by:larm/eurosonic festivals

There were also British bands. One of these was Shit Disco, playing here to a very large audience. It is interesting to note that the longer this band continue to exist, the more their output makes sense. They take the concept of “shit” as a starting point and turn into something, well… less shitty. It’s a Warholian concept: take weakness, focus on it and make it into a strength. Here, with a massive sound system, the strength is augmented exponentially. Huge thumping bass replaces weedy strings; huge beats replace tinny biscuit tins. This all acts as a kind of counter-weight to SD’s naturally self-referential and self-conscious ham-fistedness. The audience heaves to the groove, appropriately. 120 Days pulse and throb, like early Cure, their epic songs each building to massive crescendos. Elsewhere, Das Wanderlust play in what looks like a library. This is appropriate, as this band could easily pass for librarians. Cute and eccentric, they seem at ease, if a little awkward. With dual recorder playing, stop-start pace-changing and self-mocking banter, they resemble a Derridian deconstruction of what a band is. “This songs about Middlesbrough, which is crap and rubbish,” says singer, Laura Simmons. She really should visit Peterborough. Their last song, ‘Celebrate Ourselves’ stops half-way through, slows down, changes rhythm, before finally transmogrifying into what seems like a completely different song. In a much larger venue, Datarock play. They’re all wearing red jumpsuits; some even in red hoodies. They make dancey rock better than many others, who bravely, or cynically, attempt to take on this tricky terrain. They end on a cover of ‘Time of my Life’, with its cheesy eighties sentiments. Stuck in the Sound are a bunch of cool Parisians. They belong to a rare breed – French bands who are actually good. They seem to bear some resemblance to our own Bromheads, until the singer takes his glasses off, half-way through the set, and the band go all acoustic on us, in a rather ill-advised move. Shame, really. Hot Club de Paris, however, remain consistently good, throughout their set. Three guys with drums, bass, guitar and lots of harmonies. Barber shop it ain’t, though; with quirky riffs and enough musical tension to bring about atmosphere-cutting-with-scissors, there’s enough for all of our brains to overload on. “This song’s about everything,” declare all of the band. “Go on,” they go on. “Name something, and I bet this song’s about it.” People say some things in Dutch. Some weeks later, at the By:Larm festival, in Trondheim, Norway, Lo-fi Fink are playing. Two of them dance around behind keyboards (it is not clear if they are actually playing them or not), whilst a third member thumps daintily on electro-drums. This band has far more of a right to lay claim to the title of “New Rave” than a band like Klaxons, simply because they actually make rave music. They even wear baseball caps. Later, Datarock are spotted, again in their distinctive red jumpsuits. First of all, they are spotted putting on a small gig in a tiny room, sponsored by Sony Ericsson. Then they are spotted playing in a huge venue, where they make lots of people dance. Isn’t that just like them? This festival, as good fun as it is, only allows Scandinavian music. And the organisers are well within their rights to do this. But the trouble is that much of it is shoddy Euro-pap. Gems are to be found here and there, though, such as Harmonica, who are a kind of Scandinavian version of Das Wanderlust. By:Larm ends with a bang: a DJ stand-off between Artrocker and the NME, won, of course, by Artrocker.