Other Worlds 2016: Festival Watch

With all due respect to the good burghers of Blackpool, it isn’t necessarily the first town that comes to mind when adjectives such as cerebral, eclectic or (even) terpsichorean are bandied about; Kiss Me Kwik clichés and the lyrics to Morrissey’s Everyday Is Like Sunday arrive far more fully formed, promenading between the piers on another soggy weekend.

Which is quite possibly the point; if lazy perceptions exist to be challenged, then Blackpool’s own Must Die Records – the DIY label responsible for an array of outsider music releases over the past half-decade – might just be the gang to do it.

Cue Other Worlds festival, which if last year’s maiden outing is anything to go by, will this April be serving up another unpredictable helping from the sensual delicatessen. Part intimate music festival, part audiovisual experience, 2015 saw the likes of Gnod, Ceramic Hobs and Evil Blizzard sharing a stage with Lithuanian performance art and American instrumental steampunk (to give but a flavour).

In an era where festivals have become ubiquitous – the same old acts traipsing from field to field to out-of-season holiday camp – there’s something elementally refreshing in the quest for something different.  

“Our motivation was to bring something new and exciting to the Northwest,” explains festival co-director Rick Thompson as the team put the finishing touches to this year’s event. “Something that we ourselves would want to attend.

“We were overwhelmingly pleased with the response generated by the original festival – the reaction was far more positive than we had ever imagined when we first had the idea.”

So no pressure with this year’s shindig? “We’ve got acts we've enjoyed seeing live, acts we've always wanted to see live, and acts that have got in touch asking to play. We believe that music is universal; our only ethos is to put on artists that we like and want to watch, whether they’re from Dubai or from Bacup.”

With acts as diverse as Laura Cannell, The Perverts, Tirikilatops and an opening night curated by Middle Eastern collective Tse Tse Fly on the cards, Other Worlds also prides itself on its accessibility. “Four days of incredible music, and all for £30,” Thompson confirms. “We're trying to keep the cost as low as we can to make the festival accessible to as many people as possible. With B&Bs in Blackpool as inexpensive as they are, it would be silly to stay at home.”

Expect the unexpected with your bacon and eggs, in other words.

“Tirikilatops have promised they will be making magic balloon hats on stage,” admits Thompson. But should kimchi beats, offbeat lyrics, hacked keyboards or earworm melodies not be your bag, there’s still plenty at Other Worlds to whet cultural appetites.

Highlights will include sets from Newcastle’s lost-at-sea troubadour Richard Dawson, the cartoon textures of Paddy Steer, and the Sound Book Project, an intriguing collaboration between artists and musicians who use books as musical instruments.

Bongoleeros will be fusing rockabilly with street performance – hopefully not at the same time as Some Some Unicorn’s big-band drone hits the stage. And if the musique concrète trappings of Left Hand Cuts Off The Right don’t float your flotilla, an evening of Tse Tse Fly’s unique brand of Middle Eastern sound art just might; they've plans to subvert the hackneyed club-night formula with a barrage of experimental noise and deceptive video art.