(((O))) : StrangeForms – A (Not So) Strange History… Part 1

STRANGEFORMS FESTIVAL – DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES SINCE 2014

PART ONE – In the Beginning was the Wharf…
In which our dry-humoured hero drinks a small bottle of an gingery appley brew and tumbles down a rabbit hole of post-rock memories…

STRANGEFORMS FEST will be 10 this spring. More accurately, I suppose, this year’s festival will be the tenth of that name. That, I think, deserves some kind of retrospective thingy. A look back, if you will. I have no idea whether or not anybody else is going to do it but somebody has to, even if that somebody is me. So, yeah, here it is. It’s NOT going to be a comprehensive review of every act which has played since 2014. Frankly, I don’t have time to do that and, anyway, I’m very old and probably remember it all wrong. It’s just going to be a personal view of a thing which has become a permanent fixture in my calendar. Any errors and false memories are mine, and mine alone. Please forgive them.

I’ll give Year One a closer look, and then I’ll just wing it from there. And there will be pictures*.

How did it all come about, I wondered. So I asked the magnificent STEWART RAMSAY, whose baby it is. It started, he says, when he went to the first ArcTanGent  festival and thought ‘I can do that’. His pal¹ said ‘Yeah. You totally should’. And so he did². Was there, I asked, any plan beyond the first year? ‘No. We thought we’d see how it goes and take it from there.’ OK, then.

Wait. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Maybe you don’t know what StrangeForms is. There are bound to be people who don’t and perhaps you are one of them. Somehow. Anyway, just in case you DON’T know, StrangeForms is a yearly³ two day festival, run by gig promoters BAD OWL in Leeds, of post-rock, post-metal, math-rock and associated genres. Stuff that your mates at work have never heard of.

Right. Where were we? Ah, yes. And so he did. Lacking a field near Bristol, Stewart booked the small members-only⁴ WHARF CHAMBERS in Leeds for a weekend in April 2014 and asked a bunch of bands to perform. (How, I would ask many years later, did he choose the bands? ‘Just bands I liked’, he said.) It was all very DIY. People pitched in. Much credit is due to STEPHEN CREEK of local post-metallers ENVOYS and to Stewart’s long-suffering wife, KERRY, without whom etc etc. Obviously there were others, but those three were, and remain, the core.

So, let’s go back to 2014 and have a closer look at StrangeForms 1. I’ve been in Leeds before, for the DAMNATION FEST, so I know how to get there, but I have no clue where Wharf Chambers is. I have a map in which I have little faith, but eventually track the place down. Turns out it’s only a 20-minute walk from my hotel, which is nice. Taxis are expensive and, anyway, it’s a lovely spring day. Inside, it feels a bit rough’n’ready, and the front room, where the bar is, looks like a place where your kids would go to play Warhammer games and talk about wizards. Sturdy wooden tables. Bookshelves full of magazines and board games. More tables out the back in the beer garden/car park/bin store. I don’t remember if there was a pool table. I think there might have been. It’s the kind of place that OUGHT to have a pool table. Or it might have been table football. There’s a variety of proper beers and ciders on offer, all of which will prove to be excellent and some of which will prove to be deadly. There’s something appley with ginger in it that tastes like fruit juice but which will destroy you⁵ in three pints. Catering is provided by a local organisation which collects excess food from shops, prepares it, and offers whatever they have in return for donations. A few pennies will get you a sandwich, or a salad, or a bit of pie. All meat-free. Just chuck some cash into a bucket and take what you need.

The line-up that year – and, to be fair, every year thereafter –  is a mixed bag of familiar and unfamiliar names, bands that have lasted and some that haven’t. We start with several of the latter, sadly. First up, and possibly from farthest away, the gloriously miserable Aberdeen based drone/doom duo SUNWOLF. The gloom of the room suits them, and the noise they make suits me. Then there’s the art/noise of HIMSELF and the mathy QUADRILLES, both now posted missing in action. Glasgow’s turbocharged post/math rockers VASA are next with what will be just the first of their, to date, four StrangeForms appearances. More on that subject later.

Local post-metal quartet ENVOYS, featuring guitarist and hard-working BAD OWL Stephen Creek, get their half-hour, followed by beefy alt/post-rock squad LOST IN THE RIOTS. Looking back at the photographs from that day, I get the impression that it is very warm in the room, as there are a LOT of naked and sweaty torsos to be seen.

Headlining the first day are THE FIERCE AND THE DEAD, instrumental prog rockers who I will not see again for many years, and who will not seem to have changed in the slightest⁶. I haven’t seen them before tonight, though, and I’m impressed. Being headliners, they get a 45-minute set instead of the 30 mins that everybody else is allowed.

Day 1 done, and everything is lovely. Well run, good atmosphere, good beer, good people everywhere. None of the bands were horrible⁷. I get to hang out with Vasa and my pals TIDINGS in the sunny beer garden whilst the trains rattle past on the viaduct. Which is nice⁸. Back tomorrow for more.

 

Day 2 starts with THE PROGRAM, about whom I can, regrettably, remember nothing, other that the fact that they took the trouble to set up a projector and a white sheet for some lava-lampy visuals. I’m sure they were very nice. We continue with the towering post-metal of Edinburgh’s TIDINGS, who give Leeds the best set I’ve ever seen them play and sell every single CD⁹ that they brought with them. It is, however, a bit weird seeing them play so early in the day.

Are there better ways to recover from a post-metal battering than the gorgeous post-folk of TOMORROW WE SAIL? Not many that I can think of, I tell you. They’re local, there are lots of them, and they are simply glorious. Next, we are reminded that jaws can be dropped in so many different ways – the brute power of post-metal, the delicacy of post-folk, and then the barely conceivable math-rock lunacy of ALPHA MALE TEA PARTY and CLEFT. Those two, and yesterday’s VASA, leave me scratching my baldy head in bewilderment, wondering just how it’s possible to play so many notes, in the right order, so rapidly.

The weekend’s nearly over now, and it’s post-rock time with only the socially-aware MONSTERS BUILD MEAN ROBOTS from Brighton (who will fade away and eventually re-emerge, changed, as ALMA, now VLMV) left before headliners CODES IN THE CLOUDS and their melancholic but uplifting instrumental loveliness. Nice way to end the party.

Right then. Year One. Does it go well? Obviously, well enough to encourage Stewart to come back and do it all again, and again, etc. in spite of the occasional-but-rare urge to run away screaming. But I meant for me, as a punter: am I satisfied?

Hell, yes. This is EXACTLY what I want. It’s the kind of music I want to hear, played by nice people in a nice venue. The bands are all mostly excellent. It’s indoors and I don’t need to try to sleep in a tent. My personal best bits? Tidings’ monumental post-metal and Tomorrow We Sail’s heartfelt post-folk. And that gingery death-cider.

It is, perhaps, fortunate that Tomorrow We Sail are so good, because they’re back for SF2 in 2015, along with fellow returnees Envoys.

Talking of returnees, I’ll jump in here with a few words on the ‘repeat offenders’, those bands who will be back several times over the years. (Later, I’ll compile a list of all of the bands who appear so you can see, if you want, who gets to be one of the ‘House Bands’.) It may be that there’s simply a limited pool of bands within the genres represented here, but it does seem that a few names crop up more often than others. Clearly, bands come and bands go, and many don’t survive beyond a few gigs or a record or two, whilst others stay the course, for whatever reason. That’s a natural process which occurs in any ‘scene’. It’s not always a matter of talent or quality, but more often luck, fate, circumstances, whatever – look at TIDINGS for example, a most excellent band with enormous potential for whom things just didn’t work out. They coulda been huge¹⁰.

So, how do you get to be a regular? By not breaking up? By being really good? Really popular? A bit of all three, and more, probably. Or maybe Stewart just likes you. Current leaders, by the way, are POLY-MATH and VASA, on five appearances each, followed by FALL OF MESSIAH and ALPHA MALE TEA PARTY on four.

Anyway, SF2 pretty much sticks with the winning formula from last year. Some post-stuff, some mathy stuff, some sideways glances and a few surprises. And many violins. Things that stick in the memory include:

1. One of my favourite ever bands – HER NAME IS CALLA – ending their spellbinding set with Tom, Sophie and Adam stepping off stage into the crowd for mesmerising acoustic versions of ‘Burial’ and ‘Aposiopesis’
2. The absolute math-rock lunacy of FALLS, also getting in amongst the crowd. With a step ladder. Probably contravening many Health and Safety regulations.
3. The joyfully summery post-rock of WAKING AIDA.
4. The hypnotic post-techno of Worriedaboutsatan fitting in perfectly where one might expect otherwise. But the StrangeForms audience is a very accepting crowd.

One slightly annoying element of the weekend is some chap with a camera who will insist on jumping up on stage and getting WAY too close, WAY too often with his flash. I think Stewart has a word, and he doesn’t do it so much on Day 2. But still…

On to 2016, and SF3 is notable for a few things. There are returns for a number of favourites, and one future favourite makes a first appearance (shouty French post-rock outfit FALL OF MESSIAH). We get the first real ‘metal’ act of the festival with WE NEVER LEARNED TO LIVE. At the total opposite end of the spectrum, we have the cello-led neo-classical post-rock loveliness of STEMS. There’s a man in a werewolf mask, with THE VITASOUND PROJECTS performing a post-metal sound-track to the AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON movie. But it’s not all fun and games. During the weekend there is a collection box fundraising for E&D man and good friend of StrangeForms, STEPHEN LEE CLARKE and Cleft’s irrepressible DAN BEESLEY, both battling cancer. Stephen will go on to beat his tumour and to start a new life in South America, but things won’t work out for Dan. StrangeForms isn’t finished with him yet, though.

Because he’s back in 2017 with GUG, perhaps even dafter than ever, for his final SF appearance before the cancer takes him. Despite his illness, he is as ridiculously cheerful as ever. He will be missed, a joyful presence lost.

As for the rest of the line-up, it’s the usual feast of excellent math, post and noise that we have come to love and expect; a mix of new faces and returning favourites – from the mad noise of IRK to the electro-math of GALLOPS, the solo guitar/drum antics of STEVE STRONG, and regulars like Vasa and Poly-Math.

It’s a fitting end to this era, as 2017 is also to be the last StrangeForms at its original home. It’s starting to outgrow Wharf Chambers, and in order to accommodate bigger crowds and to attract bigger bands, Stewart decides to move the whole show up the hill to the legendary BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB. It’s the right thing to do, but I’ll miss the old place.

So, our time at Wharf Chambers is over and a new era of StrangeForms is to begin. Sadly, I’ll have to skip over 2018 because, for reasons I genuinely can’t remember, I’m going to miss the first Brudenell fest. Which really annoys me now, as I’ll never be able to say I was there every year, and there are a few bands I will regret having missed – ROLO TOMASSI, TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE DISASTER, TALONS, etc. but there’s nowt I can do about it now.

I’m going to stop here for now, as it seems like a convenient place to take a break, but I’ll be back with Part 2 later, in which some things stay the same and some new things happen…

 

 

*A NOTE ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHS: I’m NOT a professional photographer. All of the pics submitted with this piece are mine, and edited by me. Some of them are good, some of them maybe less so, and some are just odd. Some of you may not like them, but I do. They’re MY memories. Please bear that in mind, however our editor decides to use them.

FOOTNOTES:

1. He does have other pals. Not just that one.
2. This is the potted version. Clearly other things happened too.
3. It took a break in 2019/20 for that damned plague.
4. But ANYBODY can join, for a nominal fee of, at the time, £1.00.
5.  
6. Apart from gaining a keyboard player and learning to sing.
7. Which won’t ALWAYS be the case over the years.
8. For me, at least. Maybe they hated it.
9. Remember CDs? You could get one in your hand and the band would get some money. Ah, the good old days…
10. Their original bass player, Dave Ritson, was HUGE. About eight feet tall, I reckon.