Latitude Youtubery - Hjaltalin

Clips are still appearing on Youtube, it would seem! Here's Hjaltalin doing something unpronounceable. They had to wait until Thom Yorke had finished on Sunday before they could come on and play the Uncut, but it was worth the wait!

Latitude Youtubery - Juliette Commagere

Another new discovery, here is one of the early highlights from the first morning of Latitude, Juliette Commagere and her band doing Hearts.

Latitude Youtubery - Thomas Dybdahl

One of the best things about festivals is wondering around on the off chance that you discover a new favourite band and this act fall into that category. Listen out for some absolutely superb lap steel (I think that's what the instrument is called) to the left of the screen... the old boy playing it was just the coolest. The song is called "stay home"

Latitude Youtubery - The Mummers

The Mummers were on of the early highlights in the much improved Uncut arena on Friday. here they are doing a cover of Sleepyhead by Passion Pit. Unfortunately marred by a few sound problems...

Latitude Youtubery - The Vaselines

The Vaselines are now best known for being one of Kurt Cobain's favourite bands... Here they are doing a song he covered, Molly's Lips:

Latitude Youtubery - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

On top form with a short set played at mamximum intensity throughout, here's Mercy Seat

Latitude Youtubery - The Duckworth Lewis Method

I'll be doing a full write up later in the week, but clips are starting to appear on Youtube, so to start with here is Jiggery Pokery. Altogether now: baboon, baboon, baboon, baboon, baboon, baboon, baboon.

Festival Forecast - Dear Reader

Widely tipped South African band Dear Reader are down to play the Sunrise arena at Latitude this year. The orchestration reminds me a bit of Broken Records, whom they are rumoured to be supporting on Wednesday so will report back then. For now, here is the latest single Dearheart. The album is out soon, so this will be an interesting couple of weeks for them...

Festival Forecast - Jonathan Jeremiah

It's been a busy week or two on the festivals front with plenty of announcements. That means it's time to start picking out a few acts, new and old, that can be seen at festivals I'll be attending this summer...

First up is Jonathan Jeremiah, a folkie singer songwriter from London. His myspace is light on details except that a) he has his debut album coming out on Island (no details as to when) and b) Bernard Butler guested on said album, as did Fred Wesley and the new JBs. I'm sure we'll all know more by the time he appears in the sunrise arena at Latitude, but until then we have this rather lovely song, "It doesn't bother me".

The First Latitude Blog of the Summer

I'll once again be making my way up the A12 to Henham Park this year for my 4th latitude festival. The organisers have pulled out some pretty surprising choices for headliners, leaving the Indie crowd somewhat nonplussed.

On Friday, the Obelisk arena is headlined by the Pet Shop Boys who are due to release their latest album, Yes, soon. They're still doing pretty much what they've always done which is good synth pop. Not sure I would want a whole 90 minutes of it, but they will definitely put on a show. Here's the new single: Love etc.



On Saturday comes the most controversial selection, Grace Jones. Definitely a brave choice, it remains to see whether she can win over the doubters. Being something of a newcomer to her music, I've been listening to stuff on youtube etc, and this is definitely her best song:


The organisers are on somewhat safer ground with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on Sunday. Definitely at a career high with Dig Lazarus Dig being well received wherever you look, they should provide a strong finish to the festival.