Electric Fields 2015: The Review

With the imposing Drumlanrig Castle to the left, and acres of verdant Dumfries forestry encircling the festival’s footprint, on the surface Electric Fields appears endearingly low-key, with park benches dotted over the gently sloping parkland and a rustic, community feel. “There’s gotta be someone doing art in a tent here somewhere…” teases a punter, and lo – there's a nice bearded man helping children spray paint designs onto t-shirts, tucked away next to a van selling organic juices and bountiful baked potatoes. On first impressions, it doesn’t look like a scene set for the abrasive drone of Blanck Mass which will render us possibly physically damaged, some ten hours later.

With four main stages, each home to an impressive array of genres, there are more heart-wrenching clashes on the billing than you might expect from a small-scale day fest. However, the duo of main stages – titled Carse Valley and The Arc – are situated side by side, with alternating sets. Facilitating speedy changeovers and a near constant feed of (predominantly) Scottish music playing out over the park, it’s a simple solution to holding a crowd captive. At the top of the hill, The Skinny commandeers a tent, curating a line-up unified perhaps more by innovation than genre. Ranging from the skyscraping indie rock of Catholic Action to the blissed out synths of Happy Meals and the bone-shaking experimentalism of the aforementioned Blanck Mass, it provides a counterpoint to the main stages’ offerings of favourites like Hector Bizerk, The Phantom Band and, the headliner King Creosote.

Kicking off our day up in The Skinny Tent are Glaswegian krautrock disciples Outblinker. After an unexpected, last-minute change of hands on drumming duties, the five-piece sweat it out to keep their typically tightly-wound post-rock on due course. When the set finally fuses in driven, industrial psychedelia, to the cheers of a supportive crowd, it serves as a steely reminder of the fragility of a live show – especially from a band with so many components. Electrifying and nerve-wracking in equal measure, but that’s no bad thing.

Next up, we learn that Catholic Action are possibly the classic festival band. Chipper, full of chat and packed with enough hooked choruses to sink a ship, the Glasgow quartet prove once again that they know how to entertain a variety of crowds. In the last year they’ve collected a growing number of belters, with tracks like Shallows and L.U.V. sounding increasingly polished and receiving increasingly enthusiastic, familiar reception. The band claim to be hungover – straight from the handbook of festival stage patter – but their 2pm set time comes after an undoubtedly late night supporting FFS at The Barrowlands the previous evening. There’s a certain glamour to Catholic Action, and it’s bound to wear them well for summer seasons to come. 

After finally sampling one of those massive potatoes, Happy Meals are due on stage. By now the sun’s shining on the Dumfries field (yes, really) and it could have been a hard task to tempt punters into a tent and away from hastily exposing their limbs to the rays… but Suzanne Rodden and Lewis Cook are more than capable of winning hearts. The two-piece weave French-tongued synth-pop magic on a swaying, receptive crowd, plying their audience with woozy, cosmic treats from their SAY Award nominated debut Apéro. They look relaxed, intuitive and at home behind the table they’ve draped, boutique style, in scarves: Rodden’s a captivating performer, and as she steps out from desk to encourage the crowd to dance – who obligingly progress from foot shuffling to full-scale, interpretative arm waving – it’s easy to see Happy Meals holding court in much bigger venues in future.

In a distressing synth-pop battle, Happy Meals clash with Miaoux Miaoux, who are already in full flow down the hill on the right-hand main stage The Arc. The ever cheerful Julian Corrie has already inspired the first en masse dancefloor action of the afternoon. Innis and Gunn cans are flung with abandon as Corrie introduces tracks from his sophomore LP School of Velocity, which dropped back in June. Although masterminded by the Glasgow-based producer, Miaoux Miaoux plays out today as a three piece band – a reminder of the tiny detail and complexity at work within the album itself. On recording, School of Velocity feels born for club lighting and late nights, but even in the mid-afternoon sun It’s The Quick, in all its quirky, robotic stickiness, sounds certifiably huge. Slightly softer numbers like Peaks on Peaks and Luxury Discovery seem extra suited to the setting, though, as a delighted Corrie conducts the waves on waves of syrupy synth drifting out over the grass. Sounding celestial and danceably tangible in equal measure, both band and audience appear equally overjoyed.

There’s no time to rest, as it’s straight back to a crowded tent for the day’s very special surprise guests: Andy MacFarlane and James Graham from The Twilight Sad. Playing in their acoustic formation, with MacFarlane on guitar and Graham’s warm, crystal vocals hitting everyone right in the feelings, the duo open with the title track from last year’s Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To Leave. A touched, word-perfect audience howls along in an attempt to mimic Graham’s definitely inimitable, soulful delivery – but one audience member stands out in particular: Graham’s father is acting as the band’s stand-in tour manager, and it’s a genuinely beautiful sight to see him sing, resolute and word-perfect, watching his son on stage.

It’s a perfect encapsulation of how much Electric Fields feels a community event: bands watching bands, the boundary blurred between performer and audience, full of family, support and respect. Any slightly watery eyes are quickly resolved, though, as Graham senior enthusiastically heckles James throughout for his “terrible stage patter.” It’s a testimony that a “bunch of sad songs” can result in such a thoroughly life-affirming set, but watching the band play It Never Was The Same, assisted in voice by a half-drunk, fully emotional crowd, is the most warming, outstanding kind of bittersweet.

A few tears and an extra beer later, it’s time for a very different set. “I’m only going to play the bangers,” William Doyle – aka East India Youth – warned pre-show, and he stayed true to word. Back in The Skinny Tent, dusk is falling as Doyle fires through a compilation of the biggest dance tracks from both Mercury nominated Total Strife Forever and 2015's follow-up, Culture of Volume. This year’s release saw Doyle flirt with a shinier pop aesthetic, with tracks like set opener Turn Away delivering on massive, party-pleasing choruses. He’s notorious for physical, impassioned sets and the audience responds in kind, whooping with delight as he transitions from the shimmying Beaming White to first ever single – and a slight moment of calm – Heaven, How Long. The breathless set culminates in the techno inspired Hinterland; a live favourite of Doyle’s, it erupts from ticking, fidgeting beginnings into a subterranean storm, becoming all consuming as the stage-lights start to flicker. 

It’s fully dark as Vessels take the stage. The many-handed Yorkshire band have around one million instruments, and it’s reflected in their deft, complicated post-rock creations. A new album, Dilate, released earlier this year, marked a decided change in direction for the group – traversing from guitar-led progression to near-techno territories. On record, there’s a glacial coolness to tracks like Echo In, but played live this frosty exterior belies a more organic presence. Perhaps it’s due to witnessing the collective people-power at work behind the glass, but Vessels sound far more fiery in person. Elliptic pushes and pulsates, and it’s all the more striking when you can see the teamwork and intuition which builds its framework. And it’s a proper workout for your feet, too.

Taking a breather before the night’s headliners, a crowd gathers to gawp at a ginormous orb erected in the middle of the festival site: glowing and alien, with swirling projected imagery dancing on its surface, it makes for an ethereal meeting point before Electric Fields’ final bands. In The Skinny Tent, that final artist is Blanck Mass. Benjamin John Power, also of formidable experimental duo Fuck Buttons, is purveyor of the closest that electronic music can come to brutalist architecture. His latest album Dumb Flesh, supremely well received when it dropped earlier this year, is slightly more heated, more accessible than his previous solo output – though he allows only select fragments to glimmer through his current live set.

Nearly emptying the tent with a full ten minutes of abrasive, organ-shaking walls of sound, Power sleekly finds the beats and, against the dramatic background of an over-enthused smoke machine, has the stunned audience bouncing… Only to pause proceedings with another cleansing session of sonic sledgehammering, and, only then, does he finally re-start the dancefloor. Indulgent? Possibly, but you get the sense that Power isn’t here to try and win you over. With visceral, meaty projections of a flesh-like, humanoid blob and thundering, tinnitus inducing bass, a Blanck Mass show certainly demands an acquired way of listening... But the feeling of reward is remarkable: rarely does performance induce such a contrasting physical effect upon the bodies of its audience.

In fact, if ever you want a sharp slice of culture shock, try stumbling, exhausted, from a Blanck Mass set and finding yourself in the middle of a gleeful King Creosote gig. Closing the whole festival, Kenny Anderson’s wearing his “favourite jacket,” and is holding his rowdy, captivated audience in the palm of his hand. Someone nearby whispers, “I’ve seen him play this exact set three times” – but it’s all part of his charm. A friendly-faced, all inclusive, celebratory end to a day that’s been just that: a celebration of contemporary music (and baked potatoes) of all shapes and sizes, from the familiar to the defiantly boundary-pushing.