Saturday at ArcTanGent

Venue:

a farm, somewhere near Bristol

Date: 17/08/2024

ArcTanGent is a festival pretty much exclusively devoted to, ahem, difficult music. Lots of post-rock and post-metal and post-everything inbetween. It’s been on my radar for years, but always clashes with Beautiful Days, which has traditionally been our family festival outing. The line up there this year was so catastrophically bad however that I found myself with a free weekend, and then won a ticket to ATG in a competition. The stars are aligning I thought, it’s meant to be, and then a whole pile of dog related shenanigans meant Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were wiped out for me. Very disappointed to miss Explosions In The Sky and a few others, but Saturday had always looked to be the strongest day, and so, not to be deterred, I figured I’d get a day out at least. Mrs Dynamite (not that one) kindly offered to drop me off and pick me up, but drew the line at actually watching any of the bands, so away I went on my tod.

I arrived on site at 11am and was watching my first band within half an hour. Codex Serafini came on stage in matching red robes with some members masked (cool), but one of them was carrying a saxophone (uh-oh). No need to worry, it worked well and gave bit of a Hawkwind flavour to their space rock. Decent start to the day. Next was Briqueville and holy hell, these were good. Belgians in cowls and weird birdlike masks (spot a theme yet?) playing post-metal with a big slice of doom and some lovely spidery guitar lines. One of the bands of the day for me. Haus Horo next, featuring the drummer from 65daysofstatic. Probably the most conventional act I saw all day, but none the worse for that, nice straightforward goth-tinged songs.

Had a couple of misfires with WuW and Love Sex Machine, neither of whom were particularly interesting, but the day got back on track with Bossk, who were great. Think they managed to fit all of four songs into their 45 minute set, moving from drifty post-rock to full on riffs’n’screaming and back again. Really good, plus some nice astronomical back projections. Silver Moth next (this might as well have been renamed Stuart Braithwaite day, with him doing an onstage chat thing, a signing, playing here and in Mogwai). Much like their album, this was nice, but not essential – a decent way to spend half an hour but nothing I’m looking to revisit asap.

Back to the main stage for Scaler, and my third time seeing them in four months. Reliably great, a bit less techno and more downtempo and metallic than usual. Then my big clash of the day – the excellent post-rock of Pijn or Imperial Triumphant? Pijn lost out as I’d seen them twice in the previous year. IT came on in their usual stage gear of robes and masks, which was a relief as I hadn’t seen any since half past twelve and was getting anxious (although tbf they definitely had the best of the day, some sort of weird Romanesque sun god look), and treated us to some demented jazz metal based around playing as many notes as possible and growling into a microphone. Not sure how much of it was improvised, but it certainly felt like a good chunk was, and they are clearly very talented musicians as well as snappy dressers. It was an utter cacophony, great, would definitely watch again.

Bit of a break in the bands for me now, allowing the chance for a nice sit down. As a day visitor without the luxury of a tent to go back to for a quick chill being on site all day doesn’t half take it out of you, you know. Had a quick go at the merch tent where I bought the excellent t-shirt that graces this review, and then, suitably braced, it was time for Electric Wizard probably my most anticipated band of the day. They didn’t disappoint, huge monolithic slabs of Sabbath inspired doom, five or six towering Marshall stacks on stage, billowing red smoke and back projections alternatively giving psychedelic or X-rated Hammer movie vibes. Sounded like I imagine heavy earth moving equipment does once all the workmen have gone home and the bulldozers and diggers get together for an afterhours smoking session.

The last full band of the day for me was Slift, a French three piece on Sub Pop. They were incredible, a full on psychedelic freak out that put me in mind of a wilder Oh Sees. Again, felt quite improvised, and they really soared. I didn’t even try to get in the tent for Mogwai after that, just took my tired bones to a haybale up the hill and listened to them until it was time to get picked up. Seemed to be quite a mellow set, which would have been a bit of a disappointment if I’d been up for it, but pretty much perfect for my frame of mind right then. And then home, where with tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls we slept.

The audience:

A lot of beards. I mean, really a lot of beards.

It made me think..

A niche festival is a good thing if you know your niche. I guessed there were something like 7000 people enjoying Bossk, which is probably a decent proportion of their entire fanbase. If this music is your bag then ATG is essential.

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