The avant-electronic and experimental music festival Open Ear returns to Sherkin Island this June Bank Holiday weekend May 29th from June 1st this year.
The festival has just announced its first lineup names. The festival is known for its preoccupation with music operating on the fringes, and the remote island setting echoes that sensibility.
The programme is drawn from electronic, techno, experimental folk and trad, jazz EBM, bass music and art rock.
Playing on the Island that weekend are:
- Americhord
- Anodyne
- Autumns & Kahn
- Baliboc
- Bea Brennan & Minced Oath
- Brìghde Chaimbeul
- Chord Memory
- Citrus Fresh & 40Hurtz
- Commissions
- Dame Area
- DJ Egg
- DJ Firmeza
- DJ Marcelle
- Elaine Malone
- I Dreamed I Dream
- Jonezy
- Little O
- Marion Hawkes
- Natalia Beylis & Willie Stewart
- NCW
- No Place Like Drone
- Péist
- Rob Hall
- Rob Ireson
- RÓIS
- Rosita Moulin
- Sunil Sharpe
- TFT
- Trá Pháidin
- Zkeletonz
Open Ear Tickets
Final release, Instalment & Campervan tickets are now available via Resident Advisor
Glamping options here
Open Ear Information
Here’s what the festival says
In 2024 Open Ear set new standards for itself, traversing across beaches, churches & abbeys alongside our traditional home of Banger Cliff situated on the north shore of Sherkin. 2025 will again bring a diversity of sounds across the Island in what is the most expansive, varied and straight-up exciting programme yet…
As we see a new generation of artists explore traditional folk music through an experimental lens, meshing with modern genres to create some of the most exciting music of our times Open Ear is thrilled to be showcasing the trance-inducing smallpipes virtuoso Brìghde Chaimbeul, RÓIS’ meshing of sean-nos, electronics & jazz harmony, the polished chaos of Trá Pháidín’s collage of folk, jazz and art rock and Elaine Malone’s mélange of psychedelic folk & shoegaze.
Irish techno ambassador Sunil Sharpe may be a name recognisable to most but the lesser known but no-less vital Anodyne and Americhord have put their names to some of the finest techno releases to ever come out of Ireland and 2025 will see them both bring their live sets to Banger Cliff.
Coming from further afield to twist the OE dancefloor into further unrecognisable shapes is Autechre collaborator Rob Hall, the freewheeling, cult stylings of Amsterdam’s DJ Marcelle, Barcelona’s punk-infused EBM instigators Dame Area and DJ Firmeza, a member of Lisbon’s revered Príncepe Discos crew.
Collaboration has become a vital element to the Open Ear programme and this year will be no different as we present new works from Minced Oath & Bea Brennan, The collision of Autumns’ Derry Dub Wave and with Kahn’s Bristolian dread bass, the domestic disorder of Natalia Beylis & Willie Stewart and a brand new project Zkeletonz, more of which will be revealed of in the coming weeks…
And that is just the tip of the iceberg of what will be unfolding across Sherkin Island on the June Bank Holiday weekend.
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