Bestival 2015
Festival guide
Billed as “a salute to the original muses: Music, Freedom, Peace, Love and Euphoria” this year’s Bestival is based around the theme “Summer Of Love”, and boasts a line-up specifically designed to facilitate blissed-out fun, including The Chemical Brothers, Tame Impala and Jamie xx. If you’re headed to the Isle Of Wight between 10th and 13th September, check out our pick of the bill first.
Top picks
Missy Elliott
We scarcely realised how much we missed Missy Elliott ‘til she dropped in during this year’s Super Bowl half-time show. Turns out, not only is the Virginia-born rapper and super-producer still completely incredible live, her Zeitgeist-capturing compositions from the early 00s haven’t dated one bit. Don’t miss Missy leading the dance party at Bestival, where she’ll doubtless be dropping huge hits like ‘Work It’, ‘Get Ur Freak On’, ‘Gossip Folks’ and ‘Lose Control’, and perhaps even previewing fresh material from her as-yet-untitled seventh album.
LA Priest
LA Priest is the nom de guerre of Castle Donington’s Sam Dust, erstwhile frontman of much-beloved dance-punks Late of the Pier and former touring guitarist with Connan Mockasin. In June, Dust unveiled Inji, a full-length debut which was partially inspired by a field trip to Greenland (to study “the effects of the Ivittuut region’s electro-magnetic phenomena on recorded sound,”) and which found him cutting elements of psych and funk with more esoteric sounds. Be sure to check out his hallucinogenic, electro-pop gems at Bestival.
Flying Lotus
Fusing Dilla-esque hip-hop with the free jazz influences he doubtless inherited as great nephew of Alice Coltrane, Steven “Flying Lotus” Ellison has been impressing Warp aficionados with his neo-psychedelic electronica since 2008’s Los Angeles. The L.A.-based producer is currently touring 2014’s superb LP You’re Dead, and has created a spectacular live show to match, centred around a high-tech cube called Layer³ which projects supremely-trippy 3D animations. There’s a strict no-filming policy too, making Fly Lo’s Bestival set a must-see.