Over the last few years, Caught by the River have been blessed by the opportunity to book stages at two of the UK’s very best festivals. After a year off, Port Eliot returns this July. And in September (5th – 7th), Festival No 6 returns to Portmeirion for a three day celebration of live music, DJs, arts and culture. The likes of Beck, Steve Mason, Temples and Andrew Weatherall play across the weekend while our stage – once again a collaboration with the good people at Faber Social – presents an inspirational mix of spoken word and music. We think we’ve put together our strongest bill yet. Hope you agree… and hopefully be seeing you then.
Bolton born Simon Aldred seems to have been undergoing a period of musical schizophrenia over the last few years, first as co-writer for hire then with the electro-soul project Out Cold. This year, he returns to his most famous guise – Cherry Ghost – for his third album Herd Runners (a collection of ten perfect tales of heartbreak and hope) and a headline slot at Festival No 6.
A 3 piece from Liverpool who make psychedelic soul & RnB, their self-released debut single ‘Utmost Good’ was described by the Guardian as ‘the Bee Gees on Diazepam’. They are signed to Domino Records affiliate Double 6 and they’re ace.
James Holden
Holden’s 2013 record ‘The Inheritors’ was “a 75 minute long English pagan saga… a bold, psychedelic journey, striking a delicate balance between weighty tome and transformative trip”. Transcendent music of the highest order and pitch perfect for sunset over the Estuary.
Julian Cope – the Arch Drude himself – is an English rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator. He is a recognised authority on neolithic culture, and an outspoken political and cultural activist with a noted and public interest in occultism and paganism. Faber Social will publish Julian’s first novel One Three One: A Time Shifting Gnostic Hooligan Road Novel in June 2014. He will be in conversation with Lee Brackstone from Faber at Festival No 6.
One third of the mighty Doves, Jimi’s debut solo album ‘Odludek’ is an early contender for best record of 2014. Wildly eclectic like an old school mixtape, it’s a heady mystic brew steeped in Northern Soul, Southern gospel, hip-hop, psychedelica, ambient, krautrock, dub, funk and acid house. As all great albums should be.
Philip is the author of seven works of non-fiction, including biographies of Stephen Tennant and Noel Coward, Wilde’s Last Stand and Spike Island. Leviathan Or, The Whale won the Samuel Johnson Prize for 2009. His most recent book, The Sea Inside, was described by the Guardian as “full of the ocean’s strangeness and beauty”. Philip will be in conversation with Andy Miller, author of The Year of Living Dangerously.
The kosmiche impulse fuelled project of Cardiff based musician/producer Robin Edwards. Sounding as though poured from a secret psychedelic foundry deep in North Wales, Seiliog melts together forgotten components of krautrock, music concrete and noise to create a unique record of warm and detailed electronics, gravitating towards the early output of Terry Riley, Cluster or Harmonia. Live, his songs take on new forms as analog haze anchors the relentless waves of shudder-pop.
Viv is a musician, artist, writer and film-maker. She was guitarist and songwriter in the legendary punk band, The Slits, and made her acting debut in the film Exhibition. Faber publish her memoirs Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys in June and she’ll be discussing her life and times with Caught by the River’s Emma Warren.
South African duo John Wizard’s debut was described by the Guardian as “almost charming in its innocence, complete with the odd element of kitsch. At some level, it even reminded me at times of Smile-era Beach Boys, and it does feel very much the product of a singular vision, or perhaps hallucination.” Live, as a visionary six-piece, their sound expands into something magical.
At his day job at the British Library, Ian Rawes cut his teeth in the sound archive and explored its depths. Field recordings and studies by acoustic ecologists came to his attention around the same time that he was looking to create his own capital-based project. Several years on and Rawes is responsible for his own huge archive. His recordings employ a variety of professional, home made, and adapted devices used both discreetly or in plain view to create a jaw dropping, immersive aural representation of the capitol.
Richard is the best-selling author of The Farm, his memoir about the sale his family’s farm in Yorkshire. His new book, The Valley: 100
Years in the Life of a Family, tells a factual story of 20th-century
England through the experiences of four generations of his mother’s family in the south Yorkshire coalfield, and is published by Bloomsbury this spring. Richard Benson is a former editor of The Face magazine, and his writing has appeared in various publications including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times and Caught By The River.
Since 2006, Brian Shimkovitz’s Awesome Tapes From Africa blog has been shedding light on obscure and wonderful sounds from across the continent. As a DJ he brings the blog to life with 2-3 hour sets blending folkloric pop, left-field dancefloor gems and hip-hop bangers he’s collected on African marketplace finds. HIs DJ sets on twin tape decks explore deep, regional sounds using analogue-anchored agility not heard/seen anywhere else in the world.
Evie is the author of two novels, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice and All the Birds, Singing. She is one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and runs an independent bookshop in Peckham called Review.
The Rails – singer-songwriter duo Kami Thompson and James Walbourne – reached deep into their rich musical histories to concoct the kind of sharp, true folk rock blend rarely heard since the Seventies. Their debut album ‘Fair Warning’ is a little wonder, packed with traditional and original songs that stand outside of time yet resonate with contemporary urgency. Recognising perfection when they hear it, Island records revived their vintage Pink Label – home to John Martyn, Nick Drake and Fairport Convention – for the duo.
The genius brainchild of Ted Kessler, a writer and editor who has spent the last two decades destroying the music press – firstly as an NME staffer during their 90s heyday and then as an editor on Q ever since. My Old Man began in the summer of 2013 as somewhere where contributors were encouraged to post stories about their dads, be they glowing tributes, teary laments or a V-sign and raspberry. A book featuring the best of the blog alongside many new contributions is due in October 2014.
JP Bean is the author of several non-fiction titles, including The Sheffield Gang Wars and the authorised biography of Joe Cocker. He has published short stories, and has written for radio and television. The first folk club he attended was the Barley Mow, Sheffield in 1966. Faber Social is due to publish Singing from the Floor: A History of British Folk Clubs in March.
Joe is a man lucky enough to have had his 1960s CV well documented – after all, if he was really there, how the hell would he remember it? Worked with Muddy Waters and Stan Getz, helped Dylan go electric, opened the UFO in London. In the decades since, Joe has worked on records by – among many others – Pink Floyd, Fairport, Sandy Denny, Toots and the Maytals, Nick Drake and REM. As head of music at Warner Brothers Films, he oversaw the scores for Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange. His 2006 book White Bicycles was hugely acclaimed on publication. For No 6, he brings his record box for a DJ set and talks folk with J.P. Bean.
Creaking glaciers, whispering galleries, stalactite organs, musical roads, squeaking beaches, groaning waterwheels, frogs that croak in Mexican waves, Mayan pyramids that produce echoes that chirp like a bird… these are just a sample of the impressive, strange and surprising sounds that the acoustic engineer Trevor Cox has tracked down in his search for the ‘sonic wonders of the world’. Trevor will discuss how sound is made and altered by the environment, how our body hears, perceives and reacts to peculiar sounds, and how sounds and acoustics have inspired countless generations of musicians, artists and writers.
Love L.U.V. make a spellbinding garage pop-stomp that’s sturated with primal riffs and beats and spikily sugar-coated vocals. Live, girl group melodies, mystic organ sounds and punchy bass ascend into the band’s heart-shaped soundwave.
The Harlequin Dynamite Marching Band
An ever-shifting collective put together by Stealing Sheep’s Lucianna Mercer, The Harlequin Dynamite Marching Band describe themselves as “a raggle taggle bunch of musicians from Liverpool who make brass & drum heavy mobile disco grooves.”
A Caught by the River contributor for as long as we can remember, Mathew is a writer, this site’s wild flower correspondent and a social/cultural historian focusing on temporarily lost tales from across the UK.