Fantasy Festival number 1: The lineup

Zoe Graham: Newly relocated to Glasgow, Zoe Graham is a young Scottish singer/songwriter with three singles under her belt. She's also a Scottish Alternative Music Award winner. You can find her on Facebook here. 

Katy Carr: Polish-British singer/songwriter Katy Carr performs ukulele and electronic piano led folk and baroque narrative history music. She featured in my 2017 Fantasy Festival lineup, and it seemed only right to include her here. You can find out more about Katy over on her website. 

Helen McCookerybook: Frequent readers of the blog will know that Helen is a regular here, both as one of my punk women interviewees, but also in her capacity as a highly innovative solo singer/songwriter. Helen began her career on bass in Brighton punk band Joby and the Hooligans, was a founding member of The Chefs, and then went on to form Helen and the Horns. Helen's 7" album Pea Soup was recently reviewed here, and her album Green is out now. You can find out more about Helen over on her website. 

Maple Bee: Like Helen, Melanie Garside has a long musical history. Beginning as a multi braided front woman in Tabitha Zu in the 1990s (later just 'Zu'), she was one of Katherine Blake's Mediaeval Baebes for a while, served bass duties in sister Katie-Jane's band Queen Adreena before embarking on a solo career under the name Maple Bee. Her most recent album is Little Victories. Future releases are awaited with interest and you can check out her website here. 

Siobhan Wilson: Born in Elgin, Morayshire, classically trained composer and singer/songwriter Siobhan is two albums into a career of rigorous reinvention and experimentation. Based in Edinburgh these days, 2019's The Departure featured a more abrasive guitar sound and included a duet with Honeyblood's Stina Tweeddale. You can find out more about Siobhan over on her website. 

Emma Pollock: Former Delgado Emma Pollock and co-founder of Chemical Underground records has been carving out a solo career for fifteen years now. Her albums are regularly nominated for Scottish album of the year and she featured in the Scottish scene reunion film Lost In France. You can find out more about Emma over on her website. 

Honeyblood: Currently operating as a solo adventure, Honeyblood is the project of singer/songwriter and noise merchant Stina Tweeddale. Formerly of Edinburgh, these days resident in Glasgow, Tweeddale has been composing perfectly executed riff driven punk pop and grunge anthems since 2012. The critically acclaimed In Plain Sight, Honeyblood's third album, was released last year.  You can find out more here. 

First Aid Kit: Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit are comprised of sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg. They are four albums into a phenomenally successful career, and their gorgeous melodies 

and harmonies have allowed them to climb the live music ladder to larger venues at the same time as 

they have been garnered with multiple industry awards and nominations. You can find out more here. 

Emmy The Great: Understated, wry, quiet and well crafted songs always impeccably performed, musician, writer and composer Emmy The Great has been building up a body of work for over ten years now. She has released three albums, has collaborated on a number of film and TV soundtracks, and has an impressive body of work as a journalist. You can find out more here. 

Laura Marling: The great Laura Marling is seven albums into a long and prodigious career that while rooted in folk has become increasingly experimental over the years. 2017's Semper Femina exemplified this approach while 2020's Song For Our Daughter signals a return to her roots, and was a most welcome unexpected lockdown release. You can find out more about Laura over on her website. 

Fantasy Festival Number 1

Fantasy Festival 2020: A taster poster

Fantasy Festival: The Return!

Florence + The Machine fans, and their phones, British Summer Time Festival, Hyde Park, London, July 2019

This piece originally ran as the editorial in last month's Sticks'N'Strings newsletter. I've tweaked it slightly, but most of the piece is the same.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, or of my work for The F-Word, you’ll be aware that I’ve long had a bee in my bonnet about the lack of women playing UK music festivals, as well as concerns about the safety of those women who do get to play, or attend, said festivals.

Earlier this year, I belatedly realised that, while many promoters and event organisers seem to have come to terms with the idea that there aren’t enough women playing festivals, a lot of them also seem to be dodging the bullet (ie doing something about it) by saying “Oh I’d love to book more women but there just aren’t any to book, maybe in a few years or something when there’s more women making music?” What’s even more disgraceful about this response is that critics and music fans are letting them get away with this. 

One person who has challenged this reoccurring statement is activist Vick Bain, who came up with the ultimate response to this answer back in March when she compiled a database of UK female artists that those who were struggling to come up with any women to book for festivals could refer to.

I’ve looked at her database and, while it’s definitely a start, I feel like this is something activists are going to have to keep pushing on. With this in mind, I’ve decided to re-visit my 2017 Fantasy Festival project for 2020.

At first I wasn’t sure if now was the right time, what with us being in the middle of a pandemic and everything. It seemed a little inappropriate to be moaning about gender quotas while people were dying and losing all their income. But I’ve watched as the music world has responded to Covid-19 over the past two months or so, and I’ve been surprised by how positive a lot of that response has been.

True, terrible things are happening, livelihoods have been ruined, venues may never reopen, but the advent of online gigs and other initiatives have shown that people aren’t ready to simply give up and do want to continue to reach out and provide music to their fans. With this in mind, I thought a fantasy festival might be just the thing to cheer people up under lockdown this summer. 

The original 2017 Fantasy Festival project emerged as a result of me writing this piece for The F-Word, I then wrote a blog post about the article, and another one about the blogging project. There were seven festivals, and you can see the lineup’s here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. You can also read my evaluation of the original project here. 

This years fantasy festival will be bigger, with more than seven festivals, meaning it will begin in late May and continue into October, running for the entirety of the increasingly long festival season. 

Mint Field - "Natural" (Official Video)

There have been a number of lineup changes within Mint Field since they emerged in late 2017 with the gorgeously atmospheric 'Ojos En El Carro'. It looked for a while like they might go down a psych route but 'Natural' represents a return to dreamy ethereal post rock that is most welcome.

Fran Lobo - Monster

A brooding slice of electro brutalism, this 2020 arrival track by new artist Fran Lobo stood out for it's dark complexity and innovative layering when it was released back in March. Since then she's released another single, 'Brave', and further releases are planned. I watch this space.

Podcast recommendations this week

Having homed in on Covid-19 related content last week, I'm now in the mood for something more sumptuous and escapist. Something very luxurious sounding, sonically, that creates a little world for itself.

If you've seen and enjoyed the film Kamikaze Girls (or the novel that inspired it) or are just interested in fashion, you might enjoy Articles of Interest (a fashion sub podcast housed within the excellent design podcast series 99% Invisible) and their take on knockoff's and copyright infringement within the fashion world.

Similarly, this episode of the British Library podcast, Anything But Silent, features a crime solving librarian, more general sleuthing, and suffragettes.

Reply All are also in sleuth mode, as ever, and are - in their most recent episode - trying to untangle a festive related music puzzle.

This episode is particularly worth listening to if you want in depth discussion of appropriate and inappropriate shop music, particularly today, or at Christmas. It also ties in with the theme of copyright violation, which dovetails nicely with Articles of Interest's take on knockoffs.

Intrigue is a series of narrative, interrogative historical podcasts made by the BBC. Their two most recent triumphs, Girl Taken (following the story of a British man's search for a young refugee girl and her father who he tried to assist when they were in the Calais refugee camp, the jungle) and Tunnel 29 (a cold war thriller about an escape plot from East Germany) are both well worth a listen.

Photo by Mpumelelo Macu on Unsplash

Fiona Apple - Heavy Balloon (Audio)

Fiona Apple's new album, Fetch The Boltcutters, has been met with wild enthusiasm amongst the denizens of my Twitter feed but I have to confess that Apple is an artist I'd lost track of. I was late to get into her, and early to lose interest, but I wanted to see what the buzz was about this time and, while most of the album didn't speak to me so much, I could completely understand why it has spoken so loudly to many other people. Especially women.

'Heavy Balloon' is, for me, the standout track on the album, reflecting a moment when all the rage and musical experimentation comes together in a coherent, searingly powerful form.

Do give the album a listen. It's difficult, it's messy, but it's also very innovative and it has a brutal honesty to it that is very freeing.

Anna Calvi - Indies or Paradise

Anna Calvi at her majestic, moodiest, howling best.

Laura Marling - Strange Girl (Official Audio)

The new Laura Marling album, Song for our daughter, is an absolute joy. Originally scheduled for release later this year, it was brought forward due to lockdown, suggesting some good things might have come out of this at least.

'Strange Girl' is a firm salute to a female friend, or, indeed, daughter, a supportive hand squeeze that says "You carry on doing you, this is right, acceptable, and indeed the only way to be".

Never has it needed to be said with more certainty than today.

Podcast recommendations this week

This week, I've decided to bite the bullet and talk about current affairs podcasts focusing either entirely on coronavirus or else focusing specific episodes on coronavirus.

Wait, don't leave!

I know a lot of people have had it up to here with the news and are finding that a lot of bulletins, broadcasts, newspapers, radio and internet journalism is not massively helpful at the moment, but my take has always been to focus on the aspects of the pandemic that I find interesting and search out coverage of those aspects.

For example, I've found the whole debate around food sustainability and the impact of coronavirus on global and national food chains, as well as the restaurant industry, to be fascinating. Two ongoing BBC food series - The Food Programme and The Food Chain - have covered this whole area from multiple angles in recent weeks, and the results have made for compulsive and riveting listening.

Another facet of the pandemic I've found interesting has been the public health aspect, which is well covered by the BBC's Inside Health and Health Check.

The BBC has also recently completed a series recorded by doctors inside Bradford Royal Infirmary, which is specifically a fly on the wall account of primary care at a time of Covid-19. They've also recently run a podcast formatted series, Viral Exposure, which looked at five different countries affected by Covid-19 and zoomed in on a specific flaw in that country that may have led to greater exposure.

If you find, like me, that you can no longer listen to the UK government daily briefings without mentally zoning out about a minute and a half in, you might find BBC World Service's Coronavirus Global Update to be more helpful. It provides a daily global breakdown of all the coronavirus headlines that day, and comes in at just under ten minutes. In a related note, if you want a calm, accessible fact checking take on statistics, More or Less is well worth a listen.

More or Less, The Food Programme, The Food Chain, Inside Health and Health Check are all ongoing BBC programmes that were not set up to specifically cover coronavirus but which have found themselves increasingly focusing on it.

Examples of ongoing current affairs podcasts that have recently had to re-orientate their programming increasingly towards Covid-19, and have risen to the occasion in various magnificent ways, would include Skyline: The CityMetric podcast, which is coming towards the end of its run as Jonn Elledge moves on to pastures new. Recent episodes have included an interview with a journalist locked down in Italy, and a delightful two hander in which Jonn interviews his partner and housemate Agnes Frimston, who co-presents the Chatham House podcast Undercurrents. They talk about what it's like to be locked down together in a one bedroom flat in London.

BBC youth and current affairs podcast The Next Episode also recently released a very moving episode about young people and grief.

In a classic case of saving the best for last, may I draw your attention to the most recent episode of the Private Eye podcast, Page 94, which is all about Covid-19. Page 94 has a simple but effective format: Andrew Hunter Murrey, the podcast host, provides an introduction to a story in the news that The Eye has been covering, and talks to the journalists on the paper who've been covering it. In the case of Covid, pretty much every section of the magazine has been impacted by it in some way but, as in recent issues of the magazine, the lead is given to Dr Phil Hammond, aka MD, who talks about medical journalism and the things he got wrong and got right about Covid-19. It is a very stimulating and thought provoking listen.

Image of desk with headphones by Sigmund on Unsplash

Honeyblood - The Tarantella

Perhaps the most stylishly sultry track from Honeyblood's In Plain Sight, 'The Tarantealla' sees Stina Tweeddale spinning a tale of Glaswegian vampires and witchcraft, all suspense and deadly nightshade, with a swagger and stompy, pounding drums. Lovely.

"The sky is falling, but we'll get through it": Overcoats - The Fight

As Overcoats sheepishly acknowledged back in March, now doesn't feel like a great time to be releasing an album. But, even with a global pandemic ever encroaching, they elected to go ahead and release The Fight anyway in the hope that it might provide a bit of comfort to fans and new listeners alike.

Ultimately, this was the right decision. Not just because The Fight is a fitting follow up to 2017's excellent debut, Young, but because the deep level of questioning and personal reassurance Overcoats are providing here feels very, very timely.

Opening track 'I'll Be There' may be vocoder heavy, but it's also the sonic equivalent of a warm hug, a slice of solidarity that is very welcome at the moment. Similarly, 'Fire & Fury', while it might have been written about the resurgence of political activism in the US following the 2016 election, has enough post apocalyptic imagery in it to feel highly appropriate pandemic listening. It's the sound of someone questioning their life, and the lives of those around them, not liking what they see but also being optimistic and pragmatic enough to lace the song together with hope and a catchy chorus: The sky is falling, but we'll get through it.

Previous singles, the gloriously stroppy 'The Fool' and anthemic 'Leave If You Wanna' are classic Overcoats: They're still singing the unsingable when it comes to taking apart failing relationships and marrying the results to upbeat electro pop and their trademark beautiful harmonies. "Some days I love you, some days I don't" being a suitably nonchalant-but-honest lyric.

The shouty, slightly hectic 'Apathetic Boys' meanwhile is reminiscent of Jesca Hoop's more lo fi scuffed indie rock oevre, whereas 'Keep The Faith' is Overcoats revealing their tender side. Set alongside the folky singalong of 'Drift', which is a sublime piece of subtlety that just builds and builds, it shows the quality and ease of their songwriting. 

Title track 'The Fight' is another anthem for our new world "This Is The Fight" they maintain, while acknowledging "I know you're tired. Night after night; the great divide". More than anything, it's this song that shows just how far their songwriting has progressed. Thematically, 'New Shoes' also feels like it was written for lockdown, or shelter in place as they call it in the US. A pared down track on acoustic guitar, it poses the question "What good are these new shoes if I can't leave my room" not because of lockdown, but because of a more traditional problem: He hasn't called. 

The Fight marries bolshy electro pop with beautiful acoustic pop songs, and there's a political charge here that compliments the personal anger. Whether they are focusing their lens on personal affairs or the wider world, they're able to carry it off with ease and aplomb. The Fight is a worthy successor to Young and, if there is any justice in the world, it will build on and enhance the bands musical profile.

Billie Eilish - when the party's over

One of the quieter, more introspective songs from When we all fall asleep, where do we go? 'When the party's over' is Eilish at her most pensive. A quiet masterpiece.

Miya Folick - Leave The Party (Official Audio)

A highlight from 2018's Premonitions, 'Leave The Party' is a full on dance floor slink. As we're full on out of dance floors at the moment, do feel free to have a slink around your accommodation to it instead. Given it's a song about fight or flight and, after all, leaving the party, that feels massively appropriate to be honest.

Premonitions was my second favourite album of 2018, second only to Florence + The Machine's High As Hope. If Miya Folick (judging from 'Leave The Party') is a stay at home kind of girl, High As Hope (especially 'No Choir') suggested Florence Welch probably is as well. And just because you're staying in doesn't mean you can't have a bit of a dance.

Halsey & Kelsea Ballerini Perform 'Miss Me More' | CMT Crossroads

There's a couple of funny stories and coincidences that led me to choosing this video for you today.

To begin with, this is a song we used to have a whole routine worked out to at my weekly adult jazz dance class. I have continued my dance classes over Zoom during lockdown but the adult jazz class is on hold at the moment, and I miss it.

Secondly, I was going to use the video to 'Miss me more' only I realised as I was about to that, as with Halsey and Lauren Jauregui's 'Strangers', it's a video revolving around the actions of two women in a boxing ring. And that can get a bit samey after a bit.

Kelsey Ballerina is on record as being very influenced by Shania Twain, and you can really hear that in this song, and see it in the campness of the performance. The audience reaction to it is reminiscent of a million hen parties going ballistic to 'Man, I Feel Like A Woman', and it's exhilarating to watch, but there's a serious note to the song that goes beyond the two fingered salute and gleeful liberation: There's hints that our heroine was leaving a very toxic relationship in which her partner systematically remodelled her personality and, as such, there is a darkness at the heart of the catchy riffs and full on glee: She got out. Not everyone does.

Halsey - Strangers ft. Lauren Jauregui

There's a great chapter on Halsey in Hannah Ewens excellent book, Fangirls, which includes a lengthy discussion of 'Strangers' and it's importance to the Halsey fanbase. Everything about this song, and it's accompanying high gloss video, is full on turbo charged melodrama and yet there's an emotional honesty to it somehow that feels real. A perfectly crafted high octane, high emotion pop song.

Podcast recommendations this week

I've not found the need to engage with many of the hard journalism podcast takes on the coronavirus, but I would recommend listening to BBC World Service's daily Coronavirus Global Update podcast. It tells you everything you need to know about the coronavirus related headline stories around the world that day, and it's under ten minutes.

Another podcast that caught my ears this week would be the BBC's Now Wash Your Hands, which is best described as a kind of aural Zoom slumber party for comedians, and, while having a funny almost cuddly tone to it, can wrong foot you sometimes with it's content. As such, it is definitely not suitable for children.

Taking a more analytical, policy and economic lens to corona is this weeks Reasons To Be Cheerful, in which Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd discuss economic bailouts, and how they could be done better.  One word: Denmark.

In 'Masking for a friend', design podcast 99% Invisible (which has podcast queen Amanda Litherland's seal of approval) takes a long look at Chinese society's relationship with the face mask.

Speaking of Amanda Litherland, last week's Podcast Radio Hour focused specifically on educational podcast content, and is well worth a listen if you either want to educate yourself or have children at home who you are currently home schooling.

And finally, the excellent We Are History recently ran an episode on the Suez Crisis. It should tell you everything you need to know about the tone of the series if I tell you that one of the main protagonists of the crisis is described at one point as being "Off his tits on amphetamines". Their episode on the Siege of Paris also feels most apt at the moment.

Photo by Alireza Attari on Unsplash

The Japanese House - We Talk All the Time

The Japanese House was the last gig I saw, and reviewed, before Christmas 2019. I remember the gig for that reason, because it was a good gig, and because it was pretty much the only gig I attended last year where it wasn't just me and an audience of middle aged men. This one was at The Ritz and was evidently a big student night out, which made a refreshing change I must say.

Both a solo artist and a full band, The Japanese House are one of those artists whose fame is going to gradually creep up on people I think. They are unassuming but they make intricate, slightly arch, intelligent indie pop that is laced through with Gen Z insecurities. And for those reasons alone, they have gone far, and will continue to do so.

Hatchie — Bad Guy (Official Video)

A nice slice of sun soaked dream pop from Brisbane's Harriette Pilbeam. 'Bad Guy' was included on last years debut album, Keepsake, and was a definite highlight of the live show when she toured the UK in autumn 2019. Close your eyes and pretend it's summer.

Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 5 (April 2020)

As we reach part 5 of my series of lockdown read tips, I'm inclined to paraphrase Bette Davis: Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride...

Needless to say, most of the interesting pieces I've found to read throughout April have been coronavirus related. The global pandemic has seeped into just about every area of journalism you could imagine (and some you perhaps couldn't...), which might have led to a grim reading list were it not for my constant need to find journalism that comes at things from a different, often quirky, frequently whimsical, angle.

In compiling my list of articles for this month, I've tried to include a mix of the serious and the whimsical, the long and the short, the personal and the analytical. I've also tried to find some non Covid content, which has been pretty difficult, but I've found at least one.

It seemed easiest to arrange the stories broadly chronologically rather than thematically this month as that seemed to best show the continuing, evolving debates, plus also give an insight into the prevailing mood in the UK and, on occasion, further afield.

At the beginning of April the BBC ran an unusual human interest take on the pandemic with this tale of junior doctor turned Miss England, Bhasha Mukherjee, who has returned home early from her beauty queen duties to serve the NHS.

Over at The Independent, Annie Lord penned a sweet salute to the film Frances Ha! and it's portrayal of female friendships.

We couldn't get through a discussion of either Covid or current affairs in April 2020 without touching on panic buying. While a lot of the coverage was prurient, voyeuristic and tended to make the situation worse, 1843 flew the flag for grown up journalism with this international take on panic buying, and balanced it with their similarly international take on coronavirus slang. Another take on how coronavirus has impacted the food sector came with this encouraging report about a food union in Bristol over on Wicked Leeks.

In other news, the 375 bus route was finally saved this month.

Not the 375

In common with many news outlets, the Manchester Evening News have been highlighting good coronavirus stories, including this one about a family of five who seem to be looking after a whole street in their area. The Onion Collective has a more in depth take on the extent to which community activism and social enterprise has stepped in to cover gaps during this crisis, while Manchester climate activist Charlotte Lastoweckyi penned a vividly moving blog post about finishing school during a pandemic.

As the UK began to adjust to life under lockdown, social media was saturated with lockdown baking pictures, daytime drinking allusions and loungewear. Meanwhile, Teresa Mistretta was busy creating an art gallery for her guinea pig in her house.

5G and coronavirus conspiracy theories have cropped up a lot this month, to the extent that the UK's independent fact checking site Full Fact felt compelled to do a deep dive on just where the theories had originated from.

Meanwhile, Singapore were getting creative with their coronavirus public health messages.

If, like me, you've had cause to think that your government hasn't been entirely fair in it's handling of the coronavirus induced employment and self employment crisis, you might find this analysis of how different governments around the world are handling the sharp rise in unemployment to be an eye opener.

As societies find themselves increasingly polarised into two groups: Those who are key workers and those who are staying in, spare a thought for these newly elevated key workers both in and beyond the medical professions. It has certainly not been a picnic for them. Buzzfeed ran a sobering piece on what it's like to be a supermarket worker at the moment, and it's a terrifying read.

Some vegetables, in happier times

In a time of self censorship and increased scrutiny of the press and of broadcasters, citizen journalism tends to come into its own, telling the stories that would often be regarded as going against the wider narrative or complicating it. Manchester's The Meteor haven't been the only ones to point out that Manchester's homelessness problem hasn't been solved by the lockdown, with many homeless still on the streets, but this profile of the Street Meet soup kitchen and their work under lockdown reveals the complexities of the wider story. This piece focusing on organisations working with the most vulnerable in Manchester, and the issues they are facing under lockdown, is a good companion piece.

The Meteor also ran a compelling piece showing the human face of those stranded abroad during the lockdown.

The wellness industry has been busy during lockdown but, if you are struggling mentally, this article from the New Scientist, in which seven different mental health experts provide tips on coping with lockdown should cut through the bullshit.

Full Fact did some sterling work untangling allegations that the UK government was running fake NHS Twitter accounts for disinformation purposes, while Jonn Elledge at the New Statesman just wants billionaires to let go of their Batman complexes.

Two excellent long reads on the human face of the coronavirus were published this month. The first, from 1843, is a flawless piece on the Diamond Princess and what it was like to go from a luxury cruise passenger to being at the heart of an epidemic. Much of the reporting of this story in the UK at the time tended to focus a lot on pandering to stereotypes of Brits abroad and, at times, came across like a bad seventies sitcom. This piece cuts through all of that and gives a much more nuanced, slow journalism take from a multi person, international perspective.

The second high quality coronavirus long read is from The New Yorker, and it tells the story of Juan Sanabria, one of the first people to die in New York from Covid-19.

The Committee to Protect Journalists ran an interesting, albeit worrying and sobering, take on what it's like to be a journalist during a time of corona. Journalists are classed as key workers in most countries affected by the coronavirus but many countries are also cracking down (both directly and indirectly) on the media, a state of affairs that is making an already dangerous profession more dangerous.

Amidst a constant barrage of statistics and graphs, the New Scientist asked How many people have really died from Covid-19 so far?

Over at The Guardian, Frances Ryan suggested that, while most people had experienced a loss of liberty due to lockdown, many disabled people were benefitting directly from living in an increasingly digitally orientated world.

The science is inconclusive so far, but the New Scientist asked whether you are more likely to die of covid-19 if you live in a polluted area.

In the spirit of complicating the received narrative, 1843 ran a piece about what it's like to be a 'pin-sharp' pensioner living in lockdown in a UK care home during coronavirus.

But if all of this is too much for you, there's a good deep dive into the causes of the Peasants' Revolt over on History Extra.

Until next time...

Photo one by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash

Photo two by Harrison Qi on Unsplash

Photo three by nrd on Unsplash

Photo four by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash