BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction has announced the details of its first festival, taking place on 28 February and 1 March at a new London venue, EartH in Hackney, in conjunction with The Barbican. 

‘We’ve long curated stages at other festivals and we have a history of doing live music in the Late Junction sessions,’ producer Alannah Chance told The Journal of Music. ‘The dream has always been to do something a little bit broader where we can be 100% Late Junction.’

The festival will be headlined by experimental trio This is Not This Heat and electronic artist Gazelle Twin, and will feature performances from artist collectives like O Yama O and Curl. There will also be live versions of Late Junction’s ‘Collaboration Session’, which will see improvisations from musicians who have never played together before. 

Art world / music world
This year marks 20 years since Late Junction’s first broadcast presented by Fiona Talkington. Talkington has been joined since by regular presenters Verity Sharp, Max Reinhardt and Nick Luscombe, each of whom bring their own musical interests.

It doesn’t focus just on avant-garde classical music, or experimental music within a certain realm, it’s more united by approach than genre.

The approach is adventure… Adventurous, taking risks and being playful with sound. In some ways it draws as much from the art world as the music world; it’s where the art world and music world cross over…this is the grey area where people’s musical practices are quite conceptual.

Unclassifiable acts
It was important to Chance and the show producers that the festival also reflected this approach, and that it showcased both ‘groundbreaking, unclassifiable acts’ that aren’t known yet, such as new band Pulled by Magnets, and musicians they have long-standing relationships with.

This includes artists such as show regular Mica Levi with her new collective Curl, or Richard Dawson – who has guest presented on the show – with his new ‘crazy synth-pop band’ Hen Ogledd.

Headlining the first night will be Gazelle Twin, an electronic artist who ‘talks a lot to what’s going on in Britain at the moment, and in a kind of grotesque, carnival-esque, creepy football hooligan persona!’ 

The producers also asked the musicians to ‘play with the space a little bit’, to do things outside the normal form of a concert so artists like O Yama O will be using the venue’s quadraphonic sound system and integrating audience interaction into their performance. ‘It’s recognisable, but also pushing the envelope!’, says Chance.

For the full festival line-up and tickets, visit https://earthackney.co.uk/calendar/latejunctionfestival-2