We Out Here > Two Tribes Summer Festival Recap (Part 2)

At the end of August 2022, we headed to the Cambridgeshire countryside to participate in what is arguably the greatest celebration of emerging, experimental electronic music and cosmic jazz in the UK - the phenomenal We Out Here festival.

Curated by BBC Radio 6 Presenter and Brownswood Recordings Founder - the legendary Gilles Peterson -  We Out Here festival aims to be a celebration of UK club culture and the community that surrounds it. They want to connect "the musical dots between soul, hip hop, house, afro, electronica, jazz and beyond".

The organisers of We Out Here place as much emphasis on the quality of food and drink offered at the festival, as they do when selecting the artists they ask to perform.

We were honoured to join the lineup this year, and have the opportunity to bring out values of BEER + MUSIC + ART to create a fully immersive Two Tribes experience.

We supplied the beer for the entire festival with our Dream Factory Pale Ale, Metroland Session IPA and Classic Helles Lager pouring across all bars. We also set up our own massive activation - programming our own stage with over 35 different artists.

We brought our CAMPFIRE Fire Kitchen along, serving up flame cooked succulent barbecue for the duration of the festival.

To kick off the music proceedings, we invited our King's Cross neighbours - the community radio station Voices Radio - to takeover the Two Tribes stage on the first day of the festival.

Getting the party started from 3pm were the crew from BEAM; a collective of passionate DJ's (Jojo Jones, Lucia Amoroso and Maria Hanlon) who work to shine a light on women and non-binary people working in London’s underground music scene. BEAM were joined by Voices producers and presenters Thempress and Jordan Joseph who kept things buzzing through to 6pm.

Will and Seb from emerging label Motherlode took over the decks for the next hour, playing a mix of rare groove and soul leading into funky house and disco.

They were followed by a special B2B from Dave Ewing B2B Sofie Lindevall who made their festival debut with a high energy sunset session of pure house - finishing with an epic closer of Mousse T's 'Horny 98'.

Next up was Nathanial A Cole (DJ, mental health campaigner and founder of 'Swim Dem Crew' an inner city community swim club) who went B2B with Rohan, host of the program 'Anything Goes' on Voices Radio. They launched into their set with the lush, electronic layered soul of Shy One's remix of Steve Spacek's 'Another Like This' - eventually building up to a horn-led, garage inspired remixed crescendo in the form of 'So In Love' by Bristol artist Ratman.

Phonica Records alum and member of Common Ground Collective, Ariane V, was next to grace the stage delivering a dreamlike and euphoric mix of broken beat and acid bangers - blending toward a finale of upbeat house and 90s trance.

The energy throughout Thursday's Voices Radio takeover never waned and ultimately concluded with a memorable, bubbly celebration provided by station founders - Toby, Kit, Faz and Will.

After a long first day which featured the very best of Voices Radio's rising stars - this finale was a genuine celebration of the community they have created over the last 18 months.

Friday's session saw us transplant our Balearic-inspired 'Cafe Del Carpark' Campfire vibe from King's Cross to the festival field - with DJ sets from Two Tribes Chief Justin Deighton and Two Tribes Head of Creative Leo Zero.

Justin and Leo were joined by a cast of friends throughout the afternoon. Opening the stage at midday was host of 1BTN's Love Is The Message Hannah Sherlock with her top quality selection of euphoric house.  Hannah was followed at 2pm by Stu Godwin, one of Birmingham's infamous Brum-learic DJs.

Howler, the host of 1BTN's Balearic Breakdown, played a chilled-out sunset session filled with glossy, 80s drum machine oddities and rare mid-tempo Eurodance. Taking over the for the 10pm to midnight shift was We Are The Sunset resident DJ, Andy Taylor with his trademark mix of balearic beat, afro, cosmic and oddball disco.

Closing proceedings and taking us past 2am was industry legend, Richard Sen - with a genre-fluid selection seamlessly flowing back and forth between old and new, dark and light, retro and futuristic disco, Italo, proto-house, electro, breakbeat and deep techno.

On Saturday, we invited Acid House-revivalists 'Make A Dance' to headline our tent. They were supported by a series of artists throughout the afternoon curated by us.

Husband and wife DJ duo and music-obsessives, Pierce Smith and Linda Boyle, kicked things off with a mix of street soul and Latin-funk gems. They were followed by Cuban and Brazilian trained percussionist and DJ, Des Morgan (Yam Who?) - who also performed live at the festival throughout the weekend. Des built the momentum and upped the tempo with his delicious selection of Latin jazz flavours.

DJ Jimmy Smith (Off The Grill Radio/Voices Radio) and DJ/MC Sticky Dub were handpicked to join us at We Out Here by Leo Elstob after he was blown away by their debut DJ set at Two Tribes CAMPFIRE in King's Cross earlier in the year.

Jimmy and Sticky performed a blistering set with Sticky adding live toasting and dubbed vocals over Jimmy's mix - blowing minds in the process. Sticky Dub comes across as a young, Scouse version of Prince Far I with his socially conscious lyrics and delivery.

Headlining the day were Make A Dance. Formed of Josh Ludlow from ace punk-funk band Pigeon and DJ partner, Ben Lewis - Make A Dance is a musical act and record label. Josh and Ben have blown-up over the last 12 months, creating a huge buzz in the UK house scene with their stripped back club tracks which throwback to pure Acid House .

Setting the mood for Sunday, we invited the incredible DJ Miche to jump on the decks from midday to share a sneak preview of his thoughtfully curated compilation album, With Love - released on the Mr Bongo label.

Leo Zero took things in a classic Cafe Del Mar direction, selecting from 30 years of personal vinyl hoarding while soundtracking the wind-down mood in the festival fields. Leo was followed by Two Tribes Chief, Justin Deighton, who was joined by mates Howler and Andy Taylor in a three man, six arm, B2B2B tag team.

The evening session kicked off with a focus on the King of the Re-Edit labels, Moton Records, and it's two founders Dave Jarvis (Faith) and Diesel (X-Press 2). They took things up a gear with classic outsider disco, ultra-boogie and proto house curiosities.

Headliner for the Sunday was DJ Noel Watson, who's Delirium Warehouse parties featured a young Neneh Cherry behind the bar and the first Beastie Boys live shows in the UK. Delirium Warehouse was the first club night to really ignite house music in the UK with non other than Frankie Knuckles as their resident.

We were pleased to get Noel out of semi-retirement to deliver a classic selection of early house grooves and beyond.

Being able to share our beers, food and music with a hugely receptive, happy audience who loved what we were doing helped exceed any expectations we had before the event - and made every one of us very proud to do the work that we do.

We can't wait for next year!