Indietracks Snapshots: Alaska

Everyone in the world is watching Camera Obscura on the outdoor stage.

We go into the church and find Alaska playing McCarthy's 'Red Sleeping Beauty'. It's always good to happen upon this song.

Indietracks Snapshots: The Specific Heats

The Specific Heats wear paisley capes!

Their reverb tank blows up as they hit the first chord!! Then a guitar string breaks!!! They play bubblegum garage which has been specially calibrated to be the best music at the entire festival!!!! It is VERY EXCITING. Other things: silver sparkly Danelectro guitar, v. groovy shaky hair keyboard playing, all round band smiling, an Out Crowd tattoo, managing to be very energetic in a very small space, including running in tiny circles, their friends behind us saying how everything is AWESOME!

Indietracks Snapshots: The Lovely Eggs

Every magical moment of The Lovely Eggs set.

Including their tribute to 'Nuts In May'; Holly's buttercup yellow dress; the tiny bicycle handlebars attached to the front of the drumkit (the bell and horn for percussion purposes); useful information on peppers, loads of thrashy, twinkly, shouty, silky songs; and especially Holly's wool-wrapped drum beater unravelling like unruly spaghetti. They are the best kind of folk art.

Indietracks Snapshots: I Wear My New Anorak...

...a Fred Perry anorak, mind. It's fine tailoring is much admired by Emily out of Betty And The Werewolves.

Indietracks Snapshots: Marshmallow Kisses

The Marshmallow Kisses ask the very Indietracks question, 'Do you guys like poems?'

After a little encouragement, the reply is a big Indietracks, 'Yeah!' The band then proceed to play amazing outer-space wibbling baroque fairground poetry jazzpop.

Indietracks Snapshots: Help Stamp Out Loneliness

Help Stamp Out Loneliness sound huge and POP! on a rainy afternoon.

They feature not only the Sounds XP fashion correspondent's favourite frock, but also Craig Gannon playing some guitar. This makes us go, 'Blimey! It's THE Craig Gannon!'

Indietracks Snapshots: Simon Love's Feet

Sunday afternoon in the gloom of the Indoor Stage shed something bright catches my eye.

Simon Love isn't wearing any socks. This makes me gasp in horror, 'Are those your feet? Why are they so white?!'

Indietracks Snapshots: BMX Bandits

Duglas' Sesame Street t-shirt, purple pinstripes, flowin' locks 'n' moustache combo make him look every bit the pop maverick he is.

To celebrate I dance like a loon to 'E102' at the end of a set chocka with BMX Bandits hits.

Teenage Fanclub

Under darkening rain-filled skies I fall in love with Teenage Fanclub again.

There are singalonga old songs, must-get-the-new-album new songs, and the world turns into sparkles when they play 'I Need Direction'. Sigh...

Wooden Shjips / Papercuts - 19 August 2009, The Borderline

I am surprised and thrilled by Papercuts. Apart from the nice illustration on their album cover catching my eye in magazines, the band have passed me by so far. I’d been vaguely expecting something kind of abrasive and shouty involving lots of leaping about. This assumption was based purely on the name ‘Papercuts’. Not only does the word sum up something painful, but there also used to be that other band Papercuts feat. bloke what used to be in Symposium hurling himself about shoutily and rather invigoratingly. They did a great gig at The Pleasure Unit once where he climbed on a tiny table and pulled the black-out curtain off the window – only to be reprimanded by the bar staff. ‘Twas aces. Logically, I know that the sound of those Papercuts has nothing to do with these San Francisco-based Papercuts, but my subconscious makes the connections anyway. Stoopid old subconscious, these Papercuts are not noisy at all, they are, in fact, kind of delicate. Which a paper cut is I suppose...

Grab an easy reference to hang on…erm, Mercury Rev and their pastoral psych, Galaxie 500’s hazy glow. Eerie guitar, bass pulses, woozy organ and Jason Quever's soft vocals conjure a cocoon world into which I am soon lulled. Mallets on drums create heartbeats. Songs switch rhythm half way through, about-face and become something else, intricate, entanglements. I’m won over pretty sharpish.

Wooden Shjips are pretty damn perfect. Even with the odd equipment problem. The bass amp cuts out a couple of times, leaving a skeleton version of the music rattling at the walls, but when the bass does kick back in, it just goes to underline how glorious the noise is. The heavy, chugging, unchanging riff of rumbling notes providing a hefty backbone to the songs. Add to this the simple metronomic beats supplied centre stage by the drummer on a v. stripped down kit, plus ghostly organ punching it all along and you’ve got your basic drone ingredients. Yum. Then there is the delicious sound of phasing, slicing up and down through the songs, dragging you in, impelling you to drown in the rhythm. Over this beardy wizard man does minimal vocal bits and sprawling guitar things; squiggling and flanging and wubby wah-wahing, riding through the tunnel of sound in a big ball of reverb.

To add to the general ambience of wiggy, freak-out grooviness, the band have their own back projections flickering across the stage bathing them in disorientating blips of colour and bands of light. People nod along blissfully, some young blokes at the front in Wooden Shjips t-shirts flail crazily, inches away from the guitar, like they’re physically clutching at the sounds its making.

The songs never vary from their template, and why the hell would they? It is, of course, the BEST template for songs. Just ask Jarvis Cocker who is nod-nodding along in the crowd.