The main reason for being here, for being here camping in a way too small tent in a slightly lumpy field on a farm way out in the countryside not too far from Bristol, the main reason is the very first appearance in this country of a band we’ve been waiting to see for more years than we care to count. We’re here for a band we first started covering via the then printed pages of Organ way back at the start of the century, back when news started slowly filtering over from Oakland California via the then far slower word of mouth underground networks. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum‘s name first appeared on the cover of an edition of Organ way back in May 2002, we’ve gone on about them again and again since then both in print and on line as well as via our Other Rock Show airwaves and finally, this weekend, some twenty-odd years later Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are finally making their UK debut and will prove to be every bit as brilliant as we had hoped they would be (and probably a little bit more besides) wow! 

That’s right, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum have caused us to catch a (number of) train(s) and take the scenic route to Bristol via the (slightly more budget-friendly) line that takes us via the Westbury White Horse and the beauty of the ride beside the River Avon, along the line via Bradford-Upon-Avon, Freshford, the Georgian brick colour of Bath and rather fittingly, through Salisbury. The fact is Sleepytime simply could not be missed, there was no option (we’ll worry about the bills tomorrow!), we needed to be at ArcTanGent.  

Okay, so Sleepytime Gorilla Museum weren’t the only reason to need to be at this year’s ArcTanGent festival and to be camping in a field at somewhere called Fernhill Farm in some place named Compton Martin, somewhere not that far from Bristol hanging out with rather a lot of owls, sheep, cows and quiet a few people. Sleepytime weren’t the only reason, the mighty (as we really must call them) Kayo Dot are here as well and there is the not so small matter of Ni who are over from France (they played an excellent show here in London a couple of days before the festival), Papangu who have made it all the way from Brazil, as well as Car Bomb, Slift and hey, dozens and dozen (and dozens) of good bands, performers and those in between. This is a seriously loaded four day bill, people have been working seriously hard to make all this happen, this is not something to be taken for granted. 

Here’s how the organisers put it; “ArcTanGent is a festival that aims to celebrate and elevate radically innovative contemporary music. ATG is the epicentre of some of the most subversive and ingenious sounds of the underground, as well as established heavyweight musical visionaries”. Grand claims you might say and if not the epicentre then certainly one of the more important links if the ever evolving chain that is still essentially a musical underground. The festival, now celebrating its 12th year if I’ve counted right, certainly is a meeting point. The bills always look massively inviting, clearly these are always very carefully crafted line ups and for once the oft rather loosely used term ‘curated’ is not out of place. The ArcTanGent bill always looks to be a beautifully crafted thing alive with loads of excellently enticing left-field artists, with bands that the general public have probably never heard of, indeed a delicious celebration of “slightly more unorthodox artistry”. The thing you take away from ArcTanGent though, as excellent as pretty much all of the music is, is the people.  ArcTanGent is about the warmth, the friendliness of the people, the conversations with strangers, the friendships undoubtedly made, the folk who have come from all over the land and indeed the globe just to be here whoever happens to be playing. It really does feel like that “pilgrimage for a dedicated worldwide community” that the official festival website talks of. Well communities rather than community really, there are many musical meeting points here, so much of that essential cross-pollination and coming together in once place going on in a set of fields somewhere in the Somerset countryside, so much gathered together for four or five days of positiveness. 

This really does feel like a place where people can just be whatever they wish to be. Yes sure, there are things to moans about, but mostly this really is a beautifully positive thing and for us Organgrinders, for us Organ crew who have probably been to way too many festivals and maybe have grown just a little too cynical about it all, ArcTangGent, in the hot Summer of 2025, was something rather wonderfully refreshing. 

And here we are on the Monday morning after the handful of days before (well Tuesday now, this review is taking longer than it should), here we are waking up in the grey of the city when twenty four hours or so ago we were watching the sun rise over the trees in a field just over from a beautiful festival still smiling about the bands we had seen the day before and hearing all the wows about bands from people who hadn’t seen or heard some of those bands before. Yes there are things to pick holes in as we untangle our hair (sorry Tangled Hair, we missed you, can’t be everywhere, we do what we can, I rather like Tangled Hair!), yes there are things to moan about, mostly though ArcTanGent is a beautiful beautiful thing and yes, the team who no doubt go through a full year of headaches, wrangles and days that must surely have them wondering why the hell they put themselves through it all to make things happen. Yes, we do speak from experience, booking agents on the whole are a power-crazed bunch of soul-sucking (insert own expletive here, there’s been many expletives yelled from the Organ bunker over the years about bloody booking agents), the ArcTanGent team rightly should be celebrating themselves this Monday morning (no doubt they can’t, no doubt there’s a million things to deal with and they are probably well into next year’s plans already, we hear some very interesting rumours about what might just go off and things) 

Yes it probably was too male dominated (no probably about it!), and yes, maybe we could lose one or two of the cookie monster growlers, it does get a little tedious after a while and we have surely heard it all way too many time before, although Frontierer may have disputed that if we had caught them and Meth certainly did. It did need more female voices, yes there were some, not enough, way less than anywhere near enough, it isn’t like there aren’t the ArcTanGent-flavoured bands and performers out there, can we put in an early call for Gazelle Twin, the brilliant Bones Of Minerva, the glorious noise of Party Dozen? Maybe the art rock of Pili Coït or Ultraphauna or even Aunty Rayzor (or would she be just a little too much for ArcTangGent?). Yes, ArcTanGent was, as Carla from Sleepytime said on stage, brilliant, but as she also said as she big-upped the Safe Gigs for Women stall that she and the rest of the band made a beeline for once they were off stage, it was way too much of a male dominated festival. Who was that idiot in the studded leather gloves who flattened that girl who was just watching the band early on Saturday afternoon? She went running in the other direction, that was well out of order (and whoever made the call for female only urinals on social media made a great point, we boys don’t have to stand in endless lines and yes they have been seen at other festivals, female only urinals surely are a good call?). Yes there was Maud The Moth, there was the rich colour of Emma Ruth Rundle, and yes, there was the powerfully multi-dimensional presence of Leeds band Love Rarely and the roar of Courtney Lovett amongst others, yes there were female voices, female musicians. not enough of them though, there needed to be much more of an on-stage female presence and influence (as artist Emma Harvey might politely say, F**k Your Boys Club!) 

The positives far out-weigh the negatives though, for the days we were there for, the positives really did far out-weigh the negatives. It wasn’t perfect but ArcTanGent easily wins best festival for ages by a million miles (well there was the Greatest Gathering this year, that was alive with hardcore noise as well, slightly different noise I’ll give you, similar vibe though!). Oh yes, the positives easily out-weigh the few negatives and the impression we get from looking at social media this morning is that pretty much everyone there can’t wait to do it all again next year. It was so so positively friendly, it was full of so much heart that even that “supermarket” stall selling cans of beans for four bleedin’ quid when there weren’t than many other options can’t dampen it. 

Those four quid cans of basic baked beans really was taking the piss (in my day, that stall would have been ripped apart, sometimes I do miss the anarchy of festivals like the legendary Treworgey Tree Fayre, if you think the dust at ArcTanGent was a pain in the butt it really was was nothing, for Treworgey think Mad Max goes extra feral and then some! Look it up, it really was frighteningly legendary, some people still haven’t recovered! It was way back in ’89 when festivals really were rather different things! Actually the price of food on site at ATG really was a little excessive, for some people the lack of affordable options after the expense of the ticket and the getting here (or just the getting from Bristol to the site that really was in the middle of nowhere) was a serious issue. Okay, we’re not talking BST Hyde Park style get them in and milk them for every penny they’ve got but the price of food (when walking into town isn’t an option) was a bit of a problem for some people. Enough of the moaning, this was a brilliant festival and who needs to eat anyway? Well the bloke who said he didn’t eat much for three days and then collapsed probably did.    

So we’re down in Bristol (well not far from Bristol) and yes, we did only get there on the Friday, life does get in the way, there were other places we had to be, paint that needed to be thrown, art commitments and what have you, and we really don’t want to be cherry picking bands too much, what we caught of it was pretty much all good. We did make a point of asking people who they were there for and who had stood out and nearly every time we got a different answer, it genuinely feels like everyone went down well, that no one bombed and yes, there were different flavours, enough for almost everyone (we already mentioned the relative lack of females on stage already). ArcTanGent is, as big as it is, is essentially a left-field underground music festival, no household names here, this is not bloody Glasto!  It is almost but not quite a metal festival, but then you do have bands like Mew, Mclusky or Arab Strap on the bill in there with Godspeed You! Black Emperor (who we really really wanted to see, they’ve never let us down live) and Melvins (equally as annoyed to have missed them) along with all the post-rock and the post-hardcore and postman pat and his post rock cat the post this and post that. Actually there’s very little actual metal here and when Green Lung hit the stage and declared “we night not have polyrhythms or strange time signatures or any of that stuff but what we do have is good olde English riffs!” it is almost a relief and yes you maybe can almost sing the lyrics to Rainbow’s Starstruck to one of their songs but that surely is a good thing? Green Lung seriously rocked, actually it probably was more yer olde English properly-proper heavy rock then that heavy metal thing that came along with newfangled bands like Iron Maiden and such. To say Green Lung were fun is wrong, these are serious people playing seriously proper heavy rock, they’re damn good at it, they came, they played their riffs, they sang their songs (properly, no cookie monster nonsense here), they rocked and yes they were serious fun (we hear Battlesnake rocked in a similar way back on Thursday as well). Green Lung were refreshing, sometimes you just need metal riffs!  

So yes, if we were to run a poll we’d almost certainly learn that no one won and no one lost, it was a game of two halves, the festival was the winner and everyone stood out for someone. Everyone won, although for all those who were in the tent for Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and who maybe weren’t aware of them beforehand, it seems like it was something rather extra special – lots of people raving about the strange band they’d just seen, a band who they’d never really heard of before hand.  Actually it was just good to just sit there at times – more tables and seats next time, you do need to just sit and take it all in now and again. According to my step counter I walked over nine miles of Saturday (true we did find a perfectly formed stone circle a couple of fields over just before Sunrise on Saturday morning, where were you Green Lung?! Still in your tents? Lightweights!), there’s always a lot of walking involved in a festival like this, more pint-resting tables and chairs please. It was good to just sit and people watch now and again, to just sit and talk or to play t-shirt bingo. Lots of Cardiacs shirts, most of them down the front for Sleepytime, I was almost expecting a Jim chant! It was a bit of a pond, it certainly went off and things. It was good to just sit and watch as the various people of various tribes walked by, to just sit and watch the unity, the smiles, the boys in pretty dresses, the girls in battle jackets, the progheads, the goths in their dusty black, the occasional passing juggler (it isn’t a proper festival without a juggle or two), the many clown hats, the many full clown outfits! The Clowncore following I assume? To watch the people just stopping people and speaking because of the shirt they were wearing (it is, as you know, illegal to pass someone wearing a daisy shirt without saying hello, just ask the Consultant, there were a lot of little men or daisies, so many Cardiacs shirts, if only there has been so many back when they were properly going!). There were so so many shirts that made us smile or stop and talk, there goes a pink Tragedy shirt, a purple Gaye Bykers on Acid one, Saga, Squidpisser, Yowie, Voivod, Spratleys, bloody hell, who wears an Oasis shirt to an event like this – but that’s the thing, do what you want, no one is judging this week and yes, quite a few t-shirts kicked off good conversations between complete strangers. It really was as much about the people, about the new friendships struck or the old friends spied and yes that aforementioned feeling of freedom to just be comfortable being whoever the hell you are for a few days. Actually, talking of t-shirts, who treated themselves to a new Dvne t-shirt and then promptly lost it? I picked it up and I must admit I forgot I had, you know who you are, get in touch, we’ll pop it in the post. Didn’t manage to catch much of Scotland’s Dvne late on Saturday afternoon, their sometimes very intricate sometimes sludge-flavoured, sometimes progressively melodic post-metal shaped epic light and shade did sound intriguing enough to want to investigate a little bit more from the bit we did catch. (stop press: the t-shirt owner has been found)

I really don’t want to be cherry picking, We Lost The Sea sounded even more epic than the mountains of epic bands on the bill, We Lost The Sea stood out with their cinematic instrumental drama. Yeah, I know, ‘cinematic’, lazy writing but they really are a cinematic post rock delight when you allow their ocean to take you in the right way and they escape those doldrums and pull you into those unpredictable winds that brake the calm spells. 

Mew added a much needed change of animated colour for a while, they do seem to have an extra dimension when they get on a stage even if they have drifted a little too close to the lands of Coldplay in more recent years. Actually Mew were a welcome change of pace late into an intense Friday evening. Talking of intensity, Meth were intensely intense! Meth were relentlessly strong. Yeah, I know they have a full stop at the end of their name but it really does mess with attempts to write about them. The guy who came out of their late afternoon pit at the end of their relentless set said that was enough for a few hours as he made for his tent, he may well have had a point, Meth were brutally good, colourfully so, they were more than that though, there was a lot going on under the hood, a depth to the almost overwhelming experimental  onslaught of it all. 

We didn’t make it in time for Papangu, but they really are rather good, they have featured regularly on the Other Rock Show in the last year or so (as well as on these pages), we are rather looking forward to their London gig this week, to their post-whatever progressive fusion that actually does sound like it comes from Brazil (which of course they do). Damn, we are cherry picking now, really didn’t want to, everyone deserved a mention, Vower were big in a post-metal way, drenched in positively harmonic ambition. Missing Yoshizawa was a disappointment, really wanted to check them and their multi coloured innovation out, we really need more Yoshizawa on these pages (the Other Rock Show returns to the airwaves after a short Summer break on September 14th (at 8pm) by the way, expect quite a few of these names on the weekly show, most of the ATG bill is our idea of radio friendly pop music, Yoshizawa sound like they deserve lots of radio play).   

The thing about Cherry picking – although ArcTanGent was more about blackberry picking, I may well have eaten way too many blackberries – the thing about Cherry picking is that so many bands get left out, I don’t think we can say we saw a bad band all the time we were there. Okay, some of the screamo-beano cookie monster singers can get a little tedious at times and bands did bleed into each other across the stages without jarring with each other now and again as some of it started to sound the same, but there really (really) wasn’t a band who needed pulling apart or shooting down in a critical way. Not sure how many were there, apparently it was over seventy bands or artists across four stages and four days, we really didn’t see a bad one, oh okay, one of us might not have been as interested in Clowncore as the other one was but then seeing as they were up against Kayo Dot I can’t tell you if Clowncore lived up to all the hype (there was no way kayo Dot were going to be missed, actually there was a lot of people disappointed by that clash, two bands with big cult followings and a buzz big enough to have people rather curiously and wanting to catch them both, that was a bad clash) and okay, maybe Unprocessed’s emo stylings didn’t quite hit the spot and and maybe the Dallas Cowboys were a little bit hit and miss? Well The Callous Daoboys said they were the Dallas Cowboys at the end of what sounded like a set that was a lot of tongue in cheek. We can’t be fooled, we know they’re from Atlanta, Georgia with their cut up pop art intensity, with their screaming and their guitar yelling, their none stop yapping that now and again gave way to the emo light and shade and the meaningful bits and every memory of you and their internal sunshine well, we know they not from Dallas and they’re probably not cowboys. they did seem to go down a storm so maybe it wasn’t you Callous, maybe it was me? Or maybe it was that Enter Shikari cover at the end of the set that may have meant a lot to most everyone in the very full tent? Enter Shikari never meant jack to me…       

Did we mention Love Rarely yet? Now they do have a dynamic sound, their hardcore bite and their alternative math rock did grab our ears. Did that bit there sound a bit Cynical Smile? Probably a way too obscure reference now, but we did put out that Cynical Smile album back there and if we did hear a moment then the comparison was intended as compliment (and it really is time to make a stand). Love Rarely hail from Leeds and they did indeed provide infectious energy, ArcTanGent really did need them to make their noise in the middle of it all. Love Rarely are a band weaving together their intense hardcore noise and their intricate melodies rather well and actually there’s a healthy bit of time signature interplay here and there as well. Love Rarely were damn good and in Courtney Levitt they have a big personality fronting it all as she effortlessly transitioned between her raw snarl and her melodic side with a demanding sense of occasion. Not come across Love Rarely before, more of them please… 

Where are we? Are we on Saturday yet? Australian progressive metal band Karnivool closed the main stage on Friday night, they were pleasant enough for a while, none of these so called progressive metal bands are ever really that progressive, well not in the real sense, not in a properly Prog way. Karnivool were alright for a while, they brought their politely nice drama to it all when it probably was just what was needed. I imagine Porcupine Tree fans like them far more than I do, they were alright, they didn’t offend, they had moments that caught the ear, they did their epic progressive metal thing well enough, respect to them, they were probably just right at the end of a long long extreme music filled day, they certainly went down well and tomorrow is a new day and they sounded kind of right as we headed back to the tent past all the people in headphones doing the silent disco thing that apparently was rather good as well. It looked good, all those people with glowing red headphones smiling at each other. Seems Mr Vennart and his Walpurgis friends were doing some kind of last minute Black Sabbath tribute thing that went down well with those who heard it. And Gost sounded interesting with those darkwave horror soundtrack flavours and those industrial bite as we drifted past and stopped for a bit as well, there was so much to try and take in… 

Is it Saturday now? The sunrise was glorious (very) early on Saturday morning, were we really the only ones who found the stone circle? The owls were loud, the sheep were louder, the cows clear wanted tickets, other people’s conversations were hard to avoid all night, the dawn chorus was good and who needs to sleep at a festival anyway? The swifts were still around, maybe they delayed leaving just to catch it all? The early morning House Martins were impressive, the Martins made it to the stones for the sunrise. Why can’t anyone at a festival ever make a good cup of tea? Why didn’t we bring our own? ‘Cause we damn well came of the train that’s why! 

Yes it is Saturday morning now and yes we did promise to be on hand as Cambridge band Indifferent Engine (could have sworn they were from Portsmouth?) kicked off the final day, we like to keep our promises and there they are opening the final day with their banks of televisions and monitor screens and their post hardcore punk rock flavoured samples and soundbites and whatever. Indifferent Engine’s recent debut album impressed, they got a bit of an eleven o’clock in the morning forth-day-five-day-marathon pit going – no they didn’t move like a parallelogram, that was just me being a smartarse at the start of day four. Indifferent Engine started the day well, they started a forth day that, as much as we said we didn’t want to cherry pick (as well fight off that almost unbearable smell of that farm cess pit that was maybe way too close to some of the camp site – no maybe about it!) Where was I? We did say we didn’t want to cherry pick but day four and (very nearly almost the whole) reason for us being here was for two rather special bands. 

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Kayo Dot are the two very big reasons we simply had to be here at ArcTanGent this year. 

Before Sleepytime and Kayo Dot though, what else did Saturday throw up? Well Sometime in February had far too many notes for their own good, Sugar Horse packed them in as they opened the main stage with their intensely heavy sound, their sometimes melancholic drama, their alternative metal, it looked like they were going down well as we caught their final moments from just inside the tent (hey, impossible to be in two places at once, we tried several times, one of us will later draw the short straw and be sent off to checkout a little bit of Clowncore’s set during Kayo Dot’s performance! Thankfully it wasn’t me). Love Rarely caused us to miss Wren on Saturday morning, sorry Wren! We have mentioned Love Rarely already up there, their soundcheck as we passed pulled us in and demanded we stick around. What day were Inter Arma on, the bit we caught was certainly intense (we are using that word a lot, it was an intense festival, maybe it did need a just few more different colours at times?) That’s right, Inter Arma’s confrontation was in the middle of Saturday and by that point the notes scribbled in my little black note book started to not make sense and it was all meshing together like one big noise of bands. Inter Arma’s sludge flavoured black metal blasting was rather good, Where were Adebisi Shank in all this? Not encountered them for years, we covered them rather a lot in their very early days, good to see them back in action, has anyone ever called them the mathcore Big Country? They do kind of make you want to dance in that Big Country way. Managed to miss Vincent Vocoder Voice which was annoying, (did I already say that?) sorry VVV, watch this space or a space to come in a few days once this review is done and dusted and all the festival dust is washed away, I can still smell that damn slurry storage pit or whatever the hell it was right by our bit of the camp site (Fernhill Farm and what they do does look rather interesting, it did smell rather bad at times though, it did cause us to have to move our tent in the dark!)  

It all felt very heartfelt, the music I mean, well everything felt heartwarming really (besides those baked bean sellers! No, I’m not letting that go!). No one went through the musical motions, everyone sounded committed to their art and their music, it really did ALL mater and that isn’t always the case at things like this, and yes, if the same bill was to be happening next week (and money was no issue), then we’d be back again in a shot, well maybe with our own cans of beans this time, no way were we paying those cynical prices you bean bandits, it would serve you right if no one did! I hope you lost a fortune you greedy bar stewards! 

God is An Astronaut impressed more than we expected them to with their epic post rock, actually God is an Astronaut were just right after the massiveness of Kayo Dot. Burner raged up a storm somewhere in the middle of it all, we really are trying not to cherry pick (and maybe I did pick too many blackberries but what with the price of cans of beans, no I am really not letting that one go!). Annoyed that I missed Vincent Vocoder Voice, I did say that before (sorry again) and the bit of Edinburgh’s Dvne we caught did impress – yes it was that sometimes melodic sometimes cookie monster plagued progressive metal thing again, there has always been something more about Dvne though (was it you who lost the Dvne shirt? Do get in touch). I hate to say it, but Rolo Tomassi were better in their early days, and as much as Eva Spence’s voice was more than a welcome one, they have kind of watered down their early mathcore adventure – yes, I know, it is annoying when people say I’m really only into their early stuff but this time it is the truth, sorry Rolo, you watered it down. Hey, I don’t expect for one second that Rolo Tomassi care one jot what we think, there’s more than enough excited Rolo Tomassi t-shirts bouncing around the festival and they certainly packed the big crowd in for their performance, we did go and try, nah, they don’t do it like they once did.

Between The Buried And Me don’t seem to know what they want to be, they sound like a one band compilation album which is all well and good but you do maybe kind of need just a hint of your own fingerprint in there don’t you? Just a little bit of something of your own in there with all the melodic prog that suddenly turns into raging growling cookie monster metal and then back again with no real definition or clarity to any of it? They’d maybe have us excited if they just had a bit of something of their own in there with all the the ingredients they throw at the wall but hey, they’re clearly loved by loads of people, once again the crowd is packed in, they’re going down rather well so once again who cares what we say? 

The early moves of Bristol band Waldo’s Gift have been standing out, they’re doing some kind of post-jazz thing (yeah I know, lazy terms, unforgivable, can jazz ever be post? Hey, this review is way way too long already, forgive us!), Waldo’s Gift are rather cleverly putting some kind of very electric eclectic electric eye-averting post-jazz thing together, something that does already come loaded with those unmistakable shades of post-rock, with a touch of prog-flavoured metal and the more intense ends of Squarepusher or Aphex Twin (and not a hint of Judas Priest’s Electric Eye period, hey it is getting late now, this review is in danger of seriously losing the plot). In their own words, as we said back there when we last covered them, Waldo’s Gift “essentially Trojan-horse metal into jazz venues”. On a bill loaded with bands who promise to be really different Waldo’s Gift genuinely are, watch this space, their Candifloss (that’s not a typo) is different, technicolour indeed, write down their name if you haven’t come across them yet, keep an (electric) eye out for Waldo’s Gift. 

Hey, we said no cherry picking, we’re deep into Saturday now and all of it has kind of fused into one excellent ball of positively challenging left field (mostly extreme) music and there’s the born again Mclusky doing their slightly indie-ish thing but that was after Kayo Dot played as the sun went down, and the sun really did go down as Kayo Dot played a perfectly timed and absolutely gorgeous Wayfarer (from 2003’s Choirs of The Eye album). Wow, that bit there is so damn beautiful, so good that I really can mention Vaughn Williams in the same breath and not feel silly about doing so, the gorgeous piece of music really was that classically good. There something very soulful about Wayfarer, maybe it is Toby Driver’s at times almost angelic voice, maybe his lyrics or the way he invites us to just get as lost in it all as he and his band clearly are? Kayo Dot have so much soul in there and those who already know are letting them play in almost reverential silence and even if they did suffer from bad sound at times, that Kayo Dot set was something very very special even by their own very high standards. Yes, that sound was awful at times, they did cut through it all though, the soul was there, the beauty, the power, and yes, the tent might have only been half full and who the hell put them on at the same time as Clowncore, they maybe a total opposite, but so so many people wanted to see both and well it was almost criminal to see them playing so beautifully to what was probably the smallest crowd any band played to on the days we were there. 

Now if you want Progressive metal then Kayo Dot are the proper thing, the real deal, the are as much Yes (or at times King Crimson) as they are extreme metal, and as extreme as they can get, they never do it in that one dimensional way too obvious way that so so many do. Yes, I am going to gush over Kayo Dot, yes they are that good, and yes, they were damn good again at this year’s ArcTanGent, they are loaded with their own identity, their own uniqueness that makes all the crafted ingredients go so well together. Gemini Becoming the Tripod really was (almost stupidly) powerful, it was deeply emotional, darkly colourful, the bits that are less make it all so so much more, they know how to let their music breathe, they know that less is sometimes much much more. Toby Driver is a proper composer, yes, he absolutely is. Listen to the tension in that quiet bit there before that very unobvious crash some five minutes into the glorious ten minutes and forty-three seconds that the drama of the piece requires. All that starting to split themselves and dark majesty of it all and yes this is a league above the high standards of pretty much everyone and everything else at ArcTanGent and that really is not to put anyone else down but hey, if you missed this then you really did deprive yourself. I make no apology for gushing, I’m just calling it as it was, this is proper properly proper real Progressive Rock in the realest real proper sense of the term. 

The New York band, well sometimes New York sometimes Boston band, really are pulling it in from there extensive catalogue and yes, Kayo Dot do deserve a third paragraph in a review where most bands, as good as most bands were, are only getting a line or two. Vanishing Act in Blinding Gray, from 2019s Blasphemy was another beautiful port of call, once again it hints at classic Yes and classic Associates both at the same time if that really is possible? Feel that blood flowing! A whisper so full, everything they do is epic, the dusty mystic never steps in, not here in the grey of the sail. Oh look, you probably think I’ve lost the plot, that I’m too many hours into writing this way too long review now, hell, you probably stopped reading ages ago, I know this damn review is going on longer than the festival itself did, but Kayo Dot really are one of those rarest or very rare very special bands. 2021’s Get Out of The Tower takes us toward an end of an hour long set that is only six epic songs deep, and there goes a piece of music from their Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares, an album that really does get a bit Joy Division play King Crimson at times before they turn on the extreme metal in such a naturally unforced way again. 

Kayo Dot really are an an undefinable band and hey, I need to shut up now even though there was the eight and a bit minutes of The Necklace from the same Moss Grew album to close it all and well, bad sound and unfortunate timing in terms of the Clowncore clash really couldn’t detract and if you missed them then make sure you never do so again! I have no idea which album you should check out first if you’ve never encountered Kayo Dot before, they really are all as good as each other, and and and, oh yes, it was worth coming to ArcTanGent just for that set alone, there are few sonic experiences more glorious than Toby Driver winding himself up and up from the frail and delicate to transcendent ecstatic roar. (and we haven’t even got to Sleepytime yet!)

Now then, Sleepytime time, back to the middle of Saturday afternoon and the anticipation that hung in the air down the front ahead of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s long long awaited sunny Saturday afternoon debut on British soil. At last, a set over here from the almost legendary American experimental rock band who first formed back in 1999 over there in Oakland, California (and who, as we said earlier, first figured on printed Organ pages way back in the middle of 2002 as word reached over the sea back in a time when the internet didn’t carry things over quite so instantly as it does now. It really was about word of mouth and whispers filtered down the grapevines that bind these things back then, Sleepytime have been an underground legend from day one!). People who already know had been talking about the prospect of seeing them for months, weeks, days, the talk all morning was people just telling random strangers “whatever you do today don’t miss Sleepytime!”. There’s a girl down the front who’s been sitting there all day waiting and refusing to leave her space while the earlier bands were on, there’s a guy who insists he got a job and moved to the US just so he could see them just in time for them announce their final shows in 2011, he never did get to see them, he never though he ever would and there he iss standing next to the girl with chair (who I must confess I though was going to sit there until Clowncore appeared later on but no, there was only one band she was here for so she said). She’s genuinely excited, he’s genuinely excited, the guy in the Squid Pisser t-shirt is excited, we all are, and could they possibly be as good as we wanted them to be and bloody hell, even the soundcheck is an (unintentional) performance as they stand there in their painted faces and glorious ballgowns finding their levels. 

There they are, the band who go back way to Idiot Flesh and Charming Hostess, there’s Nils Frykdahl and Dan Rathbun and Carla Kihlstedt on an English stage at long long last, and no, we didn’t think it would ever happen either, we have thought about trying to get Sleepytime Gorilla Museum over ourselves after all those hundreds, thousands, I reckon there’s been a couple of thousand Organ gigs over the years, they are probably the one band that we considered doing it just one more time for! Thank you ArcTanGent for doing it for us, I never want to put on another gig ever again and the fact that there are so many Cardiacs shirts down the front waiting tells you rather a lot about what is about to happen. It might not be stretching it to say they might just be America’s Cardiacs – as uniquely different of course, bit there is a comparison to be made in more than just one way. 

So there they are, the band split in 2011 and who tentatively came back (via Rabbit Rabbit Radio) in 2014 and then after little bits of things, quietly cryptically announced in 2023 via their social media, that “The museum of the past hides the future” and then a month or so later posted an image of some sheet music. It seemed like they really really might just be back and then after some crowdfunding and lots of hints of things, a new album!  An album, a full-length studio album, titled Sleepytime Gorilla Museum of the Last Human Being and cut to the chaise, does that really say Sleepytime Gorilla Museum on that ArcTanGent bill flyer?! No? Surely not? Can it really be?! At last, are we going to get to see them? Oh we had to be here!  

And there they were, the five of them, the five parts of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (it felt like there was way more than just five of them), the band who really do fuse their deeply classical, sometimes (slightly) industrial art-rock themes and their left of centre avant metal leanings and their performance art and the elaborate routine of it all along with the “possibly fictitious stories of dada artists and mathematicians” and those glorious dresses and the painted face masks and that excellent percussion (percussion that does really go off and things!) and that Sledgehammer-dulcimer/Slide-piano log thing and the other ‘thing’ Dan Rathbun plays and the shared lead vocals and that interchange and duel leadership of Nils Frykdahl and Carla Kihlstedt and the offerings of Michael Iago Mellender (dare we say their Tim Quay?) and Wes Anderson (no not that one) on drums and Dan Rathbun on bass and things – yes they really do have home made instruments and one of them really is just called ‘Thing’ – don’t be getting the idea that this is some kind of Gwar-like metal pantomime act though, no no no, this is a serious high-end art rock performance, this is seriously deep studious (as in done deliberately or with a purpose in mind) prog rock, this really is Dada serious, this is a deep band, this is proper performance and there they are and yes, even the soundcheck was art! 

And open your eyes and breath as Salamander in Two Worlds quietly opens the set. There they are into a world of water and the theatre of it all and an almost hushed cheer as they start what was only to be a three quarters of an hour mid afternoon set on the main stage, only three quarters of an hour but it felt like so so much more, could we have taken much more? Open your eyes and that start of Phthisis and that lunge forward as the future stuck out its tongue and how good was that art projected behind them as well as their dresses and face paint and yes I am gushing again, this is supposed to be a serious critique, a considered review of a culturally important band, but hey, they rocked! And oh how we cheered and wow again! it was worth everything just for those forty-five intense minutes – that right there was why we still do this stupid Organ thing that we logically should have stopped doing many years ago, that is why we were down the front grinning like fools, with smiles like alligators (as someone might have said). Oh that was good!   

And we really should mention Carla Kihlstedt’s (friendly) Bikini Kill flavoured rant again, her positive comment about how wonderful ArcTanGent was and how she was loving it all but it was still all way too male dominated and there was a still a fight to be had as she named checked the Safe Gigs For Girls stall on the festival site. She was right to call it out, it was way too glaringly obvious that there weren’t enough females on the stages, that was the one big thing that was wrong with an otherwise almost perfect festival (beside the price of a can of beans!). It was an extremely friendly festival, the conversations were positively brilliant, it was, in ArcTanGent’s own words; “a celebration of unorthodox artistry”, it was “a pilgrimage for a dedicated worldwide community that recognises the transformative power of extraordinary music. That collective passion that creates a unique atmosphere”, it was as much “about the recurring people you see as it is about experiencing the music itself”. Yes it did once again bring together so many dedicated fans and it did create “an atmosphere for bands to thrive in”, it was, all in all, an excellent excellent (excellent) festival, even the strangers in the shared taxi back to Bristol were brilliant, even the taxi drivers there and back were, it was a brilliant festival. Well done and thank you ArcTanGent and a big thank you to everyone who made it all happen (including the friendly security people) and I probably should proof read all this now but this has taken way to long already, brilliant festival just Brilliant! Now back to reality and the come down (sw)   

Footnote: “This was my first ArcTanGent and it blew my mind, cleansed my soul and realigned my chakras. It feels like the greatest four days in my life that is forever changed now” said someone called Mishmish in a message to us. The social media networks are full of quotes like that, it isn’t just us or  Mishmish saying it. And yes, almost everyone is going on about a different band, (extreme) music was the winner.   

All photos Sean Worrall unless stated (thanks Abbi, Derek and Jez)

arctangent.co.uk (next year’s tickets are on sale)

Do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show