Indietracks Festival, 24th-26th July 2009

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Ten things to take away from the splendid weekend (Sunday rain permitting) that was Indietracks Festival 2009, which is located among the abandoned rolling stock and restored buildings of the Midland Railway Centre in Butterley, Derbyshire:

• The Scandinavian indiepop scene is still in thrall to the Smiths. Copenhagen’s Northern Portrait are reminiscent of their first flowerings, all sophisticated jangle and knowingly lovelorn croon. As for Finland’s Cats On Fire, I reviewed their recent album on these pages and thought it went through the Morrissey motions. However, sticking to, mostly, the soulfully danceable first album they get one of the most fervently joyous reactions of the whole weekend. They even played a cover of White Town’s ‘Your Woman’ with Jyoti Mishra, the man behind the 1997 one hit wonder, was present… He’s a longterm supporter of the scene that led to the festival coming into being.

• Then again, much of the higher end of the UK scene takes Belle & Sebastian as year zero. Pocketbooks, keeping up a 100% appearance record, are all next level bubblegum jangle and lyrical day to day honesty with half an eye on the dancefloor. Butcher Boy, whose singer John Blain Hunt ran Glasgow’s defining National Pop League club night, take Stuart Murdoch’s studied sophistication and adds a dash of post-Arcade Fire headlong march for a result packed with drama and poetry. Meanwhile an actual C86 pin-up, Amelia Fletcher, turns up with her current outfit Tender Trap. She provides the weekend’s big surprise though with an acoustic quasi-reformation of her venerated first band Talulah Gosh in the merchandise tent, which packs out very rapidly.

• Alongside Butcher Boy, Scotpop makes a fine showing, not least with both headliners. Camera Obscura exhibit a poise and confidence that comes of their currently endless touring on both sides of the Atlantic, mixing well with the warm Saturday weather. Rumour has it Tracyann even smiled. Teenage Fanclub can’t do much to ward off the rain that blighted most of Sunday and their Byrdsian period doesn’t do much to warm those of us positioned around the crowd’s fringes, but when they bring out the best of their back catalogue – ‘The Concept’, ‘Star Sign’ and a closure of main set duo of ‘Sparky’s Dream’ and a coruscating ‘Everything Flows’ – it lights up the place. The Fannies’ contemporaries BMX Bandits played a well received and pretty singular set earlier on, while Wake The President‘s Postcard Records jangle filled out the small church stage (an actual reclaimed railwayman’s church, which at full capacity is boilingly hot).

• There was a cosmpolitan look to the bill – bands came in from Argentina and Japan, while the main stage was curated by Spanish label Elefant Records. But, it was two American bands with broadly similar outlooks that took many’s fancy. The Smittens played just about everywhere in 2008 with their day-glo DIY bubblegum pop and fit two secret sets and a side project into their stay this time. One Happy Island ratchet the fun pop up a level with kazoo solos, a singing drummer and an electric ukelele without straying into cloying waters.

• A moving steam train is an excellent place for an acoustic gig, even if the carriage becomes so full that, as in MJ Hibbett‘s case, the performer nearly can’t find room. Hibbett and the Validators’ recent album Regardez, Ecoutez Et Repetez is a tremendously amusing and lyrically astute, even if I didn’t get round to reviewing it for TLOBF…

• There are a number of things you can do when your girl-centric band breaks up. You could become Lauren Laverne. Or you could be Ros Murray, formerly bassist with Electrelane, who despite an admitted lack of any rehearsal led her current project Ray Rumours & The No Eyed Deers to the stage. Their captivatingly personal songs allow themselves to wash over you. You could be Holly Ross, however, who at the turn of the decade sang in much touted all-girl guitar pop band Angelica. Now half of The Lovely Eggs (with her husband), she appears to have gone mad, cracked faux-naive lo-fi with songs about melons, cheese and sharks plus the odd noise freakout like the Beat Happening and Moldy Peaches thrown down a well. They sell handmade felt dolls of themselves too.

• 60s style girl pop remains a viable modern proposition. The School, Cardiff’s ever line-up shifting Motown callback exponents, debut songs from a forthcoming album that shimmer and lay on the misleadingly sweet payoffs. Meanwhile Lucky Soul seem ready for prime time, Ali Howard a captivating frontwoman as she and her band beef up the addictive retro calls, both danceable and tearstained, of their fine 2007 album The Great Unwanted and previewing next year’s follow-up, stylistically still recognisably them but taking the next soulful step forward.

• But then again, departing 60s style girl pop leads in interesting directions. Rose Elinor Dougall used to be Rosay Pipette; going her own way has allowed her to unveil an impressive voice and a range that variously suggests Stereolab, the Sundays, the Cocteau Twins and the darker end of the Smiths to complement her trademark coquettish glances. While not as specifically retrogressive, Au Revoir Simone had something of a past gone by about them when they emerged, but their Friday headline set beefed up the sometimes fragile nature of their current album Still Night, Still Light into an electronic drone. Sometimes augmented with a disco pulse, sometimes given to drifting aimlessly but more often showing a pulsingly insistent side to their melancholic keyboard pop (not synth-pop, that’s different) confections.

• Art Brut are an unmissable live band. Anyone who’s come across them on their own terms knows this, but you do feel Eddie Argos could use his powers over people for ill if he so desired. The key is the band think they’re playing huge arenas while Argos is still addressing the kids who know his musical and pop culture references. We get ‘Modern Art’ in a version rewritten “one afternoon drunk last week” as ‘DC Comics’, incorporating a section where he takes to the crowd to relay what he saw when he visited their offices recently. ‘My Little Brother’ contains part of ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ and a namecheck for Milky Wimpshake. ‘Slap Dash For No Cash’ is fulsomely dedicated to a watching MJ Hibbett. Kings Of Leon are mocked. It ends as it only can, namely with Mikey Breyer falling off the back of the stage attempting a spectacular drum roll before an encore of ‘Formed A Band’. Indietracks doesn’t often get moshpits. Art Brut received a huge pit.

• Above all, whether it’s because of the idea of people sticking together to further this relatively small scene or the highly uncorporate, DIY nature of events, Indietracks has a camerarderie and a relaxed pull that few other music events can manage, far away from the Skins set or the professional festival fashionista. The location, where the line that carries day trippers across the Midland Railway Museum site bisects part of the arena and the on-site cafe doubles as part of the facilities, plays a part in creating a unique landscape. But the overall bonhomie seems to affect performers and workers as much as paying customers. Spirits are barely dented by the downpours and you almost feel that letting a wider audience in on it is like breaking the code, exposing our little friendly secret to the world.

Sorry.

Photograph courtesty of http://www.anotherformofrelief.com/