Best of the Fests 2016 - acts we've enjoyed at festivals this year

We managed to take in two and a bit festivals this summer: The Great Escape, Truck and a day of the Lunar Festival. Here's a belated round-up at what caught our eye at the time and still sounds good now.

B J Barham (Truck)

This couldn't be more archetypical maudlin country balladry if it tried, but it worked a treat in Truck's mocked-up saloon bar. And what do you know, it still works now.

Find the tragic Mr Barham on Bandcamp.

Clean Cut Kid (Great Escape and Truck)

Marvellous band from Liverpool (Home of English Power Pop TM) from a cheerful chap with an excellent beard and his cohorts. So good we saw them twice - check out their video to Vitamin C.

Duke Street Workshop and Laurence R Harvey - Tales of H P Lovecraft (Lunar Festival)

Basically, if you like the idea of a couple of Lovecraft short stories being narrated breathily by a horror movie actor over the soundtrack to Drive, this is your jam.

Links to sample track and full download here. 

Have You Ever Seen The Jane Fonda Aerobic VHS? (The Great Escape)

As deleriously fun as cheap girl-group keyboard punk played in a Brighton hotel basement can be. 

Holly Macve (Truck)

The bleakest of acoustic blues, in the Marissa Nadler ballpark.

Ibibio Sound Machine (Lunar Festival)

The highlife LCD Soundsystem? 

Jurassic Five (Truck)

Hands down the best big name at Truck - breathtaking team rhymes and turntable tomfoolery. If you don't know the J5 then Concrete Schoolyard is the place to start.

Lounge Kittens (The Great Escape)
 
Limp Bizkit, Sean Paul and Slipknot in the style of the Andrews Sisters? The answer is, surprisingly, yes.

Thomas Truax (Truck)

Uncategorisable cult figure playing whimsical songs on home-made gadget instruments... which is way better than it sounds. Start at Tom Waits circa Swordfishtrombones and keep heading out for Neptune. Try Why Dogs Howl At The Moon and Beehive Heart, but more than anything else see him live if you ever have the chance.

Yndi Halda (Truck)

Somewhere between Grizzly Bear and Mono, swoonsome post-hardcore rock. Every track on the album over ten minutes, brevity fans!

Find them on Bandcamp here.