First 2022 festival line-up announcement!

Featuring many artists re-scheduled from 2020 our 2022 festival line-up also features some new additions, with more still to be announced!

After naming their Lockdown Gorroch Reel tune after us and featuring snippets of Virtually Knockengorroch in the video, we are so pleased to be finally welcoming the highly anticipated and critically acclaimed European and African based collective Afro Celt Sound System.  Rescheduling their appearance from 2020, the collective will fill the Bo Airigh stage and the hills of Galloway with their driving afro house, bold West African brass, and exuberant electronic rhythms.

New for 2022! A rare UK date for elders of traditional sound system and vinyl culture, the enigmatic French “Sir James” and “King Johnny”, aka L’Entourloop, (main picture) a unique hip-hop ‘Yardie Style’ show featuring DJs, MCs, live brass and unique visual creations drawing on classic French cinema.

Also joining us for Sunday’s closing performance on the Bo-Airigh stage will be Ross Ainslie and Ali Hutton’s Symbiosis (pictured), two of Scotland’s absolute finest award winning pipers, appearing with full 5-piece band to offer a masterful blend of the old and the new; modern Scottish folk music at its mightiest!

Co-creators of the Breakbeat genre, internationally renowned UK DJ and producer duo, Plump DJs, aka Andy Gardner and Lee Rous will fuse the favourite styles of their youth into their ‘Plump Music’. Self admitted suckers for bass and bringing ‘the groove’, the duo will have the Festival jumping once more.

Also making their way to Knockengorroch 2022 by way of Belgium and Mali is Kel Assouf, with their unique blend of Tuareg roots and psychedelic rock. With one foot in the Sahara and the other in Europe, Kel Assouf melts African trance rhythms with the energy of vintage rock.

Knockengorroch has long pushed the boundary of ‘traditional’ music, supporting artists that channel the voice of the people, and 2022’s edition is no different, with British-Iraqi rapper and political activist Lowkey set to storm the Shieling Tent.

Scotland’s Album of the Year Award winner 2020, and DJ Mag’s 2021 Best of British Breakthrough MC / Vocalist, Nova (pictured) will bring her uncompromising lyrics to the hills of Galloway, spanning grime, trap, garage, and hip-hop.

Also joining us is future-afro soul vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist who draws on her Sierra Leonian heritage, Fehdah, from the front-line of an emerging Irish RnB and electronic music scene.

The natural amphitheatre of the Southern Uplands of Scotland, is the perfect stage for world music, and Knockengorroch has more incredible roots and folk music for its return including:

Festival favourites, and internationally renowned Glasgow-based sound system collective Mungo’s Hi Fi come with their full rig in the original Jamaican sound system tradition bringing dub reggae classics and fresh new productions, dancehall and dubstep to the party.

The original cutting-edge jazz-inflected klezmer and Balkan inspiration of Moishe’s Bagel; an intoxicating, life-affirming mix of Eastern European dance music, Middle Eastern rhythms and virtuoso performances.

The British all-female folk band, at the forefront of the wave that revolutionised traditional Scottish and Gaelic music in the 1990s, The Poozies.

Innovative and multi-award winning ensemble, Don Kipper (pictured) bring their psychedelic turbo folk – transformations of the world’s folk music from Turkish Fasıl and Greek Rebetiko to Klezmer.

Performing on an assembly of instrumentation including electric guitar, Elka Panther organ, piano, blues harp and accordion, re-contextualised via effects boxes, samplers and sequencers, experience the addictive, inventive sounds of Callum Easter.

Plus high energy folk pop from Australia’s Little Quirks (pictured)

Nu-folk from ukulele player and singer Zoe Bestel

Rocking blues for heavy times from John Fairhurst

Trans-European fusion project Blue Giant Orkestar

The soaring re-imaginings of a contemporary orchestra with the Tinderbox Collective

Chamber folk-pop from Twelfth Day

Contemporary folk and virtuoso guitarist Stacey McMullen

Glasgow based creators of positive dancefloor vibrations Samson Sounds

Eclectic Funk Soul Rock Hybrid with a Hip-Pop twist  Dopesickfly  

Blue Giant Orkestar exploding trans-European fusion project

Live bass, dirty analogue synths and old school breakbeats from Midi Paul

DJ Dolphin Boy melds clubbing chops with a love of the traditionally crafted tune

Celtic alternative dance dub folk punk band Tarantism

Unmissable live looped hip hop rock n roll from Oscar Mic

Cello and mellow vocals from Ceitidh Mac

Triumphant winners of Castle Douglas Battle of the Bands The Fuzzkills make their Knockengorroch debut with more acts to be announced in the coming months, including the full line-up of beat-makers to fill Maddie’s Dance Tent.

Get tickets here