DANCE music giants Basement Jaxx have been revealed as headliners for Oxfordshire’s Truck Festival.

The London electronic production duo, one of the biggest dance acts in the world, are among the largest acts ever to play the independent music festival, which takes place in Steventon in July.

They will be joined by an already impressive line-up, the first names of which were unveiled last night. They include Joy Division and New Order star Peter Hook with his latest band The Light, and up-and-coming artists including Saint Raymond, Slaves and Rae Morris.

Also playing the event at Hill Farm are Pulled Apart by Horses, Jaws, The Amazing Snakeheads, Baby Godzilla, Honeyblood, Blaenavon, King Pleasure and the Biscuit Boys and ODC Drumline.

Remaining acts will be announced in coming months. Organisers have hailed the bill as the event’s best yet. Festival Director Ralph Broadbent, said: “We're so happy and excited to announce all these names for Truck.

“In Basement Jaxx we have one of the biggest acts of the past 20 years selling out arenas and festivals across the world, with one of the most brilliant live shows around. Alongside that, we have the pleasure to welcome some of the best up-and-coming artists and returning favourites. With a lot more to come it's shaping up to be the best Truck ever.”

This will be the 17th instalment of the festival, which was set up by musician brothers Robin and Joe Bennett, who lived in the village, as a way of celebrating Robin’s birthday. Since then it has been transformed from a gathering of largely local bands using the flat bed of a truck as a stage, into one of the county’s largest music events - regularly playing host to 150 local, national and international acts and attracting more than 5,000 people. Previous acts to have graced its stages include The XX, Two Door Cinema Club, Biffy Clyro and Oxford bands Supergrass, Foals and Stornoway.

The Bennetts handed over control of the event in 2012 to the team from the award-winning Y Not festival in Derbyshire, but remain closely linked to the festival - performing on many of its stages over the course of the weekend with their own band The Dreaming Spires and alongside other artists.

Basement Jaxx - Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe - began life in South London in 1994. Since then they have had a string of hit albums - with two top five hits in the UK, and four in the US. Familiar tunes include Top 10 singles Redez-Vu, Red Alert and Where’s Your Head At.

They are known for their spectacularly colourful live shows involving an army of dancers and guest singers. Their Truck appearance follows dates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Japan and Ibiza.

Talking to the Oxford Mail this afternoon, while preparing to fly out to Dubai for a show, Simon said: “Truck sounds like our kind of festival. It’s always nice to play something that is not corporate. I’m really looking forward to it.”

He added: “We are at our best outdoors, on a stage with lots of people. Our live show has grown into an animal all of its own. It’s colourful, flamboyant and there’s lots of energy. We are a dance act, but our live shows go beyond that. They are great fun and feed off the energy of the crowd.

Oxford Mail:

Seeing The Light: Peter Hook. Picture by Tom Cockram

“We’ll be playing songs from the past, songs from the future, songs from now, songs people know and stuff from our new album - which has been going down as well as the old tunes. It’s going to be a great weekend.”

Felix agreed: "We are really excited to be at Truck this year,” he said. “It seems like a good vibe and we're bringing a truck load of energy and good vibrations with us. It's gonna be explosive cosmic chemistry!"

  • Truck Festival runs from July 17-18 at Hill Farm, Steventon. Tickets are £79.50 from truckfestival.com
  • Truck’s environmentally-friendly sister festival Wood, last night also revealed the first names of this year’s line-up. They include soul-pop band Treetop Flyers, experimental pop folk act Tunng and Songhoy Blues from Mali in West Africa. Wood festival takes place from May 15-17 at Braziers Park, Ipsden, near Wallingford. Early bird tickets have already sold out in record time, but weekend tickets are available from gigantic.com
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