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Ahmad Tea Music Festival: The Libertines (UK)
June 27, 17:00
Muzeon Muzeon

In 2015 Ahmad Tea Music Festival is also to be held in an open venue, perfect for summer events - the Museon Park of Arts. Sponsored by the popular brand of English tea, the Ahmad festival is a wonderful open-air evening of great British music in a beautiful city center park. The headliners of this year festival will be the British bands The Libertines, The Wombats and East India Youth.

The anniversary Ahmad Tea Music Festival will held with previous motto: "There is no life without tea and music" and change its format. Ahmad Tea Literature Summer will present the first experience of the British literature festival in Russia. So Ahmad Tea Music Festival 2015 will be an excellent performance of the summer season.

The Libertines

The LibertinesThe Libertines joined the pop fray of 2002, competing with the likes of the Strokes, Hives, Vines, and Doves with their debut single, "What a Waster." The Bernard Butler-produced track entered the U.K.'s Top 40 in June, leaving NME to crown the Libertines as the best new band in Britain. The double-A-side song "I Get Along" earned Single of the Week on BBC Radio 1. The London-based band, who inked a deal with Rough Trade in December 2001, featured Carl Barât (guitar/vocals), Pete Doherty (guitar/vocals), John Hassall (bass), and Gary Powell (drums). Up the Bracket was released stateside in March 2003 while the single Time for Heroes gained momentum on the U.K. charts.

The group's Coachella Festival appearance later that spring, meanwhile, introduced their kinetic live act to the States. In June 2003, the band's playfully volatile chemistry began to go awry when Doherty didn't show up for a tour of Europe. The rest of the Libertines went ahead with the dates while Doherty formed another group that he initially also called the Libertines before changing the name to Babyshambles.

The following month, while the remaining Libertines were on tour in Japan, Doherty was arrested for breaking into Barât's apartment and stealing items including a harmonica, laptop computer, and antique guitar. In August - around the same time that the band's single "Don't Look Back into the Sun" became one of their biggest hits - Doherty pled guilty, and also confessed to addictions to heroin and crack cocaine; in September he was sentenced to six months in jail. However, his sentence was reduced to two months on appeal, and with time off for good behavior, he was released from jail in early October and the complete Libertines lineup performed at the Rough Trade 25th anniversary show later that month. In November, Doherty played two shows in his own apartment that featured a mix of Libertines and Babyshambles songs. The band closed out 2004 with a string of local dates, and began 2004 by writing and recording new songs in France.

Their first U.K. dates of that year, a three-night residency at London's Brixton Academy, unfolded in a typically chaotic fashion when Doherty smashed his guitar and left the stage in the middle of the band's final performance. As the band continued to record, Doherty and Barât also appeared on "For Lovers," a single by their friend Wolfman; it became a surprise hit and the biggest Libertines-related release yet. Meanwhile, in April 2004, Babyshambles released their self-titled, limited-edition debut single. Later that month, the band was joined on-stage by Peter Perrett of the legendary new wave band the Only Ones, and performed "Don't Look Back into the Sun" and the Only Ones' classic "Another Girl, Another Planet" with them.

But by May the Libertines' future looked grim again: Doherty was in and out of rehab clinics, such as London's Priory, in rapid succession. His ongoing troubles led the Libertines to cancel their performance at the Love Music Hate Racism concert that June; the event was subsequently canceled altogether. The band's appearances that month at Glastonbury, the Isle of Wight, and Morrissey's Meltdown festivals were also canceled and Doherty went to the rehab program at the Thamkrabok Monastery in Thailand; after a few days there, he left for Bangkok. Just after returning to London in mid-June, Doherty was arrested by London police, who detained him for a traffic offense and found a switchblade in his possession. The rest of the bandmembers carried on with their obligations for July and onward, saying that Doherty was welcome to rejoin the band once he had his addictions under control.

The Libertines recruited guitarist/vocalist Anthony Rossomando for their upcoming gigs, which included a performance at the T in the Park Festival. Doherty, meanwhile, set up a string of solo shows and dates with Wolfman, but failed to appear at several of the performances in early August. "Can't Stand Me Now," the debut single from the Libertines' self-titled second album, entered the U.K. charts at number two; in mid-August, Doherty appeared in court and pleaded guilty to the charge of possession of an offensive weapon. The Libertines arrived late that month, and the band - minus Doherty - toured the U.K. and the U.S. that fall in support of it. Doherty, meanwhile, put his efforts into Babyshambles. Carl Barât formed Dirty Pretty Things, named after a club night he founded, with former Libertines drummer Gary Powell, Anthony Rossomando as second guitarist, and Cooper Temple Clause's bassist Didz Hammond. After releasing two albums, 2006's Waterloo to Anywhere and 2008's Romance at Short Notice, Dirty Pretty Things disbanded.

In 2009 Barât and Powell reunited with Pete Doherty for a Libertines reunion at a tribute show for promoter Johnny Sedassy at the London Rhythm Factory, and a year later the full band reunited for gigs at the Leeds and Reading festivals. In 2010, Barât released his self-titled solo debut. Babyshambles returned in 2013 with their Stephen Street-produced third album, Sequel to the Prequel. Meanwhile, Barât formed another band, the Jackals, who released their debut album, Let It Reign, in 2015. Most excitingly for Libertines fans, the group's sold-out 2014 shows at London's Hyde Park and Alexandra Palace led the band to work on another album that was due in 2015.

The Wombats (UK)

Ahmad Tea Music FestivalBritish indie rock trio the Wombats make driving guitar post-punk and electronic-influenced pop. Formed in Liverpool in 2003 while the members were all attending the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, the Wombats feature vocalist/guitarist Matthew Murphy, drummer Dan Haggis, and Norwegian-born bassist Tord Øverland-Knudsen. In 2006, the Wombats released their debut single, the Japan-only "Girls, Boys and Marsupials". Several singles followed before the release of the band's 2007 debut album, A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation. A year later, they released the Wombats EP on Bright Antenna. In 2011, the Wombats released their sophomore album, This Modern Glitch, featuring production from such modern rock stalwarts as Eric Valentine, Butch Walker, and Jacknife Lee, and in 2015, they returned with their third full-length album, the synth-heavy Glitterbug, which featured production from Mark Crew and included the singles "Greek Tragedy" and "Give Me a Try". Still centered on lead singer, songwriter, keyboardist, guitarist Matthew Murphy along with bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Tord Øverland-Knudsen and drummer/vocalist Daniel Haggis, the Wombats make an immediately infectious, skillfully polished brand of '80s-influenced synth pop that also manages to weave in the energy of '90s cool Britannia as well as the wry, often humorous social commentary of bands like the Kinks. Working with producer Mark Crew, who previously helmed Bastille's Bad Blood, the Wombats build upon the buoyant, dance-oriented vibe of This Modern Glitch, honing their sound into a tight, glossy sheen that hints at the bombastic new wave productions of '80s bands like Tears for Fears, while also fitting nicely alongside more contemporary releases by acts like the Killers and the 1975. Musically, the songs on Glitterbug are as catchy as anything they've done previously, and the group's layered, kinetic productions perfectly showcase Murphy's resonant, insistent croon. However, what sets the Wombats apart from their danceclub-minded brethren are Murphy's distinctive lyrics. Much like the Kinks' Ray Davies in the '60s or Pulp's Jarvis Cocker in the '90s, Murphy brings a sharp-witted party monster's eye for spilling the details of crazy relationships and the full-tilt boozy adventures of urban twentysomethings.

East India Youth (UK)

Ahmad Tea Music FestivalConnecting the dots between Krautrock, ambient, Berlin-era Bowie, and dance culture via London's Docklands, producer and artist East India Youth (aka William Doyle) first came to prominence in 2012 after handing a demo to John Doran - one of the editors of the esoteric U.K. online music website The Quietus - at a gig. Doyle's intricate and awe-inspiring sounds prompted the website to set up their own label to release his material. Hailing from Bournemouth, U.K., Doyle's musical past was based in an indie band called Doyle & the Fourfathers. Self-described as a "tweedy" group, Doyle became uninspired by guitar music and found inspiration from electronic and dance culture. He subsequently quit the group and started work on his own sketches and demos. In 2013, he released the Hostel EP via the Quietus Phonographic Corporation to critical acclaim. Encouraged by the positive reaction to the release - as well as the continued patronage of The Quietus - he started to prepare his debut album, Total Strife Forever. Released in early 2014 on Stolen Records, it was nominated for a Mercury Prize, and Doyle found himself being lauded as one of the most exciting crossover acts of that year. That fall, he issued an expanded version of the album that included his nearly hourlong soundtrack for the 1916 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had been prepared and performed live for a screening of the film at Isle of Wight's Bestival festival the previous year. Just a year after his debut, his equally impressive second full-length album, the electropop Culture of Volume, was issued on XL Recordings. Culture of Volume presents another blend of Eno-inspired synth compositions and thoughtful electropop songs. However, where the former was mostly instrumentals with a few songs, Culture of Volume offers the reverse for a poppier and more melodic, but equally hypnotic and well-crafted sophomore LP. While East India Youth had been essentially a solitary project for multi-instrumentalist William Doyle, he brought in Graham Sutton to mix this time, George Hider recorded Doyle's vocals, and Hannah Peel provided acoustic strings. Their work polishes an adventurous landscape where, without changing the record's pensive tone, tempos, complexity, and pitch range shift regularly. This variability begins right from the contrasting opening two tracks. "The Juddering" serves as an instrumental takeoff, both as the album's opener and in the sense of sound; its slow-building, mechanical, turbine effect mingles pitches and noise until a simple melody coalesces. It's followed by the sparse song "End Result" ("The end result is not what was in mind"), melodic and vocal-led with welcoming, blunt bell tones. The record never settles into a full-on catchy, Pet Shop Boys-type affair, or settles in at all, though moments are remindful of '80s British dance-pop, such as the trance-infused "Beaming White" with a far-reaching, Erasure-like melody. Instead, despite its melody-friendly pop tendencies, expect the unexpected, like the over ten-minute "Manner of Words" with its musical metaphors ("Turn this dull roar down/I hear it all the time/And I know now/It soon becomes a shrill clarion") and three-and-a-half-minute droning coda. The instrumental, industrial-influenced dance track "Entirety" enters the album halfway through with thumping four on the floor only to lead into the high romantic drama of the beats-free "Carousel," which uses space and slowly built tension to underscore a dynamic melody. What ties the songs together is the unresolved tone and unbalance itself, from thoughtful, uneasy lyrics ("A crooked frame circling us/We strained to learn just how it turned round"), to sharp-edged synth sounds, lopsided rhythms, and noise effects even on the softer tunes. The result is a constant if ambient-tinted instability and sense of epicness. As a whole, Culture of Volume is an intense and fascinating album, one that leaves sequel-like anticipation for what else East India Youth may have in store.

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