POSTCARDS FROM THE CUTTING EDGE

Mogwai dressed as Oasis, Hellraiser screening at breakfast, NME journos skinny dipping at dawn... one day all festivals will be like All Tomorrow's Parties.

Text: Keith Cameron
Photograpy: Roger Sargent/Andy Willsher

Paddling at five in the morning. That's the kind of activity that doesn't occur at just any old festival. Nor does waking up naked in the chalet of an ex-member of Slint with a mere towel to hide one's modesty. But hey, it's not as if we're going around pissing in people's drawers...
    When Mogwai decided to readdress the issue of festivals in the UK, you knew it was going to be completely out-of-sized, tremendous, whaddya say...err, OK, you knew you just had to go. After all, be sensible here, these are the people who when given the chance chose to celebrate Oasis and all who sail in her, quite explicitly going for the mock rock photoshoot that adorns the All Tomorrow's Parties programme sleeve. It's a doozy.
    "I think it's just an act of cheeky dismissal at the current mainstream rock music in this country. And, it's funny as fuck." So says Stuart Braithwaite, wholeheartedly, of his group's decision to get as Oasis as they wannabe. There are those who wonder why the hell ATP – a festival that's taken over a Pontin's holiday centre at Camber Sands for three days – is going ahead with the seal of Gallagherisation, and yet this is what it's all about. Mogwai realise what festivals have become.
    Stuart: "It's an excuse to sell drink. And even though the cover of the programme's pretty humorous, I think that in its way it's taking away any snotty highbrow seriousness that people should attach to a festival like this, because there's a lot of music made by art-rock bores in lab coats. And the fact of the matter is, I think people are gonna have a much better time than they would at any other festival, because it's a celebration of the fact that none of these bands give a fuck about anything apart from playing the music they like."
    You can't really argue with that. And if you do, you've obviously never gone paddling at five in the morning. It's cold. But necessary. Like the shock Mogwai get on discovering that they are expected to soundcheck for two hours at some point on Sunday.
    "That wasn't in the script," says Martin. Dominic is equally aghast: "There's no mud and none of the typical festival drudgery." How right he is. It's such a civilised way to have fun. But hang on. Isn't ATP just the most elitist shebang in the festival calendar? Three thousand people, a beach and some great bands?
    "Well," says Stuart, "the headline bands: ourselves, Super Furry Animals and Sonic Youth, have all been in the charts, and we're all bands that have gone out of our way to enable anyone to hear our music. Y'know, we slag off these festivals but we've went and played them, knowing fine well that the majority of the audience will never have heard us. If we were elitist we wouldn't want to play to anyone apart from our own clique, our own type of people. Basically, with Super Furry Animals there's a band that you can see on CD:UK, and they're gonna play some of the most inventive music that's being made at the moment. And they're going to do it tremendously. I think that's about as unelitist as it can get. The only thing that can be said is elitist is the capacity, but there's more things that are successful on these terms then perhaps there'll be a shift in direction in the culture to the point where people actually realise that manufactured crap and assembly-line bands genuinely don't mean anything to anyone apart from the people that are marketing them, people who don't realise there's a better way."
    It's like having all your friends on call, wherever they might be and whatever the football scores are. No sooner has that headache kicked in than ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have started making a hell of a racket down the way. You can dig it, or get an ice cream. But hell, things won't always be this good. Surely ATP and it's predecessor, Belle & Sebastian's Bowlie Weekender, have proved that the average music punter is far from the cretinous leper of legend – and it will be a matter of time before this event becomes just as co-opted and corporate as every other three-day hedonistic hidey-hole.
    "Well if it does then something else'll come along," says Stuart. "I think that the wave of bands represented over the next three days, their acceptance has been in some ways a backlash against the homogenisation of culture by the bland and the banal in the first place. So if we start sucking, doing shitty things, then someone else'll come along and do something better. As it should be."
     Every waking moment of one's time at ATP, Mogwai have ensured that it's well spent. The movie selection alone ensures one need never leave the chalet without feeling the requisite blasts of fear. A Clockwork Orange, Hellraiser, Apocalypse Now, The Exorcist 3... and that's just for breakfast. Of course, even these devil-may-care misanthropes have their limits, and it turns out that some cinematic treats were vetoes on the grounds of being too sad.
    "Watership Down is the 'Closer' of animated rabbit fimls," says Stuart. The bars are open till 5am. The paddling pool never closes around here. Good luck.

ARMAGEDDON INTO THIS!

All Tomorrow's Parties
Camber Sands Holiday Centre

Friday

There is nothing to see here. Today, there will be nothing so obvious or immediate as performances – only turned backs, squared shoulders, unintelligible syllables muttered into conclave chests. This is a celebration of eccentricity, a refusal of everything easy, commercial and insincere. These bands are bound together by the peculiar singularity of their vision. If you're here, it's not for the glitz or glamour of rock'n'roll. You are here, quite simply, for love.
    Only Ten Benson dare to put style over content and actually encourage audience participation. They're the odd men out in more ways than one – preferring a determined metal sensibility rather than more abstract notions – and they are responsible for the day's best lyrical couplet (not terribly difficult, considering lyrics are a rare and elusive thing) in 'Rock Cottage': "Mmm... high wattage/Mmm... hot suasage".
    The High Llamas, meanwhile, have a party in mind, but it's not the one we're attending. Sean O'Hagan's multi-limbed percussion crew are soundtracking a '60s lounge party, with dizzying electronic diversions and gently ethereal space-age jazz. It's a colourful scene, but somehow less riveting than the rickety beats and doleful drones of Berlin's Tarwater. Ronald Lippok and Bernd Jestram (on bass and keyboards respectively) specialise in yawning synth, phaser zaps, and vaguely sinister keyboard loops, with the occasional laconic vocal – building up increasingly intense repetition that, despite its detached Teutonic demeanour, is underpinned with unaccountable poignancy.
    The Delgados, meanwhile, take the principle of non-flamboyance to extremes – playing, quite literally, from the floor. Vocalists Emma Pollock and Alun Woodward are hunched over acoustic guitars, their disembodies voices interlocking and hovering above the crowd. New material from their 'The Great Eastern' LP is given precedence, and it sounds more evolved and heartfelt than the older songs. Rife with complex time changes, these gothic folk tales indicate that perhaps The Delgados will finally emerge from behind 'Mogwai's label bosses'' smokescreen as cherished artists in their own right.
    For the truly ascetic, of course, there's Labradford, who sit and strum their graceful drone until the chill sets in. Theirs is a state of suspended animation, where each note rings in pristine isolation, virtually becoming three-dimensional as they linger in the atmosphere. A diurnal hum underpins it all, and, like a hummingbird, it's difficult to imagine how they sustain it, or way, after 40 minutes, you remain mesmerised.
    Stereolab, however, have picked up the pace since their days of drone and moan, jamming harder edges and jerky beats into their Theremin scribbles and electronic grooves. The pace is now febrile, with handclaps and hip wiggles injecting new life into their pristine electronica. Still, next to the inspired lunacy of Super Furry Animals, they seem positively mathematical in their unswerving adherence to the laws of logic and predictability. The Furries have a giant reindeer onstage and an encore which involves an appearance by Stuart Mogwai on tambourine, but otherwise they bow to ATP's scripted intransigence by taking the opportunity to air songs from their new 'Mwng' LP and playing an almost entirely Welsh set. Which is kinda punk rock.
    Of course, it's Godspeed You Black Emperor! who come closest to capturing the spirit of ATP by defining a sort of wayward, obstinate, intense punk rock ethos. First, they confuse proceedings by inserting an impromptu performance by splinter group Fly Pan Am, which results in perplexed mutters from the audience, who thought Godspeed had nine members, not three, and made orchestral, cinematic music, not sparse electronica. When Godspeed take the stage an hour late, they devote themselves to their instruments like surgeons working on loved ones – they do not interact with the world around them, but merely provide a harrowing soundtrack to the human heart. They play three new songs, all as delicate and rapturous as those we're familiar with, and by the set's end people are weeping. Proof that a band van repudiate the machinations of an imagine-obsessed media without compromising a whisper of their potency. No glitz needed, nor glamour. Just tough love.
April Long

Saturday

It starts as a low drone in your head, and for most of the people here it signifies the onset of the worst hangover they've ever had. Yes, Day Two in Camber Sands, and things are rather fragile.
    As people start to peel themselves of the floors of their chalets and, in case of at least one NME journalist, try to work out why they're sitting naked in someone else's room, it's clear that it's going to take a seismic quake to get the second leg of this festival running. Especially as today Mogwai have assembled a bill that corresponds all to closely to that buzzing in your brain.
    Not that there isn't an early attempt at kill or cure. First to try their luck are Ligament. With the indie Keith Moon/Gonzo flailing around on drums and lots of songs with the word ligament in the title, they're the perfect start to any festival. It might be true that they've never topped their debut EP (released some four years ago now), but today it doesn't seem like their time has run out just yet.
    Fifteen minutes after they've departed, a tape starts blaring out: "This is a fucking rock'n'roll show." It's the cue for ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead to announce themselves as the stars of the weekend. Put simply, they're awesome. From Texas, they look like These Animal Men, and sound like Sonic Youth. It doesn't matter though because their lust for rock'n'roll star-jumps coupled with a propensity for smashing things means they display the day's best attitude.
    All of which makes it hard for Clinic, despite the fact their propulsive dub garage has now reached its peak of efficiency. 'The Return Of Evil Bill' and 'The Second Line' are both succinct rushes of clipped guitar noise, but after a while it's difficult not to think that Clinic are just The Velvet Underground fronted by a squeaky toy dog. Despite their attempts to lift the fog, the atmosphere remains becalmed – and the music soon follows suit.
    The For Carnation might just have released an incredible album, but it's doubtful whether you need to see its bleak monolithic grooves brought to life. Vocalist, and former member of Slint, Brian McMahan sits static on a stool, while his songs (three cords, fewer instruments) unwind painstakingly. The dark menace of 'Empowered Man's Blues' is the highlight, but often you're left hoping Trail Of Dead will come back for some light relief.
    But if they slow the pace to a level most of the crowd can cope with, then it's Arab Strap – with their uniformly minor-key confessionals – who really capture the pulse of the day. Not a fantastic spectacle, admittedly, they do a B-side off their 'Cherubs' single and a superb 'Direction Of  Strong Man', before the overpoweringly slothful pace forces NME to seek a change of scene.
    That's provided downstairs by Shellac, who are busy proving just how accurate rock can be. Their riffs stop. Their riffs start. They stop and start for 20 minutes, and then everyone applauds their precision. It's like watching Santana. Still, there's lead singer Steve Albini with a joke: "What's orange and looks good on a hippy?... Fire." Alright, 1977.
    You could call what follows 'uncompromising', then again, you might just want to stick with 'bloody awful'. At 10pm, tonight's headliners Sonic Youth amble onstage and start playing what sounds like the run-out groove of 'Bad Moon Rising'. After ten minutes of meandering two-note fluctuations, Kim Gordon starts singing. Badly. Ten minutes later, the rhythm changes slightly and Gordon starts hitting a block of wood. Ten minutes after that, they're still up there noodling away, and you realise ELP-style, Sonic Youth have just kicked off with a 30 minute song.
    Admittedly, they've been heading in this direction for a while (cf, their last LP 'Goodbye 20th Century'), but somehow you always hoped they'd pull back from the brink. Now though, they're in such a respected position they can do what they like. And what that means for the most part is a load of half-baked instrumental dross. It isn't even good experimental music.
    On a day when nerves have been frayed to say the least, they spend well over an hour exhausting the patience of even their most devoted fans. When they return to do an encore (several minutes of tuning up, while Gordon plays a trumpet badly and then 'Sunday', the only song anyone recognises), they're frankly taking the piss.
    What ATP needed today was some relaxed vibes to soothe its temples. What Sonic Youth gave was something close to a living hell.
Keith Cameron

Sunday

On a day when chalet fever sees paranoia levels leaping off the sanity scale and more than one devoted follower of the abstract drone is heard craving some speed garage, news there's been a "small leak" at Dungeness Power Station, six miles away, is not welcome. Godspeed were right, is the word in the bar. Forget post-rock – All Tomorrow's Parties is going to be post-everything.
    The day starts low on radioactive glow: the dozy folk bagginess of Alfie defining 'quite pleasant'; the inability of Warp's own Monkees Plone to make their clockwork melange tick; Two Dollar Guitar's mordant, dead-dog doom-country. It's only with the bleach-blind fury of Bardo Pond that the Geiger counter crackles – at least until Sigur Rós (or "Signor Rós", as the Pontin's rep amusingly has it) deaden the air. Yes, they're ethereal, but it goes on and on.
    It takes the weekend's second Slint ex, David Pajo, to restore the magic with Papa M. A heavy blues, a honeyed take on "Turn Turn Turn", the aural equivalent of a near-death experience tunnel of light; it's lovely, this complex bloom and blush of guitar. Humourless? Dry? Math-rock? No equations. No formula.
    A quick second stage trip reminds you Gorky's Zygotic Mynci should never be taken for granted: particularly when a beautiful new stringed lilt asks, "What use is the sun when you haven't got love?" Wire, however, just ask palely, "What use is the sun?" Included as background reading for the Camber Sands masses, the revered art-rockers provide an altogether different kind of education. Not only looking more alluring than bands half their age, they also sound fantastic – with a rampant '12XU' and 'Lowdown''s cerebral broil.
    The explosion, though, is courtesy of our hosts Mogwai. The weekend has been guided by their influences, their tastes, and as they appear amid a snow of blue lights, it becomes clear they've lured us to this place to take our heads apart. Imagine a set where the magnificence of 'Xmas Steps' or 'Helps Both Ways' is overshadowed, where and intricately reworked 'Stereo D' is no highlight, and you see the intensity they generate. The first new song showcased with a string quartet is merely excellent, a huge lowering swell featuring a Stuart vocal about spaceships and lies; the second is astonishing, a 29 minute reinvention of a traditional Jewish hymn, guitars, bass and strings locked into a spiritual fight-to-the-death. As encore, we get the 'Don't know whether you've realised, but Ken Livingstone is a cunt' speech from loss-to-diplomacy Stuart, and a glorious 'Mogwai Fear Satan' that eats out your heart with a spoon. As a reminder of how much this all can mean, it's perfect – a band who care, who brandish their own terms like a knife. A thing of beauty. A necessity.
    Outside, the sea might be turning green, the smoke heavy in the air. In here, a long way from anything like home, we are in good hands. We will survive.
Victoria Segal