Festival Watch – March 2015

As thoroughly previewed overleaf, Liverpool’s grassroots Threshold Festival of Music & Arts returns to the Baltic Triangle for its fifth outing at the end of the month; expect more of its typically eclectic programming, with unknowns and local favourites among international acts; a true community feel, and, if you’re quick about it, cake (we’re told).

There’s something in the air on 14 Mar in Manchester – as well as LadyFest and the very last Carefully Planned All-Dayer (previewed in Gig Highlights, left), there’s a full day of strung-out space jams at Antwerp Mansion in the form of Cosmosis Alternative Festival of Psychedelic Music & Arts. Flanked by live art installations and craft and food stalls is a heady lineup led by a couple of pretty big names in new psychedelia, Dead Meadow and The Oscillation – while electronic/ambient duo O>L>A and singer-songwriter John Ainsworth are just two of the local acts populating a programme assembled by promoters Interstellar Overdrive and Remake Remodel.

The month of March really belongs, however, to lost weekends in, um, ‘romantically’ cold seaside resorts. Headlined by Venetian Snares and Squarepusher, Bangface Weekender will leave Pontins Southport horribly alone on the mother of all comedowns after celebrating its 100th event across the weekend of 20-22 Mar: other bill highlights include Alec Empire fresh from his Low on Ice revival at FutureEverything and the gravity-defying oscillations of London trombonist Bass Clef; plus Scottish techno veteran Neil Landstrumm, acid royal Luke Vibert and a whole load of other Planet Mu compadres to help celebrate 20 years of the uncompromising label.

For true holiday camp melancholia – and if you’ve yet forgiven them for that time in 2012 when you mooched back from the London Docklands to watch pilled up Germans dance on the Travelodge picnic tables instead of, y’know, loads of artists at a festival – you may want to take the trip southwest for Bloc Weekend, which returns with renewed gusto and a commitment to re-establishing what was a particularly successful brand – and, it has to be said, a familiarly flawless lineup. You can get the full lowdown over at theskinny.co.uk/clubs, but for now we’ll pick out Bristol bass unit Livity Sound, Hamburg’s analogue magus Helena Hauff, the unflappable Jeff Mills and the elliptical Dean Blunt.