Goldfrapp, The Stranglers and Basement Jaxx to headline Lunar Festival

The headliners will be joined by Amadou and Mariam, Songhoy Blues, The Go! Team, Crazy P, Hookworm, A Guy Called Gerald, Jane Weaver, Boy Azoog, The Unthanks, Blackash, Trojan Sound System, Dam Suzuki, The Pretty Things and Henge.

Mark Radcliffe’s Galleon Blast will also feature as will former World Champion snooker star Steve Davis, who reinvented himself as a DJ.

Davis was the most successful professional Snooker Player of the 1980’s, winning a total of 28 major ranking events including six World Championships. In recent years his involvement in snooker has been limited mainly to TV punditry, which has given him far more time to indulge in his musical hobby, namely collecting left field music from around the globe and presenting a weekly Radio show on PhoenixFM and monthly residency on NTS Radio with Kavus Torabi.

His favourite band is Magma and it was well documented that at the end of the 80s he brought them to London for a series of shows. His musical tastes range from quality 70’s Prog, Canterbury and Zeuhl through to modern day Rock in Opposition and Avant-Progressive and further into left-field electronica and IDM.

A spokesman for the event says fans were in for an exceptional weekend at Lunar. “Above all else Lunar is a music festival and those that have been before will know our line-up is well crafted and eclectic with absolutely no space fillers. 2018 will be no different, expect to see the best in Psychedelia, Electronica, Americana, World/Roots and all sorts of genre-defying but fundamentally great music.

“After the live music finishes on the Lunar Stage, you have a rich choice of high calibre DJs and audio–visual treats to keep you entertained into the small hours.

“We will also have a number of talks and debates at the festival, aimed at providing different perspectives on life in modern Britain. Topics will include health, the environment, literature, UK culture and more.”

Goldfrapp will be among the most popular bands at this weekend’s event, with Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory playing a greatest hits set. They released their seventh album, Silver Eye, last year, which debuted at number six on the UK chart.

“I think writing an album is like being lost in a wood,” says Will Gregory. “You’re trying to figure out an interesting path. You don’t know whether it’s going to be a dead end or somewhere interesting and you never know when to stop because around the corner some beautiful vista might open up.”

Alison and Will have been finding new paths through the forest since their 2000 debut album Felt Mountain, never going the same way twice. “We’ve never liked repeating ourselves,” says Alison. “Often we react to things we’ve just done. We like the spontaneity of not knowing. It’s only through the process that we start to figure out what it is. The fans who have stuck with us are the ones who embrace that idea and are excited by the thought that they don’t know quite what to expect next.”

If 2013’s Tales of Us, a set of noirish folk fables, roamed the same pastoral landscape as Felt Mountain and Seventh Tree, then Silver Eye (a reference to the moon) belonged to the pulsing, electronic lineage of Black Cherry and Supernature only deeper and darker.

The common thread between these two modes, apart from the consistently exquisite arrangements and Alison’s extraordinary voice, was a set of enduring preoccupations, which informed both the lyrics and the visual aesthetic.

The Stranglers are perennial favourites and were on the road earlier this year with their Definitive Tour.

Audiences can expect to be swept up high on the wave of The Stranglers’ powerful sound during what is always an exhilarating live experience.