WHAT IS IT?
THREE DAYS OF MUSIC AND MODEST MAYHEM IN THE WILTSHIRE COUNTRYSIDE,
MONSTERMINDED BY JOHN DORAN AND MARK PILKINGTON
Now in its third year!
WHEN?!
24-26 March 2024
WHERE IS IT?
The Barge Inn, Honey Street, Wiltshire UK
TICKETS
– £150 person – £10 for accompanied children under 16.
Your ticket includes three nights camping.
A small number of glamping tents are also available on request.
This is a very small site – capacity 200 people – so don’t wait up if you want to be there!
Please pay via Paypal Friends & Family to acidhorsewilts@gmail.com to book yours.
[A limited number of concession-priced tickets are left, please get in touch if you are a student, low-waged or unemployed and would like to attend.]
WHO’S PLAYING?
LIVE ACTS with more TBC!
ACTION TIME
ANTA
CHOPCHOP
FARMER GLITCH & FRIENDS
JOHN FRANCIS FLYNN
EX-EASTER ISLAND HEAD
HITILOMA & NATALIE SHARP
THE HOWLING
KEMPER NORTON
LUMINOUS FOUNDATION
JOHN MACEDO
MILKFIZ
MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS
PETRONN SPHENE
TEETH OF THE SEA
KAVUS TORABI
TRANS/HUMAN
TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD
TWILIGHT SEQUENCE
UBIQUITOUS MEH
UKAEA
V Ä L V Ē
WACŁAW ZIMPEL
XYLITOL
DJS
SOPHIE COLETTA
STEVE DAVIS
GOD HATES FLAGS
HEIDI HEELZ
JUSTIN ROBERTSON
MOOF
NAKED BRUNCH
PROTEUS
MORE ON OUR PERFORMERS:
ACTION GROUP
Has synth, will travel! Action Group, aka American musician Alex Maiolo, will be opening this year’s festival with music composed for the modular synthesizer, with Wiltshire in mind, arriving at the confluence of electro, kosmiche, early techno, psych, ambient, and classic electronic.
ANTA
Keeping it weird and West country, Bristol’s heavyweight progressive kosmische destroyers ANTA – featuring Acid Horse’s very own James King on the tubs – are a highlight on the Friday afternoon.
https://maiovvi.bandcamp.com/album/church-of-the-second-sun
CHOPCHOP
“Chopchop’s music snakes round its orator like a slippery thing, cymbals replaced by the clatter of hubcaps on toms, cutlery-jammed guitars – there’s an itchy jazzy vibe to the melodics, fuelled by a fertile imagination full of bruised shapes and punkish angles.” Michael Rodham-Heaps / Freq
https://chopchopsounds.bandcamp.com/album/el-stico
SOPHIE COLETTA
For many people in attendance at Acid Horse 23, Sophie Coletta’s Sunday night DJ set was a clear highlight, so inviting her back to play acid techno, industrial panel beaters and ritual hypno-rock was a no-brainer. Now that she is in a state of temporary retirement from the decks, we’re very chuffed that she makes an exception for Acid Horse!
STEVE DAVIS
Old friend of Acid Horse Steve Davis, former snooker world champion and current Utopia Strong member, is back to headline our brand new Tent stage on Friday night, with a DJ set that will explore the slower and even stranger recesses of his magnificent record collection.
FARMER GLITCH & FRIENDS
A pillar of the West Country freak scene and a regular Acid Horse fixture, Farmer Glitch will be orchestrating a communal music-making experience for all-comers, regardless of age, skill or ontological status – though being technically alive is a help. Previous years have seen ecstatic performances of Terry Riley’s ‘In C’, but we’re reliably informed that we’ll be doing something different this year.
JOHN FRANCIS FLYNN
Look Over The Wall, See The Sky – the horizon-expanding 2023 album by John Francis Flynn – was, along with False Lankum, one of the absolutely essential releases of the year. Flynn comes from the heartlands of Irish folk but has slowly effloresced outwards into an incredibly thrilling new sound that recalls Träd, Gräs och Stenar, Gang Of Four and late period Wolf Eyes as much as it does Planxty and the Pogues. Absolutely unmissable.
https://riverlea.bandcamp.com/…/look-over-the-wall-see…
EX-EASTER ISLAND HEAD
Stop! Hammer time! Ex-Easter Island Head are celebrating their 15th birthday and a brand new album, Norther, with a visit to the hallowed Acid Horse Shed Stage. Their practice – playing horizontal electric guitars with mallets – has seen them expand from a duo to a large ensemble of 24 and now back down to a quartet. Continually pushing forwards the band have promised more improvisation and are committed to providing a show that will etch itself into your memory.
https://exeasterislandhead.bandcamp.com/album/norther
GOD HATES FLAGS
We’re both proud and excited to announce the return of brother/sister duo God Hates Flags who never play their superb sets of post punk bangers, pulverisingly rude techno, north African vibes and industrial pop, east of the Tamar… unless it’s for Acid Horse!
HEIDI HEELZ
Regular DJ for Dice Club, Pink Glove, Offset Festival, Supernormal Festival, Krankenhaus Festival, GlamRacket. Greatest hits: Villon Song by Stick In The Wheel, Blindness by The Fall, Softness by Dorothy.
HITILOMA & NAT SHARP
Hitiloma – Acid Horse’s very own John Doran and Mark Pilkington wrestling with electronic noise-making equipment – are very happy to be providing backing to the inimitable queen of New Weird Everywhere & Everything, Nat Sharp who will be… well, we have absolutely no idea what she’ll be doing, safe to say it will be breathtaking journey to follow her on!
THE HOWLING
The Howling provide the missing link between John Cage and Suicide, with an intense collision of spoken word and analogue tape effects. A collaborative project between writer Ken Hollings and sound artist Howlround, devoted exclusively to their shared love of text, audiotape and Trash Aesthetics, the Howling’s debut album “All Hail Mega Force” was released by The Tapeworm in 2022.
https://the-tapeworm.bandcamp.com/…/incredible-night…
LUMINOUS FOUNDATION
The most recent manifestation of a near two-decade musical collaboration between Neil Mortimer and Mark Pilkington, Luminous Foundation make joyful, improvised, landscape-orientated cosmic electronic music. Think Cluster via U.F.ORB say Freq mag!
https://urthona.bandcamp.com/album/afon
JOHN MACEDO
Whether chewing a contact mic or tickling a speaker cone, John Macedo’s pluralistic approach to music explores connections and relationships while revealing the hidden potential in all sounds, environments and technologies, in intimate, immersive and intuitive ways.
https://www.johnmacedo.co.uk/about
MILKFIZ
Art-punk no wave sax-skonkin’ maximalism from this newly-hatched Bristol band, delivered with infectious enthusiasm and humour. FFO: The Pop Group, Black Midi, Bush Tetras, Primus
MOOF
Melanie Xulu, editor and publisher of the fabulous Moof magazine, hosts a regular Soho Radio show and DJs at Moof parties and festivals including Brighton Fringe, Sea Change, End of the Road, Moth Club, and The Social. Expected psych, folk, funk and the more obscure.
KEMPER NORTON
Describing his intricate songs and soundscapes as “coastal slurtronic folk”, Kemper Norton has been beguiling and unsettling listeners for over a decade. Gently lapping electronics, field recordings and folk melodies combine to lure us into ever deeper waters. Rumour has it he’ll be dragging us onto the dancefloor with this performance, but we’ll believe it when we hear it.
https://kempernorton.bandcamp.com
NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS
A legendary figure whose catalogue dates back to the late 1970s experimental music scene who manages to be both reclusive and incredibly prolific. Attempts to describe Nocturnal Emissions music are a fools’ errand so we’re thrilled to welcome Nigel Ayers from deepest Cornwall to the maw of the Acid Horse and can only wonder what he has in store for us.
https://nocturnalemissions.bandcamp.com
THE NAKED BRUNCH
Starting at 11am on Sunday morning and strictly for the (slow dancing) hardcore, your DJ hosts, John Doran and James Harrington, will be helming an epic trip through the Balearic, low slung, sub-118 bpm, cosmic disco, Italo, funk rock and kosmische outer limits of their collections. WARNING: neither DJ will be drawn on the topic of whether Mike Oldfield’s Moonlight Shadow or Ian Levine mix of New Beginning (Mamba Seyra) by Bucks Fizz constitute ‘real’ Balearic or not. Will contain Blancmange.
PETRONN SPHENE
Staunch underground hero Xapheena Q. Q. Utslekk (Guttersnipe, Tristwch Y Fenywod, The Ephemeron Loop) creates something analogous to nerve-shredding, muscle juddering live party gabber with a mic, a Korg Minilogue, a Boss PS2, a mixer and a loop pedal… and her own damn hands!
https://arcanepariahrecords.bandcamp.com
PROTEUS
Scratching our heads about who would be able to follow Mohammad Syfkhan and bring the first night at Acid Horse 24 to a suitably euphoric close, only one name came immediately to mind… Judith Klempner, aka Proteus, who has torn up dancefloors from London to Oslo via New York, Berlin and Milan playing a mix of techno, synth pop, industrial and minimal electronics, and is now bringing her skills to Honeystreet!
JUSTIN ROBERTSON
We’re thrilled to welcome the legendary DJ, producer and author to Acid Horse, with a list of remix credits that’s a veritable who’s who of the last thirty years of adventurous music from Bjork to Wire via Erasure and Finitribe.
MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
From the second we heard Mohammad’s blistering new album, I Am Kurdish, on Nyahh records, he became a dream headliner for us. Fleeing an unimaginably horrific experience at the hands of ISIS in Syria, he finally managed to forge a new life in Ireland and reconnected with playing the music he loves live. Expect a joyous mix of Algerian rai, Turkish pop, Egyptian chabi, Kurdish folk and more from one of County Leitrim’s greatest party starters!
https://nyahhrecords.bandcamp.com/…/mohammad-syfkhan-i…
TEETH OF THE SEA
Hot on the heels of a career best album, Hive, London progressive trio Teeth Of The Sea, augmented with Kath Gifford of Snowpony, have promised an extra-special closing set to end the live programme at Acid Horse 24. If their most recent material is anything to go by, expect grooves that sit somewhere between Nurse With Wound, the Units, Ennio Morricone, Demis Roussos and, well, the Ministry/Cabaret Voltaire collaboration the festival is named after… Acid Horse!
https://teethofthesea.bandcamp.com/album/hive
KAVUS TORABI
The wild-haired man of Glastonbury Tor is back with us in the Vale Of Pewsey once more! This time the current leader of Gong, The Utopia Strong guitarist, former Cardiacs/ The Monsoon Bassoon musician will be playing tracks from his amazing new solo album, The Banishing.
https://kavustorabi.bandcamp.com/track/the-sentinel
TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD
Comprising members of Guttersnipe and Hawthonn, this trio evoke the spirit of Cyhyraeth with Welsh-language songs that call to mind the soundtrack to Robin of Sherwood as imagined by Strawberry Switchblade and processed through The Cure’s mixing desk.
https://tristwchyfenywod.bandcamp.com/…/yn-fyw-yn-wharf…
TRANS/HUMAN
Radio, cassette tape, suspended and prepared electric guitar, processed drums, strobe lighting, contact microphones, field recordings and feedback systems, Trans/Human’s concerns lie within the physical act of music making and its relationship to environment and audience.
https://transhuman.bandcamp.com
TWILIGHT SEQUENCE
What began as an experiment in building a modular synthesizer system ended up as a voltage controlled outpouring of love for the natural world, as writhing melodies and ecstatic sequencing entwine. Hailing from Somerset, Twilight Sequence will bring the bliss to the Vale.
https://twilightsequence-cis.bandcamp.com/…/outline-of…
UKAEA
UKAEA is the singular musical vision of Dan Jones, joined by Abstract Concrete’s Agathe Max on violin and vocalists Dali de St Paul, Deyar Yasin, Conny Prantera and Marion Andrau to recreate the visceral thrill of new album, Birds Catching Fire In The Sky. The line up responds to the emotional and intellectual stresses of geopolitics in 2024, mixing various strains of hardcore electronic dance music, with deep, well-considered collisions with forms including gamelan and Indian classical.
V Ä L V Ē
V Ä L V Ē is a wonderful pastoral slice of sonic world building by Knifeworld multi-instrumentalist Chloe Herington, who is joined by her former Chrome Hoof band member Emma Sullivan. Expect their attention to psychedelic detail to encompass not just what the show looks and sounds like but also what it smells like…
https://valvemusic.bandcamp.com
WACŁAW ZIMPEL
One of Poland’s most consistently thrilling musicians, Wacław has released incredible albums with James Holden and Shackleton, and collaborated with Joe McPhee, Forest Swords and Rabih Beaini. With thanks due to the Polish Institute, he will be bringing his recent Train Spotter project to The Barge Inn. He spent months recording the sounds of the tram and rail networks of Warsaw and combined this with clarinet, synths and drum machines to create a new, emotionally resonant form of musique concrète.
https://waclawzimpel.bandcamp.com/album/train-spotter
XYLITOL
Catherine Bunnyhausen makes polyrhythmic electronic dance music at home and has releases on the Peripheral Conserve, Woodford Halse and Planet Mu. She DJs Central and Eastern European new wave, disco and electronics as one half of Slav to the Rhythm at nightclubs and on Repeater Radio. She has never knowingly been a “sound artist”
The M.O.P. Radionic Workshop 