The Retreat Festival will take place in Edinburgh on August 28 and 29 this year.

Both Emily from Tracer Trails and Bart Owl of eagleowl fame have been in touch about this, it’s an awesome lineup with many acts I’ve featured here on 17 Seconds, such as Withered Hand (above), Wounded Knee, Meursault, Jesus H. Foxx and eagleowl. Whilst I won’t be able to attend it all (I’ve got tickets for Broken Records on the Saturday Night), I’m going to bust a gut to go and see at least some of it. I don’t want to rehash the press release, so I’ve cut and pasted it:

” Venerable DIY gig-putteronners Tracer Trails and The Gentle Invasion are thrilled to announce the third edition of Retreat!, a micro-festival celebrating Edinburgh’s contribution to the international pop underground.

Following on from previous years which have seen the festival occupy spaces in St John’s Church and the Bristo Hall, this year’s Retreat! will be a two-day event taking place in Pilrig St Paul’s Church Hall, on the boundary between Edinburgh and the City of Leith.

Retreat! was founded in 2008 to create space for Edinburgh acts amid the bustle of the festivals, and has evolved into a riotous A.G.M. for the capital’s independent pop scene.

In its inaugural year Retreat! encompassed nine events over three weeks; in 2009 it took the form of a giant celebratory all-dayer as part of the Forest Fringe. Retreat! 2010 is different again, a lost weekend when Edinburgh’s first XVI will perform in a deranged gala-day environment in which anything might happen and some things probably will.

Hosted by the incomparable Owen Curtis Williams (The Pineapple Chunks / drummer-about-town), and with stage design by Tessa Lynch, the only common thread in this vibrant melange is the organisers’ overwhelming respect for each act’s inimitable contribution to the international pop underground.

Retreat! stands for: –

• cheap cheap tickets
• all-ages admission
• the most extravagant staging and costumery no money can buy
• film screenings, record stalls, book stalls, and food!

Retreat! The Line-Up:-

7VWWVW (golden synth buzz and burr)
Benni Hemm Hemm (our icelandic friend and his big band)
Conquering Animal Sound (radio friendly unit shifters)
The Douglas Firs (snow-capped downbeat singalong)
eagleowl (fearsome slowcore foursome)
Enfant Bastard (brainless gameboy spraff)
FOUND (slick pop outfit)
Jesus H. Foxx (slacker-pop septet)
The Leg (dangerous panda-masked post-punk)
Meursault (tipped for the top)
Milk (sleazy glasgow supergroup)
Rob St John (resident ecologist)
Skeleton Bob (not a country band)
The Wee Rogue (sings the corries)
Withered Hand (badly lapsed antifolk)
Wounded Knee (loopy primitivist technocrat)”

Visit Retreat bandcamp page here for lots of excellent downloads.

Withered Hand -‘Religious Songs.’ mp3

Wounded Knee -‘Cold Enough To Snow.’ mp3

eagleowl -‘Morpheus.’ mp3

Jesus H. Foxx -‘Trying To Be Good.’ mp3