Kelburn Garden Party, 6-7 Jul

With tickets sold out before the party begins, there is a sense that Kelburn Garden Party has come of age this year, cementing its position as one of the jewels in Scotland's festival circuit. All the more impressive, it has built this reputation on its friendly and welcoming atmosphere, its idyllic location, and a reliance on local talent. This year the weather has even elected to play ball, with blazing sunshine battering down nearly all weekend.

Kicking off proceedings in fine style at the Viewpoint Stage are Disnae, a three-piece instrumental funk and hip-hop band containing two former members of Underling. Loose-limbed and funky, but devastatingly tight, they rock with keys, double bass and drums, immediately getting the crowd moving. Over at the tiny Pyramid Stage, The Pineapple Chunks are trading in the kind of lo-fi, washed-out indie rock that is the meat-and-potatoes of other festivals, but something of a rare delicacy at Kelburn. Their vocal harmonies, wilfully out of tune, aim for and almost hit Pavement's wonky charm, but it's the instrumental guitar-led passages which impress.

Over at The Square Stage, the festival showcases what it does best - big bands. By which we mean bands with lots of members, many of them toting actual honest-to-goodness instruments, many of them brass and woodwind. Outside of wedding ceremonies, crowd-pleasing bands like The Soul Foundation don't get much attention. Here, they are legends in their own lunchtime, performing blistering soul covers with enough gusto to knock over a Pimms cocktail from a dozen paces.

Esperanza and Victorian Trout Conspiracy also fit the above description, their sound driven by skanking dub rhythms. Esperanza's loping, bass-heavy tracks, punctuated by bursts of full-on 'let's go mental' Two Tone-esque ska workouts, whip the crowd into an absolute frenzy, while Victorian Trout Conspiracy's rootsier, folk-tinged, but no less exuberant set scratches a subtly different itch. Both bands display impeccable musicianship, with veteran players from bands such as Bombskare among their ranks. It may not be ground-breaking, trend-setting music, but live, it is undeniably sensational.

Finishing up the early evening in fine style, The Mouse Outfit, led by rapper Dr Syntax and his diminutive Mancunian partner Sparks manage to combine a refined big band sound - with horns, drums, guitar, bass and keys - with witty wordplay and devastating verbal acrobatics. Syntax proves why he's one of the most highly-regarded MCs in England with a set of classics from his back catalogue and some new tracks, all of which elicit laughs, whoops and whistles from the packed crowd. Sparks meanwhile is a revelation, going above and beyond his duties as a hype man with devastating double-time flows. 

It is left to Mr Scruff & MC Kwasi to finish off the evening, with a deliriously-received set spanning jazz, hip-hop, house, electro, and even the kitchen sink. Scruff doesn't always play a lot of his own tracks when DJing, but the peak of his performance at Kelburn is an extended, dubbed-out cut of Get A Move On, teasing the hook over and over again before finally letting the house beat explode. By this time, the crowd are singing the trumpet line, voices eerily raised aloft above the soundsystem.

Day two dawns, and it is time to explore the surroundings. Kelburn Castle itself is still covered in the playful, esoteric graffiti created by Brazillian artists the Pandolfos and their comrade Nunca in 2007. Sharing many traits with the work of this year's resident artists, Edinburgh's Too Much Fun Club, it's a colourful, psychedelic, positively-charged mural, full of crazy characters. Walk below the castle's edge and you find one of several 'secret' stages, hosting poetry performances, workshops, alternative therapies and a whole host of other new age pursuits. Golden sunlight dapples the walls next to a waterfall, where ravers bathe. Half-way through the day, members of the various big bands march through the estate parping away, their parade culminating in a colourful chorus of brass, drums and dancing. Kelburn is without a doubt the most colourful event in Scotland's festival calendar - its DNA is at least one third carnival, where other prominent festivals seem more like funfairs.

Kicking off proceedings at the Viewpoint Stage on Sunday are Roy's Iron DNA and Machines In Heaven. Both bands root their sound in expansive post-rock; but where Roy's Iron DNA move towards Talking Heads/Hot Chip punk-funk territory, with smooth vocals and tight, complex drums, and occasional forays towards the kind of slick, post-modern R 'n' B traded in by the likes of How To Dress Well, the Machines boys shade things a hue darker. There are parts of their muscular, mostly instrumental performance which recall the excoriating shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine; other parts evoke the pulsing electro/techno of Slam. They are, in many ways, the quintissential Glasgow band, combining mopy but uplifting indie with banging electro and occasionally dizzying flights of musicianship. When they soar, they really soar.

R 'n' B and hip-hop are given a soulful doing over by Naledi and her DJ Nasty P, although a cover of 50 Cent's P.I.M.P. seems out of place in this rarefied hippy context, and rather inappropriate given the child-friendly atmosphere the festival-makers have been so keen to curate. Conquering Animal Sound quickly get things back on track - singer Anneke Kampman's questing, intelligent, complex lyrics are the centrepiece of a stunning electronic performance, as she loops vocal samples, bounds about the stage like a posessed pixie, and generally owns the Viewpoint stage over the stuttering, shifting, beatific rhythms of James Scott, whose music could give Four Tet a serious run for his money in the inventiveness stakes. They are heart-stoppingly good, reminding everyone why they are considered one of Scotland's finest avant-garde bands.

Back at the Square Stage, Modhan are cleverly combining some traditional Celtic elements and classic ceilidh music flourishes with funk and flashes of Romany punk. Infectious and family-friendly, they quickly have the place up and dancing. The crowd swells for a barnstorming performance from Joe Acheson's Tru Thoughts-signed Hidden Orchestra, who treat the crowd to highlights from their two stunning albums. With the tight, complex polyrhythms of two drummers anchoring the experimental flights into soaring melody from Poppy Ackroyd, on violin and keys, and Acheson himself, they deliver a set which is nothing short of spellbinding. Like that other Orchestra, they are incredibly cinematic in tone, compositions rounded out with sampled birdsong, crashing surf, and the sound of wind moving through trees. The effect is hypnotic.

Later in the evening, Poppy Ackroyd plays a solo set with John Lemke, showcasing the beautiful sounds of her album Escapement, made entirely from piano and violin. As Ackroyd plays live piano, Lemke uses electronic pads to create involving ryhthm-scapes of pops, clicks and sighs. It's incredibly moving, intimate, emotive music.

Over at the Pyramid Stage, Hector Bizerk arrive, and within two minutes have proved why they are one of Scotland's most exciting up-and-coming bands working in any genre. The energy created by drummer Audrey Tait and bassist Frazer Sneddon is jaw-dropping, but it's front-man Louie who runs the show. His technically devastating, shockingly honest and direct, often laugh-out-loud-hilarious hip-hop lyrics immediately win over the crowd, and they are soon eating out of the palm of his hand, crouching down low and whispering, then pogoing with wild abandon on his command. When they tackle political themes, they have the ferocity of a Scottish Rage Against The Machine; when they party hard, everyone sings the hook. It's unlikely they'll be playing stages this small for long.

Over at the Tall Trees, it's time for Sketch The Rhyme with Too Much Fun Club. As Silvertongue effortlessly rhymes over beats by a clutch of Edinburgh DJs, the TMFC lads live-sketch his rhymes, culminating in a breathtaking cut-and-paste animation. It's a fitting end to the live performances, combining playful, witty wordplay with the vivid characters the TMFC have created for this year's festival. As the sounds of drum and bass from the Tall Trees stage and dub reggae from The Resonators up at the Viewpoint echo through the trees, we wend our weary way back towards the tents, sure of just one thing - we'll be back next year, with bells on.