Rel shares his reflections on the Fruits de Mer Records 17th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus held on 2 – 4 August 2019,
There were songs inspired by ELO, there was an ELO. shirt on stage – I had no idea there was a place where Jeff Lynne’s smooth sentinels still stood for so much. Look long enough in the right places and you’ll find a little love for everyone…
Walking into the Cellar Bar is like passing through some kind of dimensional membrane. Outside the membrane, the world passes by with its usual careless horrors, the cost of living soars and Beyonce continues her reign. Beyond the membrane, Fruits de Mer are an internationally famous record label, there is no currency more valuable than the lathe cut single and Arthur Lee may yet be alive.
Having come all the way from Yorkshire, we were pleased enough with ourselves to announce the fact. ‘Yes,’ said the first person we talked to, ‘I’ve come from Australia. I come every year.’ Germans, Canadians and a Norwegian followed, and it began to dawn on me how lucky I’d been to get a ticket.
This was my first time attending what I believe was the fifth Dream, co-produced by the aforementioned label and local heroes Sendelica, and it embodied everything that I enjoy about a small festival.
It focusses on a niche within a niche, and the people attending are there because they put in the leg work to find their way to that niche, not because the advertising budget put the poster on every other web page they looked at. By the end of the weekend, my worthy companion and I knew the names of several of the organisers and had chatted with most of them. Before we left, we sought them out to say thanks.
There are understandable reasons why you can’t do that at the Megadome, and it adds something uniquely pleasurable to the community feel of the event. You get as familiar with the faces of most people there as they do with yours and before you know it, it feels more like being part of whole, not just an individual in an audience that may or may not care much who’s actually on next.
All those things add up to an atmosphere where everyone in attendance will give everyone on the stage a good old listen wherever they are on the bill, whether we’ve heard of them or not: then, inbetween bands, we’ll get into a conversation and if someone we don’t know chimes in, we don’t think ‘Do you mind? Who the hell are you?’ The fact that we’ve all made it here makes us half way to being friends already. It’s something that only the small festivals can have and I just love it.
Also, as the music churns below, there’s a full café upstairs, always ready to serve. You can’t beat that.
I won’t attempt to break down the full running order: inevitably there were one or two acts that weren’t entirely to my taste, but that’s going to be true of any festival. What surprised me in the happiest way was the number of previously unknown quantities (I was only familiar with three of the bands when I bought tickets) that I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s a testament to how well chosen the line up was and how well the organisers know their business. I’d like to credit the sound man as well. One difficult moment aside, the sound was uniformly clear and bright, which isn’t always easy to do in a small, low, sweltering cell(ar). Suffice it say that no-one was less than listenable, most were really good and a pleasingly high proportion were quite splendid. Here are a few highlights.
Elfin Bow
I gather that Elfin Bow is something of an institution at the festival and it’s not hard to see why. She has an easy charisma and a ready charm as she moves between instruments to tell tales of epic myth and close-up character sketches. To my mind the music is more folk than psych, but in the same way that any Love fan is likely to have a Fairport album or two, it fits in nicely. In the course of the songs I found myself reminded of Kate Bush and Sheila Chandra, which is good company to keep.
Moon Goose were one of the newest bands in the show and one I’d seen before, having had a fine time at their album launch party. In a genre where it’s all too easy to meander, Moon Goose play tight, riff driven instrumentals with strong pulses than very much won over the room. While they played, the band’s young daughters ran around the largely greying crowd, adding a welcome sense that there may yet be life for the original psych sounds beyond those of us old enough to touch the Sixties. I already feel like it won’t be a proper Moon Goose show without them.
Moon Goose
One of the weekend’s favourite discoveries for us, The Alain Pire Experience came from Belgium and brought joi de vivre with them. A no frills trio playing pop hits that never were, it was simply an exercise in good songcraft, one strong tune after another. You could argue that Alain’s band had the least interest in acknowledging any musical development made after 1971 – but when the songs are this good, who cares? I know I went straight upstairs and bought all his albums when the set ended.
Due to overwhelming tiredness on the part of my fine companion we bowed out before the end of Sendelica’s set, but as the co-organiser of the festival it would be remiss of me not to mention them at all. We did see the full Fellowship of Hallucinatory Voyagers set and I gather it’s many of the same people. As we know there are two Classical psych veins – the tight song and the wandering instrumental. Sendelica and the Voyagers both fall firmly into the second group. They are musical hour hands, long tunes with slow developments. The end of a tune sounds quite different to the beginning, but you couldn’t really pinpoint where the changes happened and now you think about it, you can’t really tell how long you’ve been listening – which is one way you can tell it’s working well. Personally I preferred the Voyagers, but that’s got a lot to do with my personal relationship with saxophones and shouldn’t be construed as a slight on Sendelica.
The Fellowship of Hallucinatory Voyagers with Paul Sax of Curved Air
During I Am Voyager One’s appropriately spacey performance, there was a point when I felt distinctly unusual, light headed and off balance, unsteady and out of focus. Maybe the heat and the fatigue played a part, but maybe the Voyager managed, more than anyone else, to do the particular thing that psychedelic music set out to do all those years ago. All I know for sure is that they do what they set out to do very successfully.
I sort of feel like I still haven’t seen The Chemistry Set, as I gathered that the acoustic set they did was quite unlike anything they’ve attempted before, so if you’re a fan of the band, you might want to make sure you get hold of the now traditional album of this year’s festival, next year.
The Chemistry Set
By the time The Bevis Frond came on the cellar was approaching the temperature of Hell. The Frond decided to fight fire with fire, opening with a twenty plus minute version of Superseded fit to blister the Devil’s skin. They had the most feedback trouble, which may have been related to being the loudest act of the weekend, but that didn’t get in the way of a great set. The selection was weighted towards the harder end of Nick’s considerable catalogue, with pacey versions of Maybe and Reflections in a Tall Mirror going down particularly well. A steaming performance, literally and metaphorically. I’ve been waiting for a chance to see the Frond since Triptych was a fresh release and the wait was undoubtedly worth it. After a string snapping end to the set, Nick closed the festival on a borrowed guitar and a special request from our Australian friend, sending us off with the very appropriate In Another Year. Slightly improvised, added on the spur of the moment just to please: in a way it summed up all the things I was talking about at the start of this rambling review.
We’d already resolved to get to the 18th Dream before we’d even made it back to car. I look forward to recognising a few faces…
The Fruits de Mer Records 17th Dream of Dr. Sardonicus was sponsored by Record Collector and Mantle Brewery’s special edition best bitter.
Next year’s festival is due to be held on 7 – 9 August 2020 in the Cellar Bar in Cardigan.
