ENDORSE IT IN DORSET FESTIVAL 2006 (Hogbitch) 2006

The biggest problem with this CD, which is a showcase for some of the bands that played the 2006 festival, is that it was not available till you went to the festival. Had we had a chance to hear it in advance we might have been inspired to make more of an effort to see some of the artists we had not heard of. Kicking off naturally enough are Iguana favourites Pronghorn, it is them that put the festival on after all! We also get Tarantism, Babyhead and the Bhagdadies… now we caught them cos we knew they would be good, but we also have on this disc some amazing tracks by unknowns (to us) like the skanalicious The Big, dark punks Peeping Toms, chunky emo lads The Apers, trancy Temple Headz, garage punks The Death Valley Riders and…. This review is getting dangerously close to just being a list of the bands on the disc, but the fact is that there are no duff tracks here, which merely demonstrates how good a line up they have at this festival. Come on you Dorset types, make the next one available BEFORE the festival!

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The title gives it a way a bit, a collection of nu-jazz electro-lounge vibes. We assume that it is compiled by French maestro Ludovic Navarre, but we’re not quite sure; it is certainly good enough to have been. A mixture of big names like LTJ Bukem, Goldfrapp and Thievery Corporation with lesser known acts such as Fragile State and The Parisian Collective. This is a double chocolate latte with one sugar sat outside a café in the centre of Paris

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Over the last two decades or so there have been some mighty fine Welsh language artists such as Tystion, Llwber Llaethog, U Thant, Hen Wlad fy Mamau and of course the incredible Anhrefen. Despite the fact that we here at Iguana have not got a clue what they are singing about, the power of the music alone has been enough to get us digging into our pockets to get hold of them. When we saw this compilation, put together by Super Furry Animals front man Gruff Rhys, from the Sain Records back catalogue we just had to have a piece of it. Sain have been knocking out Welsh language music since the late 60s and together with subsidiary Crai records have been a major player in the scene. This is not quite what we expected though, maybe we should have slowed down to find out what it was first. On the whole, this is psychedelic folk music from the 70’s, apparently. We say apparently because that is what a lot of the reviews say, apparently there are songs about druids and ancient welsh kings and mythical creatures. From this we assume that the lyrics are psychedelic, cos the music is pure welsh folk, like you get at the national eisteddfod. The music aint bad as such, just erm… Twee (now there is a word we don’t use often!). We are reluctant to get too critical cos we aint got a clue what is going on, there maybe some awesome lyrics on here, but we are ashamed to say we do not understand a word of it. Musically lets just say it aint our cup of tea, in totality the whole thing is just completely above our heads. File under ‘curiosity’.

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