Aaaand, yup…it’s that time again, when the nation’s kids descend on Balado to celebrate the glory of music, to shout at Biblical levels and to fight like starving monkeys in a cage raise the flag for Scotland, all at the same time. Leave Glastonbury, the Old Trafford of music, to the prawn-sandwichers and the seasonally rebellious – T In The Park remains unadulterated, pure and billious lunacy, from top to bottom and side to side, Gawd love it. And if the festival as a whole has the authetic whiff of a 1980s terrace about it, the T Break stage is where the chants start – this is our guide to who’s up on the Friday night.

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THE PHANTOM BAND

Of their single ‘The Howling’, the NME said it was “an oddly jaunty stroll through death fear”. Time Out said it was an “unlikely but utterly triumphant and epic melding of Can and Stereolab with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy”, going on to also reference Peter Buck, proving that there’s no such thing as too many dropped names. Not sure that either of them made any sense, but every single other blog, paper, website, tv show, radio show and media outlet in the known universe all went similarly moist for them – and they were all bang on the money too, damn it.

The Checkmate Savage LP was a bit of a bolt out of nowhere, a reminder that if you want dour, baritone, electronica-tinged guitarism without sacrificing the pop, you’re ALWAYS better off north of the border. White Lies are a just a pale imitation of this mob – check out ‘The Howling’ below and tell us we’re wrong, we fucking dare you.

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PEARL & THE PUPPETS

What we really hate round our way is lazy journalism… oh no, wait, we love that. What we really hate is when any girl with a guitar requires an immediate comparison with another girl with a guitar before anything else gets said. ‘With a voice like…’, ‘Following in the footsteps of…’, etc etc. Katie Sutherland (ie ‘Pearl’), gets this a lot. Regina Spektor, Kate Nash, blah, whatever, who cares, right?

Which is why I’m particularly hacked off to find that comparisons are the only way I can think of starting, since there’s an element here of falling between two stools. On the one hand, Sutherland’s uber-charming vocal and occasionally daft lyricism leans towards Florence, towards Bat For Lashes, towards Belle and Sebastian-ish cross-eyed tweeness. But then the major label production (they’re signed to Universal, natch), drapes the whole lot in a radio-friendly, Amy MacDonald-ish pop sheen. Which makes me confused.

There’s clearly a whooping great talent in there, and the songs are… nice. You just want them to get a little muddy now and again.

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GENERAL FIASCO

Another one that straddles the musical fences – at the midpoint between Snow Patrol, The Wombats, The Boomtown Rats and Placebo, lie the Belfast-based General Fiasco. A sound that would comfortably sit on a stadium stage, alongside an ethic clearly gained from hours of dusting off odd little bits of indie pop vinyl, you just want them to go a little bit postal every once in a while.

With a skinful in you, I’d imagine that they’ll be fucking knockout live though.

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MING MING AND THE CHING CHINGS

Let’s all get past that name first of all. Deep breath. Wipe away the tears. Forget you’ve ever heard of Joe Lean, or the Ting Tings (if only). All is calm.

Unsurprisingly, they sound basically how you’d expect them to – all staccato percussion, jerky guitars, riffs and yelping by the bucketful. Except maybe a bit more surf than is normal.

However, daft names and predictable bonkersness aside, it’s a biological impossibility not to listen to their Dirtbombs-y racket without involuntarily twitching and wanting to break something. And as far as I’m concerned, that makes you a monkey who sits at the top of the tree, and no mistake. Expect sweat to pour off the rafters.

Ming Ming And The Ching Chings – Show Off

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DEAD BOY ROBOTICS

These two Edinburgh brothers armed to the teeth with a filthy synth barrage seem to be loved and hated in equal measure. For any comparison to The Mae Shi or Crystal Castles, there seems to be a comment like “synth-prodding wankery”, which probably says more about the reviewers than the reviewees to be honest.

If you can get past the fact that it’s two hipsters with electronics and you’re only just cool enough to be allowed to watch, it’s guaranteed to be both blisteringly loud, fairly disturbing and a solid soundtrack for staggering back to your tent to find that someone’s attacked it with an axe.

Dead Boy Robotics – As Children We Fear The Dark (Part 1)

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MAPLE LEAVES

It’s festival season, and even if the notion of a summer in Scotland has long passed into urban legend, it’s nice to know we can still provide a soundtrack should the sun ever make an appearance. Maple Leaves seem almost preternaturally chirpy, sun-kissed and enthusiastic, coming from the Alex Chilton school of laid back guitar pop. For those of you whom the Magic Numbers were just too damn cutesy, or thought The Thrills were a bit on the European side to sound that Californian, there’s a touch more of the folk song in here, and they’re the more authentic-sounding for it.

I’ve always been a sucker for the boy-girl harmony thing anyway, so I’m sold.

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HOMEWORK

Opening the T Break stage this year, Edinburgh boys Homework combine (it says here) ‘beeps, bleeps and melodies’. Their myspace seems less full of the beeps and bleeps than the melodies, but they seem to move in the fashion of fellow locals FOUND, with the odd bit of electronic trickery worming its way into some occasionally fairly wonky guitar antics.

Homework – Lifestyle No Style