Acid Horse Festival

Acid Horse is a three day music event held at The Barge Inn, Honeystreet, Wiltshire (one hour from London by train, 45 minutes from Bristol by car) on the bank holiday weekend of Friday May 24 to Sunday May 26. It’s kid (and well-behaved dog) friendly, there’s a wide range of food available including vegan and vegetarian options, tickets include three nights camping onsite, there are glamping tents available (email acidhorsewilts@gmail.com for details, first come first served), the local area is a joy to walk around and Avebury is a neolithic stone’s throw away. And that’s before we get to the crop circles… But don’t just take our word for how unique it is, stellar performers from last year Shovel Dance Collective praised a “special event” set in a landscape “imbued with magic”. 

The line up features the astonishingly good John Francis Flynn who was responsible for the recent magisterial album Look Over The Wall, See The Sky – the point where ancient folk meets horizon-expanding modern psychedelia. Also headlining is beautiful soul, the Irish-based, Syrian born, Kurdish party starter Mohammad Syfkhan, who will bring his Middle Eastern wedding party music and Turkish pop to Wiltshire for the first time. Also joining the line up are Rocket mainstays Teeth Of The Sea, augmented with Kath Gifford on vocals, who have promised attendees “something really special” as the final band of the weekend. 

The mainstage headline DJ roster includes once of Acid Horse 23’s clear highlights, Sophie Coletta who launched last year’s event past the Oort Cloud and into interstellar space by mixing The Fall, Chris & Cosey and Can into a set of liquid acid techno, Balearic industrial and EBM. We’re delighted that Judith Klempner aka Proteus is adding Pewsey,Wiltshire to a list of DJ locations that already includes Berlin, Oslo, New York and Milan. And, to be honest, we thought we were going to have trouble matching last year’s booking of Surgeon, but rounding things off on Sunday is none other than Justin Robertson – one of the best party-friendly acid house DJs of the last three decades. And trying out his new low-bpm ambient psychedelic experimental set for the first time, joining us once more is Steve Davis of The Utopia Strong. 

After a roof raising, joyous, kids version of Terry Riley’s In-C last year, Farmer Glitch and friends are going to be leading us all in a mass version of ‘I Feel Love’ and anyone who brings a synth, or a glockenspiel, or a djembe, or their own vocal cords can join in. Other returning stars include Queen of New Weird Everywhere Nat Sharp; the wild-haired man of Glastonbury Tor, Kavus Torabi [also of The Utopia Strong], just returned from a tour with Gong, playing tracks from his new LP, The Banishing; and featuring a stellar array of guest musicians Deyar Yasin, Agathe Max, Marion Andrau, Dali de St. Paul and Conny Prantera, UKAEA bring their impossibly heart-wrenching Birds Catching Fire In The Sky to the chalky downs of Wiltshire. 

We’re punching well-above our weight with sets from bucolic and beatific VALVE; Richard Dawson and Sally Pilkington lockdown project Bulbils; all the way from Poland, occasional Rocket Recordings musician with his astoundingly transportative Train Spotter project, Wacław Zimpel; legendary counter-cultural figure Nocturnal Emissions; newly signed to Rocket, north western guitar mallet minimalists Ex-Easter Island Head and one-woman gabber mayhem assault unit, Petronn Sphene. A superb last minute addition to the bill is Constellation records’ own honey-toned blue-eyed soul singer and guitar warper Eric Chenaux all the way from Paris.

And that’s before we mention the Welsh language languid goth elegies of Tristwch Y Fenywod (featuring members of Hawthonn and Guttersnipe); the garage rock explosion of Ubiquitous Meh!; sets of celestial synth transcendence from Action Group, Twilight Sequence, Hitliloma and Luminous Foundation; ecstatic d&b from Xylitol; Bristolian sci-fi prog action from ANTA; indefinable weirdness from Trans/Human, John Macedo and the Howling; plus youthful skronk rock action from Milkfiz and “coastal slurtronic folk” from Kemper Norton. 

For early risers and night owls we have a Warhammer 40k painting sesh, a Mario Karts-tournament, films for kids, impromptu campfire gigs, loads more DJs, the mysterious, heavily bearded and torrid ‘Naked Brunch’ duo and your chance to see the greatest ceiling mural in a pub ever…