The British band Amusement Park on fire was playing when I arrived at the Culture Collide festival during the late afternoon, and their dense sound was filling all the open air without leaving any empty space. They are the shoegazing type, with all the notes melting in each other, and hardly a move in the music.
Phantogram was an electro-pop duo from New York, with Sarah D. Barthel on keyboard and Joshua M. Carter on guitar who played some atmospheric songs always starting with weird noises and melting in more harmonious spheres. The wobbling and bouncing synth following the eerie and whispered Sarah’s vocals, as well as the drum beat and the tinkling guitar was creating a sort of poppy hip-hop, more danceable than expected, a weird atmosphere, may be more Massive Attack than Radiohead, although I am not sure what reference will sound appropriate for their sort of creepy music.
Cass McCombs was a pleasant surprise, and probably a band I would like to know more about after their brief set at the festival. A lot of musical references were going through my mind when I was listening to the quintet, from 60’s influences to more recent ones. Gorgious ballads like ‘Dreams come true girls’ had a little of ‘Stand by me’ thing going on, some others had almost Neil Youngish accents, and it was like adventuring in a kaleidoscopic foreign country you already half know.
The Canadian band Tokyo Police Club was expected like stars at the Culture Collide Festival, and it was the first time I was seeing live, or even paying real attention to the band. They played an energetic set of rocking electrified songs, which did not do much for me, as I cannot even remember a typical sound I could describe to talk about their music; may be some repetitive keyboard, may be some guitars which seemed to make sounds turning around themselves. They were joined on stage by Jeff Apruzzese from the band Passion Pit, as he played bass with them on their last song ‘Your English is Good’. A plain juvenile dynamic as their music seemed as young as they all seemed to be.