THE SKINNY
Kelburn’s Got Talent Music
With the Kelburn Garden Party within touching distance, we take a closer look at the 20 artists lined up to play our curated stage at this year’s festival Words: Tallah Brash
June 2022 – Feature
Clarissa Woods
Clarissa Woods Following the release of her exceptional 2021 EP, Honey I’m Gone, Govanhill’s Clarissa Woods was nominated in the Best Hip-hop category at the SAMAs. Combining thick beats with smooth R’n’B vocals and a hip-hop flow that’s full of attitude, Clarissa Woods is not to be missed. instagram.com/ clarissawoods_
NOVA Since winning the 2020 Scottish Album of the Year award for Re-Up, rapper and producer Shaheeda Sinckler, aka NOVA, went on to win Breakthrough MC/Vocalist at the 2021 DJ Mag Awards. Expect a mix of hip-hop, grime and more from our Friday night headliner. novascotiathetruth.bandcamp.com Saturday 2 July Miss Leading Pairing lo-fi alt-pop beats with her often challenging spoken word passages (which cover everything from self-help culture to the hypocrisy of virtue signalling), ...Miss Leading – returning from New Zealand to Edinburgh this summer – opens the Pyramid Stage on day two. iammissleading.com Echo Machine This Dundee five-piece released their debut album, Instant Transmissions, at the start of 2020 and then the pandemic struck. With a sound heavily indebted to the New Romantic stylings of the 80s, you’ll be taken back in time by this synthpop outfit. echomachine.bandcamp.com Squiggles Former Spook School drummer Niall McCamley is now a mental health fighting superhero and he’s coming to Kelburn to help make all your woes go away. Musically, he’ll provide a moshable emo indie party, with boppable guitars and guaranteed comic relief – the perfect antidote to tough times. squigglescult.bandcamp.com Katherine Aly Following a knockout performance at this year’s Wide Days, Katherine Aly is bringing her catchy pop stylings to Kelburn this year. And as her appearance comes just two short weeks after the release of her glorious debut album, you’ll be able to learn all the words ahead of time. katherinealy.com
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Bemz
Photo: @excipiovicis
Friday 1 July Russell Stewart Opening the Pyramid Stage on Friday night is Glasgow singer-songwriter Russell Stewart, whose single Citrus was on heavy rotation for us throughout 2021. Within his jazzy alt-soul oeuvre, expect squelchy rhythms, silky smooth vocals and to not be able to stop swaying your head. instagram.com/itsthisrussell
Bemz Jubemi Iyiku is no stranger to these pages, and following a SAY-Award longlisted nomination for his Saint of Lost Causes record in 2021, more recently he was crowned Scottish Act of the Year by BBC Introducing Scotland. We can’t wait for him to bring his bouncy brand of hip-hop to Kelburn. instagram.com/bigbemz1
Photo: Andy Xplore
I
t feels like we’ve been planning this one for ages, and, well, thanks to the pandemic, we kind of have been. Preparations for this year’s takeover of the Kelburn Garden Party’s Pyramid Stage has been in the works since winter 2019, when we started work on the never-to-see-the-light-of-day 2020 festival. That year we were set to programme the stage for both the Saturday and Sunday, but a few years on and we’re taking on Friday too, the full shebang, meaning this year will be our biggest yet at Kelburn, and we can’t bloody well wait. Before we tell you what we’ve got in store, we just want to send out a heartfelt thanks to all the artists we had booked for the 2020 edition who have stuck by us throughout, and to all the artists that donated a track to our Bandcamp fundraiser when times were tough and we didn’t know what the future of the magazine might look like. Of course, plans change, so we’re sad to have lost a few artists we had confirmed for 2020 along the way – Swim School, Bikini Body, Edwin Organ, Happy Spendy and Kubitaru, we’re looking at you – but, we’re delighted to say we’ve added a whole host of exceptional talent to the bill that we can’t wait to share a weekend with on the west coast. With all that in mind, from SAY Award winners to talent on the rise, covering everything from dreampop to hip-hop, R’n’B to alt-soul, art-rock to existentialist nerd rock and more, here’s a blow-by-blow account of what you can expect from the 20 artists set to play the Pyramid Stage at Kelburn Garden Party from 1 to 3 July.
Miss Leading
