I'll Be Your Mirror Festival 2013

Having pulled the Grizzly Bear portion of this weekend’s festivities, All Tomorrow’s Parties are relying on Yeah Yeah Yeahs to wave the I’ll Be Your Mirror banner but we’re no less excited, for the reasons listed below.

Dirty Beaches man Alex Zhang Hungtai is a tour de force on record and more importantly on stage. The Taiwanese-born Canadian guitarist’s 2011 album Badlands was a stylised, eerie assault of distortion drenched 1950s lo-fi guitar music that had something quintessentially American about it, a perfectly modern twist on a mythologised and much romanticised sound. His latest double record Drifters/Love Is The Devil is slightly more tame and slick by comparison but still has the ability to worm its way into your mind, its subtle grooves grabbing your soul.

Having released her Geoff Barrow-produced self-titled debut album in 2010, British/German singer Anika’s “punk-noir” apparently helped inspire Yeah Yeah Yeahs new album so it seems only fitting she’s been chosen for this bill. Her more recently Stones Throw released EP and lead track ‘I Go To Sleep’ following along the eerie haunting lines of Dirty Beaches but with a distinctly warmer, 1960s haze and those all important off kilter vocals higher in the mix.

Our favourite New York based psych-dance band Prince Rama recently made a mix for us and it’s been soundtracking our weekends ever since, so it only seems fitting they’ll be putting in a live performance. Sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson’s pop is filtered through a euphoric, vintage lens – with Eastern influences bubbling close to the surface it’s a wonderful trip.

Mick Harvey will be performing Serge Gainsbourg songs. Yep, the legendary Nick Cave collaborator will be taking numbers from his mid 90s released Intoxicated Man / Pink Elephants solo efforts.

Last, but not least, the main event. We’d been waiting for a follow up to It’s Blitz! for what seemed liked forever, so when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs announced new album Mosquito we were excited, intrigued and to be honest a little scared by the artwork. This weekend offers the first opportunity London has had to experience the new songs live and we feel exactly the same: excited, intrigued and a little bit scared. Ultimately though, Karen O is one hell of a performer and Nick Zimmer is a legendary guitarist so we know we’re in good hands.

I’ll Be Your Mirror takes place on 4 May at Alexandra Palace in London. Tickets are on sale now. Full set times below.

Main Hall

1:40pm – 2:20pm: K-Holes
2:50pm – 3:30pm: Prince Rama
4:00pm – 5:00pm: The Field
5:30pm – 6:30pm: The Black Lips
7:00pm – 7:45pm: The Locust
8:15pm – 9:15pm: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
9:45pm – 11:00pm: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Panorama Room

1:00pm – 1:45pm: Anika
2:15pm – 3:00pm: Big Freedia
3:30pm – 4:30pm: King Khan And The Shrines
5:00pm – 6:00pm: Dirty Beaches
6:30pm – 8:00pm: Jah Shaka
8:45pm – 9:45pm: Mick Harvey
10:45pm – 11:30pm: J.G. Thirlwell’s Manorexia
11:30pm – 1:00am: DJ Jonathan Toubin

Cinema

12.00pm: Les Amants Du Pont-Nuef
2.15pm: Taking Off
4.00pm: Breadcrumb Trail + Q&A With Lance Bangs & David Pajo
6.00pm: Rock & Roll Bingo With Lord Sinclair
7.00pm: Rumblefish
8.45pm: The Devils
11.00pm: Daisies