Sprawling across Bristol city centre like ants at a picnic, Dot to Dot Festival thrives in the moment. Last year saw flagging indie scruffs The Holloways and the now-defunct Dirty Pretty Things head up the bill. However, further down the bill rough coals were awaiting crystallisation as Esser, Golden Silvers and Telepathe all played in the shadows whilst the pavements outside were still drenched in sunlight. This year’s headliners come from the electro wheelbarrow that’s still trudging its way around the garden of British music with Friendly Fires and Ladyhawke secreting dance sensibilities and geek chic from every pore. Learning from mistakes of years past, Friday evening was spent trawling through Myspace pages of unheard of bands, let alone unheard. Leaving no stone left unturned, the afternoon was spent chasing glimpses of hope up and down Park Street.First up, Chik Budo somewhat unwittingly piece together a brand of jazz dementia that The Mars Volta would be seeking psychiatry for. Akin to early Animal Collective records with a splintered edge of aggression, the half-English, half-Japanese quartet hammer saxophones into the spleens of unnervingly uncontrollable keyboards. They tear through their crazed set as if there’s no tomorrow, demonstrating that pure pop sensibilities are in there somewhere. Perhaps if they calmed down for a second or two they’d flourish. Up next is a mad dash across town to Thekla for Peterborough upstarts Fenech-Soler. It’s perhaps the most unpronounceable name on the bill yet an uninspiring electro set of Friendly Fires rummaging through Late of the Pier’s wardrobe falls on deaf ears. With disappointment still ringing around skulls, it’s off to Icelandic troupe and without a doubt the most unfathomable name here today, Hjaltalin. Having played in Cardiff the previous night, allegedly the Welsh have greater ease at giving its pronunciation a bash. But linguistic difficulties aside, Hjaltalin burst out of the blocks with a refreshing waft of treble-soaked harmony and boast the solitary bassoon on show at this year’s edition. It’s a reinvigorating experience that joyously joins the dots. Desperately desiring some brand of teleportation device, it’s back down to Bristol’s boat that rocks for adopted Parisian Dan Black. Bounding along like Mika in a McDonalds, Black spews a grim arrogance over his recycled loops and flimsy lyrics and it’s all a bit more X Factor than ecstatic. Upstairs however a storm is brooding; Californians Love Like Fire inject reverb into all the right veins without collapsing in cacophony. Ice cream vocals enthral to the rafters six inches above our heads with their brand of laid-back Breeders swathed in melancholy. Enlightening.
In anticipation of Crystal Stilts’ set, The Cooler’s about as rammed as Fosters in the fridge at an Australian barbeque. They may look old enough to be Faris’ parents but there’s nothing to be found on The Horrors’ hyped-to-high-heaven Primary Colours that you won’t find in a distortedly dynamic set from the princes of anti-Brooklyn. The spaced-out limp of ‘The Dazzled’ is spectacular whilst ‘Bright Night’ evokes the spirit of the Sixties at six in the afternoon without a cliché in sight. Following Patrick Wolf’s terrifying S&M showdown at London’s Heaven a few weeks back, apprehension batters anticipation. Without his hairdresser, disastrous hair extensions are out of the question so the future’s short and blonde. A positive start. Shrouded in his newest possession, a guitar he’s bought an hour before the show which stays in tune about as readily as Justin Hawkins slips into falsetto, Wolf endows the likes of ‘Accident & Emergency’ and ‘The Libertine’ with a heavier tinge, all whilst resembling the fantastical androgyny of Ziggy-era Bowie. The set’s flooded predominantly with the loveless desperation of forthcoming record The Bachelor with current single ‘Hard Times’ thrilling and shining brightest. Iconic and inspiring as ever before, through love Wolf’s hard times may well be over and he’s all the better for it. Upstairs Aussie anthemists The Temper Trap are whipping up another hurricane on their first UK jaunt with the likes of ‘Down River’ pricking neck hairs like needles, the walls sweat and greatness is guaranteed. New Pornographer A.C. Newman lulls over at the Fleece where those from across the pond have invaded with the likes of The Soft Pack and Wintersleep all giving the home-grown talent a run for its money. Heading for Thekla, Titus Andronicus are in search of anything but burgers but settle for kebabs as veering away from headliners is the order of the hour. Parisians Naïve New Beaters channel the sheer stupidity of Iglu & Hartly yet either through fancy L.E.D.s created with the aid of their eleven year-old sister, costumes or the sheer Francophonic charm, their electro-rap whips up ample opposition to tired Telecasters and monotonous Moogs. In typically catastrophic fashion their set ends with around half the audience swarming around the three Parisians as they bash out their final drum machine crashes. Leodensians Pulled Apart By Horses follow and despite frequent warnings against crowd surfing, and the roof being around a foot above our heads, chaos ensues and it’s a wonder not a single bone is broken. Rounding off proceedings is the supposed princess of the future, Little Boots. Not only is she over an hour late (a drum pad only witnessed to be used a handful of times is half as wasted as the majority of tonight’s crowd) but she then claims innocence. In amongst relentless booing, her bass-heavy slabs of electro nothingness do little to calm the swaying, sweating haters. She’s got mountains higher than Kate Bush’s hills to climb, never reaching the summit. Stomping about in platform Christian Louboutins that sparkle far brighter than her Minogue mimics, minimal musical capacity and backing tracks Hesketh doesn’t hold a whole load of promise. ‘Stuck on Repeat’ scales greater heights than Princess Roux-Roux ever has and presumably ever will yet they’re not so ‘New in Town’ these days and there’s plenty more fish out of these electro seas. Don’t believe the hype.
