Whilst busy enjoying Sunflower Bean live at Le Guess Who? last year it never crossed my mind they'd be on Fat Possum, home to the likes of the legendary R.L. Burnside and other such electric blues players. But here they are with debut album Human Ceremony coming out on the label.

Live they were clearly happier playing than having a chat with the crowd but their songs amply spoke for them so that was no issue. On record Julia Cumming's voice is beautifully clear (not quite the case in Utrecht but the promise was there) and the studio environment also obviously allows the guitar parts and musical nuances of each song to shine in ways they can't when you're a trio playing in the back room of a bar.

Therefore their blend of sweetly voiced indie can, at the lazy end of the spectrum, be summed up as Blondie meets early Smashing Pumpkins but that gives you no idea of the sunshiny shimmer of 'Easier Said' or the tight, motorik underpinning of 'This Kinda Feeling' (a song that ends way too soon).

Lyrically too the album stands out. I'm never able to remember the words (or in many cases make them out) after finishing playing anything new it seems but Sunflower Bean, particularly in the call & response of 'I Was Home', display an effective ability to deliver unfussy wording that nevertheless manages to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Belly come to mind on 'Creation Myth' and there's an air of '80s and '90s 4AD around a lot of the 11 songs of Human Ceremony. Definitely no bad thing and something UK and European audiences can make their own minds up about when the band tour in February:-

Feb 2nd - Bristol, UK - Louisana
Feb 3rd - Birmingham, UK - Hare & Hounds
Feb 5th - London - Rough Trade EAST In-store
Feb 6th - Paris, FR - Le Pop Up Du Label
Feb 8th - Copenhagen, DK - Ideal Bar
Feb 9th - Berlin, GR - Berghain Kantine
Feb 10th - Hamburg, GR - Molotov Bar
Feb 11th - Amsterdam, NL - De School
Feb 12th - Brussels, BE - Botanique
Feb 13th - Lille, FR - La Peniche
Feb 15th - Edinburgh, UK - Sneaky Pete’s
Feb 16th - Manchester, UK - Soup Kitchen
Feb 18th - London, UK - The Dome
Feb 19th - Brighton, UK - Bleach

Human Ceremony is available from amazon & iTunes.

Saturday at Le Guess Who? this year heralded the introduction of Le Feast where 15 Utrecht households each welcomed a number of festival goers in for a feed and some chat so at 18:00 Stef & myself found ourselves (shamefully sans bottle of wine) settling down amidst a small international group for food themed music, excellent home cooked dishes and chat about the festival and beyond. Definitely an initiative that should carry on at future events.

Post-dinner we caught Magma for a couple of numbers in passing in the Ronda. They'd drawn what seemed to me the first major crowd for that hall so clearly the veteran prog/jazz group were a popular inclusion in the programme. We had other fish to fry though and weren't sorry to move on upstairs to secure a spot in the Pandora for Ringo Deathstarr.

As well as playing host to many of the most popular acts over the weekend this hall also seemed to suffer more technical issues than any other so the band were amongst those slightly delayed or interrupted by such things. They started off brightly enough once back on track but were curiously less engaging than on their recorded output.

As tonight had fewer personal "must-see" acts on the bill the next port of call was to see unknown New York trio Sunflower Bean over at the Acu venue. I nicely intimate hall well filled saw the likeable band play a set mainly culled from their forthcoming album Human Ceremony. Bassist Julia Cumming, pronouncing at one point that "bands shouldn't talk that much", has a very effective quick change from sweet to aggravated when singing, whilst Nick Kivlen manages to pull off some straight up guitar shapes that shouldn't really work in the context of the band's sound but somehow manage to.

More American unknowns were on at de Helling where recent Heavenly Recordings signings Nots were just taking to the stage after my sole drenching of the weekend. Visually it looked like two of The Donnas had joined forces with an electronics fan and a librarian but there was no way a simple "Shhh" would have damped down their raucous and hearfelt performance, their first in Europe. Finally I had a need for my earplugs. Single 'Reactor' and the rest of their set were torn through and the smallish crowd can be justly pleased with themselves for including this show in their attendances.

Back up to Acu next for the final bunch of unknowns, London's Housewives. The band utilise two drummers (albeit one only has a floor tom and a cymbal) to pound away in unison whilst the guitar and bass chop away and the monk-like vocals float over the top. Both Godflesh and Om came to mind during the songs I was able to see but the overall effect didn't really grab me.

The night was finished off back down at de Helling where Wavves enjoyed a capacity crowd and inspired more stage diving and crowd surfing than I've seen in a long time. Normally you see no security staff anywhere near the stages at Le Guess Who? but the extra bodies regularly taking to the stage had them hovering on the fringes this time. 'Way Too Much' and other tracks from new album V got a look in as well as older material such as 'Take On The World'. Nathan Williams had an uncomfortable start to the show due to the mic often shocking him but, with the application of a cover, that was consigned to the past and they carried on with the business at hand with 'King Of The Beach' being the most rapturously received song of the night.

The last act seen tonight were the Jacuzzi Boys, recently seen in Glasgow as support to Ex Hex & so a known quantity and one that didn't disappoint. Playing like their lives depended on it with barely a break between tracks they started off with 'Happy Damage' and inspired far more audience participation than at that earlier show. As is only fair when the band on stage are rocking out so hard. An enjoyable end to a night spent largely at the furthest reaches of the festival.