Farmer & The Owl Festival 2020 1st Line-Up Announcement:
Hot Chip
Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats
Sleaford Mods
Weyes Blood
Fat White Family
Drab Majesty
Miss June
Body Type
Rebel Yell
+ more to be announced …
Collectively Curated by The Farmer & The Owl Label Family
Hockey Dad, Bad//Dreems, Totally Unicorn, The Pinheads, TEES and Tropical Strength
Saturday February 29th, MacCabe Park Wollongong
General tickets on sale 9.00am Friday October 18 from Moshtix
“Farmer & the Owl was like no other music festival in the country… it was a huge risk that, creatively, paid off handsomely” Double J
The Farmer & The Owl Festival made its successful debut in March, within the steel lined laneways and lush urban parklands of McCabe Park in the heart of Wollongong. 4,000 music addicts descended on the spacious lots and secluded post-industrial alcoves for a day of music consumption and discovery. Farmer & The Owl returns in 2020, serving up a fresh collective of garden-fresh, magnificent sounds for your listening pleasure.
Once again, the line-up has been affectionately curated by your favourite artists from the Farmer and The Owl label family of Hockey Dad, Bad//Dreems, Totally Unicorn, The Pinheads, TEES and Tropical Strength.
Described by The Guardian as “the greatest British pop group of their generation”, audio adventure addicts Hot Chip (UK) will make their triumphant return to Australia in 2020, bringing the party to the people of Wollongong! Hot Chip have transcended musical trends while remaining adoringly aloof at the absolute cutting edge, with albums such as 2006’s breakout The Warning, 2008’s brilliant Made in the Dark and more recently One Life Stand (2010) all gathering effusive praise and individual cult followings. With a career littered in accolades including Grammy nominations, multiple Mercury Prize nods, several Gold albums and even a feature on The Simpsons, Hot Chip are one of the most decorated and much-loved bands in recent memory. Farmer and The Owl will be fans first chance to see tracks from their acclaimed new album ‘A Bath Full Of Ecstasy’, live!
The brainchild of mercurial Cambridgeshire mystic Kevin Starrs, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats(US,UK, CANADA) have been making extraordinary music since 2009. Always too bold and idiosyncratic to be easily pigeonholed, they emerged from an obscure corner of the labyrinthine English underground as shadowy purveyors of a new and overwhelmingly psychedelic take on the gruff and gritty rudiments of hard rock and turbo-blues, powered by the dark, lysergic heart of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and drenched in woozily macabre imagery. Steeped in both the wayward melodies and mischievous arrangements of psychedelic pop and the dissonant thunder of proto-metal and doom!
Sleaford Mods (UK) are one of the most important, politically charged and thought-provoking bands in music today. Stumbling into the music scene in 2013 at a time of political and creative austerity, their breakthrough album ‘Austerity Dogs’ surprised many and caught the moment, spearheading a punk renaissance and paving the way for a generation of new artists. Five critically acclaimed albums later, Sleaford Mods find themselves lauded for exhilarating and brutally brilliant live shows and heralded as Iggy Pop’s favourite band; still paving the way for those who follow.
Weyes Blood (US), is the moniker of California-based artist Natalie Mering. Titanic Rising, her fourth album and Sub Pop records debut, has received unanimous critical acclaim. Listen closely to Titanic Rising, and you’ll also hear the jazz of Hoagy Carmichael mingle with the artful mysticism of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the monomyth of scholar Joseph Campbell. Re-imagining the Titanic disaster as a metaphor for climate catastrophe, Weyes Blood designs her own universe to soulfully navigate life’s mysteries. Manoeuvring through a space-time continuum, she intriguingly plays the role of melodic, sometimes melancholic, anthropologist.
Fat White Family (UK) have always been a drug band with a rock problem, their legendary live show – part exorcistic pagan ritual, part violent bacchanalian assault of the senses have made headlines in all the right outlets around the globe. Seven years into a career defined by collapsing masculinity, Celtic mysticism, pound shop shamanism, provocation, eroticism, wanton violence, joy, radical empathy, narcissism, hog-like indulgence, personality defects and a fondness for both extreme left and right-wing aesthetics - and some of the best musical performances this fractured world has ever witnessed! The South London-spawned band return, like true rock n roll phoenixes, rising from the ashes of a band implosion, with their 3rd, post implosion studio LP, Serfs Up!
Drab Majesty (US) is the solo project of Deb DeMure, the androgynous alter-ego of L.A.-based musician Andrew Clinco. With its combination of reverb-drenched guitars, synth bass lines, commanding vocals, and rhythmic drum machine beats, this project is a stark departure from Clinco’s previous stints as drummer in Marriages and Black Mare. Dubbed “Tragic Wave” and “Mid-Fi” by DeMure, Drab Majesty eloquently blends classic 80s New Wave and hints of early 4AD with a futuristic originality. When DeMure’s imposing 6’ 4” figure assumes the stage, Deb’s playful, harlequinesque appearance, tempered by an ominous body language, and clashing with the dreamy, ethereal melodies comes across as a web of contrasts. The result is a perfect balance between seemingly conflicting messages, between the high and the low, the drab and the divine.
Miss June (NZ) is what happens when angst matures. Raised in the embers of punk rock, Miss June harness jagged, noisy guitars filtered through the unrivalled stage presence of frontperson Annabel Liddell, unafraid, unapologetic and ready to wake up the music scene. Described as “some unholy union between Sonic Youth and Le Tigre” the NZ four piece combine elements of post-punk, no-wave and rock and hold close their DIY roots while creating a blistering, reckless sound full of melodic hooks and overdriven riffs that are at once immediately recognizable and yet entirely their own.
Rising Sydney-based, trash can girl band, Body Type (AUS) swan down the freeway to Wollongong on a wave of praise from global tastemakers. Two EP’s, 2018’s self-titled and 2019’s EP2, that spawned six radio singles between them that caught the ears of folks at BBC’s Beats 1, The Fader, NME, DIY Mag all hailing their scuzz rock sounds as the next big thing cool kids around the world need to wrap their ears around. They have toured nationally and across the ocean including slots at Live At Leeds, Hit the North and Great Escape, we are proud as punch to have them as neighbours and are stoked they coming over to play!
Rebel Yell (AUS) is the solo project and moniker of Sydney via Brisbane electronic/techno artist Grace Stevenson. Known for her demonic-like musical force, Grace has produced some of the most mesmerising, brooding techno anthems in the country. Fearlessly pushing the boundaries of Australia’s club scene, Rebel Yell is a powerful mega-hex of techno, industrial beats, who commands her dance floors with pulsating bass lines and hypnotic mechanical rhythms.
Stay tuned for more acts to be announced in the coming months!
Saturday February 29th, 2020 MacCabe Park Wollongong
General tickets on sale 9.00am Friday October 18 from Moshtix
Comments