Going to the Island with Open Ear Festival

The avant-electronic and experimental Irish music festival Open Ear returns to Sherkin Island on the June Bank Holiday weekend. Open Ear is known for its preoccupation with illuminating music operating on the fringes, and the remote island setting of Sherkin Island off the coast of Baltimore in West Cork reflects this outsider ethos.

The varied programme is drawn from electronic, techno, experimental folk and trad, jazz EBM, bass music and art rock, and this year features the likes of Irish techno legend Sunil Sharpe, Scottish piper Brìghde Chaimbeul, Cork sean nos rockers I Dreamed I Dream, Belfast Sound Advice record shop owner Marion Hawkes, Limerick rap and production duo Citrus Fresh and 40Hurtz, Catalan/Italian EBM duo Dame Area, Autechre collaborator Rob Hall, and lots more. The programme features one artist at a time across various stages on Sherkin including the infamous Banger Cliff. I spoke to Open Ear head of programming Dion Doherty aka Belacqua about the challenges and uniqueness of putting on an experimentally-minded festival on an island and as it approaches its 10th year, how its planning to grow its European partnerships and unearths Irish music of the underground.

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