Electric Picnic: DAY BY DAY HIGHLIGHTS
The Dublin/London shoe-gaze act ended 22 years of studio silence with this year’s ‘mbv’ album. In concert, they are all about volume. At a recent UK show attendees were handed earplugs, the better to prepare them for the tumult that awaited.
The Staten Island rap collective stage one of their occasional comebacks. They have a 20th anniversary album A Better Tomorrow on the way. You can bet, however, that the loudest cheers will be for material from their iconic 1993 debut Enter The Wu Tang (39 Chambers).
One of the most influential figures in dance music, Italian Moroder ushered in a new era of electro pop when he wrote ‘I Feel Love’ for Donna Summer in 1976. He would go on to pen the iconic theme to Midnight Express (receiving an Oscar) and to oversee the soundtracks to Flashdance and Top Gun. After 15 years of semi-retirement, he was honoured by Daft Punk on their recent track ‘Giorgio By Moroder’ (built around a meandering interview with the musician). Aged 73, he now embarks on a new career as a DJ.
Touring America over the summer, Bjork seemed determined to reclaim her reputation for full-fat eccentricity. She performed wearing a ‘lava’ suit that made it look as if great dribbles of white sludge were sluicing down her side while her head was encased within spooky crystalline spines. The ball is in your court Lady Gaga.
Having politely turned down a lucrative Led Zeppelin reunion, lead singer Robert Plant is celebrating the group’s legacy in his own way. Fronting a new band, The Sensational Shape Shifters, the 65-year-old has been delving into the Zeppelin catalogue, performing such beloved standards as ‘Whole Lotta Love’, ‘Black Dog’ and ‘Going to California’. Not quite a full-fledged Zeppelin comeback admittedly — but surely the next best thing. Certainly age has not robbed him of that thunderous delivery.
Having started out as a polite singer-songwriter, Goulding is revelling in her current status as international pop star. She’s recorded with Calvin Harris, dated Skrillex and, with new single ‘Burn’, achieved her first UK number one. Not bad for an artist many critics were gleefully writing off before she’d barely put any music out.
Displaying an ambition rare amongst meat and veg UK rock bands, for their latest album, AM, Alex Turner and company relocated to Josh ‘Queens of the Stone Age’ Homme’s Joshua Tree, California studio and drew on their love for hip-hop icons Dr Dre and Outkast. But it’s not all change and, on their trek around the European festival circuit, the Sheffield quartet have been dusting down lots of old material.
It should have been a match in indie pop heaven. In fact, last year’s Love This Giant collaboration between Talking Heads man David Byrne and singer Annie Clark was deeply odd. The good news is that, on tour, they are celebrating their wider achievements, with Clark dusting down her solo catalogue and Byrne performing several well loved Talking Head hits.
Widely acclaimed at the start of the year, this Glasgow synth threesome come on like a glorious marriage of Garbage, New Order and (for all the obscurists) early ’90s outfit One Dove. The group came together in unusual circumstances. Indie veterans Iain Cook and Martin Doherty were fed up plying glum post rock to tiny audiences. So they roped in vocalist Lauren Mayberry, bought a lot of sequencers and reinvented themselves as a pop act. Since then they’ve hardly looked back. Featured on the BBC Sound Of Poll, their debut album, The Bones of What You Believe, arrives in September.
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