Festival boasts ‘impressively eclectic lineup’
On top of an already impressively eclectic lineup the can’t-miss-it act of the 2010 Calgary Folk Music Festival (if not the whole summer) is Konono No. 1 . Following its first known recording dating back to 1978 the Congolese musical troupe came to prominence in North America with its 2005 album Congotronics and have since toured or collaborated with everyone from Björk to The Ex to Herbie Hancock.
Known for a highly energetic sound highlighted by electrified likembé (a.k.a. finger xylophones) the group’s performances also include shouted vocals dancing whistling percussion instruments and self-made amplifiers jimmy-rigged from junkyard parts. If this year’s Assume Crash Position album is any indication Konono No. 1’s workshop and mainstage performance on Sunday July 25 should both be smashes.
Charming chanteuse St. Vincent is also set to rend and mend the hearts of audience members with workshops on the afternoons of Saturday July 24 and Sunday July 25 followed by a Sunday evening Mainstage set. As a former member of the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’s band multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark also earns points for naming her debut album Marry Me after a joke from Arrested Development .
Returning to town after opening for Modest Mouse in ’07 Philadelphia’s Man Man brings its own junkyard-style Tom Waits-inspired ruckus to workshops and small stage sets on Saturday and Sunday. Ukulele-toting cabaret rockers The Burning Hell team with Vancouver’s all-female gypsy-punk quartet e.s.l. for one of the fest’s weirdest workshops on Saturday morning atop of weekend concerts from both groups.
Fans of Timber Timbre will have ample chances to catch the Polaris-nominated band’s soft and subtle folk rock with three workshops plus a concert spread throughout the weekend. Finally Calgary-based artists to watch for on the folk fest lineup this year include the campfire rambles of Honeybear dreamy glitch-pop of Axis of Conversation and ragged blues-rock of Ghostkeeper . See you ther
