All text by Jude Clarke, except where italicized: by Adam Elmahdi.
Photography by Leah Pritchard (LP) and Ama Chana (AC).

Pretty much any ATP Festival is cause for celebration. How much more so, then, was this, the last one of 2009, what with it being an actual proper birthday celebration shindig, in honour of the ten years of existence of these mighty and wondrous events.  That’s ten years of chalets, twee, noise, doom, drone, and every other kind of alternative and leftfield music you could hope to encounter, or at least a significantly larger proportion of consistently interesting stuff than that on offer by any other UK-based franchise.

Rather than being overseen, as is more usual, by a guest curator, this weekend was essentially a revisiting of some of the finest acts to have played, or indeed curated, previous festivals. There was maybe a danger that this could have lead to a stale, samey or predictable line up but hey:  this is ATP remember, no need to worry on that score. What emerged was, instead, perhaps the finest distillation of “essence of ATP” to date, that magical alchemy that manages to draw together a wide and varied mix of bands, musicians and artists and create something wonderfully special. Continue Reading

Coming in at just under forty minutes, the second album from Ola Podrida, the nom de plume of David Wingo, is nine tracks of golden folk fodder. The Texan singer-songwriter has created a sophomore LP of subtle, ambient songs, full of quietly restrained emotion, giving the listener space with abstract sounds and images that are then personalised by Wingo’s intimate delivery.

The cinematic feel of the album is no coincidence, Wingo best known for creating soundtracks for director David Gordon Green, including the horrendously underrated and beautifully orchestrated All The Real Girls. Wingo continues to write scores for a number of directors, including Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite fame, and has shared stages with Beach House, Fleet Foxes, Explosions in the Sky. That said, the man’s CV should not be more heavily discussed than his current musical output. Continue Reading

When the narrative comes to be written for standout albums of 2009, there’s going to be a whole heap of Scottish bands involved. And they just keep coming: The Phantom Band, My Latest Novel, Meursault, We Were Promised Jetpacks, the live Frightened Rabbit Album, Broken Records… There Will Be Fireworks are the latest to well up from the fertile Scottish plains, and I suspect, come the end of 2009, they’re going to be somewhere near the top of that ragged heap, if not at the very top.

The facts are these: There Will Be Fireworks are four Glaswegians – old school friends – Adam Ketterer (drums, glockenspiel), David Madden (bass), Gilbran Farrah (guitar, violin, piano) and Nicholas McManus (guitars, vocals, organ) and this is their first record, though it has been a fair while in the making. It was recorded pretty much live in a huge 17th century mill in Stratharven and it’s hard to miss the fact that the circumstances of the recording have invaded the record’s very weave – it sounds huge. What the band have done is taken the dynamics of a certain strand of post-rock (think Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky) and squashed them into throbbing, explosively passionate songs, and in doing so have channelled something of a new sound – a propulsive, widescreen sound that seems at once born of the organic live recording situation and something else, something deeper. There are lives packed into these songs, and at times it feels as if the skin is close to ripping. Continue Reading

I think I’m dying. Not in the literal sense, of course, but on the inside. Little by little, each day. I’m turning into a cold husk of a man. It’s an odd state to find oneself. And it’s all down to music. Recently I’ve not been moved by very much music at all. The new Animal Collective has left me as cold as a North Sea facing beach, the last TV On The Radio album didn’t spark with me like their previous efforts and 2008, in my mind, lacked an ESSENTIAL album that defined that year. What, you might be wondering, has this to do with From Monument To Masses? Well, when the album popped through my inbox, it was defined as post-rock. Now I love post-rock and, in these uncertain times, it’s become a banker. My go-to genre. Something to set my mind alight and my foot a-tapping. Continue Reading

It may well be two weeks away but we’re getting excited here at TLOBF. We’re off to this fine ATP event and those lovely people have already announced the stage times! For the first time in two years, no ridiculous clashes! Woo hoo!

FRIDAY

PAVILION STAGE
EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY – 8.45PM – 10PM
SUNSET RUBDOWN – 7.00PM ­ 8.15PM
PAPIER TIGRE – 5.45PM ­ 6.45PM

CENTRE STAGE
FOUR TET – 1.30AM ­ 2.30AM
THE PAPER CHASE – 12AM – 1AM
OLA PODRIDA – 10.30PM – 11.30PM
DINOSAUR JR – 7.15PM ­ 8.30PM
MONO – 6.00PM ­ 6.45PM
CONSTANTINES – 4.45PM ­ 5.30PM

REDS
PALE GALLERY – 12.30AM ­ 1.15AM
PHOSPHORESCENT – 11.15PM – 12PM
THE OCTOPUS PROJECT – 10PM – 10.45PM

SATURDAY

PAVILION
THE NATIONAL – 8.30PM – 10PM
IRON AND WINE – 6.45PM ­ 8.00PM
OKKERVIL RIVER – 5.15PM ­ 6.15PM
A HAWK AND A HACKSAW – 3.45PM ­ 4.45PM
JENS LEKMAN – 2.30PM ­ 3.15PM

CENTRE STAGE
BATTLES ­ 1.45AM – 3AM
STARS OF THE LID – 12.00AM – 1AM
ADEM – 10.30PM ­ 11.30PM
DINOSAUR JR – 8.30PM – 10.00PM
TRAIL OF THE DEAD – 6.45PM ­ 8.00PM
GHOSTFACE KILLAH – 5.15PM – 6.15PM
SAUL WILLIAMS ­ 4.00PM – 4.45PM
WORLDS END GIRLFRIEND – 2.45PM ­ 3.30PM

REDS
LAZARUS – 12.30AM – 1.30AM
WESTERN KEYS – 11.15PM – 12.00AM
ELUVIUM – 10.00PM ­ 10.45PM

SUNDAY

PAVILION
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE – 8.30PM – 10PM
DE LA SOUL – 7.00PM ­ 8.00PM
SILVER JEWS – 5.30PM ­ 6.30PM
BEACH HOUSE – 4.00PM ­ 5.00PM
BAND TBA – 2.30PM ­ 3.30PM

CENTRE STAGE
THE FIELD 1.30AM – 2.30AM
BATTLES – 11.45PM – 1AM
LICHENS – 10.30PM ­ 11.15PM
RAEKWON featuring GHOSTFACE KILLAH – 8.30PM – 10.00PM
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – 7.00PM – 8.00PM
ATLAS SOUND ­ 5.30PM – 6.30PM
POLVO – 4.00PM – 5.00PM

REDS
BAND TBA – 12.30AM – 1.30AM
TONY TEARDROP – 11.15PM – 12.00AM
THE DRIFT – 10.00PM ­ 10.45PM

Austin post-rockers, Explosions in the Sky’s sound is akin to a meteor shower during its histrionic peaks. In equal fashion their white blasts of sound perk up the ages in quixotic fashion, resembling a shimmering and tranquil river, curving underneath all of Explosions’ celestial turmoil. Both sides played a part in the band’s first night of three sold-out nights at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. The band’s always-effervescent guitarist, Munaf Rayani, prefaced the band’s career spanning set by saying he was quite disgruntled about playing three nights in a row but he assured the audience that regardless of his stormy temperament the band would try their hardest. “We’re gonna try to give you our hearts so close your eyes and we’ll take off to the stars.” And of course they did just that.

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You’ll have to excuse us at TLOBF today, we’re not well. A supposed outing (knees up) for Rich’s Hughes and Thane to witness the monsterous wall of sound that is Explosions in the Sky got cancelled. We would have loved to have written some more words about how great it was to finally catch them live for these rescheduled dates. Instead, all we have are these excellent photographs from Jacob Saunders who, fortuntately for us, isn’t old and riddled with disease. Continue Reading