Truly terrific 20 to see at T in the Park

Published on Thursday 2 July 2009 15:34

1 FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE (Red Bull Stage, Saturday)

WHEN WE MEET, FLORENCE Welch has just been shopping. Despite only arriving in Glasgow a few hours ago, she has already hunted down a vintage shop near the venue where she is playing and spent a considerable amount of time in Primark, her favourite high street shop. Often when she is on tour, she will wear the day's new purchases on stage that night, but the studded leather waistcoat stays in the dressing up-box in this instance.

Clothes are all part of the performance to Welch. "I've spent my whole life dressing up and now I get to do it on stage," she says, recalling a previous show in Glasgow when she "pranced out in white tights, bright blue sequined granny pants and a sequined top. I felt like such a southern weirdo fairy. In some ways you have to think about where you're going and the crowd, cos you don't want to feel too vulnerable. If it's going to be big lairy men, it's best to wear something you'll feel powerful in."

These days, with her Brit Award and her burgeoning fanbase, she can have her pick of pieces by the nation's hip young designers, which she mixes and matches with her charity shop buys. But it is her muscular, soaring voice that has attracted most of the attention on her swift rise to success.

She recalls a childhood of showing off rather than singing in particular. "A lot of my family are failed performers," she says. "My dad thinks he should have been an actor. My grandmother was in all her village murder mystery plays, so she would have been really happy to see this happening."

Welch believes her grandmother is watching over her, after a fashion, and relates the following in matter-of-fact head girl style: "I was having this regular dream where I was trapped in a school and people were throwing balls at me and all of a sudden my grandmother was there and all of her clothes were bright and shining. I just fell on my knees, weeping, and grabbed her round the legs. Then she said 'concentrate on your perfect career'. What does that mean? Then I woke up bawling my eyes out."

Welch's "perfect career" has its roots in her friendly, neighbourhood art school squat party scene in south London, where she would join in with ad hoc performances. "It was all very four-in-the-morning experimental wailing – kind of what I still do now!" she says. "There was a shamanic quality to the performances. I never wanted to write something that was sweetness and light, I was always really attracted to dark imagery. I was 16, in love for the first time and trying to impress a boy." Did it work? "He was suitably impressed."

She may never have made it beyond this underground scene if she had not met DJ Mairead Nash. "I never had a plan. I still don't have one. I kind of always thought things would fall into place and by chance I ended up singing to Mairead in a toilet, drunk, and she asked to be my manager. I'm quite an unambitious person, I'm a drifter sort of free spirit. But she's really driven so she finds a way."

And so the free spirit put her art degree on hold and became the talk of the town with her instinctive, letting-it-all-hang-out approach to music. "I play a bit of everything really badly," she says. "I used to be the drummer in my band but they said I couldn't sing and play in time, so I had to get a drummer. But they gave me a snare drum to placate me. It's so much fun to bang along. It's that primal aspect of music."

Her early work was bluesy and visceral but now she is a major label contender her sound has become more commercial and anthemic. However, the title of her debut album, Lungs, out on Monday, gets down to fundamentals.

"I always thought of the voice as the lungs," she explains. "A lot of the album is just vocals and drums. The drums are the heartbeat and the lungs are the voice, and the rest of the band are the Machine, which is the body."

Welch thrives on extremes, writing about soaring highs and dark lows – usually when she is drunk. "Your train of thought is different when you're drunk. Or hungover, when you're slightly lucid. You think too hard when you're trying to write a song sober. To perform, you have to be in an uninhibited state, but recently I've been finding it easier to be sober. It's more enjoyable for me. I want to get that rush from hitting the notes and really feeling the emotion."

She may have written her album drunk, but it was recorded in a state of heartbreak. "Without doing this, I think I'd be really off the rails by now, just through lack of focus or ambition. That often leads to … trouble."

Instead, she channels her all into music. "Maybe on the next album I'll find subtlety, but not on this one. I can't do it because everything feels so good to play and it escapes and I can't hold anything back." Sounds like the makings of a memorable performance. Bring your own sequined granny pants.

FIONA SHEPHERD

2 CAMERA OBSCURA

(Red Bull Stage, Friday)

Glaswegian purveyors of bittersweet indie pop Camera Obscura were, for a long time, easily written off as twee lightweights. Yet since applying a dramatic Phil Spector-esque edge to their sound they've come on strides and produced one of the best Scottish albums of the year in My Maudlin Career. The highly credible stable at iconic independent 4AD is where the band now call home after more than a decade in the unsigned wilderness, and they should more than hold their own among the big hitters at T. MJ

3 BROKEN RECORDS

(BBC Introducing Stage, Saturday)

Brimming with ideas, this Edinburgh seven-piece folk-rock outfit blend a sweeping, orchestral sound with lyrics that manage to be both uplifting and melancholic. Sharing a wide-eyed ambition with the sadly defunct Delgados, Broken Records have transcended initial comparisons to Arcade Fire to carve out a distinct identity of their own. This band have their eyes set on the horizon and their recent debut album showed they have the talent to go as far as they dare. DJ

4 PAPER PLANES

(T Break Stage, Sunday)

You'll be hard pressed to identify a surer thing among the hopefuls on the T Break Stage in 2009 than Paper Planes – the Glasgow-based Scottish/American scuzzy melodic post-punk quartet seem to have arrived fully-formed out of nowhere over the last few months. The attention to detail in their Cramps, Link Wray and Velvet Underground-influenced songs is practically forensic, while in New Jersey-born-and-raised singer Jennifer Paley they have a front woman with a distinctive voice and bags of natural magnetism. MJ

5 YOUNG FATHERS

(BBC Introducing Stage, Saturday)

They're black, from Edinburgh, and well intae their hip-hop, ken, eh? They're young, as the name suggests, but the only fatherly thing about Ally Massaquoi, Graham Hastings, and Kayus Bankole (all 20 years old) is the big daddy sound of their De La Soul-inspired brand of hip-hop. As they say themselves, so long as they have a rap, a hook, and some gel to tie it all together, you'll be in for a good time. BG

6 THE PHANTOM BAND

(T Break Stage, Friday)

What do you get if you cross some Captain Beefheart madness with melodies to die for and a penchant for offbeat folk, punk and blues? Say hello to The Phantom Band, the Glasgow-based six-piece whose astonishing debut album, Checkmate Savage, was released on Chemikal Underground earlier this year to universal acclaim. The band really come into their own live, though, where their unhinged, charismatic genius, primal singalong tendencies and instrument swapping are utterly captivating and guaranteed to induce a grin. DJ

7 FINDO GASK

(BBC Introducing Stage, Sunday)

Glasgow electropop boffins Findo Gask's tunes – created on a combination of laptops, synthesisers and occasionally even boring old things like guitars – are fun, intelligent and genuinely uncategorisable. For proof just try listening to their glitchy debut single Va Va Va, released through legendary DJ team Optimo's record label OSCarr last year. They've remixed tunes by bands from Bloc Party to Midlake and The Long Blondes, and will prove one of the standouts on the new BBC Introducing Stage at T. MJ

8 THE PARSONAGE

(Main Stage, Sunday)

Most T-goers are usually nursing double hangovers by Sunday morning, but if there was ever a reason to swallow some aspirin and get down the front early doors then it's The Parsonage – Scotland's only 40-odd piece country-gospel choir. Their lunchtime main stage-opening performance – which will see them give songs by all from Gram Parsons to Joy Division a rousing work over – promises to be a special moment, and possibly just the soothing tonic sore heads and weary bones need. MJ

9 HOCKEY

(Red Bull Stage, Sunday)

Portland quartet Hockey are the latest in a long line of scruffy American new wavers to invade British shores. They look to have all the bases covered, with voices rough and raw like the Strokes, grooves taut and funky like LCD Soundsystem – and choruses big and brash like The Hold Steady. Their debut album, Mind Chaos, is set for release in late August, by which point – after a summer of hard work on the festivals circuit – they could be poised to break big. MJ

10 THE TWILIGHT SAD

(BBC Introducing Stage, Sunday)

Already creating quite a stir across the pond, these Glaswegians create a fearsome racket, building layers of feedback, guitar and noise to make something huge which blends the apocalyptic best of post-rock with the downbeat storytelling of Arab Strap. Touring continuously since their acclaimed 2007 debut, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, the band are an accomplished live act, but still like to throw in some chaotic experimentalism if need be. Unpredictable but always thrilling into the bargain. DJ

11 WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS

(T Break Stage, Sunday)

Signed to the same London label as The Twilight Sad, these young pups (average age 21) have more ire to their indie racket than their labelmates, conjuring up the likes of Bloc Party and Pixies. Formed in Edinburgh but switching to Glasgow, they blend post-rock with folk-flecked tendencies and even the jagged angst of Biffy Clyro to create a full-on noise best experienced live. Plus, great band name. DJ

12 VV BROWN

(Red Bull Stage, Sunday)

At 18, Northampton-born Vanessa Brown was singing backing vocals for Madonna and Westlife. At 20 she was working with Christina Aguilera's producer in LA. At 25, she could finally be on the verge of proper pop stardom. Her first single, last year's Crying Blood, was the catchiest break-up song since Lily Allen's Smile. Follow-up Shark in the Water, out on Monday, ticks so many commercial boxes (a bit P!nk, a bit Amy Winehouse, a bit Take That) that success seems guaranteed. Catch her up close while you still can. AE

13 THE HORRORS

(Radio 1 NME Stage, Saturday)

Whether or not an outdoor stage under (hopefully) the afternoon sun is the best place to see them, Southend's Horrors will still be much-anticipated. Afforded guilty-pleasure status as the frowning goth kids it was okay to like after 2007's original, if somewhat histrionic, debut album Strange Fruit, the quintet made significant critical inroads with Primary Colours – an effective combination of Echo and the Bunnymen's tuneful drama and the driving repetition of German progressive rock – earlier this year. DP

14 M83

(King Tut's Tent, Saturday)

There doesn't come much higher recommendation for M83 than the fact they're currently touring Europe as Depeche Mode's support act. The core of M83 is currently just one man, Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez, who split with his countryman and writing partner Nicholas Fromageau in 2005. Now recording and performing with hand-picked session musicians, his last album (M83's fifth) Saturdays > Youth was a gorgeous selection of synthesised pop songs in the style of New Order, Talk Talk and the Mode themselves. DP

15 LITTLE BOOTS

(Red Bull Stage, Sunday)

Woman of the moment Victoria Hesketh is the BBC's Sound of 2009, and appeared on Later With Jools Holland twice before her debut album was even in the shops. At T in the Park, though, she'll have to settle for sixth on the bill on the Red Bull Stage. Her polished, glammed-up synthpop is more fun on stage than it is on record, where it sounds more like a slick, airbrushed copy of music by people she likes (Human League, Pet Shop Boys, Giorgio Moroder) than something with true heart and soul. Also, you get to gawp at her fabulous, Barbarella-style costumes. AE

16 TIGA

(Slam Tent, Sunday)

One of the key players in dance music through the last decade, Montreal DJ and producer Tiga James Sontag came to prominence during the electroclash boom of 2001 with the anthem Sunglasses At Night (as Tiga & Zytherius). Tracks like Hot in Here, You Gonna Want Me and Mind Dimension have since come to dominate the 00s' dancefloors, while his extensive remix work includes Scissor Sisters, Mylo, The Killers, Depeche Mode and friends Soulwax. DP

17 CRYSTAL CASTLES

(Red Bull Stage, Friday)

Obnoxious, self-destructive attention seeker, or one of the sexiest, most artfully interesting people in rock today? That's the question most will ask when they've seen Alice Glass – 21-year-old singer with Toronto duo Crystal Castles and the NME's reining coolest person in music – on stage. Glass also happens to be (with musical partner Ethan Kath) in one of the more deservedly hyped bands of the weekend. Think The Knife with The Slits' Ari Up on vocals. DP

18 DANANANANAYKROYD

(BBC Introducing Stage, Sunday)

If you give yourself a name as daft as Dananananaykroyd, you'd better live up to it. Fortunately, this Glasgow band are a ridiculously entertaining cross between Pavement, Foo Fighters and the Bash Street Kids. They call their music "fight pop". However, please don't fight anyone while listening to it. AE

19 THE BIG PINK

(T Break Stage, Sunday)

Hugely hyped in the wake of a Philip Hall Radar Award at the NME Awards earlier this year (taking the crown that Glasvegas won the previous year) London duo Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell, plus live bandmates, have already earned a reputation as on-the-job hellraisers. By all accounts, though, their Glastonbury appearance was a model of edgy professionalism. Contrary to The Band's reference in their name, the Jesus and Mary Chain are more appropriate spiritual mentors. DP

20 UNICORN KID

(BBC Introducing Stage, Saturday)

Precocious young Scot Oliver Sabin began making his frenetic electro music as a hobby when he was 15, possibly after eating too many sweets. At 17, he's been in the NME, sold out shows in London and done a remix for the Pet Shop Boys. Freed from the obligation to go to school anymore, he's going to spend September touring the USA. Try to contain your jealousy. AE

• Words by Andrew Eaton, David Pollock, Doug Johnstone, Barry Gordon and Malcolm Jack