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CMU Playlists The Great Escape 2014
Playlist: The Great Escape 2014 – Aly’s Must Sees
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 7 May 2014
As well as the CMU Insights-programmed convention section, The Great Escape festival also plays host to over 400 bands during its three days. That’s a lot to be getting on with, so we asked CMU’s Aly Barchi to pick ten acts she’s looking forward to seeing this year for this playlist.
Says Aly: “The variety of acts showcasing at TGE is always pretty peerless, and I can’t wait to take in the sights and sets at this year’s festival. What’s so ‘great’ with The Great Escape is that, whilst you can make a checklist of bands to see, there’s always the chance to dip into a show at random, with the high probability of finding something unfamiliar that you’ll come to love”.
Listen to Aly’s playlist on Spotify here, or in the YouTube player below, and then read on to find out more about her choices.
01 Kelis – Friday Fish Fry
I don’t know who I’d think I was kidding if I didn’t give prime space on this list to R&B’s free-thinking queen bee Kelis, the big star at this year’s TGE. Whilst her Dome Show (feat Ella Eyre and Say Lou Lou) may be at capacity, Kelis’ A-list presence will likely be felt in wider ripples this weekend, not least because her new LP, soul-succouring funk course ‘Food’, is such a loud and proud banger.
02 Badbadnotgood – Triangle
The nouveau riche kids of the ‘hip hop jazz cover’ and Frank Ocean’s one-time Coachella backing band, Canadian trio Badbadnotgood released their latest LP, the all-original ‘III’, as a postscript to collaborations with the likes of Earl Sweatshirt and JJ Doom. A typical BBNG live show is a balancing act, part tight recital, part improv coasting, always on the beat.
03 Ratking – Snow Beach
Wind-chilled NYC hip hop pack Ratking’s first kill in the LP stakes, ‘So It Goes’, is one of my most prized and listened-to of 2014 so far. Signed to XL’s aptly smoking Hot Charity imprint, the trio’s line in panoramic boom bap rap speaks straight from the heart of the inner city. Make space in your TGE day to go watch ‘So Sick’ MCs Wiki and Hak, and DJ Sporting Life, or regret not doing so. Until death.
04 MØ – Maiden
Danish maid Karen Marie Ørsted, aka MØ, was and is still flying high on the back of this year’s fizzy, hip-hop-plated ‘No Mythologies To Follow’ LP, a box of digi-pop magic tricks she’ll be replicating live, with smoke and/or mirrors, at TGE 2014.
05 Kyan – Rosetta
Having run the live gambit with London Grammar earlier this year, Frank Ocean-ic R&B man Kyan Kuatois mirrors the high gloss of his latest EP, the bold and innovative ‘Purple Experiment’, via a solo niche in the TGE listings.
06 Zhala – Slippin Around
The first and only signing-who-isn’t-Robyn to robo-pop dynamo Robyn’s Konichiwa label, Scandi soloist Zhala’s abilities first came to light this year, in her loopy four-track ‘Prophet’ EP. For anyone fond of Robyn-approved ‘tribal rave’ from Stockholm, Zhala is the one.
07 Broken Twin – Glimpse Of A Time
For some TGE quiet time, slip in away from the crowds and sway/sigh along Danish songwriter Majke Voss Romme, singing and playing the sad-hearted piano ballads of ‘May’, her first LP as Broken Twin, which came out in April. Not May.
08 Pup – Guilt Trip
And for a loud and thrashy awakening post-Broken Twin, what say you go bump heads to the sound of Toronto punk dawgs Pup, who quit their day jobs in 2012 to make a go of the whole ‘doing rock for a living’ thing. And what a good go it was and is, too.
09 Theo Verney – Endless Spiral
Declaimed (by me) as the Brit Ty Segall, Brighton-based psych wizard Theo Verney is damn good at one-man noise cacophonies, a skill that’s blindingly obvious in his gigantine new track, ‘Sound Machine’. Listen to that on SoundCloud after you’ve heard the Spotify-based (and also vast-sounding) ‘Endless Spiral’.
10 Fat White Family – Touch The Leather (Redux)
So the whole (un)civilised world wants in on inglorious rock sods Fat White Family, whose traction grows stronger with each hoary-gory song the band spits out. Come to this show if you don’t mind watching frontman Lias smearing his naked body in saturated fat. Because that’s a possibility.
Want more? You can also check out a TGE playlist from CMU Editor Andy Malt here.
