Acid Horse is back for its fourth outing with DJ sets from Regis, Dyslecta and Slav To The Rhythm plus live music from Matmos, The Utopia Strong, Scotch Rolex, Rattle, Milkweed and Haress. The three-day, two stage micro festival, which runs Friday to Sunday 23-25 May on the Spring Bank Holiday Weekend, is held at The Barge Inn, Honeystreet, Wiltshire.
Tickets for the festival plus camping are £150 per adult with accompanied kids of 15 and under a tenner each, and there are some limited provisions for glamping and concessions. The festival is family friendly with a small play area for children, flint napping workshops and Warhammer figure painting. There will be a number of independent food vendors on site for the weekend.
The current line up includes live music (and neolithic tool making) from 2rana 3crana / Will Attard (flint knapping workshops) / GRRZZZ / Haress / Hitiloma with The Seer / William Doyle / Karl D’Silva / MacGillivray / Material Object / Matmos / Michael / MPTL Microplastics / Milkweed / Molch / Oh Mr James / Rattle / Scotch Rolex (live) / Sealionwoman / Seth Cooke / Soborgnost / Teleplasmiste / The Utopia Strong / Two Form a Click feat. Astral Social Club / Urthona.
The DJ line up includes Mat Colegate / Dyslecta / Gary Meat Feast / REGIS / Slav To The Rhythm with more to be announced.
Acid Horse started life in 2021 as a joint 50th birthday party for tQ editor John Doran and two pals, thrown with the essential guidance of Mark Pilkington, of Strange Attractor Press, held just up the road from where the two of them live, in the “wilds” of Neolithic Wiltshire. The real purpose of the event was an excuse for people to get together after the dislocating effects of three successive COVID lockdowns, with many attendees not having seen live music for over a year (or having seen people outside of their bubble or household for the same amount of time or more).
The event was so special – featuring live music from Sex Swing, Sly and the Family Drone, UKAEA, Hawthonn and Ashtray Navigation – Doran & Pilkington decided to turn it into a micro festival to support psychedelic, avant garde and oddball culture from the West Country and elsewhere. And now entering its fourth year, it has grown into a two stage, three day festival, and previous bills have included Surgeon, Shovel Dance Collective, Alison Cotton, Ex-Easter Island Head, Justin Robertson, Wacław Zimpel, John Francis Flynn, Lias Saoudi, Secluded Bronte, Proteus, Hey Colossus, Bulbils, Kavus Torabi, Eric Chenaux, Mohammad Syfkhan, Teeth of the Sea, Sophie Coletta, Xylitol, Sculpture and many more.
The Barge Inn, is a longstanding countercultural nexus in Wiltshire, having deep connections to free festival, off grid rave and crop circle culture of the late 20th Century, reflected in its proximity to the earthworks, hill forts and long barrows of the Ridgeway and the modern Alton Barnes chalk horse after which the festival is named (alongside the short lived Ministry/Cabaret Voltaire side project with the same name, of course). The Kennet and Avon Canal runs straight past the pub making a houseboat or peddalo or windsurf board notionally ideal modes of transport (as well as walking or cycling along the towpath) unless you have a tendency to drink then fall into canals. Otherwise people can either drive or get the train from London, Bristol or the West Country.
