interval [10]

Do Make Say Think/A Tender History In Dust

acquisitions/7

Nina Nastasia/Dogs

Mono & world's end girlfriend/Palmless Prayer

Mono/You Are There

V.A./The Ultimate Folk Collection

V.A./The Imagined Village

Ken Garner/The Peel Sessions

acquisitions/6

Bonnie Prince Billy/Lie Down in the Light [the cover art makes me think of this painting by Gauguin]

Vetiver/Thing of the Past

Stars Of The Lid/And Their Refinement of the Decline

This Will Destroy You/Young Mountain

Back for more [parties] 2/2

[Explosions in the sky - ATP 2008 by una fotografa da marciapiede]

Where to start? We arrived on Friday 16 May in Minehead and nearly missed Mono, Japanese experimental/postrock foursome (really liked their set) due to endless queue for transportation from Taunton. We stayed in the cavernous central stage eagerly awaiting Dinosaur jr., I was very excited as I’d never seen them live but listened their albums so many times in the 90s. They played new songs from the album Beyond (2007) and old ones, I was jumping like a crazy rabbit when I heard the first seconds of Feel the pain. It was almost embarrassing. After the dinosaurs we moved to the pavilion for Explosions in the Sky, who were scheduled to play only once, although they were curating the weekend. Strangely enough their set didn’t impress me, too many slow songs after a good start. I’ve seen them only once before and was expecting something heavier, more heartfelt. I went to see Phosphorescent before going to bed, good concert, sadly the third (and smallest) venue at Butlins has horrible acoustics and noisy slotmachines.

Saturday was quite busy, I was trying to see as much as I could and was happy to switch Okkervil River for Gostface Killah (that was a lot of fun), but I quickly returned to the pavilion for The National, definitely one of the festival’s highlights. Brainy, Fake Empire, Squalor Victoria, great band. On the other hand, I found Iron&Wine very boring, as much as I love Beam’s albums I don’t seem to get him on a stage (the large band didn’t help).

Sunday was slightly more relaxed, we even managed to eat a full lunch and spend some time in the sunshine, but rushed back for some great post-rock courtesy of Polvo. After listening to the first part of Silver Jews, we moved to the central stage for Animal Collective, my favourite set of all the weekend. The stage had been equipped with huge speakers with built-in lighting system, synchronising sound and colours. The effect was hypnotic. The sheer noise was one of the best things I’ve ever listened to. Fireworks was so good live. Broken Social Scene gave all they had, even calling Dinosaur Jr and others onstage. Battles were the perfect closure for the weekend, pumping loud sounds, playing the beautiful Tonto. After, a good night sleep and on Monday creeping post-festival blues during the journey to London. And so it ends.

acquisitions/4

Saturday 19 April all around the world is Record Store Day. I’ll probably be going to Rough Trade East, which will host an interesting programme of in-store gigs. Below the latest acquisitions.

Do Make Say Think/Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead

Do Make Say Think/& Yet & Yet

This Will Destroy You/This Will Destroy You

Dawn McCarthy & Bonny Billy/Wai Notes

Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band/13 Blues For Thirteen Moons

Black Keys/Attack & Release

Fuck Buttons/Street Horrrsing

last week|this week

[A Silver Mt Zion, photo by Mark Slutsky, via pitchforkmedia.com]

In terms of music last week was great, seeing A Silver Mt Zion at Scala was a real treat. Two straight hours of music and the occasional comments of Efrim Menuck on the Olympic torch in London and all. They started off with 1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound, track 13 of their new album (the preceding 12 tracks being a few seconds short sounds) 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons, and hypnotised the audience (mainly) with new songs. Personal highlight was BlindBlindBlind, also from their last album.

The exhibition I saw last week: Cranach the Elder at the Royal Academy (until 8 June). Thank god there were two different ticket queues for Cranach and the Russian collections, otherwise I would have been there for half an hour or more. The exhibition is on the top level, which means that it can get quite crowded as the spaces aren’t very big. Well it was crowded, but, worst of all, it was full of visitors equipped with evil audio-guides. Standing in line and waiting to see a painting I wondered why people can’t appreciate what’s hanging on the walls without pretending to know everything about it. There are large panels (and large print is available too) with information, context etc., do people need more? Most of them end up listening without actually looking. End of rant. The show is good, many paintings and works on paper on loan from important foreign collections and the always interesting portraits of Martin Luther, old school propaganda.

This week I have tickets for two gigs, Phosphorescent at Borderline and Low playing at the Union Chapel. I’m quite excited for both: I saw Phosphorescent opening for Akron/Family at Cargo a few months ago and liked his voice and songs (as my friend M would say, ‘he’s very Will Oldham, right?’) and now that I’ve been listening to Pride for a bit I’ll probably like his set even more; well, and Low in a church, who can beat that? Art-wise: courtesy of my friend P I have tickets for the Chinese design exhibition at the V&A, I’ll come back here to report on that.