music. 13–13
My Morning Jacket.
Lleuwen Steffan.
Terri Walker.
What happens when you get legendary British producer John Leckie, who moved the likes of the Stone Roses and Radiohead into new musical territory, to hook up with a band from Louisville, Kentucky, an ‘odd metro-suburban mix of stark industry and fine thoroughbreds and rock and roll fevers’? A fourth album that, raved Mojo, ‘is a religious experience. On every level it’s the stuff of revelation’ that’s what.
Every day, when she wakes up, she thanks the Lord she’s Welsh. Then belts out a hymn and a Bob Dylan classic before breakfast. The Observer calls the result ‘bewitching… strangely beautiful’.
To read singer Terri Walker’s CV you’d think she’d clocked up at least twice as many as her 26 years. She’s collaborated with Mos Def, Ben Watt and Jools Holland to name but a few, but has a sound that’s all her own: funky, soulful and melodic.
My Morning Jacket’s latest offering – ‘Z’ – has been collecting gushing reviews like that the world over. It is a record that the band are seriously proud of too. ‘We wanted to keep an aspect of what we’d always done,’ lead singer James says, ‘but also make something you could dance to or listen to while driving home. Hip-hop and soul music are unifying people right now. I wanted to incorporate that into our music; to make this really sad, mysterious kind of dance music, something that really got into your butt, but also really got into your head and made you think.’ They have succeeded beautifully in this unique sonic quest. Prepare yourself for an audio feast with flavours of The Flaming Lips and Neil Young, marinated in delicious reverb and a seasoning of reggae and country. Uncut summarized it beautifully: ‘If you felt there was something missing at the end of X&Y then you’ll find it in Z.’ A band to get your butt moving and head thinking? Sounds like Greenbelt to me. Excited enough yet? 21.45 Sunday Mainstage
Classically-trained Lleuwen Steffan grew up on a diet of hymnology and Billie Holiday. Since performing on Song For Wales she’s shared a stage with Bryn Terfel, and her latest album fuses jazz and Welsh Revivalist hymns in collaboration with pianist Huw Warren and saxophonist Mark Lockheart. Spine-tingling stuff and not just for those who know their Cwm Rhondda from their Hyfrydol. 14.00 Monday Centaur
Brought up on an eclectic diet of Aretha Franklin, Steely Dan and Millie Jackson, it was hearing Whitney Houston that finally made Terri want to sing for her supper. After training at the Italia Conti she worked as a backing singer with acts such as Shanks And Bigfoot, Young Disciples and Brand New Heavies. Unsure of her next move she decamped to Los Angeles. She planned to stay a week but ended up hanging with music industry contacts and returned with some demos under her belt. Soon enough the record labels were beating a path to her door, and she signed with Def Jam UK/Mercury. Her 2003 debut won her four MOBO nominations and a shortlisting for a Mercury Prize. Her next offering – L.O.V.E. – cemented her reputation but left her characteristically unwilling to remain in the same furrow. ‘It was then I decided that I had to make an album exactly the way I wanted it to be made,’ she tells us. ‘It was great fun.’ The result is her latest long player, I Am, recorded in London and mixed by the legendary Gerry Brown in LA. Now she’s itching to take the show on the road. ‘I want people to see me live, and I want to sing live,’ she says, and we say bring it on. 18.55 Monday Mainstage
Michael Franti & Spearhead. If the words ‘protest singer’ conjure up worthy-but-dull diatribes listened to in reverential silence by men in chunky sweaters, take a look at Michael Franti and Spearhead and think again. Franti’s music faces the demons of racism, militarism and globalization head on, whilst a Spearhead gig offers ‘part booty-shaking funk jam session, part soul deliverance, part cosmic transformation, and part social activism assembly, all rolled into one sweaty, sexy, raucous good time’. Franti hit the big time with the hugely influential and fabulously-named Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy in the 90s, taking inspiration both musically and lyrically from Public Enemy with hardhitting cuts like Socio-Genetic Experiment and Music and Politics. DHH supported U2 on the Achtung Baby tour and recorded with legendary beat poet William Burroughs. With Spearhead he continues to brew up an eclectic meltingpot of rock, reggae, dancehall, bossa nova, Afrobeat, and funk. Onstage and off he is active in movements against the death penalty, the prison-industrial complex and corporate globalization, and lyrics from his post-September 11 song Bomb The World have found their way onto many a peace activist’s t-shirt. Yet Franti’s music is shot through with life-affirming optimism. ‘My role is as a storyteller and a songwriter. I’m somebody who is trying to keep the spirits of other people up, despite all the chaos and fear around us’, he tells us. And a lifted Spirit is exactly what you’re promised at what could be a legendary Greenbelt night. 21.45 Monday Mainstage