Another year, another ArcTanGent festival done and dusted. This year marked the festival’s last outing at Fernhill Farm, and was replete with one-off reunions, once-in-a-lifetime shows and fond farewells. On the off-chance you weren’t there (and yes, we here at Echoes & Dust will want to know why), Jody Dunstan and Nick Dunn will take you through what you missed on Friday and
Saturday.
Julie Christmas. Photo: Jez Pennington
FRIDAY
Jody
I didn’t have too much in my Clashfinder for Friday morning, so decided to take a bit of an ATG buffet, have a wander around and see what I could find. First of the day, Irish metal/hardcore band WORN OUT absolutely ripped it up on the PX3. Over on Bixler, the slightly more gentle-sounding London-based Wildernesses played some shoegazey post-rock. Leeds-based six-piece Senor Pink brought some noisy, slightly unhinged proggy rock, which was quite good fun. Sweden’s Blessings were back over on PX3, buzzsaw guitars and distorted vocals and a bit of a mashup of sounds, while Believe In Nothing, a sludge/doom band from the UK south coast, sound a bit like Chat Pile spiralling into a deep depression.
HECK. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
Chaos agents Heck decided to play the whole of Instructions, and there was a sense that something was about to happen. That sense was right. The band tore into ‘Good As Dead’ and have not lost the energy they had before. The poor stage crew were running around busily, trying (and often failing) to keep things together as Matt and Johnny tore around the place, Johnny placing himself in the middle of the dutifully split pit while Matt disappeared somewhere towards the back. The circle pit was absolute chaos. Johnny, now without a mic stand, put the mic in his mouth and somehow continued to play, and Matt climbed the support pole with his mic, but his guitar was nowhere to be seen. The crowd got involved, pulling cables and holding mics amongst the melee. A great fun set, although I don’t think anyone considered that the album is slightly longer than the allowed set. Let’s not let details get in the way of us all having a great time. Props to the crew, who presumably spent a good while trying to put everything back together for the next band.
Arcane Roots. Photo: Jez Pennington
A bit of a mad dash over to the main stage for Arcane Roots. A band that I absolutely love, with Melancholia Hymns hugely important to my musical journey, they have returned after a long break with a new aspect to their sound and the addition of composer and keyboardist Bjarni. They opened their set with ‘A Wave Across The Sea’, their most recent track, before going through familiar tracks, albeit with a new, rejuvenated sound, and then ending with the stunning ‘If Nothing Breaks Nothing Moves’: an expansive, emotional return to form.
One band that I had not heard of before who played a stellar set was France’s BRUIT ≤, an experimental post-rock band with some neoclassical aspects. The Yohkai stage crowd spilled out onto the surrounding fields; a very captivating band, and certainly one I’d want to explore more.
BRUIT ≤. Photo Abbi Draper.
Ending the Friday, a band that should need no introduction: Primus. The festival was noticeably busier for the Friday night headliner, most of us thinking that this might be the last time to see the band live. They played an extensive set from across their large back catalogue, ending with ‘My Name Is Mud’ and ‘Jerry Was a Race Car Driver’. The band make it all seem effortless, and exactly as good as a band of that quality should be.
Nick
moksha were my first band on the Friday morning, and a more pleasant wake-up I couldn’t have asked for. In the wake of Ithaca saying farewell, their former guitarist Sam Chetan-Walsh has formed this collective with his wife, and much of the crowd was made up of Ithaca fans. Theirs is a rich and melodic sound that marries the expansive atmospherics of post-rock to the guitar-driven melodies of emo and rich harmonies born of having six musicians and two singers. To give you a flavour of their inspirations, they offered up beautiful covers of Cleo Sol‘s ‘Promises’ and Beverley Glenn-Copeland‘s ‘Ever New’ to raucous applause. It’s quite the departure from Ithaca, but when it’s this good, that doesn’t matter.
moksha. Photo: Derek Bremner
Up next were Ringlets from Aotearoa, whose post-punk music comes off as a less grandiose version of Grave Pleasures. What they have foregone in terms of grandeur, however, affords them room for a more raw and energetic performance, mixed with humorous lyrics like ‘I could live here / but I hate the curtains’, making the whole thing a lot of fun for the audience.
Mixing the emotive atmospherics of shoegaze and the groove and riffs of hardcore sounds like a tall order, but MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS pulled it off with aplomb. All the hard edges of hardcore are softened by the shoegaze, in turn elevated by the groove of hardcore. It’s a heady mix, topped off with occasional flourishes of psychedelia. Think Turnstile by way of Ecstatic Vision, with the result being a bright and lively sound that had the entire audience (and the lead singer) bobbing along in sheer glee.
MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS. Photo: Jez Pennington
Taking the atmosphere to darker places was Lili Refrain. Conjuring haunting soundscapes through copious use of loop stations and her potent vocal delivery, Refrain is an Italian multi-instrumentalist whose work traverses the corners of the dark wilderness normal folk fear to tread. Fortunately, this is ArcTanGent, where normal folk are in short supply, so her set went down a storm. The songs bled into one another in one extended ritual, her voice sweeping as easily into beautiful operatic singing as it sank into a nasal snarl, with the whole set feeling like an invocation to a long-lost goddess.
Lili Refrain. Photo: Carl Battams
Styling themselves as doom-punk, Witch Fever graced the PX3 tent with their elegiac music. The first doom band I have ever seen lead a moshpit, their sound comes off like a mix of Esben & The Witch and Pussy Riot: all-encompassing, atmospheric doom, with a snotty, snarling, riot-grrrl drive, all to the delight of the crowd.
By this point in their tenure, you either know Napalm Death or you don’t. They still have a phenomenal energy, more so than any other band on the line-up: Barney charged around the stage like a man possessed, his anguished howls cutting through the squall of guitars and thunderous drums. His embittered tirade against organised religion as the introduction to ‘Suffer the Children’ went down to raucous cheers, but it was truly heartening to hear him set out the band’s stance on LGBT+ ally-ship and antifascism in no uncertain terms as the lead in to their cover of ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’. How the tent was still standing after their bone-rattling set I don’t know, but here’s to many more years of them tearing faces and breaking necks with their music.
Napalm Death. Photo: Derek Bremner
That Primus are probably the most mainstream band on this year’s line-up sets a fair benchmark for the kind of weirdness ATG goes in for. Les Claypool’s bass-driven proggy antics have been entertaining audiences for over three decades now, and with a quirky light show serving as the set dressing, that strange man and his stranger music did all the talking. If the instrumental sections went for longer-than-strictly-necessary wanders off beyond the sight of the third eye, the audience lapped it up eagerly anyway. New song ‘The Ol’ Grizz’ and fan favourite ‘Wynonna’s Big Brown Beaver’ elicited the most excited cheers, but the crowd enthusiastically devoured every slapped bass note and twanged guitar chord.
Primus. Photo Abbi Draper.
SATURDAY
Jody
The day opened with a live recording of the popular podcast 2promoters1pod, hosted by main ATG booker James Scarlett and Damnation booker Gavin McNally. It gave us a bit of an insight into behind the scenes, into what it takes to get the festival off the ground and keep it running, and also a somewhat casual interview with Julie Christmas ahead of the tenth anniversary set with luminaries Cult of Luna. Opening up the music, Leeds sludgy, doomy two-piece Pleb gave a short but heavy introduction to themselves. Another newcomer, Northern Ireland’s alt-rock band PREYRS, played an atmospheric and anthemic sounding set. At the other end of the sonic scale, British singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph played the main stage, her breathy vocals beautiful and captivating and ideal for those who were up enjoying the silent disco the night before.
Kathryn Joseph. Photo: Abbi Draper.
In a similar vein, Jo Quail played a special set with the Belgian trombone group the Crossbones Ensemble. It did feel for a while more like an event where people have picnic baskets and chilled prosecco, but it was interesting, and a pleasant set to watch in the sunshine.
A band that I had heard a lot about but not really had the chance to see, Leeds instrumental post-rock band Din of Celestial Birds played a fantastic and huge-sounding set. I probably slept on these guys a bit on record, but live they were really very good.
Din of Celestial Birds. Photo Jez Pennington
Another highlight of the festival for me was the return of Belgian band Oathbreaker. Their breakthrough album Rheia was released back in 2016, so not all the crowd knew quite what was coming, and the intro to ’10:56′ potentially lulled a few people into a false sense of security. However, for those who knew what was coming, there was a sense of anticipation, and dutifully the band exploded into their intense and visceral best. The band have not lost any of their intensity. They ended their set with ‘Where I Leave’ and a slightly abridged version of ‘Begeerte’. A fantastic and somewhat emotional return to form.
Oathbreaker. Photo. Derek Bremner
Nick
Hailing from the Basque Country, Sara Zozaya creates ethereal soundscapes with her voice, a guitar, a synth and loop stations. It all adds up to a dark ambience, of a kind with Lili Refrain or Ethel Cain, but it’s introspective and contemplative rather than ritualistic. And in the unenviable position of main-stage opener on the Saturday morning, she did a wonderful job of gently banishing Friday’s hangover.
Sara Zozaya. Photo: Jez Pennington
Ozzy Osbourne may be one year gone (already?!) but Birmingham’s legacy as the home of doom is safe in the hands of Meatdripper. An all-female quartet, they play a hefty, sludgy, psychedelic doom that rumbles over the crowd as if belched forth from Satan’s maw. The vocals, which were trying a tad too hard to sound like Ozzy and came off as awkwardly nasal, got a little lost in the mix, but the riffs were so colossal and the energy so intense that it really didn’t matter.
Meatdripper. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
Playing a blissed-out mix of shoegaze, hardcore and alt-rock, Reclus.É (pronounced ‘recluse’) appear to have translated sunshine into the music they play. It’s got maybe a tinge of The Cure and Portishead, but otherwise it’s a bright and lively sound. Vocalist Soren makes no secret of the band’s political stance, screaming ‘FUCK TRUMP, FREE PALESTINE’ at one point. And when the hardcore hits, it hits hard, driving the music forward in service of Soren’s vocals as they veer wildly between ethereal singing and visceral screams.
Reclus.É. Photo: Derek Bremner
One of the most quietly underrated musicians at the moment is Jo Quail. Her cello-driven music is difficult to categorise: it’s as much ‘neoclassical’ as it is ‘post-rock’ as it is ‘ambient’. Whatever it is, it’s beautiful. She’s worked with a number of artists, including my personal favourites from last year God Is An Astronaut, and brought her music to the festival this year with the accompaniment of both Tom Atherton and the Crossbones Ensemble. So, on stage, she was joined by a drummer and five trombonists, giving her melodies a rich harmonic depth for an exquisite live performance.
Jo Quail and the Crossbones Ensemble. Photo: Jez Pennington
Sweden’s Gösta Berlings Saga play a proggy kind of psychedelic post-rock, pushing at the boundaries of all three genres with fascinating compositions. Imagine the love-child of Hawkwind and Henge but raised exclusively on classic sci-fi novels, and you’re on the right track. Theirs was a weird and wonderful sonic journey through space and time, with bass playing intricate enough to rival Les Claypool.
Darkher, the solo project of Jayn Maiven, plays a bewitching, dark, doom-folk so incredible I quite literally got goosebumps during her set. Maiven’s entrancing voice soared over hypnotic droning guitar and the crash of drums, all coming together in a haunting mix more suited to a church crypt or graveyard under a full moon than a tent on a sunny afternoon, but the crowd (and I) loved it anyway.
Crowd pile for Chat Pile. Photo: Carl Battams
Chat Pile appeared on stage to rapturous applause, highlighting how popular this noisy rabble have become over their relatively young career. Theirs is a caustic combination of math-rock and noise that scours the eardrums and is categorically not for everyone (including me): scabrous, angular riffs and anguished howls all come together to evoke what must be going on in the mind of that cartoon dog that says ‘Everything is fine!’ while surrounded by fire.
Pupil Slicer. Photo: Magda Campagne
If I contradict myself with what I’m about to say, well, I contain multitudes, as do you. Chat Pile’s noise might not be for me, but Pupil Slicer and their abrasively punishing math/grind combo is. What can I say? It makes my brain feel like it’s being sandblasted, and sometimes that’s what I need. They also gave one of the most ferocious performances of the weekend, with Kate grinning and grimacing in equal measure as they howled and growled their way through the set. In response to the manic energy on stage, the crowd responded with one of the most enthusiastic moshpits of the whole festival. ‘Trans Inclusive Radical Hatred’, a motto emblazoned on one of their merch stickers, has never sounded so menacing, so ferocious and so liberating. They have absolutely earned the torch (and crown) passed down to them by Svalbard and Ithaca. Long live Pupil Slicer!
Eivør. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
In stark contrast to all that noise stands Eivør (pronounced eye-vor). Hailing from the Faroe Islands, Eivør conjures dark ambient soundscapes inspired by the Nordic pagan-folk songs and myths of her homeland. It’s a similar sound to Lili Refrain and Sara Zozaya, but it’s on Eivør’s gigantic shoulders that those two are standing. The Faroese goddess herself uses shamanic drums, techno beats and synth, as well as her truly impressive vocal range, to make her music, marrying the ancient and new together in a stunning mix. Her voice hits operatic high notes one second and sinks into Greenlandic breath vocals the next, beautifully crowning the pulsating techno beneath. But this is no rave; there are no Perturbator-style theatrics here. Instead, the more moderate tempo allowed for the music to wash over the audience and draw us all inexorably into Eivør’s world.
Heavy/stoner metal legends High on Fire were up next, laying waste to the Yohkai tent with their crushing riffs. What you see is what you get with this particular outfit: no fuss, no theatrics, just furious riffs, some impressive shredding and cavernous drumming. If Matt Pike’s vocals never quite rose high enough out of the musical quagmire to be truly audible, well, nobody was really listening to them anyway. Everyone was having too much fun headbanging.
Julie Christmas. Photo: Abbi Draper.
And then the grand finale. Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas played Mariner in full in celebration of its tenth anniversary. Here I have a confession to make: I only listened to Mariner in full on the Tuesday before travelling to the festival. If you feel like I’ve let you down, then that’s on you. For my own part, I had definitely been missing out, and experiencing the album in full in a live setting was truly something special. Mixing towering riffs with the emotionally devastating vocal deliveries from Julie Christmas and the backing vocals of Johannes Persson and Fredrik Kihlberg, the live performance hits with full force. Christmas’ vocals are truly astonishing to behold in person, swinging from sweet-little-girl to shrieks emanating from a hellish bird of prey. She had full command of the stage and audience, almost as if Cult of Luna themselves were simply a backing band. Their impressive performance of ‘Approaching Transition’ made clear that this was not the case, but the stage truly belonged to Christmas and her glowing light-up mask. It was hard not to leave the tent feeling changed, especially after the impassioned performance of ‘The Wreck of S.S. Needle’. If either Cult of Luna or Julie Christmas return to the festival, I’ll be in the front row.
Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas. Photo: Joe Singh (@snaprockandpop)
