Howlin’ Fling festival 
The Isle of Eigg

FROM the ferry, Eigg comes into focus slowly, gradually. It’s a shimmering thing, dominated by the rocky outcrop  An Sgurr. It barely looks real, but it is a basalt bastion of optimism: a community-owned Scottish island, the last landlord bought out by the people 26 years ago.

One of the hundred or so living on the island today is Johnny Lynch, or (as his wheelie bins proclaim) Pictish Trail. 

Johnny runs Lost Map records, purveyors of a dizzying roster of folk, electronica, and genre-bending experimentation; a miraculously sunny weekend in August marks their Howlin’ Fling, the best, and possibly the most-difficult-to-get-to festival in Britain.

All performances take place in or around the island’s ceilidh hall, a short wooded walk up from the harbour/cafe/shop, with its exciting new shower block and old, free-wandering dogs. We’re treated to a mix of Lost Map acts, guest stars, supergroups and superstar DJs. 

Weird Wave, headlining Friday, are Johnny plus assorted pals and label mates, throwing everything into a prog-jam soup. Earlier, Both Hands (Hailey Beavis and Brian Pokora) are crunchy Mark Bell-era Bjork electronics meets beautiful, Kate Bush melodies and rich reminiscences from a singer not afraid to leave the stage and dance like no-one is watching, while singing of the North Sea and the wind in the trees.

After being treated to some tunes from the terrifyingly named DJ Dogshit, said DJ (actually from the brilliant eagleowl) turns up on bass with LT Leif — ukulele-led indiepop that brims with banging choruses. These are beautiful, life-affirming songs, about not getting what you want but maybe figuring out what you are.

After a break for food, your correspondent returns to the hall in time for something billed as Angus Binnie’s Ceilidh Hot Tub Pope-Mobile which turns out, brilliantly, to be a traditional Gaelic folk dance, with pipes and fiddle and no thundering korg anywhere to be heard. 

Three hours of dancing and swinging people around later, it’s time for Weird Wave and, for some, dancing and drinking till the very late early hours. For others, shamefully, it’s time to walk back to the tent, heart happy and eyes growing used to the darkness.

Saturday’s line-up is similarly eclectic and if anything even stronger. Highlights include Martha Ffion’s second Alisha’s Attic album folk-pop perfection; Miki Berenyi Trio bringing soundscape beauty and the melancholy of the drum machine; and Brenda’s brilliant bisexual disco-pop. 

I want to say they’re a bit Stealing Sheep, perhaps a tad Le Tigre, but this is joyous feminist anarchy of the highest calibre, particularly when their banner falls down mid-song. 

We need to talk about Alabaster DePlume. Jazz musician, spoken word poet and general activist and rabble rouser, his set brings one of the biggest and most emotionally charged audiences of the whole weekend. Wild-eyed and alive with possibility, DePlume intersperses beguiling saxophone jams with infectious enthusiasm and an amazement that he’s even allowed to do this. 

Bizarre, brilliant and clearly beloved, he’s the spirit of the festival, the island — and of Johnny, who waves off every ferry, hugs every punter, and has made more friends than most of us will ever know. 

Info: howlinfling.com