Music Festivals of 2012 #1 - Beacon’s Festival

Rising out of the wreckage of 2011’s flooding cancellation, Beacon’s Festival is back and this time bigger, better and most importantly more water resistant than ever! Having moved the site to an even more picturesque location and away from flood areas, the festival will see thousands of discerning music fans descend on the town of Carleton (near Skipton) to enjoy three days and four nights of some of the most groundbreaking musicians around.

The line up is incredible! Including [edit] radio favourites, Wild Beasts and Real Estate, who had the dubious honour of featuring in our 2011 albums of the year run down, and other artists we’ve supported such as King Krule, Willis Earl Beal and Cloud Nothings to name just a few. You can see the full line up here.

Whats even better is that this line up is available for the recession busting price of £74.50 for weekend tickets, with additional discounts available for students and for parents bringing along their children too.

To give you a flavour of the festival, which runs from 17th-19th August we’ve created a Beacon’s Spotify playlist for you to enjoy!

Resolutions Are Only Dreams

King Krule - Bleak Bake

For me, talent schools are a contentious issue. Does an artist gain or lose merit by attending? What does it mean for their authenticity? Does it even matter? It’s a minefield that shouldn’t have any relevance to what I think about the music, but apparently it does. In King Krule’s case I’m willing to make an exception because despite his Brit School background (the same talent school as Jessie J and Adele) his music is blessed with a mediative quality that appeals to my introverted nature and tugs on the same emotional strings as The XX or Burial. Like both of those artists, Krule’s music is nocturnal and urban in tone, resonating more when walking on dimly lit streets. His style of vocal morphing sounds a little like drunken slurring and will be a barrier for enjoyment for some, to others (and me) he’ll sound intoxicating, there really isn’t any middle ground. 

 “Bleak Bake” is the best example of these musical traits to date. Emotive lyrics like “I’m pretty sure my mind ran down this line again, only last week,” recall how easy it is to drift off into your own little world whilst commuting during a packed rush hour. Krule backdrops his lyrics with an expert use of repetitive violin modulations. These sharp pockets of sound represent a moment of mind paralysis caused by a combination of commuter induced claustrophobia and too many strands of thought forming at once. It’s something most commuters can relate to and hearing this type of internalisation represented so skilfully is rare indeed. Making any of my own doubts about the dubious authenticity of Krule’s talent school roots ill-founded.