No Bounds Festival returns 'in person' this October

Electronic music festival No Bounds has announced the line-up for its 2021 edition, which will be the first to take place fully in person for two years.

Headliners for the three-days festival, which is centred around the Kelham Island Museum and Hope Works club, include Helena Hauff, Ben UFO and Joy Orbison.

Local highlights include a live set from CPU Records' 96 Back, as well as performances by Rian Treanor, Mark Fell and Algorave's Alex McLean.

The festival, which runs from 15 to 17 October in venues across Sheffield, will also feature film screenings, workshops and immersive virtual reality experiences.

A series of talks will look at subjects from the future of clubbing though to ecology, accountability in music and the mental health impacts of Covid-19 on the creative industries.

For last year's No Bounds, organisers created a 'hybrid festival' with a mixture of limited capacity in-person events at the Kelham Island Museum and 3D live streams.

Now they promise a return to "body shaking sound systems cranked to trance inducing peak rave perfection" in October, with late-night sets from India Jordan, Midland and Skee Mask.

This year's festival will continue a collaboration with Huddersfield University that began in 2020, with the the Huddersfield Immersive Sound System (HISS) allowing for "spatial sound commissions in 3D."

One of the works that will use the system will be 'Augmented Mythologies', a new commission by Nkisi in collaboration with Indonesian experimental label Yes No Wave Music.

The work will "explore alternate realities and themes of decentralising music" through a Gamelan orchestra, seven sacred African rhythms and vocals from Gabber Modus Operandi's Ican.

Workshops will include live coding, DJ skills, music production and a session in partnership with dance music site Resident Advisor on music journalism.

A second phase of announcements, including details of a centrepiece commission for the festival, will be revealed in July.