🌸 recommendations: may 2026 🌸

Jun 03, 2026

hello : )

hope you’re all having a lovely start to your summer < 3 festival season is well underway now and we’ve already experienced our first heatwave :p can’t be good :p i’m on the way to paris now as souzo & mike parker are playing live at essaim tomorrow night, eep! it’s been a while since i’ve done a trip specifically for a specific night or to see a friend/artist play. i used to do this a lot when i was younger so it feels good to be going on a music quest again this week :’)

i’ve already been to 2 festivals out of the 10 I have lined up for this summer (scary and exciting!), one as a punter (refractor) and one to do interviews on-site (gala). Both very cute experiences but for very different reasons. Going to mainly talk about my experience at refractor festival last weekend as it is by far my favourite gathering: one that encourages deep connection in such a beautiful way, both with the music and the people that you spend three nourishing days with.

Last summer, I had a pretty traumatic experience at a camping festival when my nervous system completely shut down on me; something I’ve spent the last year recovering from. Whilst I feel like I’ve done most of the work to bring myself out of the panic state I was in, it didn’t prepare me for how I was going to feel going into my first camping festival since the incident. Most of the emotions came flooding back and I spent most of my time there making sure I felt as safe as possible. Something that isn’t usually spoken about is how the festival impacts the nervous system. These events are often on a huge scale with basic accessibility to amenities and incredibly overstimulating environments which means you are thrown out of your comfort zone and unable to work with the routines or rituals you have in place in day to day life to help keep you grounded and balanced. Whilst I may have felt that I needed to approach this year’s Refractor with more care and consideration than I would’ve previously, the festival itself is built around such a welcoming environment that you can participate and contribute to the ecosystem with whatever capacity you have to offer. Something I’m truly grateful for. I spent a lot of my days sitting by the soundsystem on the edges of the dancefloor, listening to every set whilst having the comfort of being able to sit or lay down and really chill. You could also escape to the river to drift away with the gentle breeze, head to their version of heaven at night where you are graced by a portal-like light installation or chill at the campsite and still listen to every set, not feeling like you are ever missing out. Yes, it’s annoying if you are trying to sleep at night with the powerful soundsystem heard from every corner of the site but there are some advantages to being able to go for a solo lay down moment in your tent and still catch all of the music or hear the ecstatic cheers from the dancers. I went to bed every night with this fire in my belly, knowing that I was going to walk away from this weekend feeling restored. It was also really cute that most of the people that I was with at the festival last year returned again this year plus a few new additions that we had persuaded over time. It was like our own little ecosystem within the festival was mutating and I have so much love for those who were a part of this year’s edition, making it extra special hehe.

I don’t know how they’ve done it but in the short few years that the festival has been running, Refractor has brought together some of the best people from all over the global music community. The dancefloor was fully engaged the entire weekend; very little yapping or phone presence and a lot of regular faces that I met last year. The most open-minded crowd down for anything and open for every conversation. The friendliest dancefloor I’ve ever been on - it’s so pure, warm & fuzzy (and not in relation to the heat). I honestly teared up so many times across the weekend from how magical and special it felt to experience a gathering like this. And the music!!!! A programme filled with so many favourite artists that I very rarely get to see play, especially in London, there isn’t a huge scene for the sound we get to witness at Refractor. And they really go all in, booking artists from across the world, including some very special European debuts like Japan’s Herbalistek <3 who I was most excited to see after being such a huge fan of their productions for so long! They didn’t disappoint either. At one point I was sat behind the booth watching the duo in complete awe as they excelled in tension building with such precision. One of my highlight sets! I really admire their approach to curation.

Across the three days, the music ranged from Aaron J’s meditative wormhole 170/85, Sindh’s sexy, sleazy deep techno with a psy-edge, Jan Swam’s oozy opening, Solma’s sludgy afternoon excursion pitching down a lot of tracks to match the sweltering heat, Formella & Warrior Queen’s boisterous collaboration, Avsluta’s soft and entrancing live ambient set that left most of us in tears, ophélie’s wild and furious set that was light, fun and raw, Gan D’s impressive last-minute step up, Atrice’s unstoppable live set (a favourite from last year too), a stomping early morning live set from Hagva that felt like warriors had been unearthed and EMA’s turbo mode closing set. The amount of live sets Refractor booked was very impressive and aspirational, on the Sunday especially, which we noted down as dub day. There were so many incredible live sets from Andrae Durden & Norim, Alohn’s experimental take on bass music merging with the industrial sounds of the electric guitar, Malesa, CWTCH, RM Estali - jaw-droppingly good. Every set completely immersive and deep as the one before. It’s such an exciting time for music right now and this perfectly highlighted that. There’s so much world building and innovation happening, especially in this corner of low end psychedelia which is so global and also so intertwined. Each artist felt like a collaborator and fan of each other in such a tight-knit community way which you don’t really feel at bigger festivals (Refractor is around 500 capacity I believe), to the point that they are checking in with each other to make sure it’s ok to play each other’s tracks aha. I definitely would struggle if I ever played there (a girl can dream!) I encourage you to check out everyone on the lineup because they are so worth your time <3

Running a festival at any scale is never easy, especially in this climate, so I’m incredibly grateful to Alejandro and Emilia for creating Refractor - a place that feels filled with the misfits of this world. I feel so sad that this gathering is only once a year but at the same time, it’s motivating me to find ways to nurture this kind of community outside of the festival - I want to be able to feel this closely connected to people and creativity every day. Feeling so emotional about the weekend every time I think about it 🥺 basking in the afterglow for the foreseeable future, just feeling so grateful to be able to find pockets of community like this in this day and age. I’m a different version of myself every time I leave here. Heart feels very full right now! <3

⋆ other bits ⋆

𖦹 I was very excited to be able to play with Australian artist Nak on last month’s spiralling, naturally show after being a fan of her mixes for so long <3

𖦹 It felt like I hadn’t uploaded a proper studio mix in a while so very excited to share this one I did for Phonica which is inspired by some of the festival’s I’ll be playing at this Summer : )

𖦹 Our first Untitled 909 festival stage lineup has been announced - super excited for Multi Multi later this month <3 i’ll be writing a deeper piece on my approach to curating this lineup next week

𖦹 my first-ever dubstep set last year was for hvywght x nldc, finally got round to uploading the recording of this one here

𖦹 where you can find me this summer ~ hope to meet lots more of you on the dancefloor! :’)

6th june - sauna social club, london

21st june - tba, belgium

27th june - multi multi festival, london

4th jul - memóri festival, france

24th jul - tba, italy

26th + 27th jul - outlook festival, tisno

29th aug - rally festival, london

11th september - tba, london (debut 909 party with a sick promoter!)

12th september - tba, italy

⋆˙⟡♡ Listening Session ⋆˙⟡♡