New alternative music festival to take place in Sligo

The inaugural Spilt Milk Audio Visual Festival will see three days of music, film and art around venues in Sligo town from 22nd-24th November. Bringing together national and international artists along with emerging local acts across a myriad of musical genres, Spilt Milk invites audiences to take a chance on something new. 

In addition to the music strand, the festival will see a print trail exhibition across local cafes, shops and galleries, pop-culture inspired film screenings and a record & zine fair. A key tenet of the festival is to offer a genre-spanning celebration of homegrown live artists, producers and bands and engage with young people additional. 

Performing live at the festival will be a diverse assembly of new voices and musical propositions: this is superbly distilled in the experimental trio Percolator who masterfully navigate the spaces between subgenres, their sound laced with hypnotic motorik rhythms, Stereolab-recalling vocal harmonies and the miasmic ecstasy of shoegaze. At the other end of the spectrum are Landless who sing unaccompanied traditional songs from Irish, Scottish, English and American traditions in close four-part harmony. More out-there experimentalism comes from Sligo quartet Gulpt who skew the line between no-wave, free improv and avant. For fans of straight up post-punk, indie supergroup Grave Goods and youthful four-piece Problem Patterns have come out of the starting blocks with electrifying sets pushing the boundaries of what an alternative band should be. Rounding off the first wave of acts to perform is multi-disciplinary artist Katie Gerardine O’Neill who’s audio practice explores the use of voice, guitar, field recordings, tapes and loops creating ethereal sound collages. 

Spilt Milk builds on the activities of a group of like-minded individuals each already working within the music landscape and passionate about building a community in Sligo that joins the wider burgeoning alternative and experimental music scene across the island of Ireland. With the help of funding from Sligo Co. Co. and the Creative Ireland (Sligo) Programme, a limited number of free tickets are available to under 23s. 

A limited Early Bird offer for the centre-piece event at The Model on Saturday 23rd is priced at €15, all other events will be free or sold separately with further ticket releases coming soon. 

A fundraising quiz will take place in Riverside Hotel on Wednesday 9th October at 7.30pm in association with Quiz Host Ireland. There will be a raffle and spot prizes on the night. 

For tickets and more info visit: spiltmilkfestival.com