Outer Waves Festival 2026
Sat 23rd May 2026 at 12:00pm-Mon 25th May 2026 at 2:00am
Invisible Wind Factory, Liverpool
£40 - £50
+ fees
Tickets
Outer Waves Festival 2026
Outer Waves 2026: Liverpool’s Experimental Arts Festival Returns — May 23–24, 2026
Following an acclaimed debut in 2025, Outer Waves Festival returns to Liverpool this spring for its second edition, taking place May 23–24, 2026, across Invisible Wind Factory and Make North Docks.
Outer Waves is a weekend of boundary-pushing sound, performance, and art — a gathering for the curious and the sonically adventurous. This year’s programme brings together an international roster of artists exploring ritual, rhythm, and raw emotion in all their forms.
The 2026 lineup features OXN (featuring Radie Peat of Lankum), weaving Irish folk mysticism through droning electronics; Dame Area, the Catalan duo known for their percussive industrial minimalism; Jarboe & Thor Harris (ex-Swans), two legendary figures of transcendent experimental rock; Waq Waq Kingdom from Japan, fusing psychedelic dance and tribal bass; Syrian musician Mohammad Syfkhan, whose euphoric reinterpretations of Dabke music ignite dance floors; Liverpool art collective a.P.A.t.T., masters of genre-defying chaos; the ever-anarchic Unstoppable Sweeties Show; and Domestic Partners, bringing surreal, queer performance pop.
Beyond the performances, Outer Waves 2026 will host workshops, panel discussions, and art installations, with further details to be announced. As the sun sets, the celebration continues with after-parties at Quarry, featuring guest DJs, live collaborations, and immersive late-night experiences.
On the festival, the organisers comment:
“Outer Waves celebrates the wild, the wonderful, and the weird. It’s a meeting point for those who see art as a form of resistance and transformation — a space where sound and performance collide.”
LINE UP 2026 --->
OXN
ØXN exist at the cosmic intersection of its constituent parts, melding Lankum’s experimental doom folk (Radie Peat), the motorik euphoria of Percolator (John ‘Spud’ Murphy’ & Eleanor Myler) & Katie Kim’s glorious Lynchian meta-verse, to create a sound which exists somewhere between the traditional, the future and the eternal. What began as a side project duo between Radie Peat & Katie Kim in 2018, blossomed into a full-on sonic tapestry with the addition of Myler & Murphy during lockdown, resulting in one of the musical streaming highlights of the Covid era with an unforgettable live performance from the Martello Tower in conjunction with visual artist & Lankum collaborator, Vicky Langan.
In October 2023, ØXN released their debut album 'CYRM' on the relaunched Claddagh Records to global critical acclaim, including a five star review as The Guardian Folk Album Of The Month, #4 in The Guardian's Folk Albums Of 2023 & a five star review in The Irish Times. This is a rare chance to catch ØXN in any form.
DAME AREA
Barcelona’s Dame Area are one of Europe’s most electrifying live acts, having played over 300 shows across major festivals like CTM, Atonal and Nuits Sonores, and iconic venues from Berghain to KEXP. Their latest LP Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area (Mannequin Records) captures the raw energy of their performances—earning Pitchfork’s #2 Rock Album of 2024, The Quietus’ “Record of the Week” and BBC6 rotation. Blending industrial percussion, flamenco polyrhythms, and post-punk edge, Dame Area forge a sound that’s primal, experimental, and unmistakably their own.
LORD SPIKEHEART
Kenyan vocalist, songwriter and producer Lord Spikeheart has become a driving force in African extreme music, fusing death-metal growls, razor-edged screams and gritty rap vocals with industrial chaos, grindcore intensity and African rhythmic roots. His debut album The Adept drew global acclaim — including a top-10 placement in The Guardian’s Best Global Albums of 2024 — and positioned him at the vanguard of a new sonic frontier. Follow-up EP REIGN pushes even harder, with collaborations from Iggor Cavalera, Brodinski and Arka’n Asrafakor. Onstage, Lord Spikeheart delivers nothing short of a full-body experience: ferocious, high-energy and unrelentingly immersive.
https://lordspikeheart.bandcamp.com
JARBOE Featuring THOR HARRIS & JOY VON SPAIN
A rare and powerful collaboration sees avant-garde icon Jarboe joined by Thor Harris (Swans, Shearwater) and Joy von Spain (Eye of Nix) for an unforgettable live performance. Drawing from decades of fearless experimentation, Jarboe’s voice and vision have shaped underground music across continents—from Swans and Neurosis collaborations to festival stages like Roskilde and Roadburn. Together, this trio conjures an immersive world of ritual, rhythm, and raw emotion—bridging art, sound, and spirit in true transformative form.
a.P.A.t.T.
Liverpool’s genre-defying ensemble a.P.A.t.T. have spent over two decades gleefully dismantling musical boundaries with their chaotic live shows, experimental recordings and multimedia art. With seven albums, countless films and collaborations behind them, the collective continue to blur the lines between the sublime and the ridiculous. Their latest album We (2023) earned Album of the Month and Album of the Year nods from The Quietus, who praised their “attention-intensive music which rewards time spent with it.” Equal parts avant-garde, absurd and exhilarating, a.P.A.t.T. remain one of the UK’s most unpredictable and essential sonic experiences.
CARMEL SMICKERSGILL
Manchester-based composer and performer Carmel Smickersgill (Ivor Novello–nominated, Rushworth Composition Award winner) creates vibrant, witty music that blends classical harmony, DIY production and club-leaning rhythms. Signed to PRAH Recordings and championed by artists like Anna Meredith and Elizabeth Alker, she’s just as at home in concert halls as she is on theatre stages and radio sessions. Smickersgill’s sound is playful, cathartic and unmistakably her own.
https://www.carmelsmickersgill.co.uk
DOMESTIC PARTNERS
Liverpool trio Domestic Partners forge an electrifying collision of post-punk, avant-jazz and noise rock — blending abrasive synths, sweeping piano lines and propulsive drums into an overwhelming, hypnotic rush. Emerging from the Windmill scene, their performances balance chaos and precision, fury and finesse, creating an energy that’s as confrontational as it is transcendent. Fierce, fearless and impossible to categorise, Domestic Partners are a vital new force in experimental music.
https://www.domesticpartners.u...
GY!PA
Salford’s GY!PA (Godspeed You! Peter Andre) are a gothic-industrial duo forging a relentless blend of dark energy, ritualistic vocals and grinding electronic noise. Formed by Kaskie (The Death of Money) and Emer (Fat Out), they channel influences from This Mortal Coil to Nine Inch Nails into a fierce, hypnotic live experience.
Their shows unfold like a descent into the subconscious: ominous drones, distorted voices and pulsing rhythms drawing the room into a trance before erupting into hammering, industrial dancefloor chaos. Haunting yet exhilarating, GY!PA blur the line between organic and mechanical, control and surrender — a visceral soundworld that lingers long after the final beat.
https://godspeedyoupeterandre.bandcamp.com/music
HAAL
Bristol outfit HAAL fuse experimental rock, metal and industrial noise into a dark, immersive sonic world. Their psychotropic mix of sampling, DIY pedals, towering riffs and live visuals has made them a cult presence on the UK circuit, sharing stages with Deliluh, Butch Kassidy, Famous, DITZ, Treeboy & Arc and Water From Your Eyes, and appearing at festivals including ArcTanGent, Dot To Dot and Wanderlust.
Their debut EP Back To Shilmarine captures the band’s shape-shifting intensity — a storm of mathy guitars, propulsive drums, guttural vocals and eerie synths — earning praise from Total Guitar, CVLT Nation and Alternative Press, plus radio support from BBC 6 Music’s Jamz Supernova, Nabihah Iqbal and even Thurston Moore.
LUCE MAWDSLEY
Liverpool-based composer and guitarist Luce Mawdsley crafts expansively cinematic instrumentals that evoke queer–cowboy vistas shaped by Northern coastlines. Rooted in progressive experimentation, their work draws on poetry, personal experience and neurodivergence to explore gender, place and identity with subversive clarity. Mawdsley’s soundworld is atmospheric, probing and uniquely their own.
https://www.lucemawdsleymusic.com
MINCEMEAT
Liverpool’s MINCEMEAT channel their love of ’70s guitar abrasion into a snarling hybrid of post-modern pub rock and feral power pop. Imagine The Sweet and The Dictators colliding with Black Flag and The Wipers: a mud-thick buzz from a beat-up ’60s Kay guitar, cutting synth washes, and a rock-solid rhythm section driving it all forward. Raw, loud and irresistibly hook-scarred, MINCEMEAT bring chaos with a grin.
https://mincemeatmusic.bandcamp.com
MOHAMMAD SYFKHAN
Kurdish-Syrian singer and bouzouki player Mohammad Syfkhan channels a lifetime of experience into ecstatic, joy-filled music that blends Middle Eastern and North African traditions. Now based in Ireland, Mohammad’s performances radiate love, resilience and connection — a testament to music’s power to heal and unite. Having shared stages with artists like Martin Hayes, Cormac Begley and Lankum, and collaborated with Cathal Roche and Eimear Reidy, Syfkhan continues to build bridges between cultures with his uplifting sound and unshakable spirit.
https://nyahhrecords.bandcamp....
UNSTOPPABLE SWEETIES SHOW
Liverpool’s Unstoppable Sweeties Show are an avant-garde punk collective blending chaos, humour and virtuosity in equal measure. Their explosive live sets veer between punk, prog, jazz, noise and absurdist theatre, creating a sound that’s as unpredictable as it is compelling. With albums Tuck: A Town with a Cat Mayor and Bring Kath Her Breamcatcher [the musical] on POSTMUSIC, the Sweeties are gleefully tearing up the rulebook — one bewildering banger at a time.
https://unstoppablesweetiessho...
WAQWAQ KINGDOM
Tokyo-meets-Berlin duo WaqWaq Kingdom fuse Japanese folk, dancehall, and hyperactive electronics into a dazzling technicolour world all their own. Their latest release Dokkoisho celebrates perseverance and self-belief through explosive rhythms, euphoric hooks, and boundary-melting sound design. Featuring collaborators like Andrea Belfi and Seefeel’s Iida Kazuhisa, the record channels both carnival energy and meditative calm. With Kiki Hitomi’s hypnotic vocals and DJ Scotch Egg’s genre-defying production, WaqWaq Kingdom radiate joy, chaos and freedom in equal measure.
https://waqwaqkingdom.com
About Outer Waves
Founded in 2025, Outer Waves is an independent Liverpool-based festival dedicated to experimental sound, art, and performance. Rooted in collaboration and community, it celebrates the edge of the underground — the artists and audiences who thrive beyond the mainstream.