Bristol Arnolfini 7/06/08

As we approach the Arnolfini - the converted warehouse in Bristol's redeveloped harbourside that acts as the main venue for the annual Venn Festival - it becomes clear that something "alternative" is afoot. Checked shirts and asymmetric fringes reach denser and denser proportions, and the average body mass index of people we pass drinking lager on the sunny quayside drops to Unicef-troubling proportions.

I ask a girl who she's here to see, and she reels off a dizzying list of unknown bands culminating in Fuck Buttons. "Hmmm, definitely Fuck Buttons", I nod. I have no idea what she is talking about. This must be how it feels for my Mum to be alive in the 21st century.

I spent Rachel Unthank and the Winterset's set wondering which one was Rachel Unthank and which were the Winterset, as any one of the Geordie-sirens on centre stage sang lead vocals or pitch-perfect harmonies. As they played a series of North Eastern folk songs, their voices wove seamlessly in and out of droning cello and violin lines, eerily evocative of a wind-whipped Northumbrian sea.       

The sparse arrangements - percussion provided by clog dancing, strangely reminiscent of Tunng's "folktronica", and augmented by pleasingly jazzy piano - created a heady atmosphere: the audience's reverie broken only by the banter of the sisters on stage. The tasteful, skilled musicianship - mixed with the charming, self-depreciating manner of Rachel and her Winterset - won the crowd over and dispelled any fears of traditional folk stuffiness. Long may the Northumbrian folk revival continue!

As befits Venn's eclectic manifesto, Bristol's own The Blessing couldn't have been a more different proposition. A quartet of Reservoir Dogs-suited virtuosos, they ploughed their way through a mathematically precise set of jazz-rock: at their best evoking Tortoise's angular, repetitive melodicism, and at their worst - as seems inevitable whenever a saxophone is wielded in a rock context - evoking the grim spectre of Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street". As with any virtuoso display, watching The Blessing was both exhilarating and sickening: as jazz and rock, hewn of the rough edges that make up much of their appeal, smack a little too much of stockbrokers rocking out in the office 'jam space'.

Next up, Fuck Buttons: a call-to-arms for the Velcro militia, and the aural equivalent of being hit in the face with a short-circuiting 80s synth. Their set opened pleasantly enough, as a Four Tet-esque melodic loop juddered and twinkled, backed by layers of building synth noise. However, this brush with conventional melody was quickly put on the backseat, as the next track - truer to form - saw one Button bashing out tribal drum patterns whilst Button number two leapt across the stage screaming like a wounded kookaburra. Exhilarating, confusing, and occasionally frustrating - as having one person screaming into your face through a distorted Fisher Price mike whilst his mate ekes out bleeps and whirrs from a short-circuited Gameboy is going to be: anything but boring.

And this is Venn's triumph. In the space of four hours I saw clog-dancing Northumbrians, jazz-rocking stockbrokers and belligerent techno noise-mongers. Not to mention the sound collage installation of an enchanted forest - a real-world incarnation of the Vodka Metz "Judderman" adverts - disorientating festival-goers in a nearby Scout Hut. In a world of corporate sponsorship, derivative festival bills and Keane Venn is a breath of fresh air: a welcome slap in the face of musical complacency.

words and pictures by Robin Wilkinson