1 Cloudspotting 2016 Music & Arts Festival
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Cloudspotting 2016 Music & Arts Festival Festival Programme 29 - 31 July 2016 Cloudspotting 1 29 - 31 July 2016 WE could never have imagined the adventures that were to come when Cloudspotting was first conceived over a few pints down the road in a Little Mitton beer garden back in 2011. To steal a quote from one of our headline acts, ‘the years slip by like sips of water’ – and we now find the metamorphosis from adult music weekender to ‘arts festival with kids’ is complete. While the feel of the festival might have moved on as a new generation shares the fun, we curate the music and arts activities with an open mind and try not to compromise on the original idea to bring original, challenging and imaginative performance to remotest Lancashire. We could not ask for a more unspoiled and intimate location to live the dream. The organisation behind the festival is a non-profit making Community Interest Company and we owe a debt of gratitude to the help of others to run the show. This includes the hard working people of the Forestry Commission and a number of strategic partners and individuals – many of them voluntary - who provide essential grant aid and invaluable support in-kind. Creative Lancashire has been one such partner down the years, supporting emerging musicians to perform at the festival, producing festival CDs and presenting ‘Conversations in Creativity’ with inspirational artists. This year, they have helped us produce the publication of this programme. We hope you like it. Have the best weekend and please tell everyone about it afterwards Helen Ficorilli & Matt Evans Team Cloudspotting “A classic combination of music, lovely food and drink, family and arts activities in a stunning location. It’s good value, and regulars applaud its non-commercial feel.” – The Guardian Cloudspotting 2 29 - 31 July 2016 Cloudspotting 3 29 - 31 July 2016 King Creosote is performing for the first time at WOMAD in Wiltshire this weekend, before calling in to the beautiful Gisburn Forest site on route back to Scotland. There’s been a long-term association between Cloudspotting and King Creosote. The event might never have happened without him, given that the inaugural festival idea was conceived during a messy post-gig after party after KC and The Earlies performed at The Grand, Clitheroe. He appeared at that first weekender in 2011 with his drummer Andy on djembe and then returned in 2013 with the Earlies as backing band. This time, its another new ensemble, KC explains: “Well there’s Gordon and Sorren Maclean from Mull, double bass and electric guitar respectively, Pete Harvey on cello, Derek O’Neill on keys, Amy MacDougall on synth and backing vocals, and of course my ever present drummer Andy Robinson (aka Captain Geeko).” ‘Astronaut Meets Appleman’, out September 2nd, explores the tension and harmony between tradition and technology – between analogue and digital philosophies – and also invokes a feeling, King Creosote says, of “being caught between heaven and earth”. King Creosote It is a particular privilege for Cloudspotters to be only the second audience to hear the fruits of the new album live. So far, fans EVER since King Creosote self-released his first Made entirely of Scottish film archive, the have only had the epic seven-minute hymnal album on Fence Records in 2003, there’s been documentary explores universal themes of love, drone of opening track ‘Just You Want’ to a palpable sense of an artist on a journey, loss, resistance, migration, work and play. Ordinary chew on. writes Matt Evans. people, some long since dead, appear shimmering from the depth of the vaults to take a starring role. From ‘Kenny and Beth’s Musakal Boat Ride’ to It was Kenny’s job to bring some voice to these “I wanted to push myself songwriting-wise, so I went in with hardly the forthcoming ‘Astronaut meets Appleman’ (out silent individuals, who emerge to tell us their anything and had to wing it,” adds KC. next month), King Creosote (aka Kenny Anderson) stories through the poignancy of KC’s poetic music has never stood still. His approach to music – and and lyrics. “I wanted to try and flip the clock all the way back to sound like a songwriting – has seen him continuously reinvent the younger me – or a less cynical me. In the past, I’ve been fixated on syntax of his own material. Always developing songs “I saw the film again around Easter time and my twisting and wrenching every line, but here I’ve let that go a bit, and and twisting his lyrical craft around subjects and nerves are still a little bit frayed from the live I hope that lets you concentrate more on the music; on what’s going states of mind, Anderson has a rare ability to self- renditions so I’ll probably never be able to just see on around it.” deprecate and invoke humour in the same sentence. the film for what it is,” says KC. “I always feel I’m reaching for something, but I never get there. It speaks volumes for his ability to conjure up a “I like the album however, so I’m delighted with I wanted to get out of the usual places ” sense of time and place that he was requested the songs, and I know from the reaction of our to soundtrack the film ‘From Scotland With Love’ audiences that they fit into the film footage On ‘Astronaut Meets Appleman’, King Creosote is still upsetting commissioned by the Cultural Festival that really well.” apple-carts and dealing with the fallout, still appraising love and life, accompanied the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth the moon, the stars; tide tables, bagpipe scores, zeros and ones; Games. We will be presenting a screening of the “The project for me wasn’t hugely different from mathematics, ticking clocks and the beat of our hearts. film in the Vintage Cinema on the courtyard on my usual way of going about things - I had to leave Sunday morning (places limited!). songs open ended for longer into the recording Somehow, feeling between ‘heaven and earth’ seems an appropriate process and allow the film director and music director place for the festival finale. Somewhere in the clouds, perhaps? The studio album version of ‘From Scotland With the final say. I’m loathed to say I wrote a film score - Love’ even featured tracks that originated on his I did collaborate with a film director though.” King Creosote and his band perform at 10.20pm, Main Stage, original ‘Boat Ride’ album. Rough diamonds such on Sunday night. as Harper’s Dough (that became Pauper’s Dough) ‘From Scotland With Love’ will be screened on Sunday morning were polished up and presented in a totally new at 10.30am, in the vintage cinema. context, providing powerful soundtrack to the film. Cloudspotting 4 5 29 - 31 July 2016 Kiran Leonard FOR this sometimes astounding and accomplished In 2014 Kiran was commissioned by Manchester artist, Kiran Leonard is at pains not to talk about friends Everything Everything to write and perform himself or his burgeoning musical career, writes an original piece of music to celebrate the Tony Dewhurst. reopening of Manchester’s Central Library. “I try not to admire myself too much,” he says A year earlier, his first album, a double LP, Bowler modestly as he prepares for Friday’s Main Stage Hat Soup, won him wide acclaim and three singles sunshine slots. from the record were play listed by Radio 6, who also featured it as an Album of the Week. “I don’t self-analyse. I don’t enjoy that at all.” The 20-year-old’s latest offering, Grapefruit, Described in one review as Saddleworth’s anti- was recorded during his second year at Oxford Jake Bugg, Leonard is far keener to talk about his University’s Wadham College, where he’s studying Emma Pollock influences, or one influence in particular, the folk Spanish and Portuguese. troubadour Richard Dawson. While his heavy duty frame of reference “He will be recognised, eventually, as one of the encompasses playwright Samuel Beckett and A LOT has happened to Emma Pollock since the “One day she got a letter through the post to say greatest song writers ever to draw breath,” philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the sprawling pop demise of her much loved band The Delgados a she had three sisters living in Manchester and to said Kiran. sound has plenty of enjoyable twists and turns. decade ago, writes Tony Dewhurst. witness that incredible emotion of them meeting for the first time was really humbling.” “When I saw Richard Dawson play it changed my “I’m glad people are enjoying it (Grapefruit) but I Before that, as co-owner of Glasgow label life, his music has this intangible, naked quality don’t think it is for me to talk about it,” he said. Chemikal Underground, she’s helped issue instant Her husband Paul Savage, also a founder member about it. classics by Mogwai and Roky Erikson and now she of The Delgados, produced the album. “It is up to other people how they perceive it and I is back in the driving seat with her second solo LP, “He has a voice that can pulverise stone, and I like suppose that’s the beauty of music.” In Search of Harperfield. But Emma has seen the music industry change him because he plays a guitar like balls of flame beyond all recognition since those ground breaking rolling down a fretboard. Playing with a four-piece band Kiran says he is “It took a long time to gain the confidence to step days with Chemikal Underground in the east end relishing a return to the summer festival circuit and outside the band and look at doing something more of Glasgow.