Electric Picnic preview: Sunday

MASSIVE ATTACK

The Bristol collective are easily one of the most important and influential British acts of the last 20 years, and their Friday night set at the festival in 2006 was the stuff of legend. Mixing dark, moody trip-hop and dub-influenced electronica with stunning visuals, you can also expect some heavyweight guest vocalists (last time around Liz Frazer and Horace Andy joined them in Stradbally).





FEVER RAY

The solo project of enigmatic Knife frontwoman Karen Dreijr, Fever Ray played Oxegen last year to a shed of bemused dance-heads in an unfortunate example of wrong place, wrong time. Stradbally should be more up her alley. Fever Ray's dark, claustrophobic music draws on unsettling images of motherhood and post-natal depression, while in the live setting the experience becomes even more surreal: at Oxegen Dreijr donned a massive Indian headdress, her band came attired in similarly ritualistic manner, and lasers were added for good measure. Prepare to immerse yourself in a nightmarish netherworld.





FRIENDLY FIRES

A terrific live band, their self-titled debut featured a string of infectious, nu-rave leaning dance-punk tunes.





THE HORRORS

The former goth-garage rockers who threw a curveball with their acclaimed second LP Primary Colours, which drew on influences like My Bloody Valentine, Neu! and Bauhaus. Be warned, though: they're an inconsistent live band.





ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT

An invigorating mixture of spiky garage-punk and skewed psych-rock.





DAM-FUNK

Former G-funk keyboardist who last year released the acclaimed Toeachizown, a collection of smooth, trippy synth-funk.





LIQUID LIQUID

Influential early-80's NYC-based post-punk act who reformed and were taken under the DFA umbrella in recent years. Lay down some spacious, echoing grooves.





NEON INDIAN

Texas-based project of Alan Palomo, also known as the artist VEGA. His brand of laid-back, hazy electronica has been grouped under the chillwave banner along with artists like Memory Tapes and Washed Out.





O EMPEROR

The Waterford-based band have been described as an 'Irish Grizzly Bear', and seriously impress live with their intricate, swelling arrangements.





THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH

True to his name, brings distinctive, larger-than-life vocals to his excellent folk compositions. Reminiscent of Dylan at times.

Albums of the Year, 2009 : 5 - Fever Ray - Fever Ray

"The lyrics fly by in a blur of disconnected images, in which childhood memories figure heavily, as does obsessive behaviour, and an attitude to domesticity that borders on the psychotic. "I'm very good with plants, when my friends were away, they let me keep the soil moist," she sings on When I Grow Up, in a voice that suggests anyone leaving her in charge of their greenery should be fully prepared to find her ripping the leaves off and eating the soil on their return.

The result doesn't resemble dance music so much as something from the weirder fringes of 80s pop. The dolorous chords and stately rhythms recall the Cure, circa Faith, the glacial pace makes you think of the Blue Nile. There are lots of the synthesised faux-ethnic sounds popular on Fairlight sampler-driven epics such as Peter Gabriel's fourth eponymous album or Kate Bush's The Dreaming: gamelan-like chimes, oriental motifs, talking-drum percussion. Anyone requiring evidence of Dreijer Andersson's unique talent is directed to Keep the Streets Empty For Me, on which she somehow manages to conjure up an eerie, becalmed atmosphere using synthesised pan pipes.

But it's not just the sound that invokes the lost hinterlands of 80s pop, it's Fever Ray's sense of daring and ambition. It's an album that makes the listener work; its melodic richness is slowly revealed, rather than immediate. Furthermore, Dreijer Andersson let slip that her inspirational sleeplessness was post-natal, which suddenly pushes Fever Ray into largely unexplored territory. Like domestic contentment, new parenthood sits badly with rock and pop music. It tends to be avoided as a topic, possibly because there's much empirical evidence that it brings out the mawkish and trite side of even the greatest artists: at the height of his genius, new fatherhood made Stevie Wonder burp out the wretched Isn't She Lovely? Certainly, it's hard to think of another artist who's nailed the weird package of awe and fear that comes as standard with a newborn baby quite as perfectly as Dreijer Andersson does here. "I live between concrete walls," she sings, her voice prematurely aged. "In my arms, she felt so warm.""

- Alexisis Petridis, The Guardian

Albums / Singles of the Year .... for now

OK so i was asked to send in a list of my Top 20 albums and singles for the year 2009. This will probably be revised before the end of the year (i still haven't got Fuck Buttons' new record, for a start), but here's the first draft anyway, and I wouldn't expect it to change too much:

ALBUMS:

1 – BAT FOR LASHES – Two Suns

2 – WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS – The Snake

3 – FEVER RAY – Fever Ray

4 – MICACHU & THE SHAPES – Jewellery

5 – JAPANDROIDS – Post-Nothing

6 – FLORENCE & THE MACHINE – Lungs

7 – YACHT – See Mystery Lights

8 – BIBIO – Ambivalence Avenue

9 – ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – Merriweather Post Pavillion

10 - NEON INDIAN – Psychic Chasms

11 – WORRIEDABOUTSATAN – Arrivals

12 – FUTURE OF THE LEFT – Travels With Myself and Another

13 – MARTYN – Great Lengths

14 – PASSION PIT – Manners

15 – MANIC STREET PREACHERS – Journal for Plague Lovers

16 – GIRLS – Album

17 – DIRTY PROJECTORS – Bitte Orca

18 - THE HORRORS – Primary Colours

19 - SUNSET RUBDOWN – Dragonslayer

20 - TELEPATHE – Dance Mother

SINGLES:

1 – BURIAL & FOUR TET – 'Moth'

2 – WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS – 'My Heart'

3 – TUNE-YARDS – 'Hatari'

4 – DIRTY PROJECTORS – 'Stillness is the Move'

5 – HEALTH – 'Before Tigers (CFCF remix)'

6 – TIMES NEW VIKING – 'No Time, No Hope'

7 – ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – 'My Girls'

8 – DARKSTAR – 'Aidy’s Girl’s a Computer'

9 – BAT FOR LASHES – 'Daniel'

10 – ATLAS SOUND – 'Walkabout'

11 – ZOMBY – 'Tarantula'

12 – HEALTH – 'Die Slow'

13 – GRIZZLY BEAR – 'Two Weeks'

14 – HERE WE GO MAGIC – 'Tunnelvision'

15 – PHOENIX – '1901'

16 – SUNSET RUBDOWN – 'Idiot Heart'

17 – SURF CITY – 'Autumn'

18 – THE ANTLERS – 'Two'

19 – YACHT – 'Psychic City'

20 – NEON INDIAN – 'Should Have Taken Acid With You'