Sage Gateshead is offering curious music lovers and fans of experimental music and performance the opportunity to sample some of the world’s most unusual music, film and exhibitions at the 7th annual TUSK festival.
The diverse programme of adventurous international music performances boasts a number of UK debuts and acts from 10 countries across the world, most of which rarely perform for such large audiences. The opportunity to experience such an unusual and uncompromising line up is complemented by talks and workshops, and TUSK’s increasingly essential film programme featuring 5 hours of underground exclusives across 2 days, plus exhibitions and more at Sage Gateshead, The Old Police House, Workplace Gallery and Shipley Art Gallery.
The festival has gone from strength to strength since it launched in 2011, moving to its current base Sage Gateshead in 2016. It continues to offer audiences the chance to hear unclassifiable music and genre transcendent performances they would not get the chance to experience anywhere else in the country.
The festival will feature performances from more than 20 musical acts over the three day programme, including a very rare performance form seminal UK experimenters Nurse With Wound, Swedish punk schlockers Brainbombs making their first visit to the UK, dark Irish psych-folk collective United Bible Studies, metropolitan hip-hop artist Klein,who will be performing ahead of her new album release on Hyperdub, and Canadian electronic artist Kara-Lis Coverdale.
Other artists taking the stage include Beatrice Dillon with her unique take on techno, the beautifully fragile Brigid Mae Power, Valerio Tricoli, exponent of electro-acoustica in its purest forms, and prolific recording artist Andrew Liles, giving a rare live performance. All the live performances at Sage Gateshead will again be streamed live too and later archived on the TUSK website, which now hosts over 70 archived, high quality recordings of performances from previous TUSKs.
TUSK 2017’s exhibitions will also present work by Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton, the UK’s playful art explorers Juneau Projects, US visual artist and sleeve designer Kate Widdows and UK mechanical techno boffin Graham Dunning.
Tamsin Austin, Director of Performance Programming at Sage Gateshead, said: “I always look forward to TUSK, it’s like sampling one of the world’s most eclectic aural taster menus! From the most ethereal space folk through minimal tech and electronica to the darkest most sinister noise and experimental performance, there’s never a dull moment! The programme draws together an impressively diverse range of artists from Gateshead and across the globe.
“Fans of experimental music will be thrilled to see rare performances by Nurse with Wound and Brainbombs, however curious music fans who do not recognise a single name on the bill should not be deterred. TUSK is about musical discovery and testing the outer reaches of your listening and I encourage everyone to dive in!”
Lee Etherington, organiser of the TUSK festival, said: “We produce TUSK Festival for two chief reasons – to enrich the region’s musical landscape by bringing artists from across the globe that have never appeared here before and to create opportunities for unheard regional and UK artists we admire to perform on this major stage. In doing so we present a 3-day programme of leftfield music and related arts that is unique in its diversity.
“Since 2011 we’ve presented genre-bending artists from around 30 countries. Last year’s move to Sage also saw us achieve our largest live audience to date and we expect to exceed that this year.”
The TUSK festival runs from 13th 15th October 2017.
Tickets are on sale now, with full weekend passes (£60) and day tickets (£21.80) available from http://www.sagegateshead.com/event/tusk-festival-2017/.
Full information on all acts is available at http://www.tuskfestival.com