Blue­dot fes­ti­val announce a spe­cial late-night pro­gramme cul­mi­nat­ing on Sun­day when Max Coop­er and MESH are to pre­miere a unique A/V sound­scape, with accom­pa­ny­ing bespoke pro­jec­tions on the 50-metre Lovell tele­scope. Groove Arma­da were just one of the head­lin­ers last year using the tele­scope to beam awe-inspir­ing pro­jec­tions over the site (pho­to above).

Here’s the plan, night by night…

*** Friday night ***

Left­field head­line Friday’s late night at blue­dot, fol­low­ing the crit­i­cal­ly-acclaimed new album This Is What We Do, fea­tur­ing poet Lemn Sis­say and Fontaines D.C.’s Gri­an Chat­ten. Their last per­for­mance at Blue­dot was a mem­o­rable one in 2017 (Left­field at blue­dot), so it’s great to see them return­ing. Their head­line per­for­mance in bluedot’s Orbit are­na will be an all-out assault of bass-laden live elec­tron­i­ca and AV. Under­ground icon David Holmes will also per­form a genre-span­ning set on Fri­day night.

*** Saturday night ***

In a fresh addi­tion to this year’s inter­stel­lar line-up, elec­tron­ic pio­neers 2manydjs close the Orbit are­na. The Dewaele broth­ers descend on Jodrell Bank 21 years on from the infa­mous As Heard On Radio Soul­wax Part 2, hav­ing recent­ly head­lined a sold-out Print­works London.

Join­ing 2manydjs is Erol Alkan, the DJ and pro­duc­er behind some of elec­tron­ic music’s best loved remix­es of recent years and the founder of Phan­ta­sy, the record label home of Daniel Avery, Red Axes and Alkan’s own Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve project.

Along­side Left­field, 2manydjs and Erol Alkan as part of bluedot’s line-up is the cre­ator of BBC1’s ‘Essen­tial Mix of the Year’ in 2021 and founder of record label Femme Cul­ture, British pro­duc­er and DJ Elk­ka, plus Future Utopia, the pro­duc­tion project of Fras­er T Smith, whose song­writ­ing and pro­duc­tion cred­its include col­lab­o­ra­tions with Stor­mzy, Adele and Dave. His 2023 return kick-start­ed with We Were We Still Are, his new sin­gle with blue­dot favourite Kae Tempest.

*** Sunday night ***

The week­end will cul­mi­nate with Max Coop­er sound­track­ing an ambi­ent AV art piece pro­ject­ed on the sur­face of the 200-foot Lovell Tele­scope, fol­low­ing a spe­cial 3D/AV immer­sive show in the Orbit are­na. And Annie Mac will wrap up the week­end as she head­lines the Sun­day night Clos­ing Party.

blue­dot opens on Thurs­day night with its tra­di­tion­al open­ing Con­cert from Max Richter and the BBC Con­cert Orches­tra per­form­ing VOICES and Recom­posed. Róisín Mur­phy takes top spot on Fri­day evening’s Lovell Stage after Djan­go Djan­go and Black Coun­try, New Road, while lo-fi pio­neers Pave­ment head­line Sat­ur­day along­side Dry Clean­ing, Malian desert blues pio­neers Tinari­wen and cul­ture from Moon­age Day­dream cre­ator Brett Mor­gen and Nish Kumar. Young Fathers fol­lowed by Grace Jones will close the festival.

Infor­ma­tion and tick­ets from discoverthebluedot.com