MUSIC: New Ruins Festival

Since the sad demise of Tusk Festival (and the closure of The Old Police House), Tyneside has lacked a truly innovative experimental music festival, something to stand shoulder to shoulder with Supernormal, Colour Out Of Space and the like. Meanwhile, The Lubber Fiend has been the most welcome and radical addition to the Newcastle live scene in years. So it feels natural that what feels like a natural successor to Tusk should emerge from that magnificent venue hidden away on Blandford Street.

Taking place at the Lubber Fiend and its sister restaurant, Lubber Kitchen, from Thursday 17th-Sunday 20th September, New Ruins Festival has a genuinely exciting programme, an affordable ticket price and the inclusive, friendly vibes you’ve come to expect from the good people of the Fiend. It features artists and producer at the cutting edge of noise rock, dancefloor explorations, post-punk, electronics, acoustic art and more in a line-up that might not be packed with household names but will be catnip to the noiseniks and beathounds of the North East.

Sweden’s Maria W Horn is an insanely talented artist, working in everything from chamber music to electro-acoustics. Rashad Becker is internationally acclaimed for being at the forefront of studio wizardry and electronic experimentation. Smote are local heroes, serving up speaker-damaging sheets of beautiful, ritualistic psych-noise. O Yuki Conjugate are a shifting entity, offering their brand of ‘dirty ambient’ for more than four decades.  The Shits are an ugly, UGLY proposition, hailing from a Leeds / Newcastle interzone where only Brainbombs and The Stooges matter. Meagre Offerings’ Formless Oblation Band is a collective built around the Lubber’s experimental music night, with an all-star line-up of local contact-mic-botherers. Pefkin is a witch, summoning misty vales and blasted heaths with her tabletop of electronics and her violin. Sallad Egg is DJ Sally Evans, whose closing set will join the dots between post-punk and psych. Bristol’s isha will bring the bass pressure, ever unpredictable and forward thinking. Dictaphone nina and Newcastle noise legend Possett will be appearing with Beer Fear to create a symphony of unease. And there’s about a dozen more acts besides.

Tickets are priced at £85 for the full four days (with a £60 low / no wage option) and there are day tickets and membership options up for grabs too. Tickets and further information can be found here.