For their second annual mini-fest celebrating local talent, the promoters of Retreat! crammed as many of their favourite bands into a single day as possible. The Skinny turned to shift work to cover this year’s event.
Read the first part, by Lauren Mayberry at The Skinny’s website
With the early shift at an end, Milo McLaughlin picked up the baton of alt-folk and home-brewed ales.
Rob St John brings the first phase of the day to a sublime close with his rich, stately vocals and impressive guitar work, for what was, alas, his last gig in Edinburgh for a while. He’s ably assisted by his usual band including Emily Scott on double bass. In fact there’s no doubt that the Do It Together ethos laid out by Withered Hand in the suitably lo-fi Retreat programme is in full evidence today as everyone here is doing it for the love, with musicians helping each other out at every opportunity and friends providing assistance with sound desk duties and the merch stall.
After a break for grub, the families with young children dissipate and the boozier late-starters arrive to sample the Forest Cafe’s unusual own brand brew. Rob St John is there again, playing harmonium on the sidelines, as My Tiny Robots demonstrate their ukelele-driven pop jangle. The sight of a few twitching thighs and hovering ankles suggests that if there had been room to dance, a few would have broke out some Ian Curtis style dance moves.
Enfant Bastard puts an end to any thoughts of the day settling into comfortable complacency though. Uncompromising as ever, he apparently decided on waking that day not to showcase his new gameboy/chip music direction and instead we’re treated to a rare full-band run through of some of his classic anti-folk back catalogue, with a reformed and brilliantly under-rehearsed Love Gestures. The set finishes with the surreal Michael Jackson which crashes uncertainly to a halt with a viciously unhinged and overloud guitar solo.
The scene is set for a couple of noisy appearances by both Come in Tokyo and Pineapple Chunks, and despite both creating a powerful racket, they seem to be lacking the killer tunes needed to ensure they stood out in such a strong line-up.
Meursault, however, once again prove themselves worthy of the growing hype surrounding them. Incorporating new album tracks, some laptop mangling courtesy of their Artfag side band, a shortened version of their beast of a track from the Playing with the Past project and the banjo-tastic lead song from latest EP Nothing Broke, their willingness to constantly develop their sound in public ensures there is no apathy from the audience, many of whom have seen them a good many times.
Speaking of beasts, events close with a coruscating performance from Auld Reekie’s answer to Slipknot, The Leg, with their freaky horrorshow masks. They’re a refreshingly raucous bunch even without sometime collaborator Paul Vickers, and a now notorious vomiting-in-mask incident proves to be the reward for the diehards who stay right to the end of a long and satisfying day – further proof that Edinburgh’s music scene is growing ever more potent.
