Supernormal Festival - 'beyond sanity in pursuit of the transcendent'

The mellow wooded slopes of the south Oxfordshire Chilterns are in for a shock.

Fields that are usually the haunt of badgers, hare and red kites will instead resound to psychedelic rock, experimental folk and the sound of dozens of hard rock fans enjoying a dawn workout to death metal.

It can only mean one thing: Supernormal Festival.

Billing itself as "a music and arts festival that consistently ventures beyond the point of sanity in pursuit of the transcendent" this eccentric gathering at Braziers Park, Ipsden, near Wallingford, is quite unlike any other festival.

For a start, you are unlikely to be familiar with many of the bands on the line-up.

Acts include Girl Sweat, The Lowest Form, Adrena Adrena, City Hands, Dwellings, Arvind Ganga, Christos Fanaras, Guttersnipe, JK Flesh, Ashtray Navigations, Knifeworld and MDC (Millions of Dead Corpses).

Elsewhere there are Japanese experimental electronica act Turtle Yama, featuring performance artist and guitarist Yuko Kureyama (formerly of Water Fai), electronic keyboard player Nahoko Kamei (who previously played with Urichipangoon), Lancastrian four-piece Wytch Hazel (who take their cues from Wishbone Ash, Thin Lizzy and the sacred medieval influences of David Munrow’s Early Music Consort Of London), and languid shoegaze-psychedelic Texan country duo The Cush.

There are also strings of collaborations – including a live music and visual art experience by electro-acoustic musician Sam Weaver and visual artist Rachel Goodyear.

Instead of crowd-pleasing, ticket-pushing headliners there are iconoclasts and underground phenomena playing a mix of acoustic music, punk, art-rock, sound poetry, experimental pop, beats, electronica and noise – the only criteria seemingly being an aversion to the mainstream.

There's also art, drama and workshops – including sessions on animal mask building on building your own simple synthesiser. There's also a Greek tragedy-themed mini opera and the ultimate tribute to two late musical legends: a Prince vs Bowie karaoke.

"It's a really special happening and a unique experience," says Matilda Strang, the festival's co-director.

"So many people come along and think it's a brilliant event."

The festival, which began life in 2010, sprang from an even longer experiment – the Braziers Park community itself.

"It comes from an interesting background," says Matilda.

"It emerged from an artist residency programme that developed over 20 years. It brought contemporary artists from around the world to Braziers Park for three weeks. They would leave home, get and out of their comfort zone and make new work, reflecting the nature of the community at Braziers Park, which is one of the oldest non-religious communities in the country, starting life in 1950.

"Braziers Park was set up as a utopian experiment separate from the world to explore the benefits of living together – and that continues to this day, with 25 people all living and working together and looking after the house and land – which covers 85 acres."

This will be the seventh instalment of Supernormal, the public event which sprang from that arts programme.

"It brings a group of people together in a field to explore their creative expression.

"There are bands and music, visual art, performances and incredibly good food.

"It's about how people can work together and what happens when they collaborate.

"And there are none of the generic bands everybody has heard of; it's about discovering something new, rather than what you've already heard about."

She singles out Georgian saz (long-neck lute) player Asiq Nargile, and peddle steel player Heather Leigh, and black, feminist punk band Big Joanie. Also tipped are The Neighbours are Bats – which uses recordings made using a bat detector to imagine a ‘bat band’, with percussive, rhythmic, trilling and bleeping echolocation calls programmed into instruments which can then be played in a jam session – complete with bat costumes.

There are collaborations with Oxford's Young Women's Music Project (an educational charity that offers free music workshops for women aged 14-21), Oxford Contemporary Music and Modern Art Oxford.

"We have a strong audience from Oxford, as well as people from around the country and Europe," says Matilda. "It's an opportunity for people to discover really interesting contemporary artists making things things, getting involved in workshops and doing things between performances."

The festival is human in scale, with up to 1,300 people on site including artists and performers.

"It is small and intimate, with no barriers between performers and audience, and is founded on the values of ideas and imagination rather than commercialism and profit," she says.

"And we can't get any bigger, which keeps things special."

She goes on: "I went to so many festivals and got quite bored and jaded by their commercial side.

"Everything was expensive, and there were only bands playing and nothing else. But this is an immersive experience. It's independent and not for profit. It reflects the community ethos of Braziers Park, exploring the potential for people to come together, what can happen when that occurs, and how exciting that can be.

The festival utilises the stage set up by the eco-friendly Wood festival which also uses the site.

Accordian: Lina Lapelyte

New this year will be a Vortex space – a freshly constructed wooden structure which hosts talks, film soundtracks, collaborative pieces and workshops.

"This broadens the spectrum of Supernormal still wider to enable sparks to fly and inspiration to manifest," she says.

"Supernormal 2016 looks likely to be the most diverse and spectacular yet, giving people an embarrassment of riches and an antidote to turbulent times.

"It prides itself on being a platform for artists, performers and musicians to work collaboratively and creatively for a new kind of audience seeking experiences out of the mainstream.

"It becomes a big cultural making mechanism where everybody comes together and discover new things about art and music that haven't been explored, opportunities for expression and to meet new people."

• Supernormal takes place at Braziers Park, Ipsden, near Wallingford, from August 5-7
• Weekend tickets including camping are £85 from supernormalfestival.co.uk