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An excellent festival. More completely organised than I expected. This came to prominence straight away, when a rather spacey lady handling our tickets failed to give us one of the essential ID cards that pair up with the wristband to allow entry and re-entry. A security guard stopped us from heading back in to point out the error. Anticipating anguish at the gate, and hoping that a single card and a friendly attitude might get us through, we were met by a super-friendly chap, speaking perfect English, who whisked us back to the check-in, where we waited for the woman to confirm that her stack of cards and tickets were out by one, and furnished us with the missing card. And then we were in. Things do not run that smoothly at Glastonbury when your credentials go awry!

The venue is good, purpose built, although admittedly it does have a slight air of NCP car park to it. There are three amphitheatres with banked steps of seating set facing out to sea. These make up the RockDelux , ATP and the VICE stages. The other two stages, namely the CD Drome , and the Estrella Damm stage are set up on the main paved area that links the first three, with the food market between them. There are two gigantic arrays of solar cells, apparently the largest in Europe, which at least made a handy shelter during the couple of light rain showers, even if they sadly aren’t used to directly power the festival itself . There is also an indoor concert hall, the Auditori, which I didn’t manage to set foot inside once, a combination of not being nearby when anything compelling was happening there, plus not quite being able to figure out where the entrance actually was!

The festival runs over several days, Thursday to Saturday, and keeps to a gruelling schedule, starting at four or five p.m., and running through till four or five a.m the next morning. It’s really all about the music, as there is little else to do onsite, other than browse a few T-shirt and record label stalls, eat functional outdoor food, or drink expensive sponsor beer from plastic cups.

It’s far less wear upon the legs and feet than the typical British festival, the proximity of the stages, along with the near-universal seating, and paved footpaths rather than clogging mud fields thankfully mean that it’s just the marathon running time contributing to your fatigue, not trudging miles around countryside inbetween sets. The climate was pleasantly appropriate, a few spots of light rain but it was mild enough to be comfortable in light clothing all the way through the evening, so you could just stick to the basic set of clothes you came in wearing, not wrestle with lugging around cumbersome outfit changes to cater to changes in the weather.

It may be just a result of the lack of crowding, but the toilet facilites were fine, little queuing, and freshly clean each day. I recommend taking a little dispenser of handwash gel, you can pick these up in the chemists nowadays.

Another benefit of the close site is the number of acts you can practically watch. As the stages are just separated by a minute or two’s easy stroll you can mix and match to take in as much, or as little of a set as you fancy. It’s quite possible to watch the start of one artist’s set for a couple of songs, and then wander around another three stages watching a couple of numbers at each, and still return to the start to catch the final few of the original. This all makes it incredibly easy to sample new or interesting acts on spec without having to miss out on much if any of your must-see sets. Over the three days we easily managed to see dozens of acts, with comparatively little effort.

It would take too long to run through them all in detail, so I’ll just group the highlights into some buckets.

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Appearing as part of Dot to Dot , an excellent city-wide music hullaballoo, spanning multiple venues. As the schedule didn’t really sit very comfortably with my travel plans, flying out to Barcelona the next morning, I didn’t really get a chance to see many sets, just some of Fight like Apes ( excellent ), Montreal’s We are Wolves ( good stage moves ), Two Gallants ( dull enough to make me wander away and play Sonic the Hedgehog tennis on a nearby X-Box demo machine. Two thumbs up for Sonic Tennis, though ).

In fairness, the latter looked like they might be quite interesting, given enough familiarity with the material, and I’m tempted to chance an album, but I wasn’t really feeling it. And the main reason I was actually in the Trinity, was to catch the headliners, Spiritualized, one of my all time favourites.

I thought they played a blinder. The Trinity is fast becoming one of my favourite Bristol venues, great sound, good bar, and it’s incredibly handy to reach on foot. And they keep booking my favourite artists.

The band were really together, there’s the welcome return of the gospel backing singers, excellent lightshow, and J. Spaceman is looking great and singing better than he ever has, at least to my ears. New album out now-ish.

Time to sum up another year, in what seems to be becoming an increasingly traditional form - a “Best of” list. Here’s my assesment of 2007 in music.

Best Album

Bluefinger: Black Francis

This one has provoked extensive pondering. I grabbed it from the pending  emusic.com  queue a little while ago. While I do possess a fair few  Frank Black  (a.k.a.  Black Francis ) albums, it’s probably not even half way to being the complete set, as he’s a prolific fellow. Similarly, whilst I would cheerfully profess myself a fan, I do struggle to understand quite how I differentiate for quality between them. They all seem to be fairly similar works, but occasionally I just seem to like one of them a lot more than the others.

So this album has all the essential qualities you expect, punky rock and roll, chunky guitars, well recorded, often with a very live and direct to tape feel, brisk tempo, memorable melody, balances of dissonance and harmony, and of course those entirely distinctive vocals, unmistakable as much for the words themselves, as the vocal delivery, (a convoluted phrase I must apologise for, but “singing” doesn’t quite seem to cover it).

I’m not quite sure where the magic happens, or how I’d measure it, but  Bluefinger  unexpectedly showed up, towards the end of the year, and I love it. It’s energising, catchy, loose-sounding enough to communicate a sense of spontaneity, but crafted to still reward concentrated listening, catchy, and just bursting with life and enthusiasm.

In reviews, much significance has been made out of this being a ‘Black Francis’ release, signifying some sort of return to  Pixies -style sounds and form. I’m not sure I hear that, but I’m still making it album of the year.

Best Artist

The New Pornographers

I’m clearly rather obsessed with  TNP , as even a casual study of at  my last.fm charts  would indicate (and the situation worsens if you consider A.C. Newman ,  Destroyer  and  Neko  tracks played as ancillary contributions), but these are my irrelevant music awards, and why are you reading this anyway?

I have to give them best artist as a cop-out, as I could quite honestly have just awarded them every category, which would have made for a tragic and duller post.

They released  ‘Challengers’  this year, perhaps their strongest album, even without considering the fun of the multi-disc download-able box-set and trimmings that made up the  ‘Executive Edition’ . they issued a super  Xmas single/EP , and having them respond to my perfectly timed request for ‘From Blown Speakers’ as an encore, (at a  a venue just a short trek down the road  from my house) easily ranks as one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had at a live show.

They’re less easily pigeonholed into the “Discovery” category, but this year was the first time I saw them play live (three times, no less), which maybe fits, if you squint at it right.

So they’re unquestionably Best Artist, which can be read as a euphemism for ‘Best Everything’, if you like.

Best Single

2080: Yeasayer

I only happened into  this , because of the recommendations of my friend, the often right, Tony Lazarus. It’s a cracking single, which manages to sound like a whole set of other things (to my ears, at least echoes of Arcade Fire, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Tom Club, and even It Bites ) all at once, while still carrying a memorable tune, with a flavour all it’s own.

The album  “All Hour Cymbals”  is strong, and worth your time, but this single is the stand-out track and a good encapsulation of the band. I think they’re on their way to bigger things.

Best Gig

Spring Heel Jack, J. Spaceman & Mark Sanders: Venn Festival, Arnolfini, Bristol

A far cry from Spiritualized. Samples, loops and programmed percussion, backed with frantic 12 string guitar hammering from  Spring Heel Jack , and layers of delay and electric guitar feedback from Spaceman , all held together by the jaw-slackeningly exciting, dynamic drum work of  Mark Sanders .

This sort of music isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I find it wonderfully exciting to watch something so spontaneous and surprising being created before me in the moment. To me, the live presentation is such an essential part of this work, and that’s really why I’m giving it my favourite gig nomination. Extra points awarded for being seated, a civilised touch I’m increasingly fond of in my old age, and for Spaceman’s twinkly silver shoes; teamed with jeans and plain button-down shirt, this is a look which confidently projects ‘rock star’.

Best Discovery

St Vincent

I had a struggle for a while with this final category, deliberating over two artists to choose for this one. They’re linked by a certain amount of personal coincidence, I discovered both of them playing as support for another act I wanted to see, they both presented themselves as solo guitar/vocalists over loop effects, and they both turned out to be more memorable than the main act.

Phosphorescent , I saw as the warm up act for  a disappointing Akron/Family at the Croft , with an acoustic guitar + sound-hole pickup and some great songs, including an effective Bee Gees cover (  via Nina Simone  ). Particularly memorable use of the  loop pedal  over the vocal mic for some very spooky effects. I picked up  a recent album , and it’s an enjoyable piece, sitting nicely somewhere in the range of freak-folk with the bias more towards folk than freak, which is where I find the sweet spot to be.

I’m going to nominate the other act as the actual imaginary award recipient though.  St Vincent , whom I watched performing her show (with a heavy cold), as a guest  warm up for The National  at the Anson rooms, with vocals, electric guitar, some keyboards, again operated through loops and samplers on the spot. She’s an  original, and impressive guitarist , with a strong vocal range, and an experimental and diverse approach to song-writing on the  debut album , which I was impressed enough to purchase on the spot. Apparently St Vincent also tour as a full band, which is something I shall have to endeavour to see for myself, the next time they tour the UK.

Sad to wake up this morning and discover that one of the heroes of my youth has passed on, at the not-unreasonable age of 79.You might not recognise the name, but you know the tunes .

I first became a conscious admirer fairly young, something about the accompaniment to an episode of ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin’ impressed me enough for me to sit and read the credits at the end to find out who was responsible. A matter of days later, I was blown away to suddenly realise that the musical riff in the intro to ‘Yes Minister’ was cleverly based around the melody of the opening chimes from Big Ben. And it was the same bloke! I was hooked, and pretty soon accumulated a catalogue of sightings, as in those days, he was all over the BBC.

I remember being extremely tickled when Spitting Image lampooned him in one edition, as the most significant British composer of the 20th century, or some such gag. Disappointingly, as I recall they just used one of their generic bloke muppets, presumably they thought nobody would have recognised him, if they’d done a proper one. 

Ooberman were a favourite 90’s band of mine. I should really say “are a favourite”, because not only do I still regularly listen to their back catalogue, they seem to be operative once again, after having given up sometime in 2003.

I was lucky enough to see them play a couple of times, the CDs I bought subsequently still get enough play to show up on my Last.fm artist charts from time to time. Like many other bands who once caught my fancy and are currently residing in the ‘where are they now?’ file, practically nobody I’ve met has ever heard of them. Presumably this sort of lack of reach, or perhaps even market indifference is one of the reasons beind their split and hiatus.

I’m not sure what motivates the reformation, but it’s a welcome surprise.Rather than try and explain what they sound like, I can just suggest that anyone interested gives them a try, because they’ve made the interesting decision to offer their entire back catalogue for download by anyone willing to subscribe to their mailing list .

Unfortunately, most of the files are encoded in the unfriendly WMA format, and will need converting to something more useful like MP3 in order to work with iTunes and an iPod.

I managed to do this using the unix tools Mplayer to uncompress audio files from the WMA, lame to re-encode these as MP3 audio. I installed Mplayer and lame using MacPorts , installing mplayer brought lame along as a dependency.Each album is a download, consisting of a zipfiles of individual track files. You can automate the conversion by unzipping each album to a working directory, and scripting the bash shell something like this.

for WMA in *wma
do WAV=${WMA/wma/wav}
MP3=${WMA/wma/mp3}
NUM=${MP3::2}
NAME=${MP3:2}
NAME=${NAME%%.mp3}
mplayer "$WMA" -ao pcm:file="$WAV"
lame --id3v2-only --ty "1998" --tl "Shorley Wall E.P." --ta "Ooberman" --tt "$NAME" --tn "$NUM" --preset fast standard "$WAV" "$MP3"
done

This snippet will take a directory full of .wma files, and create .wav and .mp3 file equivalents. The harcoded strings need changing to suit each album. The script tries to extract the track number and correct title from the filename and supply them to the mp3 encoder for use in the ID3 tags, so that iTunes will populate these fields automatically on import.

The script is a lazy one-off. The pattern matching name and number extracts are based on bash 2.05 brace expansion , the script will still batch correctly on sets that don’t match the expected filename patterns, sadly these do vary by album, you’ll have to edit the metadata a bit after import in these cases. It wasn’t quite worth the effort of knocking up something more reusable in perl.