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

Dance music’s popularity is at an all-time high right now, leading to the rise of large-scale clubbing events in massive warehouses with stacked bills spanning multiple rooms. There's a place for nights of this ilk, but it’s hard to get them right. Even when packing strong line-ups, they rarely seem worth the expensive ticket price, often being uncomfortably busy and lacking in atmosphere. The 15 DJ programme becomes irrelevant when you realise you can only see about four artists anyway, and it’s not uncommon to be left thinking a fiver spent on seeing a single DJ in a small but bustling basement would have provided a superior evening.

Field Maneuvers is basically the latter choice in festival form. The 700-capacity event in the Oxfordshire wilderness is intimate, no-frills, and perfectly executes its simple-yet-effective formula. The soundsystems in the three tents are crisp and weighty, the visuals are dazzling, and the line-up, the jewel in its crown, is staggeringly good, featuring artists frequently found playing to crowds ten times the size in the headline slots, with a wealth of the finest underground selectors going rounding out the roster.

The result is a festival that enables you to see some of the finest DJs on the circuit in a setting that retains all the best aspects of low-key affairs. Aside from a stringent alcohol search on the way in, the presence of security couldn’t feel less overbearing, and the diminutive size of the site really adds to the communal experience festivals strive for. While in sprawling settings you can spend the whole weekend struggling for phone signal and trying to find your pals, at Field Maneuvers you’ve bumped into half the attendees within the first 10 minutes and most quickly become friends. Equally, it still managed to throw up strange themes and idiosyncrasies that arise from larger gatherings. Like the anarchists wearing shoes on their heads on the final night to mess with chemically imbalanced minds, or ‘the guy in the suit’ wandering around on Saturday. What was his deal?

Essentially, it’s an event that doesn’t feel like an ‘event’. More like a mate hosting a rave for his own kicks, and just asking you to have a little whip round to help cover the costs. Raucous fun is the priority lying at the heart of Field Maneuvers, and it shows constantly throughout the accurately self-defined ‘dirty little rave’.

Here are nine tracks (and one omission) that made it.

Pariah – Sputnik Dome, Friday

Field Maneuever’s smallest and most intense stage is the Sputnik Dome, a spherical enclosure that traps in heat and sound at ferocious levels. Ben Sims hosting a techno-fuelled Machine takeover inside it on Friday was a real baptism of fire and made it clear from the start that we were in for an explosive weekend. Pariah was the man responsible for our favourite set of the night, going strong on the party tunes and sending the dome into raptures. The pinnacle was reached with the dropping of Pearson Sound’s ‘XLB’, a surefire contender for track of the year. Its vortex of sharp percussion and gushing synths was matched in atmosphere by the swirling smoke and red lasers shooting across the tent wildly, inducing a mind-bending dance floor moment.

Honey Soundsystem – Potala Palace, Friday

In what felt like a world away from Machine’s Sputnik Dome takeover, but was actually about five metres, Honey Soundsystem were in the Potala Palace laying down the type of spirited house grooves that have seen their reputation grow unchecked beyond San Francisco and across the world this year. The collective DJ, throw parties and run a label, and emphasised the quality of their 360 experience when drawing for Mike Servito’s 730 Reshape of Justin Cudmore’s ‘Crystal’ from the HNYTRX imprint. The record was pitched down slightly, giving it more of a swing and bringing sunny Bay Area vibes to a chilly English evening, added to by silhouettes of zealous dancers flashing across the colourful visual screens. As Honey Soundsystem closed out the night, their eclecticism shone through with forays down into acid chuggers and surges into unbridled euphoria with cuts such as Floorplan’s ‘Tell Me No Lie’. While Randomer went hammer and tongs next door, the set also highlighted the impressive diversity to be found across Field Maneuvers despite its size.

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.

Mark Archer b2b Jerome Hill – Sputnik Dome, Saturday

As the rain continued to fall on Saturday night following Throwing Shade’s set, Mark Archer and Jerome Hill took a different tack in bringing the heat. Rather than evoking tropical destinations through foreign sounds, they created their own micro-climate with the searing energy of the old skool UK rave anthems that punctuated their set. While outside it was dewy and cold, entering through the door flap into the chaotic Sputnik Dome was like crossing a border between worlds. It revealed a debauched rave Land of Oz with acid house smiley balloons being punched through the air and sweat dripping from the ceiling, before quickly evaporating again from the gyrating bodies below. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Oxford anymore.

Ben UFO b2b Elgato – Potala Palace, Saturday

Last time we saw Ben UFO he was playing to thousands of people, back-to-back with Joy Orbison, on the colossal main stage at Dekmantel deep witihin the Amsterdam forest. Looking down at my feet in Potala Palace on Saturday night to see the slightly sodden, muddy carpet lining the floor of Field Maneuvers’ own version of a main stage, it’s certainly not as glamorous a setting, but the compact crowd of no more than 150 people makes the atmosphere more thrilling than in the spacious open-air. This time the Hessle Audio honcho was joined by his signee Elgato, who added a murky, garage-led direction to proceedings. R.I.P Production’s ‘Oh Baby’ marked a highlight, while Ben went on typically broad tangents, with minimal from Melchior and grooves from Glenn Underground.

Brackles – Potala Palace, Saturday

Following a Ben UFO set is no easy task, but Brackles came out all guns blazing to close out the night and injected the tent with even more vigour with an unapologetically banger-laden mix of predominantly bassline, funky and garage. Gun fingers were thrown up passionately to the scuzzy, pumping selections, with some outrageous blends such as ‘Let’s Groove’ into Nu-Birth’s ‘Anytime’ as the party spirit hit its silly peak. Elsewhere, ‘Dooms Night’ went off to the extent it always does (i.e. a lot), and Fuzzy Logik’s ‘In The Morning’ had us yearning for that tentative UK funky revival to get into full swing.

Dance Tunnel Soundsystem – IDIOTS, Sunday

If one criticism were to be levelled at Field Maneuvers it would be that the vibe walking around the site on Saturday daytime felt slightly flat, with the music contained to indoor tents and no night-time excitement set in. The torrential downpour probably didn’t help either. Sunday fixed this issue with the opening of the outdoor IDIOTS stage. With set options reduced from three to one, it gave all the remaining attendees reason to gather together in one place under the late-summer sun, lounging contentedly on outdoor sofas and hay bales, or up and dancing to the unerringly on-point soundtrack. Dance Tunnel Soundsystem selectors John Gomez, Dan Beaumont b2b Hannah Holland and Arnaldo expertly curated the mood, feeding into the lazy atmosphere early doors with Nami Shimada’s ‘Sunshower’ instrumental before steadily ramping energy upwards as the day wore on with upbeat disco and invigorating house. After their set everyone present gathered for a huge group photo, even cheering the police who got involved. It underlined the boundless positivity that defined the festival. There’s plenty of discord between ravers and police, especially in light of fabric’s closure, but at Field Maneuvers everyone was family.

Studio Barnhus (Axel Boman, Kornél Kovács & Pedrodollar) – Potala Palace, Sunday

Studio Barnhus’ back-to-back-to-back session on Sunday night was an absolute tour de force. The Swedish imprint has just put out one of the albums of the year from founding member Kornél Kovács, and its founders seemed to be riding high from the adrenaline of making this mark. Their rotation on-deck was incredibly slick, moving deftly through shouty Japanese vocal-driven electro from Mu to saccharine trance with a swelling ‘Born Slippy’ remix. The trio are best friends and it showed through the infectious joy they exhibited playing together. Kornél swayed with some uninhibited dance moves as he brought in ‘BB’ from his album while Axel mimicked the butterfly visuals on the screen, performing playful hand signals above his pal’s head and cutting some fluid shapes. Pedrodollar was the more reserved of the three, but cooly took his opportunities to wow the crowd with selections. Peak euphoria was reached when some harsh rave stabs gave way to ‘Music Sounds Better With You’, the mastery of the mixing drawing many a satisfied “ohh!” from the dancers losing themselves in the sounds.

Ryan Elliot – Potala Palace, Sunday

Sunday nights at a festival always seem to have a similar feel. Slightly apocalyptic as people fear the return to reality fast approaching, but boundlessly hedonistic as they get stuck into the last opportunity to let loose in a field ‘til the next one. Everyone wanted to party, and Ryan Elliott was more than happy to oblige, working out the tent with a ceaseless stream of dance floor weapons. KiNK’s ‘Existence’ had hands raised to the sky, while ‘Headshot’ (Samuel Deep Edit) succeeded in its mantra of getting the crowd hype, hype, hype. 'Til next time, Field Maneuvers.

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter