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Our festival highlights, including Stereolab, The Belair Lipbombs and Mandy, Indiana. |
| Words: Elvis Thirlwell | Photos: Hazel Blacher (Above: Mandy, Indiana) |
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We all hate clashes at festivals. At the very least, we all love to complain about them. So, to avoid the problem, why not make it so there’s multiple great acts all playing, all the time, everywhere, across a whole city, to the point where it basically feels impossible to go wrong? Some planning and heavy Google Maps usage is needed for sure (and sometimes the YES Pink Room is simply at capacity), but year-on-year, Manchester Psych Fest’s curation hardly fails to impress. The festival’s lovely habit of bringing together legendary artists, international psychedelic wonders and some of the UK’s best up and coming alternative artists – across a crazy number of venues too – continues to provide one of the universe’s great reasons to walk ten miles (optional), head to the bar (optional) and soak your ears in electric noise (encouraged). |
An important admission to accept early in the game here is that there’s a lot you will miss. We didn’t catch The Beta Band, or Model/Actriz, or Working Men’s Club on their comeback trail. But you have to choose your fighters in this life, and we chose to see Stereolab light up the O2 Apollo. And like any of the other choices we could have made, it was a great one. Hobbling out on crutches, lead vocalist Laetitia Sadier took her seat and just…flew. Sprinkling tracks from latest album ‘Holograms on Metal Film’ among 90s classics like ‘Percolator’ – “a song about being scared but doing it anyway” – or an especially stunning rendition of early cut ‘Peng! 33’ – the most psychedelic of psych-fest moments lands during the shifts and surprises of epic as hell ‘Melodie is A Wound’. From trombone sliding prettiness to flash lightning rock thunder, sets like this show why Stereolab, and the festival in general, are so so good. |
“It feels like we are in a big boat…going somewhere”, Laetitia says of the opulent Apollo. But whatever utopias Stereolab were sailing us towards seemed quite different from the malevolent, hypnotic horrors of another of our headliners, locals Mandy, Indiana. A very different kind of immersion, whatever pleasantries were suggested by walking on to 90s disco of ‘Désenchantée ‘by Mylène Farmer (I Shazam-ed it, okay) were corroded away by the onslaught of battering drums, noise guitars and filthy-disgusting bass that followed. Vocalist Valentine Caulfield furiously danced away a sore throat and delivered an incendiary vocal performance. She spent the second half of the set in the crowd goading the at-first static audience to wider and wilder moshpits. Bathed in red light, it’s a sinister music, but a hopeful one too: her moving and necessary speeches against Israeli genocide and SA are angry, but are always focused towards positive change. |
And by the way, no, we didn’t get to see talk-of-the-town Angine De Potrine either. But we did see their sculptures in the Circle Square festival hub while getting our wristbands in the early afternoon, which that’s something. Our first set proper came in the early afternoon at Projekts Skate Park, a pretty damn gnarly venue set up under the Mancunian Way Flyover. And what better place to pop a kickflip and watch The Belair Lip Bombs play their second ever show in a skatepark (the first being in their hometown of Frankston in Australia, we’re told). Mingling the gutsy indie-rock of Courtney Barnett with the planing freedoms of Alvvays, there’s some great choruses in there, not least that of ‘Gimme Gimme’, which rambles on and on in our head while we stroll on up to The Deaf Institute and take in the joys of Water Machine. |
Coming down from Glasgow, lead vocalist/violinist/synth-player Hando Morice battles through a hand bandaged-up from deep fat fryer burns to guide us through songs about walking home drunk and finding a cat you want to take home with you, quitting your job, canal boats blocking the river, and buses not being on time. With a smiling influence of Postcard Records, The Pastels and The Raincoats, it’s wonky and heart-warming art-punk at its finest. And there’s a healthy amount of cowbells too. |
Leeds act Group A.D have a cowbell too (good segue?). And in the caverns of Gorilla, the vibe shifts next to their brooding, thickly-layered instrumental soundscapes, rumbling with mutant disco and soupy funk. Spreading seven members across the stage, all twiddling various toys (two members of W. H lung are in the band too) their sounds offer a dystopian twist on the cinematics of Public Service Broadcasting, mixed in with the sinister bends of A Certain Ratio. |
From seven members to one, back at the Deaf Institute Pollyfromthedirt keeps his audience in silence and captivation. Wearing a football shirt representing his beloved muse/hometown of Darlington (his last clean shirt to hand, he claims), the more we see and hear from this figure in the silvery mask, the more we’re convinced he’s one of the country’s most exciting new voices. From the nasty electronic productions of ‘Darlos Cowboys’, to the yearning acoustic tendernesses of ‘ A weekend in Majorca’ – a “real song for all the mums and dads without the silly noises” – his voice is angelic and his tales so movingly authentic. |
Speaking of fine new voices, we just might have another one in Manchester-via-South Wales newcomer Tesni. A stray Bandcamp-only single caught our ears last year, and we finally get to see her perform a shimmering live set. With a backing band she offers a spidery, arresting, acrobatic kind of folk music that pits modern balladeers like Dove Ellis or Adrianne Lenker against the sprightly guitar chops of Joni Mitchell. And it all wraps up in rapturous applause. Some people can just pick up a guitar and sing and send your world to a whole new type of heaven, and one of those is Tesni. |
A mention must be made for the late-night extravagances at YES too, because they keep bands rocking and rocking until 2am, even while energy levels start to flag. Electronic duo TURNSPIT are twinkling, groovy, dreamy and pristine. Lttl Mort’s experimental dance-punk energy is totally relentless and insane, and Manchester Psych Fest was a day extremely well spent. And, boy, are we spent. |
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