Electric Fields, Scotland’s most exciting new music festival, is proud to announce that Fat White Family, Field Music, Honeyblood and Eliza & The Bearwill join the two day bill at 17th Century Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries & Galloway on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th August.
“Electric Fields is all about bringing the best music to our audience in this incredible location,” says festival co-founder Nick Roberts. “We’re proud to welcome these amazing bands to the lineup. They each bring something unique and powerful to a bill that we think is the best for music lovers, and the best value, anywhere in the country this summer.”
Electric Fields also announces today that the second stage will be renamed The Stewart Cruickshank Stage in association with Tenement TV. Stewart, who sadly passed away late last year, was a champion of new music throughout his long career as a radio producer at the BBC and beyond.
“Stewart Cruickshank was a true Scottish music hero,” says Nick. “He was part of the fabric of music radio in Scotland and the UK for 35 years, giving a much-needed platform to new bands from Scotland and bringing us the best new music from wherever he could find it. With the blessing of his wife Lorraine, we’re proud to acknowledge his exceptional contribution to our musical heritage by naming our second stage in his honour.”
Fat White Family have built a formidable reputation for putting on the most uncompromising and anarchic live show in the world right now. Their unrelenting passion and commitment to their craft, bourne out on their 2013 debut album Champagne Holocaust and this year’s Songs For Our Mothers, has seen them thrill audiences across the globe in a way few other bands can challenge.
The smart money’s on Field Music being one of the highlights of Electric Fields 2016. Impossible to pigeon-hole, rooted in indie but branching out into all kinds of rarely-explored territory, the band’s sixth album Commontime is melodic but never obvious, lush but never overblown and spiky in all the right places. With an endorsement last year from Prince, no less, they are undoubtedly one of the most excitingly creative bands around right now and a perfect addition to this year’s lineup.
Honeyblood are no strangers to Electric Fields, having played a blinder at the festival in it’s first year in 2014. Drawing influences from The Breeders, PJ Harvey and Throwing Muses, they were hand-picked to support Foo Fighters at Murrayfield in Edinburgh last summer and are currently working on their eagerly anticipated second album.
The addictive chant from ‘Friends’ the opening track fro Eliza and the Bear’s self-titled album could have been written with Electric Fields in mind: “I got friends, I got family here.” It’s the calling card for a band who deliver festival-friendly, indie-pop anthems with a joyous inclusivity which lifts the spirit, even as it occasionally touches a melancholy nerve. We advise getting the album in advance – you don’t want to miss out on the inevitable sing-alongs they will inspire.