No Bounds No Bounds festival returns to Sheffield in 2024 after year off with most adventurous programme to date

After taking a year off in 2023, the No Bounds festival of electronic music and experimental arts will return to South Yorkshire this October with what organisers describe as their “most adventurous festival to date.”

The theme for this year’s festival, which takes in venues across Sheffield and Rotherham, is ‘Agency and Revelation’, which No Bounds say “explores and shines a light onto transitional and hidden spaces, places, connections and stories.”

Headline performances include a live set from pioneering MC Flowdan, a set from drum’n’bass legend DJ Storm, and a special appearance from bassline legend and former Niche resident Big Ang.

Other acts in the first lineup announcement include Bristol-based jazz-folk outfit Tara Clerkin Trio, Mancunian rapper Iceboy Violet in collaboration with Spanish producer Nueen, and innovative selector and Timedance label boss Batu.

“Since 2017 No Bounds has been breaking down barriers and building new bridges through music, art, and technology,” say the curators.

“With Sheffield as a backdrop, a city with a history steeped in groundbreaking musical discoveries, the festival continues to write this narrative by showcasing both local, established, and up-and-coming artists and collectives alongside internationally acclaimed acts to grace the city's stages with disruptive discoveries.”

Long known as a dance music festival, there is more of an emphasis this year on other genres of music, epitomised by an appearance from Lord Spikeheart, figurehead of the blossoming Kenyan metal scene and former frontman of grindcore group DUMA.

This year’s festival also includes several multidisciplinary pieces and performances, some commissioned especially for No Bounds. This includes Microplastics, a new project from Hope Works resident 96 Back, which sees the Sheffield-born DJ collaborate with Jennifer Walton and aya.

NTS radio host Lupini has been invited to host a brand-new pop-up radio project throughout the festival, which will “reflect on the transient nature of warehouse culture” and which will include live interviews with performers and attendees to create an instant snapshot of No Bounds 2024.

Venues for this year’s No Bounds include the festival’s long-time base at Hope Works warehouse, which contrasts with opening and closing concerts in the gothic surroundings of Sheffield Cathedral. Other spaces include Site Gallery, Exchange Place Studios, SADACCA, and a to-be-announced “intervention” at Chapel of Our Lady on Rotherham Bridge.

Rotherham-based experimental artist Mark Fell will also take over what is being described as an “iconic Sheffield location” for an installation piece involving light, sound, video projection and objects that relate to the city’s lesser-known musical histories.

Sheffield-based artist Ashley Holmes is set to present a new experimental audio and video work which will explore the city's musical, cultural and creative communities, while Sheffield Hallam's Amy Gordon Carter is curating a section of the programme dedicated to the climate crisis through the lens of John Ruskin.

Other collectives and artists overseeing parts of this year's festival include The Beatriarchy, which champions the work of BIPOC, queer, trans, non-binary and female-identifying artists in the music industry, and archivists Memory Dance, who will a series of AV "activations" reflecting on 40 years of the miners strike.

In a nod to South Yorkshire's soundsystem culture, Sinai Sound System will be providing the audio firepower in the main Hope Works space, with Raze Sound System looking after the other stages. Other performances include live coders Algorave working with Pattern Club, and veteran party-starters Off Me Nut Records.