11:00 – We rise at daybreak! (Sort of)
Have said it before, but it’s hard not to suspect that the British people sometimes think that things have been invented purely for them to complain about. Thus it is with festivals, perhaps the most whinged about things in the nation after the weather, bad chips, and bowels. There are queues, people are wont to whine when they all turn up at 5pm hoping to get in at the same time as everyone else who has had the same idea. The Quietus encourages you to get to Field Day early, for not only is there a lot of very pleasant green grass to look at, this year some of the finest entertainment on offer is early in the day…
11:30 – London Sound Survey, Caught By The River Tent
For instance, our friends at Caught By The River have a stage this year, where they’ll be hosting a series of events, talks, discussions and DJ sets loosely (things are always fairly loose with those thirsty pescators) focussed around the subject of field recording. Early on is an appearance by the London Sound Survey, a fascinating project that records, collects and curates the sound of the City around us, which with its honking, roaring, cussing and superficially indifferent wildlife is all to often ignored. Have a look at their fantastic website here. – Turner
12.00 – East India Youth, The Quietus Village Mentality stage
Recent sets have seen East India Youth’s William Doyle prime his live show spectacularly. At the tail end of last year, Doyle was still figuring out the intricacies of translating the vast sonic tracts covered by his debut, as-yet-unreleased LP TOTAL STRIFE FOREVER into a one-man show, though his set at Heaven for our DRILL:LONDON festival saw him segue from crystalline electronic pop to expansive techno banger seamlessly. If you haven’t yet caught him live, catch him under the canvas of our tent to see why we made his Hostel EP the debut release of The Quietus Phonographic Corporation. – Tuffrey
12:45 – Charanjit Singh, BleeD stage; 13:00 – Daniel Avery
There’s so much good electronic music at Field Day this year that some of the very best of the bangers have to go off at lunchtime. From two ends of the spectrum we commend to you Charanjit Singh, who basically invented acid house in India before most Field Day ticket holders were born, and Daniel Avery, the Drone Logitician whose forthcoming album on Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Sound label has us mighty intrigued… we were listening to a Perc DJ set, wherein he played a track that made tQHQ levitate by approximately 6". Enquiry revealed this to be an unreleased Avery production. – Turner
14:00 – Have a brew
Go to Tim Peaks Diner. Before he plays a set on the Quietus’ Village Mentality Stage, Tim Burgess will be grinding beans and doing the cappuccino frothing thing at his Tim Peaks coffee stall. Tim Peaks sells Fair Trade coffee and tea, with strong connections to the Costa Rican villages where the coffee is planted. The Quietus recently met with Gerardo Arias Camacho, one of the farmers, and heard a powerful story of how he nearly died trying to reach America as an illegal immigrant, before being finally being able to come home and work his family’s land. Your bog standard coffee royally shafts these people, no two ways about it, so get an ethical brew on with T-Burg, who is donating all profits from the stall to the David Lynch Foundation. – Turner
14:45 – Rory Gibb DJ Set, BleeD Stage
Suitably charged, head over to the BleeD stage where our Rory Gibb will be playing a DJ set. Part of the reason we gave him a job was thanks to hearing a pretty ace range of tunes coming out of his laptop a few years ago…
15.15 – Tim Burgess, The Quietus Village Mentality stage
Complement your newly Tim Peaks-caffeinated self with a set from the man himself. The immaculately-crafted introspections of last year’s sterling Oh No I Love You LP, one of our picks of the year, are now tour-honed: from the bright keyboard chime of ‘White’ to the reflective intonations of ‘A Case For Vinyl’, Burgess has lived in Kurt Wagner of Lambchop’s lyrics for a good while now, and re-planted them firmly in northwest English soil. Not only that, but he’s always a charming master of ceremonies (the man’s already served you coffee and he’s got his own Yorkshire Tea teapot) so we’d urge you to be front and centre under our Village Mentality tent come mid-afternoon. – Tuffrey
16:10 – Savages, Laneway Stage
Last year at Field Day, Savages were a very new band playing what was still a very early gig on the main stage. Recently returned from their spiritual home of Europe, Savages hit the Laneway Stage with a critically praised top 20 album under their black leather belts. They’ve also emerged as one of the most divisive bands in Britain today, with nasayers usually blasted away as soon as they’ve seen Savages live. – Turner
16:30 – Daphni, Bugged Out Stage
After flirting with dance music ideas throughout his career as Caribou, as of late Dan Snaith has brought his club affiliations to the fore in magnificent style. Last year’s Jiaolong album and a string of 12"s and remixes combined a record collection’s worth of soul, funk and African music samples with fat, rubbery modular bass, sending club floors into overdrive in the process. He’s also developed into an excellent DJ, drawing across styles in a manner not dissimilar from one of his main inspirations, Theo Parrish – listen to this seven-hour set from last year in Peckham’s Bussey Building for a taste of what to expect. – Gibb
16:30 – Ginger Baker, The Quietus Village Mentality Stage
Ginger Baker has become one of those figures who is more famous for his supposed cantankerous nature than for his actual musical achievements; ironically, a situation that would make anyone with his CV irate. Although he prefers to be known as a jazz drummer, he still towers over most rock, funk and Afrobeat sticksmen past or present. This versatility has seen him play with such disparate outliers as Public Image Ltd., Hawkwind, Masters of Reality, Fela Kuti and Cream, not to mention his own short lived but outstanding Air Force. An actual living legend. – Doran
17.05 – Solange, Eat Your Own Ears stage
Feeling the twinges of an afternoon lull? With fine timing, Solange will be arriving to stick a bit of calm in advance of the evening’s ravery. If there’s any justice, people will cast aside their Kopparbergs and get together for ‘Losing You’, the lead-off cut from last year’s ace True EP, but at any road she’s bound to radiate some of the track’s nervy-sexual-energy-at-the-house-party hue across Victoria Park. She may also debut a few new tracks from her forthcoming third album, which could get a release later in the year through her own newly-minted Saint Records label. It’s worth priming yourself with a listen to the recently-released extended version of True’s ‘Looks Good With Trouble’, a slow unfurling of sinewy synth-work topped by Solange’s insanely smooth vocal turn. – Tuffrey
17:00 – Hessle, Bugged Out Stage / Objekt, BleeD Stage
The Hessle Audio label and their alumni are out in force at Field Day – proof that they’re becoming an ever-more vital and staple fixture in the UK’s club music landscape. Label bosses Ben UFO, Pangaea and Pearson Sound will be giving your afternoon a shot of adrenaline with a back-to-back-to-back set at 17:45 in the Bugged Out Tent: expect a rapid-fire affair tearing through house, techno and all manner of broken rhythms that draw from hardcore, jungle and grime. Later, at 18:30, Objekt – who last year released the punishing ‘Cactus’ through Hessle – will be making an appearance on the BleeD Stage. He’s renowned for his skill as a selector, seamlessly stirring together techno and electro to knockout effect. Watch out for his own tracks appearing in the mix, too: with their crisp, intricate sound design and sucker-punch bassweight, they’re immediately distinctive and powerful enough to practically knock you off your feet. – Gibb
18:00 – Chris Watson’s Nature Disco, Caught By The River Tent
Before the evening gets too rowdy, Caught By The River bring proceedings in their tent to a close with Chris Watson’s nature disco, which has been something of a hit whenever it appears at festivals like Port Eliot. Expect the sounds of wildlife and landscape, perhaps conjuring up a summer’s day ‘gainst the current endless winter. Find out how Chris Watson finds his sounds here
19:10 – The Quietus Village Mentality Stage – very special guests
… who can they be? Tom Eat Your Own Ears said Daft Punk, but we suspect he’s joshing.
20:00 – Karenn, BleeD Stage
Last year Karenn – the hook-up of Blawan and Pariah – turned up as the last minute replacement for Zomby on the BleeD Stage who, true to form, hadn’t turned up for his gig. Even in an unofficial capacity they provided a impressively hard and stomping dose of techno to round off the evening – and now they’ve been invited back officially to deliver the coup de grace. Except this time, presumably with even more ‘OOOF!’ – in the time period since they’ve been honing their storming, grubby, industrially-tinged live set, which should round the day off in explosive fashion. In the words of Luke Turner, after witnessing their Boiler Room show last year: "this set was like being the dismembered bits of a horse hanging in a French butchers during an earthquake – violent, cauterising and impossible to refuse the imperative to twitch and move." – Gibb
20:20 – Do Make Say Think, Quietus Village Mentality Stage
Canada’s Do Make Say Think have weathered the rise and fall of post-rock better than most. Signed to the Constellation label (also home of Godspeed You! Black Emperor), their music sidesteps the usual quiet-quiet-quiet-APOCAYPTICALLY-LOUD dynamic for gradually mutating, percussive pieces whose tidal ebb and flow draw strongly from jazz and the taut propulsion of Can. Their live performances tend to be immersive, involving affairs, finding the band escalating in momentum before peaking in waves of brass and ragged guitars. A nice touch of darkness for your early evening. – Gibb
20:40 – Four Tet, Eat Your Own Ears Stage
After you’ve had your fill of parabolic post-rock, a quick dash to the main stage would be an advisable course of action: Kieran Hebden will be playing a live set under his Four Tet guise. Over the last few years Hebden has made quite dramatic steps away from the more pastoral, low-key sound of his earlier music and shifted more definitively into club music mode (mirroring, interestingly, a similar move by his friend and sometime collaborator Dan Snaith, who you may have caught earlier in the day as Daphni). A series of recent 12"s has found him exploring an intersection between house, garage and melodic electronica – expect to hear newer bangers like ‘Pyramids’ adding extra brusque force to some older, more classic ‘Tet material. – Gibb
21:50 – Mulatu Astatke, The Quietus Village Mentality Stage
Ethiopian jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke has always been a true original, so it’s gratifying to see him gain the international recognition he has long deserved over the last decade. Although his music doesn’t bear more than a passing resemblance to the output of the Ethiopian Golden Era, it is still bound up in the pentatonic scale and owes a debt to the Haile Selassie big band sound. But when you add to this his musical education in Addis, Wales and London and his association with figures such as Alice Coltrane and Ronnie Scott, it is easier to understand where this unique and beautiful sound came from. – Doran
