Touch some grass: Green Man’s bucolic arms are open wide for an eclectic weekend of music, wile and wonder. Here are some top acts I am anxious to clap eyes on…

Whilst the city folk boil in a 33 degree stew, it is time for us to look toward greener pastures and rolling hills! To the miraculous communion of music lovers, to the ebullient and breezey Welsh valleys, to Green Man Festival! Heralded for its commitment to community, sustainability and inclusivity, Green Man brings its crowds a synthesis of new and old, sincere and silly – but above all a Welsh induction to the wiles and wonders of what live music has to offer. Speaking of, here are the acts I am especially eager to catch:

Ezra Collective

Ezra Collective epitomise the potential of London’s jazz scene to ascend from the familiar city clubs to international stardom. I have been gagging to see them live for a torturously long time and their deserved win of the Mercury Prize last year has proved only to turn up the heat. For nearly a decade the quintet has been sliding with an enviable ease and style between soul, jazz, afrobeat and hip-hop.

Coming album ’Dance, No One’s Watching’ aims to evocate kinetic and jazzy movements, dance and celebration. One listen to their single ‘Ajala’ dispels any uncertainty as to whether they have achieved this goal. With a momentous repertoire of daring and polished music, their set at Green Man is sure to be masterfully diverse and should have everyone dancing while they are watching.

Blonde Redhead

Blonde Redhead are one of those bands who get under the skin. The records that established the band in 1990s New York are frenetic bundles of avant-rock dusted with Kazu Makino’s eerie vocal melodies and informed by a proclivity for ever-so-sensual screaming. Like any good band with 10 studio albums out for listening, they are also incredibly versatile and have dipped their toes in synthy-electro, post-punk and now, after 7 years hiatus, Brazilian influence indiepop. Their 2023 ‘Sit Down for Dinner’ is a dessert of an album, dripping with lamenting pop hooks and lashes of Brazilian influence too.

I, for one, will be gunning for the golden oldies, ‘I Still Get Rocks Off’ the opening track of their 1995 album, is one of my favourites. It is sparkling, yet a little sinister, and opens with a funny, scantily clad drum solo. Having missed their recent show at the Lower Third, you will find me at the barrier: fool me once…

Omar Souleyman

Despite beginning his career as recently as 1994, Souleyman is to me the godfather of electronic dance music. His sound is marked by elaborate and immersive keyboard euphonies, playing on traditional Syrian dabke licks, it is serpentine in nature coiling around and moving you to a confident dance beat. His most recent album, ‘Erbil’, tells of a dream of peace in Syria and it is infused with joy and longing. It is impossible to deny its pull.

Souleyman has over 500 albums to his name, most of which were recorded as gifts for the weddings he was performing at. The atmosphere at his live sets, as he unleashes an infinite labyrinth of Arabic, Kurdish and Assyrian dance influences, looks astonishing. He is the talented techno-uncle we have been searching for and is bringing his unadulterated charisma to Green Man.

Brown Wimpenny

How many members? I couldn’t tell you. It seems that as bands get younger their ensembles grow bigger. The resounding benefit of such a group, is the massive noise they can make, a strength which Brown Wimpenny have harnessed at will. Let’s hope they use their power for good.

Having only caught glimpses of their experimental folk on YouTube (they have no music out as of yet), I gladly count myself as a cult-follower. It seems that indoctrination and enthusiasm are the precautionary hazards of a Brown Wimpenny set; they shimmy between fast pace traditional ballads, complex choral arrangements and transcendental drones of folk instrumental with a smile. “Young singers of old songs and new dancers of old jigs,” Brown Wimpenny bring the winds of pure feeling and authenticity, boding well for the times ahead. This way blows a new generation of folk devotees.

Blue Bendy

If you are especially proud of your undergraduate degree and insecure about your dating life, Blue Bendy might just be the band for you. The pop-experimentalists have moulded swelling and sci-fi sounding guitar pedals with the mutterings of an eloquent lunatic in such a sexy way. It is naval gazing, it is hiccupping, it is incredibly catchy; their acclaimed debut album ‘So Medieval’ has been a staple of my summer rotation. Despite Blue Bendy’s reputation suggesting they are riding a prevailing wind of ‘post-irony,’ I find the elliptical nature of their first work to be endearing and addictive. I have no idea how they make such a pearly magnetic sound come from that acoustic guitar, maybe their set at Green Man will get me one step closer. 

Beak>

Beak> is a band I stumbled across whilst perusing the line-up, giving me a certain chip on my shoulder, out of indignance that I hadn’t found them earlier. Whilst being assured by the band themselves that ‘Sex Music’ is “not even their best song,” its pulpy bass line and impish lyricism is pretty damn good. ‘The Brazilian’, more of a grungy-sound-scape, is good too. It also helps that they have a blindingly accomplished roster, of Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, Billy Fuller of Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters and Will Young of Moon Gang notoriety. 

Beak> have mastered the cinematic potential of the muddy guitar instrumental, so finding that they wrote the soundtrack to ‘Couple in a Hole’, a strange and moody film from Tom Greens, comes as no surprise. Akin to Fugazi or The Smile, they are a bubbling sort of electronic rock band, leering into krautrock territory in a very listenable way.

Nabihah Iqbal

Nabihah’s music came to me through images, finding her first, embedded in Wolfgang Tilman’s Tate exhibition. Talented is to say too little, she is a jack of all trades: a lecturer, activist, artist and musician. Her sound is imaginative and allusive, forging a sonic space for an elevated connection to both word and song. Nabihah is one artist I hope will share some wisdom between tracks as well as within her melodic weaves.

And oh boy, there is so so much more… see you in the fields, let’s share a blem and a tinnie – I’m so excited!