Krankenhaus Pageant
Muncaster Citadel
August 22/24 2025
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all images : Richard Foster
In its fifth 12 months, Krankenhaus completely displays its creators and hosts Sea Energy and their wilfully eccentric and completely enthralling imaginative and prescient of a pageant.
Not for them the same old protected wager mid desk line ups!
No!
This can be a weekend of enjoyable and frolics in and across the stunning Muncaster Citadel within the south Lakes with a wonderfully curated invoice of untamed, bizarre bands with attendant canine reveals for the canine loving viewers, fowl shows and talks from the likes of Stewart Lee in an island of wonderful sanity in a world crumbling into insanity. Richard Foster opinions and John Robb shouts in some interuptions within the din!
Richard Foster
Stewart Lee might have made pointed and humorous remarks in regards to the sandals and 6Music dads being seen sufficient at Krankenhaus to turn into a trope, however attitudes had been open, embracing and forward-thinking all through the weekend. Cultural snobbishness wasn’t on the menu right here. You possibly can soak up Rob St John’s intriguing set up in Muncaster Village Corridor, one which blended artistic studying and delicate investigations into sound and reminiscence, or take within the myriad of cultural talks at, or within the grounds of Muncaster Citadel. Hell’s tooth, they even had a chat on that least sandal-wearing of bands, Oasis.
In any case, no closed thoughts or checklist ticking one-upmanship might cope with the hard-soft switches in texture, tempo and sonic assault discovered within the barn. Let’s begin with the tender. White Magic For Lovers performed a relaxed, stunning set stuffed with a heat, country-tinged pop. Soulful to the nth diploma, a few of the chiming guitar runs – leavened out by a heat bass line – had been paying homage to Shack’s extra elegiac moments. One stunning quantity might simply have graced HMS Fable. And Ex Easter Island Heads’ potent digital meditation was the proper begin to the weekend: they’ve a beautiful means of increase stress with out signalling it.
Two poets rocked the barn in several methods: in a beautiful opening to the ultimate day’s programme, poet laureate Simon Armitage held the group in rapt silence with exact and considerate readings. In distinction, Richard Dawson tore by means of a superb set stuffed with poignant reflection, gnomic knowledge and rumbustious noise. Dawson is probably England’s biggest beat mystic, a novel voice who can channel William Langland and Dave Davies in equal measure. His greatest identified quantity, Jogging, was delivered like a non secular tract, as if he was exhorting you there after which to “think about that now the time is come!” Proper on.
John Robb
The genius of Richard Dawson is his sensible off kilter unpredictability. Solely Jimi Hendrix might run his arms up and down the neck of his guitar with no security internet, and but wherever he lands is ideal. The notes that fly out are by no means apparent however all the time work, making a febrile, vibrant flurry of music that’s like nothing you could have ever heard. This can be a music that in some way nods at deep English people, outer area sci fi rock and stressed guitar brilliance that’s the good accompaniment to his imposing, poetic vocals and off kilter story telling.
Richard Foster
Extra energetic leisure got here from Hamish Hawk and Private Coach, who each knocked out actually nice reveals: correct crowd-pleasing leisure emboldened with clear messages and sharp supply. Sacred Paws’ great and giving upbeat pop drifted over the grounds, their stunning flowing rhythms and snappy guitar traces snagging individuals’s consideration. On the Glade tent, the excessive power kosmische synth exercise given by James Adrian Brown was unimaginable. The group soaked it in, think about mid 70s T-Dream and Cluster repackaged as an power drink. On the identical stage, The Sexual Objects’ wry n’ dry set drew on that peculiar Glaswegian stew of Velvets and Nation Music to nice impact. No shock, given Malcolm Ross and Davy Henderson are within the band.
Heartworms had been one other spotlight. I’ll admit I discover their music a bit mannered on file, however this present was one thing else fully. Each a part of their present felt like a highwire act, pushed so far as it might to get most return. The incessant, chopping guitar components typically gave the impression of these heard on Eno’s Earlier than and After Science. This metallic racket dovetailed brilliantly with the rhythmic thunder created by the drums, which then allowed singer Jojo Orme to create loads of emotional climate courtesy of some hypnotic theatrics. She actually has an unimaginable stage presence. Within the barn, her silhouetted determine poised between the final glow of the solar and the stage’s big backlights was given additional thriller by waves of dry ice. Understanding she solid a shamanic determine, Orme hissed and howled her message to the group, approaching like some historical goddess thirsting for brand new blood.
John Robb
Heartworms ship on the promise of their clutch of releases. There may be an artwork of darkness to what they do, and the songs are tinged by the hand of goth however vamped up very a lot for the now. Constructed round singer Jojo Orme the band are an intense and imposing expertise with Jojo, flailing across the stage with a rag doll theatricality because the builds the songs up from a whisper to a scream. Heartworms are the poetically darkish corners of your soul became a charming slice of darkish forest soul energy. Jojo owns the room as she delivers her songs of affection and fury and her band of a fantastic drummer and guitarist enhance the songs with moody guitar traces and tribal drumming that completely add to the inherent and compelling darkish power.
Stewart Lee is just like the patron saint of this micro world. His set is a factor of multi layered magnificence as he turns comedy inside out like his favorite bands like The Fall did to music. In some ways he’s nearer in spirit to those form of bands who unzipped rock n roll and recreated it in new shapes within the publish punk interval. He has the viewers in hysterics while taking them on a visit into the very which means of laughter itself. He additionally makes use of his highlight of being an unlikely nationwide treasure and an much more unlikely mainstream determine to highlight the bizarre, like the Nightingales, whom he constructed a movie round. His twenty-minute mini set earlier than the ‘gales are ushered onto the stage makes certain the room is full and the stage is about. The band ship a sometimes invigorating set, which, in recent times, has added a bass pushed heaviness to their sound. Drummer Fliss is the guts and soul powerhouse drummer, and the band are deep in focus delivering their complicated components, locked into their discordant pop/noise with a not too long ago added violin giving them a folkier twist at occasions.
Richard Foster
GNOD’s soundcheck was loud sufficient to shake dried moss and cow shit from the barn’s partitions. However as soon as ranges had been set, the band (at occasions using 4 guitars to saturate these center ranges) knocked out a fabulously contemplative present that managed – splendidly – to combine a troublesome, grinding noise with excessive meditational attitudes. This was music of the inside thoughts, ascending to a non secular aircraft means above the roof’s girders and rivets, and opening channels that the viewers might float on. Like Richard Dawson – and Sea Energy for that matter – they harken to a future previous, the place social and cultural potentialities, primarily based on our 5 primary wants, are countless. GNOD: like an amped up Diggers? Possibly.
In artwork as in life, there’s all the time room for some filth. And on this high quality, Moonlandingz’ set delivered in spades. There’s something peculiarly soiled about them. The Suicide buzz they’ve as a band is generated by their synths which sound like an offended bluebottle caught in a tannoy and the chopping chugging rhythms that might be packaged in tins and stacked up in transport containers. All this noise is channelled by means of the Rising Damp gyrations of Lias Saoudi, who actually is without doubt one of the nice frontmen. Right here at Krankenhaus, his chest sporting a pair of strapped and shining silver bristols that might have poked Sid James’s eye out, Saoudi sweated and screeched and pawed at his bandmates and the group, his each transfer spelling out “frustration”. Kudos, too, for the ‘landingz starting their set with a tasteless slagging off of Brian Wilson. THAT’s not on the 6Music dad scratch card!
John Robb
Hunter S Thompson as soon as wrote ‘When the going will get bizarre the bizarre get professional’ and it’s definitely true for Arab Strap tonight who with an added degree of professional are the very best I’ve ever seen them. Now with a brand new added energy and dynamic to their music they ship a multi layered precision with darker textures lurking in its terrain. The band intensely add the layers of musicality that entwine round one another for charismatic frontman Aidan Moffat to ship his small city tales of derelict rites of passage and past.
He grips the mic and stares into the abyss of the viewers letting his phrases tumble and move and make poetic sense of the insanity and entwine with the band on the peak of their type. The Pretty Eggs have popped up the street from Lancaster to ship their eye-catching noisy thrills of psychedelic punk rock with day within the life lyrics that discover the magic within the mundane and the bizarre within the native with an acidic sense of humour and songs that hook with their humour and melody.
Richard Foster
Jane Weaver is considered one of Britain’s actually nice pop artists: there must be an airport named after her on the very least. She has a superb ear for element and a knack in reshaping outdated sounds into new methods. Allied to a heat, welcoming onstage character that nonetheless has a contact of thriller about it, Weaver can maintain a crowd as if she’s solid a spell on them. Her band gave a superb set of leftfield, cosmic pop that culminated in a magical prolonged model of I Want a Connection, the flashing lights including additional neural stimulation. The entire thing might make you assume you had been on a medium grade mushroom journey.
What to say of Sea Energy’s units? The three had been virtually not possible to completely soak up, not to mention describe in a number of phrases: highlights had been the great tackle Galaxie 500’s Tugboat with Dean Wareham, a chunk that, with its regular construct and delicate releases advised an empathic, human fragility in addition to an immense hidden energy of character, the three minute wash of sound that constructed to opener True Adventures (certainly THE Sea Energy lodestone?), and a powerful, clarion-calling Carrion to shut the identical “hits n’loud ‘uns” set. We will’t neglect a titanic, “Mahleresque” Cleansing Out the Rooms on the ultimate evening, which rolled over the viewers and seeped in like a fret by means of the cracks of the farm buildings and the glades round.
The reveals, the band’s presence, enthusiasm and bodily involvement in your complete weekend – from doing bingo, nation walks, canine contests, children’ and native socio-cultural actions, fowl watching and enjoyable and feisty musical initiatives (Fashionable Ovens, Daemönik Fonce) – are a proto template on how others can break away from hidebound assumptions, hierarchies and exploitative practices across the music business and media. It feels that the band and its wider household have sidestepped all of that. It’s been an extended, rocky and typically lonely street, however I’m placing my shirt on them to ship once more.
John Robb
Our hosts Sea Energy play a number of units all through the weekend. They begin with a set with Dean and Britta from The Galaxie 500 on the Friday that could be a celebration of that traditional band whose affect hangs within the air – it’s a factor of spectral magnificence and an excellent assembly within the Venn diagram of indie magnificence. Saturday is a eye-catching Sea Energy ‘hits’ set that packs out the barn and is preceded with a fantastic dialogue over whether or not to get somebody to put on the bear outfit which kinda sums up the band and their surrealistic sense of humour that in some way entwines with their atmospheric songs that layer up the guitar and violin traces over the powerhouse rhythm part. Within the viewers, Echo and the Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant seems to be on on the band that’s the closest in some ways to his extremely influential and sensible band. The Sunday sermon sees them play their third set of the weekend with a set of b sides and slowies that matches the exhausted publish excessive decibel publish coital temper of the pageant in a lovely comedown that lands us all again to earth.
Sea Energy and their workforce have constructed one thing fairly magnificent right here – 5 years in and the small pageant is without doubt one of the greatest within the UK with its array of untamed and delightful concepts from the canine present to the Quietus main a hike to the native Roman baths and a various and invigorating invoice of bands. Clearly this consideration to element is exhausting and there’s discuss of taking a break
. In purely egocentric phrases I hope not – this can be a spotlight of the calendar and feels established now and with potential to maneuver ahead…
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