Festival Previews: Latitude 2015
- Written by Andrew Seaton, Matt Jones
Latitude Festival celebrates its tenth birthday this year. Muso’s Guide will be covering the festival on Twitter throughout the weekend of 16th-19th July, alongside our usual review coverage once we return home. If you want to join us, tickets are still available. In the meantime, here’s our pick of the top ten things to look out for (in no particular order):
Portishead: Portishead are a rare beast to spot. They’re like a bear in hibernation, except not even as regular as bears (they don’t appear once the snow has gone away). This is the band’s only UK festival appearance this year, so we’re very excited about the potential of seeing them whirring up the classics from Dummy (1994), Portishead (1997), and Third (2008). If we’re lucky, they’ll play some new material, but we wouldn’t bet the house on it.
Public Service Broadcasting: This year’s The Race for Space (2015) proved a fantastic follow-up to the London duo’s Inform-Educate-Entertain (2013). Public Service Broadcasting bring in their wake an amazing visuals team – with old archive footage being reworked and played behind them to spectacular effect. Catch them on the BBC Six Music Stage on the Friday night.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra: If you haven’t listened to it yet, give Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Multi-Love (2015) a spin, because it will surely be remembered as one of the year’s highlights. The various layers of synth, guitar, and Ruban Nielson’s vocals will amount to quite the live performance.
Tim Key: Tim Key amounts to being the poet laureate of Latitude. He’s there every year so, unlike Portishead, there’s not quite the same degree of pressure involved in catching him while you can. All the same, Key is a class act. On the back of his sell-out performance in Daniel Kitson’s play ‘Tree’, he is deservedly at the top of the alternative British comedy scene and Latitude-goers would be wise to see him grace the birthday party.
Andrew Marr and Kate Fox: You read that correctly: Andrew Marr and Kate Fox. Latitude is the type of place where you can go and see all the acts listed above, have a party, and then drop in and see one of the arch interrogators of the political class and the author of Watching the English (2004) chat about class, identity, and politics in the 21st Century. We intend on doing just that.
Leon Bridges: Delivering classic soul with no gimmicks, smooth Texan Leon Bridges has been slowly melting the hearts of the British radio listenership. If a soul revival were going to happen soon, this would be the man heading it. His Glasto set was almost too flawless and seemed a little overshadowed by the sheer scale of Glastonbury’s line-up. However, Latitude is much more likely to provide the platform and audience for him to shine.
Django Django: After a 3-year recording hiatus in which they only played a few shows, Django Django are hitting the festival scene hard this year. With a genuinely different sound and an impressive stage show, these synthed-up Beach Boys make the BBC Radio 6 Music stage the place to be on the opening night.
Toro Y Moi: Chaz Bundick’s alter-ego has been making ‘chillwaves’ (as the genre is apparently known) in the UK with his recent album What For? and will have no problem settling into his mid-afternoon set. His music sounds as funky incense might smell if it were a thing. One of the few Latitude artists not to be playing Glasto this year, this is his only UK date this summer - be sure not to miss it.
SBTRKT: The name might not immediately ring a bell, but it’s very unlikely you haven’t heard and enjoyed SBTRKT (pronounced ‘subtract’ by the way) already. Famous for his hits ‘Pharoahs’, ‘Hold On’, and ‘Wildfire’ (alongside his characteristic tribal mask, of course) but not quite a household name, he’s a surprising headline booking. However, trust in the Latitude organisers and we think you’ll be rewarded with a dark horse dance party.
Young Fathers: The Edinburgh trio have been going from strength to strength since they picked up the Mercury Award in October 2014 and released their second album White Men Are Black Men Too this April. In contrast to SBTRKT, they’re probably a band you’ve heard a lot about but you might be less familiar with their discography. Nonetheless, you’ve heard a lot about them for a reason and Latitude is your chance to see what the fuss is about!