Sled Island announces first wave of eclectic, globe-spanning 2025 lineup​on February 11, 2025 at 8:23 pm

A first wave of artists playing the Sled Island Music and Arts Festival was announced on Tuesday, featuring dozens of artists from around the world.

This year’s festival, which runs in various venues from June 18 to 22, is being guest curated by Otoboke Beaver, a four-piece punk band from Kyoto, Japan who count Dave Grohl and Rolling Stone magazine as fans. In 2023, Rolling Stone reviewed the act’s show at South by Southwest, gushing that they “climbed on monitors, screamed, strutted, ran in place, and never, ever stood still. Singer Accorinrin channeled feminist fury on songs performed with stop-on-a-dime proficiency.”

Others announced for the festival include Brooklyn R&B singer Yaya Bey, Montreal’s dream-popsters TOPS, Australian indie “supergroup” Tropical F–k Storm, Washington’s hip-hop collective Oddisee & Good Compny, Boston shoegazers Horse Jumper of Love, L.A. experimental noise rocker XIu Xiu, Nashville punkers Snooper and L.A.-based harpist Mary Lattimore.

Other acts include black metal act Mizmor from Portland;  Beirut-based SANAM, who mix experimental noise-rock with Arabic poetry; Canadian-Filipino rapper Kimmortal and Nanaimo’s Willie Thrasher, a veteran Inuvialuk singer-songwriter and activist who has been performing since the mid-1960s. He will be joined by his partner Linda Saddleback.

Other Canadian artists announced include Vancouver-based indie rockers jo passed, Calgary expat Rae Spoon, local hip-hop collective K-Riz & The Family, Edmonton hip-hop artist Arlo Maverick and Calgary’s hardcore punkers PERRA.

As guest curator Otoboke Beaver has programmed Oakland’s garage-punk veterans The Mummies, costumed punkers Peelander-Z from New York,  veteran Taiwanese punk trio BB Bomb and  New York’s glockenspiel virtuoso Glockabelle. They will also bring in three acts from Seattle, including next-wave grunge — or “gunk-rock” — purveyors Black Ends,  punk duo Lemon Boy and sludge-rockers Muneca.

For ticket information visit sledisland.com.