Set on the beautiful northern coast of Cornwall with amazing views over the Atlantic, Tropical Pressure Festival hardly felt like it was in England at all.
The festival’s mission is to celebrate the cultures of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa and thanks to the sun pounding down it felt like a place that properly fitted the pan-Atlantic music it was celebrating, rather than your standard British party in a field. Music was split between three days, each broadly celebrating one of the regions— on Friday, we danced to Latin jams, while Saturday was spent exploring the complex rhythms and exciting tones of Africa. Finally, Sunday was spent chilling out to the wonderful sounds of the Caribbean.
The acts were split over four venues, which included a substantial main stage, a canvas-covered amphitheatre, an outside sound system, and two separate dance venues. An amazing feature, which I haven’t seen at any festival before was a deck to the rear of the amphitheatre, which overlooked the main stage and the dance floor.
Highlights from Friday included the extremely energetic Xaman X from Bristol, who combine traditional Latin American instrumentation with live electronica including synths and vocoders creating a powerful, and expansive sound. The lead singer, Marta Zu, led the crowd like a good teacher, and even revealed the secret of happiness during her interactions with the crowd: go to a Xaman X gig to find out what it is.
Also smashing out a great main stage set were Super Panela, from Toulouse, who offered a more relaxing show than Xaman X, bringing out a wide variety of traditional instruments including the balafon, timbales and gaitas, as well a fantastic horn section including a sousaphone. Styles featured in their show included cumbias, porros, salsa, and onstage modern afrobeat.
Super Panela were followed by headliners La Cumbia Chicharra, also from France, whose headline set got the crowd moving like anything. Offering up a veritable smorgasbord of horns, their performance sounded energetic and exciting and had very bouncy feel to it, with evocative vocals, soulful brass and a very funky bassline.
Saturday’s main stage performances were kicked off by Seby Ntenge, originally from the Busoga region of eastern Uganda, who delivered an extremely chilled-out show featuring both traditional and modern influences. unto Sussou continued this relaxed vibe in the amphitheatre, playing chilled-out songs on his traditional Kora, a harp lute with 22 strings.
Born into the 700-year-old Griot tradition in the Gambia, Sussou carries out his unique societal role as an oral historian. While his performance started in a relaxed fashion, with the crowd sitting sun-baked on the floor and steps of the amphitheatre, watching on, he managed to get them up and dancing— an impressive feat in the 30-degree heat.
Hailu Mergia, a 74-year-old keyboardist who originated from Ethiopia took to the main stage at 5pm and added an unpredictable, fun sound to the festival, with an upbeat organ blaring across the clifftops. He and his band performed a series of funky, chilled-out tunes perfect for an audience just starting to wake properly.
He was followed by the grooving guitar of Nifeco Costa, who along with his band threw down a series of complex and intricate pieces of music composed of delicate licks and funky rhythm. Starting his career in Guinea-Bissau in 1987, Costa is now bringing his wonderful melodies to the whole world.
The Saturday headliners, BCUC, from Soweto, South Africa, blew me away with their performance. Combining fast beats with psychedelic sounds, their music is a living, breathing beautiful intricate beast with an almost punky edge, which mesmerises and motivates in equal measure. The entire crowd was moving to the pulsing, changing, rhythm, dancing to the incredible sounds— BCUC, short for Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness, were a lot of people’s musical highlight and are worth a listen from everyone and anyone.
On Sunday the festival was dedicated to music from the Caribbean islands. Highlights from the day of island music include the Bristol-based reggae band Run Come Down, who backed both Norris Brown and Kiko Bun. Both performances were incredibly tight, with the band’s musicianship being almost completely on point throughout, as fantastic digi horn noises and big rolling sounds were blasted out from the stage. Both vocalists put on a fantastic show, with Norris Brown dropping a few glorious steppas tunes, while Kiko Bun performed a Alborosie banger, sending the crowd wild.
Other fantastic acts include the steel drum madness that was Fimber Bravo, who took the traditional art form that is the steel drum band, and brought it to a new, psychedelic level, completely energizing the crowd. They were followed by Cubafrobeat, who’s fusion of afrobeat and Cuban jazz kept the audience’s energy levels up throughout their show.
The main stage was headlined by the Mauskovic Dance Band, from Amsterdam, who brought a bouncy, trippy sound to the festival, playing a complex fusion of African polyrhythms with the No Wave sound. Creating dubby percussive workouts with a spacey feel, the Mauskovic Dance Band really got the crowd dancing.
Following this Prince Fatty performed a fantastic set in Fandangos- an inside dancing area set inside a beautifully decorated barn dropping top-tier dub plates. While this was very crowded it added to the feeling, like that of an amazing club that was present in the venue.
However, my personal musical highlight was the amphitheatre at night. The house DJ’s, including Alex Conrad, played fantastic tunes, with just the right amount of cheese covering them sneaking in Psydub by the back door. The canvas roof, which was put up at night, was lit with beautiful writhing oil projections while the layout enabled the space to serve several purposes: It was a fantastic dance floor, but also a great place to chill out, or chat to your friends.
Organisationally, the festival was practically flawless- so good I barely even thought about it when I was there. There were plenty of toilets, always in good condition. Food was widely available, with most of it being vegan, in line with the festivals environmental message. The campsite and live in vehicle camping both offered incredible views over the Cornish coast, with an abandoned tin mine in view of the tent field. In addition, the site is kept nicely clean, and there are plenty of things to keep children interested.
Tropical Pressure collects some of the best music from the Greater Atlantic, African and Latin American worlds, and puts it all on stage in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever partied. Incredibly relaxing, TP entirely lacks the scatty edge many festivals have, instead offering a chance to chill out to your bones. The festival is fantastically run, and the music will impress even the most adventurous tastes. This is one to attend for anyone interested in Caribbean, Latin or African music or who wants to feel as chilled out as a cucumber in an icebath.
Tropical Pressure takes place each July near Porthtowan, Cornwall. Follow their official Facebook and Instagram pages to find out their 2023 dates as soon as their confirmed!
Image credits:
Megan Knight