Sunday 20/07/08 Laura Marling, Maps, Camera Obscura @ Truck Festival, Oxfordshire

Andrew Mears was aware of the heavy night yesterday, but didn't compromise his set full of complex wordplay. His band Youthmovies provided the music for Saul Williams at Leeds festival a few years ago and he seems to have been an influence. It was hard to take in everything, fragmented as it was at times, not a bad thing in poetry. Mears is an incredible poet, proven on one number about television...
"Joy comes in a tube, like jism"
Always good to get a bit of audience participation when there's no music and we were chanting "We had" back at him.
"It'll sound like jihad outside" 

Jali Fily Cisshoko had handclap-based participation, while he sang and plucked the kora and what a lovely, mesmeric twang that instrument had. The crowd were sat down not in boredom, but in solidarity with Cisshoko, a bit of a love-in with performer and audience equally grateful of each other. The Minnikins were perhaps unlucky not to be in such an intimate setting. Most of the crowd were seemingly at the main stage for the sunshine. This was surely not lost on Rachel Minnikin during a song possibly called 'You can't chose your audience'. The audience would have been better suited to metal, not country, the amount they were chatting. At least The Minnikins had the organisers backing, Robin Bennett joining them to close a lovely set.

Wow, Riz MC proved himself one of the most vital voices in music, 'Post 911 Blues' was witty, yet close to the bone... "Forget Guy Fawkes, he's lame, gunpowder plots don't really compare to planes"
Not many other rappers have been taken into custody by the secret services. Apart from a couple of people looking a bit out of place, the packed tent loved it. Rich Reason dropping the beats was equally responsible, one song using the infamous 'Don't tase me, bro' sample, incorporating shouts of pain.

Pivot didn't have lyrics, just unintelligible screaming for vocals. The music was like iliketrains guitar-play eaten by Battles drumming, shat through a John Carpenter synth-sphincter into a porcelain bowl of James Brown funk. That damn good. Camera Obscura weren't so musically forward-looking, not a bad thing in their case. Bar the organ-synth, all the instruments were played crisp, but organs are meant to sound fuzzy anyway. Tracyanne Campbell's voice was yearning with lyrics you could tell were bittersweet just from the title of songs like 'Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken'.