Following a fair few hours bombing down 'Black Hole', the 'Master Blaster' and swirling precariously round the 'Space Bowl' in Butlins' unnervingly magical Splash Zone, bones aching and bodies bruised, the musical aspect of this year's Bloc speeds under your nose faster than the 13 seconds it takes to drop 50 metres in a blacked out tube.This year's Bloc line-up is something of a treasure chest, awaiting its key for a load of genres yet to be deciphered into coherent languages to be let loose on the eardrums of the unsuspecting British public, bounding away from the constraints of underground and woodland secret raves. Bloc certainly maintains an enviable spirit of community. Where else could you find a mutual appreciation of getting wrecked in a motorway underpass with fellow messheads you met through stealing one of their cans of Strongbow from under their Fiesta? Try that one at Reading and you can say goodbye to your least favoured limb. If you get offered the choice.
Easing into the jacuzzi of discovery, easing into Drums of Death is far more pleasurable than it may sound. Puzzlingly, Drums of Death is one-man-maniac Colin Bailey (evident reasoning behind pseudonym) who bounds about crashing through Franz Ferdinand and Peaches remixes as if his slicked-back helmeted hair were threatened with premature baldness. Smeared with make-up that can only be set against Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker, most of which evaporates into globules of sweat during perhaps the most highly-charged set of the weekend, his true colours glimmer through for a ravaging finale of 'Voodoo Lovers'. Crossover appeal guaranteed, may raise from the dead. Beware the graveyard rhythms.Friday night headliners Future Sound of London follow. Expecting ambience, a few shocks to the system occur: 1) FSOL haven't journeyed to Butlins this evening. In their place? Projected video feeds from their hallucinogenic London environment. 2)If that weren't wrong enough they appear to be streaming from a church. And finally, 3) Visuals of London first being incinerated and then engulfed by animated carnivorous blobs of God-knows-what should be reserved for World of Warcraft and other time-sucking mindless destruction mediums.
Moving on, stumbling across Rusko in the wee hours makes for a less stimulating but far more accessible experience. Christopher Mercer is more than present; he's performing his dubstep odyssey live allegedly for the first time. Rastafarian MCing aside, Rusko's embrace of relaxed Drum'n'Bass (a genre usually avoided like The Hoosiers) and evident musical capability make his short-but-sweet set the highlight of a Friday night learning curve.The chalet appears to have become Hangover Hospital. And the floor's still in the same state it's been in for the last 24 hours. Quite possibly the least sanitary hospital you'll encounter. Without the nurses. Or doctors. Or illnesses for that matter. Not that medication's needed when the Splash Zone's a three minute walk. Our neck of the woods, or Ocean Drive as it's affectionately coined, is apparently the buzzing hub of Bloc. Our first indication of this is noted when some Scouser (Scouse Mike or Chris or something) knocks on the window, enters and proceeds to brag about some crystals he's hoicking around in a Tesco bag. A pasty seems more appealing than his unfeasibly extortionate wares. Next up, on our voyage to the slides that brought infinite ecstasy at the dawn of our Butlins experience we encounter a bulky chap in his late-30s who seems to still be raving on from last night's proceedings. Thing is, it's now 4pm. And no sooner have we pointed out the fact that he may well still be soldiering on he's tripped over a roundabout, falling face-first into the flower bed contained within. Contemplations aside of aid, he resurrects himself following a good 60 seconds liaising with the Magnolias. On our return his outline's still embedded in the mud alongside 4 rocks dislodged from the roundabout. Only at Bloc.
Saturday night has been hyped to high heaven and it's all down to one man: the revered endless mystery that is Aphex Twin.
Tonight he's joined by Hecker. But nobody's bothered. Richard D. James revels mischievously behind a stack or two of speakers he's brought down himself and that extra bass may well have dislodged a further brick or two around the site. He lurches alongside Hecker for a solid two hours that culminates in 10 minutes of solid strobing paired with autopsy footage or so I'm told- following James' ceaseless barrage of mind-numbing sensory overload I bail around the hour-and-three-quarter mark for fear of losing my sanity. Feeling drained both mentally and physically, it seems a disappointment to have deserted the minimalist electro genius' piece de resistance but piecing together my sensory jigsaw seemed about as implausible after as discovering the root of such evil as well as the possessive voices inside his brain telling him to dumbfound and confuse to the brink of delirium. Yet Saturday's diamond in the rough and weekend highlight matter of factly comes in the rugged, sharp-suited Jamie Lidell. Reclaiming brass back from the money-grabbing claws of a certain Ronson and layering impeccable vocals over summertime honky-tonk piano, Lidell personifies perfection in a saturated bog of singer-songwriters humming and hawing over love interests with dandelions. And he's just about the most suave genius as gawky as Joe Lean you'll come across this century. His latest record 'Jim' is darn fine. But the live show's the designer icing on the ideal feelgood shebang. And the youtube footage of 'Another Day' looks as if sea-dwelling anemones are wobbling to its audio splendour. Delightful.Sunday takes a sombre tone, alleviating sleep deprivation, dehydration and a diet composed entirely of Pot Noodle knock-offs, McDonalds snack wraps and Tesco Value Cider. A lovely lady in Tesco pointed out the remarks my mother would blurt were she to peek into my shopping basket. Thank the Lord she's petrified of Butlins. And raves for that matter so no perpetual anxiety on that front. Having been advised by the charming Fata Morgana to indulge in the warped festivities of Ceephax Acid Karaoke, we willingly comply. Ceephax is Squarepusher's sibling with enough chips on his shoulder to supply Minehead for a peak season. Without a respectable word to label a single contestant audacious enough to wail away to acid takes on everything from Bonnie Tyler to Kate Bush. It's a frightful affair and after minutes upon minutes of judicial indecision, anger and revolt take over. Some girl's fuming, shouting into the vacant whites of every onlooker's eyes for the sake of £25 of download vouchers. Chips and rage aside, Andy Jenkinson puts on a sterling show that's more than apt for a Butlins great hall, in amongst artificial palm trees and arcade machines stuffed with every nostalgic stuffed replica from Bagpuss to SpongeBob. As well as a few that look like dead puppies in baskets.
And on that note, final fish and chips in one hand, warm cider in the other we retreat to early-morning TV and the last dregs of a pack of Super Noodles and a shot or two of Vodka to top the night off in vaguely debauched style. Bizarrely enough, the true musical revelation of the weekend flashed through my ears somewhere along the A39, the M5 or somewhere in between. Feeling as vacant as Sid Vicious at a strawberry tea with the Queen, the acoustic dwindlings of John Darnielle's The Mountain Goats fill the air with euphoric self-sympathy as we roam through the Somerset hills. The record? 'We Shall All Be Healed'. The musical hills to conquer are Darnielle's voice, occasionally as grating as broken mature cheddar and dubious lyricisms but it all adds to the twee prologue that The Mountain Goats have provided for the majority of Latitude Festival's line up. As the sun bakes the fields that surround us from the comfort of our VW van, Bloc fades away into the hallucinatory subconscious that tastes sweeter than that Minehead rock melting in our bags.
Bloc Weekend
