Bloc Festival 2012

Bloc. 6 + 7 July 2012. London Pleasure Gardens. Royal Victoria Docks. Audio: Moderat - 'Porc #1'

Now in its sixth year, Bloc Festival has already established itself as one of England's best underground electronic music fests. This year they're relocating from their usual Minehead Butlins haunt (also used by ATP Festivals and, er, unimaginative families in the summertime) to London's most exciting new venue: the Pleasure Gardens.

Post-dubstep producer and singer James Blake

As of June 30th, this sprawling collection of buildings and open-air spaces in the city's floating Royal Victoria Docks will play host to a score of music, arts and cultural events and we're pretty damn excited to see Bloc as one of them over the weekend of July 6th and 7th.

Artists playing are as diverse as Orbital, Snoop Dogg (!), Steve Reich, Apparat, Battles, Flying Lotus and Squarepusher: there are so many talents announced that we're already having pre-empted timetable clash palpitations. Click here to see the full line-up (also available by day) for a total sense of what's in store.

Experimental electro producer Four Tet

A weekend pass is £99, individual day tickets are still going at £55 a piece, and with doors open from 2pm til 6am on both days we reckon it's well worth it.

Head over to their Twitter and Facebook pages to keep up with announcements, and right here for tickets if you don't need any more convincing. On top of all the acts confirmed there are a few guaranteed special performers coming too, which will please all of you who like a little intrigue...

Also, one of the venues will be a 2,500 ex-Communist fishing vessel floating in the dock. End.. Of.

Love Saves The Day Festival 2012

Love Saves The Day is one of the summer's new UK festivals, and looks like it's going to an absolute blast. The team behind Glastonbury's Dance Village Wow! Stage are curating the one-day event, held in Bristol's Castle Park on Sunday June 3rd (over the Jubilee Weekend). Though still relatively unknown, we get the feeling this day-long party is going to sell out of the current £19.50 tickets pretty soon.

Confirmed so far are Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, Roots Manuva, chill-out beatmakers Bonobo, rising vocalist Jessie Ware, Ben UFO, Joy Orbison, party-starters Foreign Beggars and many more. Coming just a month after Bristol's other hotly-tipped fest, Simple Things, the festival has a bold, varied and high-quality line-up that will appeal to all sorts of music fans. Click here to see all the awesome artists playing.

DJ Derek, confirmed for the day

As we said, tickets are likely to sell out and go up in price when the early bird offer ends, so get on it now! We can't wait. Follow Love Saves the Day on Twitter and Facebook to be in the know about developments as June 3rd approaches.

UPDATE: As of April 17th, all tickets to Love Saves the Day are now sold out. Hope you bagged yourselves some in time!

Boomtown Fair 2011

If you thought the tail-end of the festival season petered out until Bestival, it's time to welcome Boomtown Fair into your life. We're already excited about Playgroup Festival kicking off this weekend, and can't wait for Boomtown to touch down in its secret location from August 11 - 14th too.

Although only in its fourth year, Boomtown is quick becoming the new even more-Secret Garden Party for summer revellers. The line-up's jammed with some of the very best in ska, reggae, gypsy punk and something we've only heard described as a cross between a 19th-century dancehall, desolate 1980s train station and fairground ghost train. Yes to that.

Gogol Bordello, Ms Dynamite, Toddla T, Aba Shanti, Congo Natty and Foreign Beggars are just some of the acts confirmed for the fest's three stages next weekend. With tickets only going for £97 for four days, it's looking to be one of those few festival gems still offering up a great time without asking for an arm and a leg.

More information and tickets can be found on the Boomtown site. So get your party hats on, silliness ready and we'll be seeing you there...

Bestival 2011

The mother of all fancy dress festivals is coming just around the corner again, and we at Deer Brains are pretty damn excited about it. Managing to combine the island setting at the Isle of Wight with a ridiculously strong line-up headlined by Bjork, The Cure and Pendulum, Bestival's organisers have pulled out all the stops once again.

This year there are 18 stages and tents all over the site, and it looks pretty much guaranteed to satisfy anyone's festival tastes. Burlesque and performance lover? Then the Time For Tease tent looks like it's the one for you. Bit of a raver? The Bollywood Tent will be (unexpectedly, given its name) serving up some of the best DJ sets from the likes of Doorly, Pete Tong & Tensnake. And if you're just an old-fashioned 'I'm here for the music' festival-goer then acts like Yuck, Brian Wilson, The Correspondents and James Blake should be enough to satisfy your thirst for great tunes.

Metronomy

METRONOMY - THE BAY (CLOCK OPERA REMIX) by clockopera

The festival's still got tickets going at the moment, but looks likely to sell out soon. Hop to it now, by clicking here. We also hear there's a planned charity drive to swim to the isle - could be a pretty incredible way to get there, no? If you'd rather go for the more conventional route, there's info on car-shares and ferry journeys here.

A retro PJ Harvey

Roll on September