Nozstock // Foreign concept Q&A

Nozstock festival is kicking off this Friday in Herefordshire, and regardless of the weather forecast we are seriously excited! (It can’t be a farm without mud any way, right!?)

The sublime Nozstock The Hidden Valley festival has just announced its second wave of names, plus a brand new stage, The Elephant’s Grave and the new area Bluejay’s Jazz Lounge.

Curated by the father and daughter duo of Noz and Ella and a huge extended family who work across the entire festival, there’s a unique charm and energy to Nozstock unlike anything else in the country. Reaching its momentous 19^th year this summer, Nozstock is an enchanting adventure nestled in gorgeous rolling hills.

With this line up we just couldn’t resist:

New artists include The Sugarhill Gang, Hayseed Dixie, Levelz, Ferocious Dog, Goldie Lookin’ Chain, The Baghdaddies, Le Galaxie, Freestylers and Benny Page, who join the already announced Seasick Steve, Happy Mondays, General Levy, Ocean Wisdom, Mungo’s Hi-Fi, Beans on Toast, Rodney P & Skitz, The Correspondents, Krafty Kuts & Dynamite MC, Delta Heavy and the Critical family will be in full force presenting 15 years of Critical, featuring Break, Ivy lab, Kasra and Foreign concept.

We caught up with Foreign concept to ask a few questions ahead of Nozstock, have a read!

Nozstock was shortlisted in more categories than any other festival at the UK Festival awards 2016, if you were to award festivals you have attended in the below 3 categories, which would they be, and why?

–Best line-up: Bit of an obvious one but probably Glastonbury. There’s an insane amount of different music there!
— Best stage design: Boomtown. You can tell they put a lot of consideration into their stage design and they look better every year I’ve been
–Best sound & lighting: Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. The lighting there was insane!
–Best vibe: Sequences festival in Bristol. They had the first one last year but it was vibey from start to finish!

One of my Glastonbury 2016 highlights was your early morning B2B set with Kasra at the Temple; was this one of your career highlights? Have any other sets particularly stood out for you since then?

Yeah that was my first time at Glastonbury and definitely a memorable one, especially as the sun came up revealing the mud covered ravers! Playing the main stage at Boomtown last year was also definitely a career highlight!

Sam Binga answered a few questions for us ahead of Sequences Festival in Bristol; He mentioned the need for more small venues in Bristol; As a fellow Bristolian do you agree.. and do you prefer playing a small intimate gig or a huge stage festival event?

I’d agree with Sam on that one. The bigger clubs naturally have a tendency to cater musically for a larger audience, and without smaller venues it’s harder to give a platform to more underground, or lesser established artists.

I love playing smaller gigs as there’s so much more connection with the crowd (which is for me the point of Djing). Saying that though, playing big festivals looks sick on Instagram.

This is your first time at Nozstock, what are you most looking forward to from the festival and the line-up?

I’ve heard some really good things from people that have been so excited to check it out. Haven’t seen the set times for the other stages yet but I’m hoping I can check out the Happy Mondays!

Nozstock is run by father daughter duo Noz and Ella with some saying this is the reason for it’s unique charm, with that in mind have you ever collaborated musically with any of your family members?

I’ve written some music for my uncle’s project Soundbeam, which allows people with physical disabilities to trigger musical notes and sounds from body movements via sensors. Also my Dad’s a bassist and we’re actually in the process of making some music at the moment funnily enough!

 It seems stage design at festivals are becoming more elaborate by the year, with DJ booths disguised as everything from a washing machine to a spiders head; what is the most unusual stage you have DJ’d on?

I played out of a converted ford transit once at a free party in Brighton. It looked like they’d literally just sawed it in half and shoved some decks in there!

I understand ‘Skit City EP’ was inspired by a graphic novel by ‘Jack Ramsay’, after looking at the intricate maps of the city designed for the novel, I can just imagine a festival city created with the same inspiration, is there is any potential for a future ‘Skit city’ event?

Interesting! We had a launch party for the book and EP in Bristol earlier in the year but no plans for an actual Skit City themed event-I’ll certainly pitch him the idea though!

I can see you have a seriously busy line-up of events on the horizon over the next few months, what are you most looking forward to? Are there any future projects you would like to share with us?

Really looking forward to Sequences Festival next weekend and then Let it roll the week after. At the moment I’m working on my next project for Critical Music so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Thanks Matt, see you at Nozstock this weekend!

The award-winning festival will be looking to best its 2016 achievements: shortlisted more than any other in the UK Festival Awards, winner A Greener Festival Award, winner Best Festival in the Visit Herefordshire Awards (with partner festival Hereford River Carnival), and Outstanding Attitude Award for access efforts.

With that in mind, grab a ticket HERE before they are gone!!

See you there! L x