TUSK festival

For those who’re driven to explore the further shores of contemporary music, Newcastle’s annual TUSK festival is something of a sanctuary. Now in its fourth year, 2014’s line-up hosted international acts such as Rajasthan’s Irshad Ali Qawwali Party, Tokyo’s hardened noise merchants Hijokaidan, the legendary Borbetomagus from New York, Asiq Nargile from Azerbaijan, as well as a diverse range of UK artists. And as with previous years, this festival also included workshops, exhibitions and talks (such as Borbetomagus interviewed by Wire’s David Keenan), plus hours of rare, alternative film shown at the on-site cinema.

The festival is based at the Star and Shadow, a leading edge, volunteer-run film and music venue in the Ouseburn area of the city. While Newcastle has its own healthy local scene, it’s too often a destination that’s skipped over during tour schedules. Many bands seem to jump straight from Leeds to Edinburgh, leaving us Geordies wondering what exactly it is we’re doing to put them all off. Anyway, TUSK is a much needed antidote to this state of affairs, and respect is due to organiser Lee Etherington and the team at the Star and Shadow for making it so.

Etherington tells us that the vision which animates TUSK stems from a desire to put on “a mix of artists who we admire musically but who never or rarely play live in the UK, plus artists that we love and that maybe you’ve never heard before … That’s the core of our programming ambitions, and the rest of the festival grows out of that. It’s not to try to be exclusive or ‘better’ (whatever that is), but we and our audience have enquiring minds and adventurous ears”.

Highlights of the opening Friday night included Pascal Nichols of Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, who treated an appreciative crowd to a solo percussion set that shifted between gentle tinkle and full kit rumble. Japan’s Hatsune Kaidan looked and sounded like three personality performers who had never met before, never heard each other perform, and were simply told to play together. A strange and spirited brew of sugary J-Pop/guitar rampage/electro fuzz that left the audience smiling and energised. Day one ended with a rare performance by Newcastle-based legends :zoviet*france:, who sent the crowd home with ambient sounds drifting around their heads to soothe their sleep in preparation for the next day’s delights.

Day two commenced with the reflective sound of Andrew Chalk’s Elodie, followed by Stefan Williamson Fa discussing his Sayat Nova Project. The Project represents the collective efforts of Fa and two fellow music lovers who made it their task to travel through the Caucasus region and explore the area’s diverse and largely uncharted musical dialects. Later that evening, we were honoured to hear Asiq Nargile perform. In the UK for the first time, Asiq – one of the Sayat Nova Project’s ‘discoveries’ – mesmerised the audience with her beautiful voice and saz playing.

TUSK has become known for presenting stunning new artists, and Newcastle’s Jerome Smith playing under the moniker Charles Dexter Ward was an unexpected treat. If Fripp and Eno, Richard Pinhas, and mesmerising looped sound paintings are constantly on your decks, you need to check this guy out.

Discussing this knack for programming new, often locally-based talent, Etherington tells us that “one of the big pleasures of organising the festival is bringing a big audience to people who hardly anyone has heard outside the North East. Like I saw Charles Dexter Ward open a Warm Digits show a few months back and as he was on first, only maybe a dozen folks saw him but he was fantastic, so we got him on at TUSK and he went down an absolute storm. We definitely do use the festival to promote the city and its music/arts scene – about half our audience travels from outside the North East to TUSK so it’s a good way to spread the word”.

Sunday kicked off early with a morning performance by Irshad Ali Qawwali Party at Newcastle’s Holy Biscuit gallery. Those who made the effort to get out of bed after the previous night’s noise onslaught from Huokaidan were woken from their slumbers by a group of young musicians delivering joyous Sufi music with a passion that would have had the late, great Nusrat Feti Ali Khan bellowing for more. The day’s highlights also included Wisconsin duo Spires That In The Sunset Rise, whose psych-folk sampler heavy set made you feel like the future of melodic sound produced simply and effectively was beginning. Veteran turntable experimentalist Philip Jeck followed, premiering a piece specially commissioned for TUSK. Jeck’s composition was constructed entirely using Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk album as source material, played on a pair of vintage dansettes and hypnotically looped to the point of disintegration into ambient fog. Bliss.

Legendary New York noise outfit Borbetomagus closed the final night with their ferocious squall of double saxophone and guitar. These guys might look like late career university lecturers, but back in the eighties they were playing at levels of aggression and volume so intense that even the CBGBs crowd complained! Here at TUSK, the trio set about destroying minds and eardrums with a soundscape of strange, still, purity. The band were joined for their second set by Hijokaidan to send the remaining die-hard noise-nicks home with blood on their lobes

But the unexpected highlight of this year’s TUSK were Cairo’s E.E.K featuring Islam Chipsy, who were visiting the UK for the first time. When the two drum kit slammers locked into Islam’s powerfuly euphoric, percussive keys, the result was impossible to resist, and the usually sedate TUSK crowd became infected by the beats and were immediately grinning and dancing like possessed souls.

TUSK is destined to flourish and grow. Last year saw the first one-day ‘TUSK-mini’ event, and Lee Etherington is hopeful that other festivals will soon invite the TUSK team to contribute some programming. TUSK is everything that an alternative music festival should be: friendly, diverse, and featuring artists who are willing to take risks and who value innovation over profit. Etherington is surely deserving of a gong in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours for pulling together such a diverse and adventurous annual programme in a climate of ‘austerity’ and arts funding cuts.