David Bowes looks forward to the 3rd edition of Glasgow’s Core. Festival, 2025’s edition will be a treat for anyone who likes their music loud, in-your-face and socially conscious.

Friends! Comrades! Brothers and sisters! Supersonic Festival 2025 hastens towards us, a tasty samosa in one hand and an overloaded sackful of musical adventure in the other.

Echoes and Dust heavy music editor Sander van den Driesche was at this year’s Roadburn Festival, and he finally found some time to write about his experiences.

ArcTanGent Festival, famous for its eclectic, dazzling line-ups as much as its relaxed and fun atmosphere, kicks off its 2025 edition on Wednesday 13 August and Joe Norman and Nick Dunn will be there for every minute of it. (It’s a hard assignment, but someone had to do it!)

Welcome to Bear Stone Festival: a liminal zone where only the best values of the outside world still apply. When the sun’s out, it’s beach vibes all day; when it goes down, the trees seem to close in and create a fairy glade where real magic and pleasant madness can occur. It might well be the best festival I’ve attended.

Bear Stone Festival is a psych, stoner, desert rock festival set in the idyllic surrounds of Donje Primišlje, a village in Central Croatia. And it’s difficult to imagine a more perfect location to spend three days enjoying this kind of music.

Once again, twelve years down the line, Desertfest still delivers a wonderful weekend, balancing the safe, solid and predictable with plenty of surprises along the way. And it’s one of the few festivals to which I know I’ll be returning next year regardless of line-up: the atmosphere is that good.  

Has it been a good weekend? Hell, yes! Has it been ‘tenth anniversary special’ good? Yes, I believe it has. Lots of good new bands, and some quality returnees. It’s hard to see how it could have been better. Stewart and the team have, I think, outdone themselves this year.

You always come away from FOCUS Wales thinking how on earth can they top that yet every year the organisers find new ways to keep the festival growing. It’s quite simply one of the best festivals out there right now. Until next year!

Chaos Theory Music, the London-based promoters, are celebrating fifteen years of curating “new music for open minds” by bringing together a suitably eclectic selection of bands to fill the sacred subterranean chambers of the Camden Underworld on this unseasonably hot winter day. It’s the second day of their big annual bash, which kicked off last weekend at Signature Brew in Walthamstow.

Well, there it is. I said at the beginning that I was going to take a close-ish look at the first StrangeForms, and then just wing it from there, and that’s what I’ve done. . . I think you should seriously consider spending a relatively small number of your Earth Pounds on a ticket, or tickets, for StrangeForms 2025.

STRANGEFORMS FEST will be 10 this spring. That, I think, deserves some kind of retrospective thingy. A look back, if you will. I have no idea whether or not anybody else is going to do it but somebody has to, even if that somebody is me. So, yeah, here it is.

For its birthday year (not yet a teenager) Rockaway Beach cemented so many of the things that has made it one of my annual unmissables, and pushed it forward into exciting new places. It’s mix of nostalgia and zeitgeist-catching new acts has earned its place in the upper echelons of music festivals, and may it stay there for many years to come.

Sunday at Supersonic: stages full of smoke and a long soak in folk. . . with a bouzouki and balloons to finish.

The day begins with the disappointing news that Atlanta hardcore team Upchuck. . . aren’t going to make it, tipping today’s line-up even further in favour of duos. Quite a selection today, all making a heck of a racket with just two people. The rise of the duo intrigues me; are the reasons technological, logistical, financial or even cultural?

Friday includes the sitting room of a haunted cottage, the incantations of Welsh witches, fluoro-badgers in hoodies roaming the streets, noise-rock anime super heroes, and samosas for starters.

David Bowes was at Glasgow’s recent Core. Festival and gives his overview of the bands he watched during the long weekend.

Well now, this year’s Supersonic Festival will be sat in your lap and licking your face before you can learn to pronounce Bríghde Chaimbeul’s name. Still a handful of tickets left if you’re lucky; if you’re already set then it’s time to start circling stuff on the running order and wondering who owns a bag so small you couldn’t fit an A4 book in it.

ArcTanGent 2024 once again proved why it’s a beloved staple in the festival calendar, managing to blend the experimental with the established and offering a platform for a diverse array of artists – from the thunderous and chaotic to the ethereal and introspective. Despite the inevitable rain and the occasional clash of must-see acts, the spirit of discovery and the shared love for the eclectic made for an amazing experience in the Somerset countryside.

Day 3 of Glasgow’s Core. Festival was another big success with a much more metal-focused line-up.

A look at day 2 of Glasgow’s Core. Festival with Part Chimp, Mclusky, Employed To Serve, Holy Mountain, Machukha and more.