Far Out East Festival returns this November with a blistering line-up

3 min readSep 16, 2019

Far Out Left is a boutique two-day festival that celebrates the contemporaneity of electronic music while also coalescing art and culture in its atmosphere. It’s one of the few festivals in India that understands the bio-diversity of dance, music, art and culture that has existed for over 30 years. This is their second edition in India, the first having been a raving success, held at the picturesque and historical ‘Great Eastern Home’, in Bombay. It aims to “play its part in encouraging electronic music inclusivity, the promotion of genre-agnostic sounds and an experience of a city festival”.

The inter web has been abuzz with sincere excitement when they announced their line-up for their 2019 edition to be held on 15–16 November at the same venue. Underground melophiles have greatly approved the line-up that includes artists such as Anastasia Kristensen, DVS1, DJ Soulseek, Identified Patient and many more on their international roster and veteran Indian artists such as Kohra, FILM, Chhabb Audio, Blurry Slur on their domestic roster.

Staying true to their promise of consolidating art with music, their announcement artwork and video are superbly designed and stays true to the vision of the festival. Designed by Daniel Martin Diaz, the artwork is dark and brooding and mysterious and inviting and beautiful all in equal measure. It is a modern homage to alchemy art- alchemy dealt with evolution and ascension and the mystery of nature; its art transformed visual culture from antiquity to the Industrial Age, and its legacy still permeates the world we make today. In agreeing to use this kind of art, perhaps the festival shrouds itself in the mystery of its experience whilst inviting underground music aficionados to this one of a kind party.

The line-up however is what (obviously) steals the show. The most impressive thing about it is that out of the 23 artists on it, 10 are women. This may perhaps be one of the most gender-inclusive line-up we’ve seen in an Indian Festival so far. This then speaks volumes about the festival even before legitimate excitement is to begin- that the organisers weren’t just talking about inclusivity in a theoretical sense but are exercising their beliefs in practice, thereby helping and encouraging the potential of women DJs at bigger events and also letting them carry the weight of frontlining a festival- Anastasia Kristensen, maverick and legend is the headlining act.

Far Out Left was already cutting edge in its conception, not only because it strays away from being a crowd-pulling, fiscally-concerned festival but because it advertises a more niche genre of music, catering to the needs of listeners who are vanguards in their taste. Its success and almost cult-like stature despite being only two years old was signified in its nomenclature, it was symbolic from the start.

The festival will bring together international and home-grown artist of extraordinary pedigree, taste and nuanced musical judgement under one roof. Curated by Regenerate, Socialoffline, Redlightradio, Superstition; this year might be even better than last year’s immersive and wild display of techno and electronic music prowess ( last year’s line up included stalwarts like DJ Nobu, Aurora Halal, Dauwd etc). Get your Phase 1 tickets that are priced at a measly Rs.2000 (an honest communist bargain compared to other festivals, pardon our leftist joke) before they go up. This left of centre festival has got us excited in the right kind of way.