Moseley Folk Festival
Moseley Park, Birmingham
2-4/09/2011

There can’t be many festivals held at the back of a couple of estate agents and a tanning salon. However, as we amble through the woods and down to the park’s natural amphitheatre, the coastal sounds of The Mariner’s Children, make the real world seem far away.

Crystal Fighters, yes, those Crystal Fighters, at a folk festival… strip back their usual computerised rave-o-tronic storm, translating perfectly to allow their song writing to shine through. Ben Calvert captures gritty kitchen sink scenarios and balls them up into tunes of semi-surreal indie-folk while Villagers perform a muscular set that makes Conor O’Brien seem like a celtic Arcade Fire, drawing the most enthusiastic response so far. Gruff Rhys, by far the highlight of the first day, is joined by 9 Bach’s Lisa Jen. Their set meanders fantastically between brittle, twee indie-pop and borderline doolally hip hop. Boat To Row restore some sense with their leafy folk, accented with a celtic spirit until Badly Drawn Boy rounds off the night with a Manchester karaoke song-book.

Saturday and Willy Mason proves he is “cooler than TV”, as he aspires to in the mass sing-along of ‘Oxygen’, then Jose Gonzalez’s Junip perform a driving set that departs from his trademark Spanish-classical guitar and moves towards a Neu!/Can style krautrock that soars into the evening sky. The Bees lay down their 60s soul to a packed field while Poppy Tibbets’ beautiful voice has The Bohemian Jukebox tent in hushed admiration. To end the day, the incredible Tinariwen entrance the audience with drones of desert blues.

Sunday sees John Napier’s dry-witted indie-pop raise smiles until Billy Bragg ends the weekend with by far the most charged and galvanising set of the festival. ‘Greetings To The New Brunette’, ‘The Milkman of Human Kindness’ and ‘It Says Here’ show Bragg as the impeccable songwriter and enigmatic performer that he is.

Andy Roberts