On 23 and 24 August, acclaimed indie label Fuzz Club hold the second edition of their now-annual festival at Eindhoven’s esteemed Effenaar venue with a heavy-hitting line-up that features Iceage, Teeth Of The Sea, Snapped Ankles and more.
When tQ attended last year, we found a brilliant sense of community, a celebration not only of psych and noise music, but the fertile community that’s sprung up around the label.
Reviewing last August’s bash, we were blown away by what we called "a fierce, defiant rebuke to the idea that this kind of music, and this kind of festival is on the wane."
Many of the best bands that played last year, and will play next weekend for round two, are signed to the label. The Underground Youth, for example, who unfurled their latest cut of swarming gothic rock this year in the form of Montage Images Of Lust And Fear, will be returning next weekend.
To find out more about what to expect from them, and from this most vital of small festivals, we caught up with the band’s leader Craig Dyer, who demonstrates just why the artist-band relationship at Fuzz Club is so special.
tQ: You played Fuzz Club’s first Eindhoven festival last year, what did you make of it?
Craig Dyer: Honestly, for us that festival was like a family gathering. Between everyone who works at Fuzz Club, all the bands we’ve known and played with for years and all the fans who’ve been at the shows supporting that scene since the beginning, it really was the perfect way to celebrate making it that far.
What can we expect from you second time around?
Well we’ve just recently returned from 3 months touring in support of our newest album ‘Montage Images Of Lust & Fear’, so we’ve got a really strong set incorporating new and old songs. I mean, we always deliver, but we’ll be even more excited and prepared for it this time around.
Other than your own set, who are your picks of this year’s line-up and why?
Like last year it’s a line up full of friends and bands we’ve long admired so it’s tough to narrow down, but I’ll pick out a few… On the Friday our friends Froth play just before us on the other stage, we’ll try and catch as much of their set as possible before we have to set up! After us Night Beats and The KVB, we’ve seen both on plenty of occasions but not for some time so it’ll be nice to see where they’re at. On the Saturday I’m keen to see Iceage as I’ve not yet caught them live and our friends in Kikagaku Moyo always put on an amazing live show! As I say there’re really too many to individually mention.
To my mind Montage Images… is a record that really ups the melodramatic elements of your sound, do you think that’s fair, and will the live set reflect that?
That last record really is the closest we’ve come to capturing our live sound, but even from that we seemed to up it a bit when playing those songs live on the recent tour. Maybe it’s melodramatic, that’s not for me to say… We give everything on stage, that much I can guarantee.
How important has the Fuzz Club label been for your career?
Well from releasing our first physical release as their first release in 2012 through to all the help and continued assistance, I really can’t think of anything else outside of the band that has had such a fundamental and lasting importance. As an artist to have such creative freedom and support is to feel you are working with what Fuzz Club is, a truly independent record label.
Fuzz Club Eindhoven takes place on 23 and 24 August. For tickets, and the full line-up, click here.
