Have The xx done it again?

Probably one of the most anticipated albums of the year, and the 

question on everyones lips was, have The xx made an album as successful as their self titled Mercury Prize winning first one? I think we can safely say this one is big (currently being number one in the album charts), and posters have been PLASTERED around capital city.

 

Their first release 'Angels', which is a beautiful song, has worked out to be a good choice for the first album release. But it leaves you forgetting about the emotional roller coaster that is their first album, if they have found their romantic happy ending, does that mean the rest of the album will be this lighthearted?

But you get taken into their turbulent love lives as the album progresses. My personal favourites are 'Chained' and 'Missing'. The 5 second pause a third of the way into Missing creates such a tension between Romy and Oliver, that leaves you hanging. However I think The xx are a band who don't have 'better' songs, it comes down to individual taste.

Compared to the first album, it is a little different, the tracks on Coexist have a similar feel, whereas xx had a larger variation in the songs, but hey, who says its a bad thing? Coexist has definitely had more publicity, as xx was such a success, but I still have to say that I prefer xx. But how often do artists make a second album as good as their Mercury Prize winning first one?? Their unique style has continued in this album, pulling off their glacial sound, with a bit more experimentation, for example the steel drums in 'Reunion'.

If you weren't lucky enough to win tickets to their performance with a philharmonic orchestra for Radio 1, you can listen to it online, or even better get hold of some tickets for their UK tour in December. Most venues have already sold out, but try getmein.com, as the asking price isn't that bad.  

No.6

What an incredible weekend! Festival no.6, set in the Italian themed village of Portmeirion, definitely had the quirky aspect locked down. Most people will know Portmeirion for it's where the series The Prisoner was filmed in the 60's.

As if the village itself wasn't weird enough, the festival just topped it all off, from story telling and rave's in the middle of the woods to their enchanting fire and flame garden and a real life game of chess.

Iv'e personally never been to a festival quite like this. There was a much more laid-back feel to the weekend, especially as the average age was about 40, as opposed to 23! It was a high quality weekend, as attendees had the option to stay in the cottages and gatehouses spread around the village itself, or in the on site historic castle, Castell Deudraeth. The food outlets were a lot more unique than your average burger van, with a special Harvey Nichols food stand in the village and ice cream being sold from a Volkswagen camper van. 

Air View of Portmeirion

Castell Deudraeth

The line-up was pretty immense for a first time festival, including two Mercury Prize nominees (Jessie Ware and Richard Hawley), and legendary bands such as Spiritualized, Primal Scream and New Order. With over 7 stages dotted around the whole site, there was always something going on wherever you were, so you were never feeling left out. On the Clough Williams-Ellis stage on Friday night, Carl Barat of The Libertines presented an exclusive screening of The Libertines film 'There Are No Innocent Bystanders', then graced us with an acoustic set of some of the Libertines classics. I was lucky enough to interview Carl after the performance (to follow), then drank whiskey on his balcony while he offered to play any requests on his guitar! 

New Order

Primal Scream

Spiritualized

The only reviews I have read have all hailed the weekend a huge success, so hopefully they can continue it in the future. My only qualm is the fact that the camping fields were all on a slant, but hey, you can't get everything right!

Free tickets to see The xx perform with a philharmonic orchestra!

Does anybody remember that amazing show last year when Nero performed with a philharmonic orchestra?? Well this year Radio 1 have given free tickets away for this once in a lifetime opportunity to see The xx perform with a philharmonic orchestra, and I've got 2 tickets to give away! email me on katiebentham8@hotmail.co.uk if you have an interest and you may well get them! Performance starts at 7pm in Bridlington, East Yorkshire (strange, I know). Doors open at 6pm, make sure your there early as they give away more tickets than there is spaces, as some people don't turn up, and you aren't guaranteed entry.

Watch this space for The xx's album review, Coexist.

All Aboard the Rockness Express!

Holding a festival in Inverness, you could imagine it would not be the most pleasant of weather, but it was actually (almost) dry all weekend, in comparison to Download festival, which I heard from friend it was a massive washout. I never actually realised how far away Inverness was, until I saw that the Rockness Express takes 14 hours from London! This was the first year they have held anything like the Express, so surely some things had to go wrong.

It was a specific train the festival organised to haul people from London to the festival via Birmingham, Stoke, York and Newcastle, and costing £250 including a VIP weekend ticket, you couldn't really go wrong! But oh, so much did. Firstly, a week before the train, they announced it would be departing from Birmingham International instead of New Street, and Stoke-On-Trent instead of Derby, which would have been a massive pain if one had already booked train tickets to said station. Then we were all told that if we wanted to sit next with each other, we would have to board at the same station, which was a pain as our group were planning on boarding in London, Stoke and York. But once on the train, you soon forgot their hiccups, as the 12 carriage train was full of excited festival goers, setting themselves up by drinking for 14 hours before the festival even beginning, made such an electric atmosphere (unlike any other train ride I’ve ever been on). However, we should have thought this one through, as after hours of alcohol consumption and frolics, we arrived at 10pm in the middle of nowhere to erect a tent (I kid you not, it took 4 of us 2 whole hours to put our 5 man tent up). I also forgot to mention the smoking policy on the Rockness Express...you can't. So after a few hours of drinking, my friend decided to have a fag out the window (this train was so old-school, you could pull the widows down on the doors in between carriages), after he got away with the first one, he was smoking every 20 minutes. However, during smoking one of his many fags, the train jerked, he put his arm out to stop himself from falling, the window was open, and he managed to fall onto a metal bar,  breaking a couple of ribs. What a great start to the weekend!

They stated on the description for the train that there would be bands and DJ's playing on it, so we set ourselves up for a proper gig on a train...we were handed headphones and could choose to listen to a couple of idiots play average music and play boring games the whole journey. Upon arrival, and getting our bags checked, one friend had 17 cans of Strongbow confiscated for no apparent reason. But all was forgotten the next day when we woke up with a beautiful view of  Loch Ness, and managed to hear a few local legend tales from a taxi driver taking us to the local Tescos.

Without a doubt, the best band of the weekend were Momford and Sons. As soon as I saw them on the line up, I knew I was going to attend the festival, and they did not let me down. Another favourite were the Errors, I’ve seen them a couple of times before, and as they are not that well known, the crowd was minimal, so we could stand right at the front. There were a couple camped next to us, who insisted we watch Knife Party with them, they described them as 'dirty, grimy dubstep'. They weren't wrong. Some of the best dubstep I’ve heard in a long time, definitlely going to keep my eye out for any London gigs.

All in all a top weekend. Fantastic line-up and incredible location. Would I recommend it? Definitely, but I would take a normal train up to Inverness, it does cost more, but takes only 8 hours, as the 14 hour journey home was brutal!

(a special thanks to William House for the fantastic photographs @that_guywill )

Django Django

One of my favourite things about writing a blog is people recommending new bands to me. My uncle told me about this band called Django Django (I want to claim that I discovered this band myself as they're so cool, but don't think I could get away with it as Uncle Jem reads my blog).

They are a four piece band from Scotland, which is evident in the vocals in their songs, as they harmonise beautifully with a hint of the Scottish accent.

I recently read an article describing something called the 'Gossip Effect'. This is referring to the fact that if your song is played on an episode of Skins, then it is A. probably an awesome song, and B. going to be a big success. This comes from the fact that The Gossips 'Standing in the way of control' went on to be a massive hit after being played on the first series of the show. A recent example of this is Azealia Banks' '212', which was played at the beginning of the first episode of this series, and can now be heard all over the place. Django Django's 'Default' was also played in this series, and I'm now beginning to hear it more and more, for example on last weeks Made in Chelsea.

As well as 'Default', check out 'Love's dart' and 'WOR'. Some of their songs do vary in style, but it's what makes them so unique.

Django Django are starting their UK tour the end of this month, kicking off in Southampton. They are also playing at The Great Excape Festival; Brighton, Field Day Festival; London and Parklife Festival in Manchester. So don't miss out, as they are probably worth seeing whilst still playing small gigs, before they go onto the arena tours!

Playlist of the Week vol.2

I have been a tad lazy as of lately. Apologies. Although in that time I have discovered some artists that I can't wait to blog about!

I'm going to blow the cobwebs away by discussing my new 'Playlist of the Week' (although it has been several weeks since my last one). On Facebook I see a lot of status' about people wanting to know names of 'chillout' artists to listen to, and thats exactly who this playlist caters for. It started with a mixture of genres on there, but i decided to go the whole hog and only add mellow songs to the playlist. So here it is:

Groove Armada - My Friend

Zero 7 - Destiny

FC Kahuna - Hayling

David Holmes - 69 Police

Rjd2 - Ghostwriter

Alex Clare - Too Close

Chris Isaac - Wicked Game

Django Django - Loves Dart

LMNTL ft. Angela McClusky - I'm Not the Girl

Morcheeba - World Looking In

Norah Jones - Come Away With Me

Rjd2 - Smoke and Mirrors

A lot of these songs I discovered on films or adverts (I am now like lightening when using the Shazam app, before the advert finishes), so you may recognise a few. And I sincerely apologise that you have to look these songs up yourself on YouTube, but I'm not good at using computers, and have not yet discovered how to get the songs to play on the blog, any help would be much appreciated. Heres a few of my favourites, incase you don't have time to look them up. 

Fc Kahuna - Hayling

Morcheeba - World Looking In

As you can see Rjd2 are there twice, this is because they are me NFD (new favourite discovery). Their song 'Ghostwriter' is played at the beginning of the film Wimbledon. Its what got me hooked, and I don't think I'll ever get bored of it. You also my be questioning why Alex Clare is up there, but he fits into the 'advert' category, and I also find the dub in this song more relaxing than something I want to dance to.

Rjd2 - Smoke and Mirrors

I'm not going to let you know my opinion of Django Django just yet, as I have half written another blog about them, so keep your eyes peeled. 

Coachella 2012 - 3D Tupac

Personally, Coachella looks like the coolest festival of all time, therefore Im making sure i will be attending in 2013!

I haven't checked out all the highlights yet, but the most amazing thing I've seen is the 3D image of the late Tupac they projected onto the stage to perform with Snoop Dogg. Im not a huge fan of hip hop, but still have my moments, as I'm a massive fan of Jurassic 5. But this seems, if you were at Coachella, to be unmissable. Check it out below, and look at how realistic it really is, as he even moves in sync with Snoop.  

The idea is incredible, and I think Coachella have introduced us to the future of festivals. So, will we be seeing Elvis, Michael or Amy at Glastonbury next year?