Dour Festival 2024

This July, Dour Festival erupts again. The festival, which has been active since 1988 (!) is huge: 5 brimming days with 230+ artists over 8 stages. Read more about this year’s mind-boggling line-up here. To help you through the bigger-than-life program, we figured we’d highlight some acts that stand out to us. Scroll down & explore. Also, Dour has been so kind to give-away a handful of tickets. Participate in the raffle here.

Arca

For over a decade, Arca’s music has been impossible to pigeonhole. It’s always been dizzying, elastic, wonky and existing on the fringes of reggaeton and deconstructed club. After a streak of format-defying long-form pieces and critically acclaimed albums, Arca released the five-part KiCK album series, collaborating with Björk, Rosalía, Sia, Oliver Coates & Ryuichi Sakamoto (RIP). The vortex of music has been described as “a sprawling, multidimensional picture of everythingness (Pitchfork).” Arca is a truly special artist—one who’s tilting music as we know it.

Sega Bodega

Sega Bodega is the moniker of Salvador Navarrete, who produces futuristic and kaleidoscopic art pop, and co-runs record label / collective NUXXE together with COUCOU CHLOE, Shygirl and Oklou. His music is a swirling, danceable and feverish dream. Navarrete has built a reputation as being one of the UK’s most precocious creative minds. On his latest record, Dennis, the prolific musician explores “the internet hive mind”, from a perspective of divine, rather than that of dystopian. Dennis is “club record to lose yourself in”, brimming with euphoric trance synths, acoustic guitar and floor-filling kick drums.

salome

Alongside sidekick Dviance on production, salome makes hard-hitting pop, shoegaze and electro. The Brussels-based artist lyrics depict “a constant search for peace and freedom, it is simple and incisive: cathartic. Currently unclassified and with anger as a driving force, she seeks her balance in the extremes.” Give her latest single TAB a spin here.

Hyperdub 20 Years

Two decades ago, back in 2004, Kode9 founded Hyperdub. Since then, the label had released an unrelenting stream of dubstep, 2-step, ambient, footwork & IDM. Amongst the chock-full discography: Untrue by Burial, Double Coup by DJ Rashad, Black is Beautiful by Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland and Quarantine by Laurel Halo. Together with Dour 2024, the iconic record label celebrate their 20th birthday with showcase performances by Kode9 & Flowdan, Loraine James and Tim Reaper.

bar itala

Hazy, crunchy and catchy, bar italia is a London-based band consisting of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi, and Sam Fenton. With last year’s Tracey Denim and The Twits, both released on Matador Records, the slacker rock trio have been turning heads. On both LP’s there’s no shortage of fuzzy riffs, danceable baggy beats and echoes of Velvet underground and Sonic Youth. “(…) music as the fountain of eternal youth, a timeless sentiment that hits especially hard on a record steeped in déjà vu (Pitchfork)”.