Festival Frolics: Offset, Saturday.

With carpet burns from the 'Mummy Of All Slides' (pink/purple monstrosity pictured above) sticking grimly to denim jackets and heads throbbing like filaments on last legs, the gulf between a weekend on the fringes of the Central Line amidst Hainault Forest for this year's Offset Festival and reality itself is vast. For a start, medication now signifies a plaster in place of a crisp packet dabbed with Red Square vodka...

Now in its third year, the East London-on-chlorophyll bash unites influential, yet largely unappreciated minimal electronica oddballs (previously Black Devil Disco Club, this year Cluster), post-punk genii along the lines of Offset alumni Gang Of Four and A Certain Ratio, and this time around, forgotten digital hardcore in the form of Atari Teenage Riot, with acts balancing precariously on the cusp of universally accepted acclaim. Then there's a whole hoard of hardcore acts. So many matter-of-factly that they're awarded their own not-so-teeny tent, making hardcore happy once again. So without any further ado about nothing...

Twelve months ago, adopted East Londoners Bo Ningen were scaling towering tent poles, upside down, as jaws dropped and creativity flowed and gushed more vivaciously than Kate Nash's dribbling eyeliner, as she's later spotted scoffing more dough balls than Johnny Marr has years on his contemporary tourbus cronies following her bass-toting cameo with punkier, rockier side project, The Receeders. Today, the androgynous quartet of Japanese expats wave from forever-greater heights, as the steel rim of the Main Stage provides a veritable climbing frame for an indeterminable member of the troupe, as wayward strands of druid-like barnet bluster in the mid-afternoon September breeze. Koroshitai Kimochi particularly is entrancing and invigorating as a Summer Solstice evening were Gaseneta blared from atop Stonehenge. Less enthralling are Late Of The Pier impersonators Egyptian Hip Hop who, despite relentless laudation from nigh on every niche of the Blogosphere, are almost entirely incapable of inspiring even the most meagre of interest, blabbering incoherently about middle names. Frenetic Sub Pop sweethearts Male Bonding meanwhile are all too involved with invoking hysteric frenzy back over on this year's exponentially expanded Main Stage, buzzing through the likes of Year's Not Long and Franklin as if Kasms await in the wings branding a chainsaw destined for the trio's nether-regions, whilst Teeth!!! reproduce the stunning dementia of Time Changes with cataclysmic, cacophonous urgency, and utter vitality. As aged Apple laptops invade the realms of traditional trends of Korg keys and pawnshop guitars, and live drums shudder down the spine of a typically joyous slab of post-Crystal Castles glitched-up euphoria in the form of See Spaces, the Dalston brigade purvey effortless ecstasy in its purest musical form, chopped more finely than the shards of glass that clog the gutters beyond their front door. Minimalist funk and seminal aren't often juxtaposed, let alone uttered within the same paraphrase, paragraph nor run-of-the-mill festival programme, yet rhythmically and historically, New Yorkers Liquid Liquid are as quintessential to funked-out post-punk as creepers are to concurrent fashion it seems, as a plethora of foam platforms jive and vibe to anything and everything from the overtly expansive bobbling bass tendencies of Cavern, to the peculiar percussion of Optimo and Scraper.
But the most vivid picture imposed onto neuronal memory gunk tonight is exposed in a murky, electric Loud & Quiet tent, as a pair of Brooklynites teetering on the tips of excellence stroll through a down-tempo set of fuzzy electro misery. For Telepathe are yet to fully cash the chips they ought to have raked in with their debut long player Dance Mother now years ago, a gargantuan record of minimalist marvel from which the duo draw heavily and almost exclusively. From the monotone life support machine majesty of Devil's Trident, to the baroque rhythms of a bass-heavy Lights Go Down and the metronomic thundering of set closer So Fine, Busy Gagnes and Melissa Livaudis prove 'Quiet' to be occasionally a touch more mighty than 'Loud', offsetting the excessive ampage provided by the likes of Pulled Apart By Horses, Comanechi, Trash Talk etc.