Krankenhaus

Recognise this fellow? More of him in a bit.

Today the Minx and I drove over to Ravenglass for the Krakenhaus festival, which is a small event held at Muncaster Castle, curated by the band Sea Power (formerly known as British Sea Power). We had gone primarily to see Mark Radcliffe's UNE but obviously didn't limit ourselves to seeing them.

There's only one stage at Krankenhaus, which is inside a barn, so you can find a place to sit in there and be sure of seeing everything on the bill. The first band was a duo called Group Listening, who play ambient and kosmische covers on piano and clarinet, aided occasionally by a drum track. It's MUCH better than it sounds, and their cover of Neu!'s 'Seeland' was beautiful.

After that, we enjoyed Mark Radcliffe interviewing New Order's Stephen Morris, at which point the Minx recognised him as the chap who had been leaving the hotel as we checked in. Anyway, he and Radcliffe are old friends, which made for a relaxed, funny, and interesting chat.

Then, after a break for a beer and something to eat, we went back in to watch Chris Hawkins talking to Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi, who were charming interviewees. Both are part of what I think is a primarily London based musical community that was originally centred around the band Cardiacs. My friend Ash is part of that scene, so I'd actually met both Steve and Kavus, previously, albeit many years ago, at a gig in South London.

And yes, it's  *that* Steve Davis, who now plays analogue synth in the band Utopia Strong.

Then it was time to see UNE, whose set was just long enough to include all my favourite tunes by them. They have a great mixture of strong songwriting with really interesting electronics, so I always enjoy their sets. (See Extra.)

And then we watched Utopia Strong, whose set consisted of one long and, I think, semi-improvised piece, which was exactly how I imagine a Sixties 'happening' might have sounded, except with better PA.

By then it was six o'clock and there was no one else we particularly wanted to see, except Sea Power, who weren't on until nine. Normally at a festival we'd have just gone back to our tent or for something to eat and a mooch around but none of those was an option, so in the end we walked back to our hotel for a bite to eat, and then went for a walk down to the estuary of the Esk. (See second Extra!)