Review: Indietracks Festival, Swanwick, Derbyshire

Between the platform and a railway museum at Swanwick Junction station, halfway along the Midland Railway Centre's preserved stretch of track in the midst of sprawling Derbyshire countryside, sits the Indietracks two-day festival. It's the brainchild of former Midland Railway Centre employee Stuart Mackay, who had the crazy idea of combining an indiepop festival with steam trains. Nuts, right?

But galvanised by the backing of the railway's hierarchy he set about making his dream a reality and 2009 is the third Indietracks showcase.

He knew that he would never attract chart-hugging rock monsters so he decided to focus on small labels and unsigned bands instead, and small bands that had managed to make just little dents on popular culture using DIY ethics.

From its inauguration in 2007 to its blossoming existence today, Indietracks might be one of the smallest festivals in Europe, but that's its beauty. It cares not for corporate sloganeering; has little time for prima donnas who might baulk at playing an indoor stage that is normally an engine shed, and strives to create a diverse spectrum of music from all over the globe.

However, despite it being a microscopic dot on the crowded festival map, its growth is certainly evident. Gone is the lorry trailer which masqueraded as the main stage last year. In its place is an actual stage decked out in banners displaying the moniker of this year’s label guests, Spain's Elefant Records.

There's also more entertainment besides music. A Sunday pop quiz attracts hung-over campers; there's bunting making for prissy indie chicks and there's a 'Crafternoon' workshop and other such extraordinary ways to pass the time.

But if it's music you want it's music you shall get. Over 60 bands and artists play across the main stage and the engine shed, and of course the on-site tin tabernacle church also doubles up as a stage. There are even bands making a stage out of an old 1950s mail carriage as the steam engine chugs along.

The music is rich and varied and old indie stalwarts mix seamlessly with the new breed. Irish pop-rockers The Frank and Walters fall into the former category and offer a chance to transport the mind back to the early 90s. Classics like Fashion Crisis In New York and After All still sound as fresh as daisies.

At the other end of the spectrum there’s violin-led folk from young tykes King of Cats. They perform on board the train with people sat at their feet as they strum their acoustic wistfulness while rolling along the track. Now where else would you get that?

With Elefant Records selecting the bands for their outdoor stage there is a distinct European flavour present. Gorthenburg’s Speedwagon Avenue are purveyors of what has to be a new blend of Swedish shoe-gazing and mariachi, engineered courtesy of solid rhythms and a trumpet; Northern Portrait transport their sophisticated guitar pop from Copenhagen to an engine shed and sound not too dissimilar to Morrissey, while Total Stereo are basically the White Stripes put through a Europop filter. The promiscuous French duo perform songs concerned with making violent love and three-in-a-bed fantasies. They finish with 50% of the crowd on the stage, bouncing to their crazy European sex-pop.

Meanwhile, Spanish multi-instrumentalist (or just mentalist) La Casa Azul also has a massive Europop fetish and performs the kind of tunes you either hear soundtracking the latest Nintendo DS game or appearing on a documentary entitled 'Eurovision: The Rejects'.

Further madness is witnessed in the church when "queer-feminist" (no, me neither) Ste McCabe sets off on an onslaught of anarcho-punk protestations which should never really be allowed anywhere near a church, while over in the engine shed there's a big crowd for Wellington's one-man electro warrior Disasteradio, whose abrasive futureshock synth-rock brutality perplexes everyone within earshot.

There's a strong Scottish presence at the festival this year, too, no doubt an ode to organizer Stuart’s home country. Glasgow's Butcher Boy feature no less than 7 members who coax out the kind of morbid folk you'd imagine the Tindersticks would endorse, while the lush harmonies of Camera Obscura are enough to make even the most sozzled sway controllably, especially on the beautiful French Navy and the sleepy hypnotics of James, making it a wondrously evocative set.

Probably the two most well-known acts to appear are Art Brut and the venerable Teenage Fanclub - the latter being a particulaty impressive signing. And it's them who close the festival in the unrelenting rain on Sunday with their classic indie. They exhume a love for 90s guitar music and no band can inject the same amount of pathos into their jangly pop than these Scottish icons.

Each song is a blend of mellow charm, rich harmonies and vintage riffs. They cherry pick through 19 years of their career, the highlights being Sparky's Dream and Neil Jung from their brilliant 1995 album, Grand Prix.

They gather the biggest crowd of the weekend by far, but, for sheer entertainment value, it's Art Brut who steal the show. Irrepressible front man Eddie Argos can't sing; he'll openly admit that. But that never stopped The Fall from releasing a gazillion albums worth of awkward rhetoric and it won't stop Argos either.

There are songs about public transport, chocolate milkshakes and failed love affairs, which slot him into the inherent tweeness of the festival very nicely. And when he sets off into the crowd to rant about how DC Comics make him ‘rock out’, blathering on about how he visited DC Comics' headquarters, his inner tweeness surfaces in the form of a nerdy comic obsessive.

The whole shed is pogoing to his devious concoction of frank ranting performance poetry and arty, post-modern punk. It's an eccentric performance which succinctly sums up the incomparability of this wonderful little festival.