Irrelevant Music Fest, once again organized and presented by Kyle Swick, is back in July with a streamlined look for 2019. The fest, anchored between East Atlanta staples 529 and the EARL, boasts the same focus on local heavy hitters and nationally obscure icons that made past iterations bizarrely educational experiences.
As a show promoter and label head, Swick continues to demonstrate an innate ability to inject the current local zeitgeist into wider underground trends as a way to define and place Atlanta’s DIY community—particularly in the realms of punk, pop, and dance—within the scope of arts and music scenes around the country. It’s impossible to ignore inspiration from other outsider fests like Louisville’s Cropped Out, but Irrelevant Music Fest has always lasered in on unifying disparate acts and genres in a delicious cocktail of strangeness unique amongst its peers.
The fest, which kicks off July 17, has been trimmed down to four days from last year’s five-day extravaganza, but the lineup hasn’t suffered a bit. If anything, condensing the fest into fewer days only highlights the strength of the bill. From Irrelevant Music’s own Breathers and Material Girls to Awful Records stalwart Lord Narf, locals rule the roost, but further down the bill there are some critical touring acts. North Carolina’s Patois Counselors promise a brooding, introspective re-imagination of DEVO while NYC’s Gustaf rip-off the B-52’s with enough alien energy and icy post-punk soul to make them my favorite live performance of 2019 so far. Still, the top pick comes down to a tie between Geographic North legends Lyonnais and Baltimore punk provocateurs Ed Schrader’s Music Beat.
Ticket prices and schedule will be announced soon. Check out the festival flyer below designed by New Yorker contributor and general sweetheart Jansen Cumbie.
More Info
Web: irrelevantmusic.net
Facebook: @irrelevantproductions
Instagram: @irrelevantmusicusa
Tumblr: irrelevantmusicatl.tumblr.com