Multi-venue, Hackney takeover Visions Festival returns to London on 8 August for its third instalment. To guide us through the various acts performing across various nooks and crannies, one of the curators Dan Monsell, has made Q a Playlist of his personal picks from this year’s bill. “This is the third year of Visions Festival in London taking place across a variety of different arts spaces, warehouses, rooftop terraces, courtyards, social clubs and a church,” he explains. “The aim for us as organisers has always been for the whole event to feel like a great neighbourhood summer day and night in London, spent in the best kind of daze. We think this year is going to be the biggest and best yet. Here’s a playlist of some of our favourite tracks from acts playing the festival this year.”
Holy Fuck – Lovely Allen
“We were thrilled to announce that this band will return to UK for first time in five years to play Visions.”
Shamir – On the Regular (pictured)
“This track makes you sit-up from the first note and for me one of the best singles last year. Shamir is a real one-off and a unique talent, really exciting.”
Hinds – Bamboo
“This song from the all-girl Spanish four-piece sounds like a strung out summer day, kicking around and having fun. Perfect for Visions – we even used it for our announcement trailer.”
Girl Band – Lawman
“Love this new Irish band. Signed to Rough Trade. Big thump of a track for a bleak post-punk disco this. They’re really fantastic live too.”
The Antlers – French Exit
“The Antlers have so much texture and beauty in their music, whilst also being such interesting songwriters. I like how this one is like a romantic 50s pop cut, but also sounds really modern.”
Camera Obscura – French Navy
We’ve added a great big church this year to the festival where Camera Obscura, The Antlers and Jens Lekman will play which should be brilliant. This Camera Obscura track is the band at their dreamy summer days best.
Andy Stott – Faith In Strangers
“Title track from such an adventurous and brilliant record. Stott has always been great but this record is just so good and inventive, and gets better every listen.”
Peaking Lights – All The Sun Shines
“Great dub duo from LA, Peaking Lights make great records and live they’re this incredibly warped dub-rave duo and really good fun.”
Loyle-Carner – Cantona
“Loyle is a frighteningly good young rapper from Croydon, and only around 20 years old or so. This track is a perfect intro to him.”
The Big Moon – Sucker
“Like Sleater Kinney with more of a Britpop twist, The Big Moon are a London all-girl four piece. Live they’re all such individual characters, but it works really well as a unit.”
Ho99o9 – Bone Collector
“Ho99o9 are a total thriller of a band. Live it’s all punk and crazy with them in the crowd but they’re still hip hop group too. Big ones to watch.”
Oscar – Daffodil Days
“Oscar reminds me of Graham Coxon if he’d not had Blur and was a new artist today, but maybe in more of an aesthetic sense of how he approaches everything, than the music himself, if that makes any sense at all. He’s an indie superstar in waiting…”
For more, including the full line-up and latest ticket news, head to Visionsfestival.com.
