Day two of this year’s Liverpool Psychfest kicked off in fine style with Newcastle’s The Glass Moths laying it on thick with their organ drenched, extended workouts. You have to make the effort to get in early to see the opening acts at these things, at least when you’re already in situ, and the rewards for the early birds were here today across all three rooms. Temple Songs tore it up in the Camp with their set very much being at the frantic, manic end of the psych spectrum whilst Rennes’ Sudden Death Of Stars were first on stage in daylight in the Furnace (a criminally early slot for a band this good) and wowed the lucky souls who’d made time for them with their sitar-infused, tambourine-heavy output.

Local quartet Strange Collective were next up at the Blade Factory, with their guitarist having just high-tailed it over from a wedding. Bringing to mind the Beta Band at times they plough a nicely fuzzed-up furrow when they get into their stride. Traams were then briefly witnessed back at the Furnace, leading to one of the weekend’s regrets that we’d not seen more of their thrillingly intense 30 minutes. By now most people had made it out of bed so upon heading back round the corner it was only possible to take in the fact that Cantaloupe had attracted a substantially larger crowd than saw them at Threadfest in May so things look to be going well for them. Islet rounded off the pre-dinner session for us back in the Camp (Nueva Costa were unfortunately a bit too weedy for us and a great amount of the other punters it seemed). Starting off by wandering through the crowd with handheld glockenspiels it was clear that the bigger venue afforded them the scope their ideas required to a better degree than witnessed at Long Division in the middle of the month.

Post-scoff our first stop was back at the Blade Factory but Cheval Sombre came across as being rather too much low-key acoustica for the moment so the visit was brief. Likewise Orval Carlos Sibelius, deemed “too Britpop” by Mr. Allen, got little of our attention in the same hall a couple of hours later. Far more up our street in the same space was Theo Verney, who can pretty fairly be hailed as a UK Ty Segall. As expected after seeing the band’s Long Division performance (albeit with I think a different bassist) they were ideally suited to the smaller and far more intimate confines of the Blade Factory, inspiring crowd surfing and general energetic movement amongst the front few rows of the audience. Big things should deservedly come the band’s way. September Girls were the final act we took an interest in at the Blade Factory but again we were at the tail end and so could see no more than the tops of their heads. Sound-wise though they were as expected from multiple listens to Cursing The Sea and far better than the moronic “Calendar Girls” comment made by some passing fool.

The larger two halls panned out for us largely as one LOUD and one quiet for the nighttime sessions. The Furnace hosted returnees The Lucid Dream whose thundering crescendo of sound & strobes provided one of the undoubted highlights of the two days but then things calmed right down with the harmonious sounds of Grumbling Fur, a solo-filled but rather straightforward set from Sleepy Sun who were hard to hear at the rear of the hall and were not the same exciting prospect as when last seen in Edinburgh a couple of years ago. Quilt, however, with their balance of male & female vocals were another highlight in a night that produced a few of those. Their light undimmed after a month on the road in Europe they were another oddly under-viewed act but pulled off a deeply affecting performance. Closing out our involvement with the Furnace came Woods, whose set featured all the songs you could have hoped for from Bend Beyond as well as a good dollop from current album With Light And With Love and their back catalogue.

The Camp therefore was clearly then the place to be if you wanted to endanger your hearing tonight. Lay Llamas enjoyed some of the best visuals of the day as their set wove, Live At Pompeii-like, from mesmerising to cacophonous. The backdrop technology failed for a short period during Anthroprophh’s set but by this point it was all about your ears as the pounding backbeat and extreme solos took on a physical form to churn your guts. Teeth Of The Sea took things further off down the track towards techno whilst simultaneously making excellent use of brass and maintaining the guitar solo quotient on a classic flying v. By this time the projections were of quite a menacing nature and the sound was flattening out the heads on the pints.

Gnod, augmented by Dave W. of White Hills, added further mayhem & madness to the already volume-laden atmosphere. Like watching Kim Fowley fronting space rock escapees from an off-world cult, the disparate Mancunian bunch elevated things to a whole new level of freakery. Who knows what they actually played – such things as discernible songs were no longer important by this point.

White Hills themselves were the final act of the night for me (so I’ve not a clue about the kerfuffle that apparently went off around the Goat show) and they topped off the entire event to perfection. Energetic, appreciative of the audience, waffle-free and fantastically overdriven the trio thrashed and fuzzed their way through to 01:30 as if their lives depended on it. The crowd were far to polite at the end to clamour for further songs (aware maybe for a change of event time constraints) but if any act that appeared here during the day’s 14 hours deserved an encore it was these guys. 

Our full set of photographs from this year's event can be viewed on Flickr.

Back for a third go Bradford's Threadfest sees 40+ acts play across ten venues in the city for free over the course of the bank holiday weekend. You read that correctly - free. That lack of entrance fee is achieved by the involvement of such promoters & organisations as Music At Bradford University, Sound Shack Records, the Topic Folk Club and a host more, allowing there to be a rich variety of music (and art installations) on the various stages without anyone being beholden to some mega-booze manufacturer, sports clothing brand or whatever. A wholesome way to begin things.

First stop tonight then was The Black Swan, a pub that fairly screams ROCK! at you and where you can imagine the likes of Napalm Death or similar starting out life on the stage at the end of the bar & everybody enjoying it immensely. Unfortunately no bands were seen on the stage tonight as the start time came and went with no obvious musicians making a move to play so a taxi was called (avoiding the rain would become as much a part of the weekend as the music) for the trip across the city centre to The New Bradford Playhouse, the only other venue in use today.

Weaving through the back stairs from the basement bar brought us into aural contact with the psychedelia of local trio Gurgles and it was the sort of meeting of minds that instantly put to rest all the stresses associated with attending this sort of event. With not a guitar in sight the threesome brought a bit of a heavy prog. edge to their material at times as they ranged from a Yes-like tune at one point to lighter fare employing "Google French" and the heartfelt shouts of "You're an idiot" in a later chorus. Purchasing their 'You Send Me Up' 7" was the only sane action to be taken at the close of their set.

Keeping it local the next band to come on were the particularly youthful indie/afro-beat quartet Koala. Despite the lack of an actual stage the group don't lack for that type of presence, with singer Jemimah gamely attempting to be in more places than one such was the energy she devoted to ranging around the space. With a set including the title track from their Molecules EP and 'Moments' (to which we were all encouraged to "bop") theirs was an enjoyable half hour or so to experience, further proving the worth of making the trip down for the weekend.

Third on tonight were Nottingham's Cantaloupe, another guitarless trio but of a different brand entirely than Gurgles. A band with a quite a few releases to their name there was never going to be a problem in coming up with a set-list. Both sides of the 'Splish'/'Wet Dog' 12" were included in their krautdisco performance, along with 'Hot Water Balloon', with its trippy and motorik start that slowly builds into something altogether different. A seriously good contemporary instrumental act who had their large following along as further proof if any were needed.

Finally tonight came Leeds' Galaxians. With their debut album coming out soon the drums & synth duo didn't mess about in laying down their disco-laced beats, although writing that belies the underlying more serious musical edge that their works contain. Theirs' is a sound that more people than would expect to could appreciate if they'd give themselves the chance. On the night it was bit of a shame that the performance space didn't quite do them justice (a stage of at least a little height and a bit more space for their sounds to fill would have been better) but the crowd were moved to dance to a degree by what was afforded them so that met the bottomline.  

Thanks to Bobbi Luo and Yvonne for the accommodation and hanging out over the weekend.