Now celebrating its 10th year, End Of The Road is a folksier alternative to more prominent names. It offers a mecca for foodies (all organic, all local) and lovers of folk and dreamy rock tunes can expect a perfect blend of the tranquil and the lively.

The real-ale soaked Dorset gathering has attracted big names this year, with headliners including shoegazers The War On Drugs who arguably released 2014’s finest record, Lost In The Dream and Sufjan Stevens, who has penned Carrie And Lowell, a contender for 2015’s. They’re joined by Australian psychedelics Tame Impala, who have their hotly anticipated 3^rd release coming in July.

There’s a refreshing vibe to the festival and campers are given the space and freedom that the range of music merits. There are no VIP areas so performers are often seen wandering the site. My visit to the festival in 2013 involved a conversation with members of Parquet Courts about the best beer on offer. They were just chilling by the Cider Bus. Yes, there’s a Cider Bus.

The range of performers is staggering but the must-see acts at 2015’s festival include Future Islands, who you’ll know and most-likely love from that Letterman performance. There’s Laura Marling whose soft acoustic tunes are accompanied by a beautifully chilling voice. Superstar slacker Mac DeMarco and afrobeat outfit Django Django bring the perfect hazy summer soundtrack. Alvvays create fuzzy indie-pop in abandon while the legendary Mark Lanegan offers a darker touch.

Torres has a spell-binding rawness in her craft of moody indie-rock tunes. Ought are an exhilarating art-punk band from Montreal, Canada. Wistful folk from Jessica Pratt sounds as if it is lifted straight of the mid-'60s and Happyness’ dreamy lo-fi sound is a mesmeric treat.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg in the range of sun-soaked up-and-coming gems on offer and with wild Peacocks roaming the festival site without a care in the world, End Of The Road 2015 is a truly unique festival. V-Festival it’s not.

Sufjan Stevens turns forty this year, a surprise for those aware of his youthful appearance. This makes more sense if one remembers that 2005’s Illinois is ten years old now, and that he was putting out records a while before then. With age, comes reflection. And it is at forty that Stevens has decided to release an album about his mother, who left him when he was one, and died in 2012 after a prolonged struggle with mental illness and alcoholism. Though Stevens has always written personal music, imbued with his faith, love life, or commenting with anguish on the post-industrial decline of his native Detroit, Carrie & Lowell is by far the most emotional album yet.

The complicated nature of this particular mother-son relationship means this was always going to be the case. Stevens is justifiably angry. The album recalls scattered moments of disappointment - being left in video stores and bouts of drunkenness - as well as physical abuse. “What did I do to deserve this?” he asks on ‘Drawn to the Blood’, as any child would. However, love also plays a part. Stevens’ pain is palpable on ‘No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross’, the song which directly confronts her death.

While this all marks a distinct change from the content of Illinois or 2003’s Michigan – there are no heroes of American history or gutsy portraits of rolling landscapes here – the tone will prove recognisable to fans of these earlier albums. The synths and abstract electronics of 2010’s The Age of Adz do not feature, perhaps predictably for an album in this mould. Instead, the sound is stripped back to Stevens’ earlier style – finger-plucked strings, isolated pianos and appropriately placed backing vocals. It is Stevens’ voice, though, which provides the most range in this album, rather than instrumentation.

It is worth taking a step back halfway through Carrie & Lowell and taking a moment to appreciate how hard it would be, for anyone, to make an album like this. Let alone to do it in such a well-proportioned manner that never threatens to overwhelm the listener. Memorable, intimate, and dignified, this is Stevens’ best record since Illinois.

Carrie & Lowell is available from amazon & iTunes.