Field Maneuvers proved that the UK's rave spirit is alive and well

Field Moves, Friday – Sunday

We don’t have a track to offer you from the Field Moves tent, and that pretty much sums up its role at the festival. It’s the space dedicated to the unsung heroes of the scene who have been plying their trade expertly for years without reaching the status they richly deserve. A line-up of resident DJs who often outshine the headliners booked above them with extensive and obscure record knowledge. We didn’t recognise a single 12” played within the trippy tent that’s constructed from a beautifully patterned material, filled with a haze of incense that hangs soothingly in the air, and powered by the flawless Glen’s Opus Audio system, but we heard some of the festival’s best music there from the likes of Jade Seatle, Matt Pond and Normal Behaviour. The latter is a trio comprising Carl H, Jane Fitz and John Hanley, who traversed a broad path through cuts of droning sitar to sprightly, infectious house with aplomb. Track ID, anyone?

Throwing Shade – Potala Palace, Saturday

Throwing Shade’s NTS show is one of our favourite slots on radio. The London-born selector studied Ethnomusicology at university, and uses the knowledge gathered from this discipline to spin wide-ranging sets. Her record bag is armed with some of the most obscure wax going, but she’s equally comfortable pulling out pop hits from the likes of Drake and Rihanna, approaching sets with a complete lack of pretension that highlights the genuine love she has for all the music aired. It was lashing it down with rain on Saturday evening as Nabihah Iqbal took to the booth, but she transported us to warmer climes, moving through a globe-charting 90 minutes that stitched a path from the Caribbean in the West with Peter Tosh's rousing ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ all the way to the far East with Manabu Nagayama & Soichi Terada’s mystical ‘Low Tension’, via a route of many more continental corners and club bangers.