongues wagging all weekend and county street food from the best vendors in the region. Add a When-In-Yorkshire Tea Room complete with homemade cake, reggae in a blanketed corner and the chance to have your tipple in actual china, and you realise that these little luxuries really go a long way. Installing interactive art to support the independents including fresh, digital projections from Manchester’s Mary Naylor also illuminated the after-hours chills straight out of our bones.
 No matter how much we wish we could stop a classified hurricane dampening our parade, Beacons is one hell of a classy hangout. And despite being in its infancy, the line-up alone confirms that this festival has established itself as the staple of many Northern – and Southern – music fans’ summer.

Words by Yours Truly // Images by Tom Joy & Giles Smith X

Review // Future Everything Festival

Afternoon! Late last month I was sent down to Manchester's Future Everything Festival for Crack Magazine. Held in various venues of theatres, basments and galleries, Future Everything marries the look at digital innovations across art, music, sport and a whole range of diverse subjects. I caught Evian Christ's curated evening at The RNCM and Darkside at The Ritz, which you can read over here- or below for the full copy, penned in collaboration with Joe Goggins. You can also read it in print by picking up Issue 40 with Pixies on the cover!
Future Everything @ Various Venues

FutureEverything’s premise is one that favours all things forward-thinking. Taking place across Manchester over the course of seven days, their mission to host shows from contemporary music artists at the forefront of innovation as well as art exhibitions, conceptual events and industry conferences is a vision to behold. Crack’s FutureEverything experience kicks off on Thursday night with an appearance from Darkside. Nicholas Jaar and Dave Harrington’s collaborative project brought an eclectic bout of prog-imprinted, tension building electronica to the back end of 2013. With mirror-led visuals that breeze beams of darkness through to a spectrum of colours, the experience feels somewhat transcendental, moody yet sanguine, as melodies and bodies melt into one another, accentuating the deeper levels that cross over live on tracks such as Golden Arrow and Paper Trails.   

 With the city’s Royal Northern College of Music welcoming in an Evian Christ-curated evening, held in its seated theatre, there was uncertainty as to whether or not the formal space would enhance the atmosphere or, alternatively, swallow it whole. TCF, a blackened-out figure before us, projects swirling bass that immerses with his film-score-worthy-weird manipulations. His brave efforts set off abstractly and just a throw too-far leftfield for many in attendance. London’s Visionist immediately follows, marrying his ghostly take on radical, nocturnal grime. A glacial, dubbed-out half hour ensues, forming the most club-worthy set of the night. It’s admirable to watch how this plethora of future-thinking artists adapt with the theatrical environment, especially with the aid of artist Emmanuel Biard, whose lighting spectacular set to the abrasive elements of Evian Christ’s set provides the most amazing part of the evening. 

To say that Julianna Barwick’s set at the RNCM Theatre is more than the sum of its parts would be an enormous understatement; she spends the 40-minute slot stood behind a keyboard, but in truth she barely uses it. It’s the mess of samplers and pedals at her disposal that form the crux of the performance, as she creates a veritable cornucopia of lush soundscapes using little more than her own voice, generously looped. Every time the mass of loops threatens to bubble over into cacophony, she dials them back down in impressively soothing fashion. Tim Hecker’s headline performance, meanwhile, couldn’t be further removed. 

 He’s just barely discernible amongst the shadows as he takes the stage in a pitch-dark theatre, and you spend the first few minutes wondering when the visuals are going to kick in – only to realise, eventually, that there aren’t any. Hecker delivers his entire set in almost total darkness, and it’s a complementary environment; his dark, foreboding sound, often beautiful on record, is utterly punishing live. We spotted a fair few heading for the exits early during a brutal, reverb-laden opening ten minutes. What they missed was a tantalising reinvention of what live electronic music should represent. Enjoyable seems like the wrong word, but exhilarating? Absolutely. 

 And as in previous years, a major part of FutureEverything’s remit was to explore how we interact with sound, and to experiment with it; it wasn’t simply a case of putting on live events. In keeping with that, one of the major installations at the vast ‘pop-up urban experiment’ City Fictions project was BUQS, which saw ninety Ubiquitous Electronic Lifeforms scattered across the city. The devices – produced, as demonstrated at New City Square, using 3D printers – were constructed of plastic casing and contained sensors and motors that allowed them to pick up basic information about their environment and relay them sonically, encouraging direct interaction with the BUQS with user-unique results. Their resemblance to giant insects was intended to conjure up imagery of ‘infestation’, with the suggestion that the units were able to ‘hack’ the landscape, leaving spectators with the resonant reminder that in urban environments, often the most omnipresent technology is near-invisible. 

We entered FutureEverything with a desire to broaden our horizons, and left with shattered preconceptions and with fresh ideas buzzing around in our minds. Looking at the forecasts of digital culture, proving that music is continuing to explore exciting, uncharted new territory and even handing out 130,000 copies of a fictional newspaper issue from 2018, FutureEverything is both inspiring and, at times, somewhat overbearing. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt, it’s that the future is coming, so we might as well embrace it.

Words By Yours Truly & Joe Goggins X

 Images by Gary Brown and Matt Eachus