The annual Castles in Space festival of electronic music, featuring the best proponents of the genre, brought together in a beautiful venue with EXCLUSIVE merch only available on the day. This year’s stellar line-up includes the following artists:
Lo Five
Lo Five is the experimental electronic ambient handle of Neil Grant, who since 2015 has been creating sounds inspired by early rave, 80s Japanese ambient, field recordings, soundtracks and early idm – all used to communicate an ongoing interest in secular spirituality, human consciousness, non-duality and the self.Lo Five will be releasing his next album, Superdank, on Castles in Space’s Lunar Module CD imprint in November of this year.
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Jo Johnson
During three-decades, Jo Johnson’s musical journey has serpentined from punk to techno and contemplative electronic minimalism. During 2025, Jo is writing and releasing a slow album, Alterations, track-by-track via the Bandcamp platform. Accompanying this is her Alterations Remnants project, monthly subscriber-only reworks, field recordings, notes, photography and explanatory notes.
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Loula Yorke
Loula Yorke is a UK-based composer, sound artist and modular synthesist. She has become increasingly prolific over the years, in 2024 alone she dropped the hypnotically looping Volta album on Truxalis, completed a long-form ambient excursion called speak, thou vast and venerable head for quiet details and issued a new vinyl version of her A Man On a Galloping Horse Wouldn’t See It LP via Castles in Space. Next up she’s releasing Time is a Succession of Such Shapes, an album of music created during the first year of the monthly mixtape project – out in early August.
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Pulselovers
Pulselovers (Doncaster producer, Mat Handley) has been an active project since 2015. Influences come from 70s/80s German and UK electronic, post punk and experimental music, childhood filtered memories and a sense of time and place. Albums are produced using analogue synthesisers, percussion, field recordings and tape loops. Collaborative contributions come from friends and allies utilising more organic instrumentation (strings, skins and wind). Pulselovers have released albums on Polytechnic Youth, Subexotic and Castles in Space with a fourth volume of “Northern Minimalism” coming in August via the new CiS CD imprint Lunar Module. For Levitation, Mat will be joined by long term collaborator John Alexander (Floodlights) on guitar. Expect live favourites and new music from the next (as yet unfinished) album.
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Field Lines Cartographer
From the chimeric Dreamtides for Castles In Space, to the insectile mystery and skittering echoic arpeggios of Formic Kingdom for Woodford Halse, or the stunning Tone Maps for the Quiet Details imprint, Mark Burford’s music is intensely emotive and unfathomably deep. FLC has received airplay support from Gideon Coe, Deb Grant and Tom Ravenscroft on BBC 6 Music, as well as inclusion on streaming shows and mixes from the likes of Anthony Child (Surgeon) and James Holden, to name just two. While the textural detail and dynamic shifts inherent in all of FLC’s work carry through to his live shows, the performance is mostly stripped back to a couple of hardware synthesisers, effortlessly mixing analogue and digital in a masterclass of restraint and balance.
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James Adrian Brown
James Adrian Brown is the former lead guitarist of the alternative rock band Pulled Apart By Horses. Brown’s solo work is heavily electronica-based, utilising analogue synths alongside tape machines, piano, strings, and immersive ambient atmospherics. He has received support from the likes of Gideon Coe on BBC 6 Music and Chris Hawkins, who championed him for creating “massive electronic soundscapes in a Mogwai kind of world.” James was also featured on BBC Radio 3’s Unclassified by host Elizabeth Alker. His debut album is set to be released on the revered UK electronic label Castles In Space, marking a significant new chapter in his journey as a solo artist.
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Stone Anthem
Stone Anthem is an experimental ambient project that explores the fragile boundary between serenity and disarray. Known for sculpting immersive soundscapes from modular synthesis, field recordings, with hushed and haunting vocals, Stone Anthem’s work is deeply rooted in atmosphere and emotion. The upcoming album, Where Trees Go To Die, was born in solitude – originally composed in a remote Spanish mountain hamlet where the surrounding forests and stillness left a profound imprint on the sound. The result is a dense, slow-unfolding journey through organic textures, dissonant beauty, and meditative drones.
