Global Rhythms: Import on their Kelburn Garden Party Takeover

On a dreich Wednesday afternoon, I meet Grace LaNasa, aka Buckfast Barbie, in anticipation of her Saturday takeover of The Saloon Bar at Kelburn Garden Party. Is the rain lashing against the coffee shop window a meteorological omen for the festival to come? We hope not. LaNasa tells me about her first time attending the festival three years before; discovering the Neverending Glen and the Waterfall Pool, volunteering in return for a ticket before spending nights dancing under a blanket of Ayrshire stars. “I fell in love with it the second I got there,” LaNasa says, a statement proven by her return every year since. 

From stewarding the site to working backstage at the Viewpoint Stage, LaNasa has seen the underbelly of the festival firsthand. So what does she want to impart on Kelburn? “When I pitched the idea, I knew I wanted to get as many people involved in this takeover as I possibly could. I wanted as many festival debuts [as] I could get and I wanted it to be a full FLINTA* lineup.” Her solution has been to programme a lineup of back-to-back sets from DJs within marginalised groups – whether that’s through gender, ethnicity or sexuality: “I wanted it to [represent] the femmes and the queers because that's who's bringing the heat and talent in Scotland right now.” 

LaNasa reflects on her own identity, having moved to Scotland from Minnesota four years previously: “I am a queer immigrant, [so] I'm trying to platform people with strong ties to both of those identities. I want to platform people that need that support and deserve it.” This philosophy is integral to LaNasa’s monthly Edinburgh club night, import; its name a reference to the global exchange of music, people and culture fundamental to nightlife. “Immigration is such a hot topic right now. Minnesota is where I'm from, [so] it's been very hard to watch everything that's going on with ICE,” she says, reflecting on the deadly Minnesota shootings carried out by federal immigration agents in January 2026.

With the UK implementing stricter immigration rules and the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK and US, creating a space where cultural migration and identity are celebrated has become all the more pressing. She considers her own situation since settling across the Atlantic, “I'm very privileged. I'm an American white woman in the UK, but what I need people to understand is immigration looks like that. Immigration is very diverse, [it] isn’t always people seeking refuge. Immigration can be anything and it's everywhere. It makes culture better because it's a blending of cultures, and that's what we need.” 

Grace LaNasa.

Blending cultures is exactly what import sets out to do, physically importing DJs and producers to Edinburgh who play music which falls under the umbrella genre of global bass. “I love global bass as a blanket term… I just find it exciting when people bring their background into what they do,” says LaNasa, whose club night has seen artists from Poland play Jersey club, Canada play hyper-pop and Lebanon play Arab bass. She mentions her own early musical influences: “I grew up going to a Spanish immersion school, so I [listened] to Spanish music all the time… I always found that I gravitated towards global bass sounds, whether it was Latin bass or looking at producers from all over the world,” she sums up her outlook unequivocally, “Having your identity tied into what you're doing is just inherent to good art.”

An aspect of identity set to be explored on the grounds of Kelburn Castle will be that of friendship. For many of the artists featured on import’s lineup, their relationships have been shaped through years standing shoulder to shoulder behind DJ decks. “Duos like Chromatic and shahazadi [are] used to playing with each other,” says LaNasa. “It's really nice to have somebody who you feel that give and take of energy [with], you're not trying to go too hard [and] you're not trying to subdue yourself.” LaNasa is joined in the early hours of Sunday by DJ and producer, al gu: “When we DJ together, it's like, flirting. It's like this bubble of love that I can't explain to anyone. Everyone on the dancefloor is like, ‘are they gonna kiss?’” Like passing a baton (or bottle of Buckfast) back and forth, the atmosphere is shaped by each DJ offering a piece of themselves over the nine-hour takeover. 

Grace LaNasa concludes, “The whole point of import isn't for me to platform myself. It's for me to boost other people and platform the talent that we have here.” Import’s Kelburn Garden Party takeover will surely do that, as festival goers congregate to dance in the spot LaNasa first came three years earlier. “I love a full circle moment. I'm constantly worried about being deported so I'm like, wow… I can't believe it. I get to see this [come] to fruition.” As sounds imported from across the globe ricochet through Kelburn’s glen, revellers gather in the same spirit of friendship that built the lineup itself.

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Import takes over The Saloon Bar at Kelburn Garden Party on 4 Jul; listen to Buckfast Barbie’s Kelburn Mixtape via Mixcloud