Le Galaxie and The Stunning will headline Vantastival 2018 this June. Le Galaxie, who have established themselves as Ireland’s top live dance act with their brand of thundering electro, will take to the Volkswagen Main Stage on Saturday June 2. The band's third album, Pleasure, is due for a full US and Europe album release in March. Also releasing a new album next month, ‘90s Irish rock icons The Stunning will headline the Sunday night of Vantastival. One of Ireland's biggest bands with a string of number one albums and hit singles, including the anthemic 'Brewing up a Storm', The Stunning are known for the quality of their live shows.

The line-up also includes Irish/Sierra Leonean songstress Loah, who’ll bring her unique blend of genre-bending Afro-soul to Vantastival, while multi-instrumentalist RSAG will perform with a virtual band while his drums, vocals and sampler are mixed with an array of hypnotic imagery and silhouettes projected on-screen. Dublin rockers The Hot Sprockets, Choice Music Prize nominee Marlene Enright, critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Marc O’Reilly and the explosive trad of The Bonny Men will also appear at the festival. The bulk of the line up is yet to be announced and a large number of exciting up-and-coming Irish acts will be added to the bill in the coming weeks.

Now in its ninth year, Vantastival has established its reputation for diverse and quality line-ups showcasing the very best of Irish acts. Vantastival 2018 will take place from Friday June 1 to Sunday June 3 at Beaulieu House & Gardens, Drogheda.  Other attractions will include The Volkswagen Campervan Cook-off, interactive art installations, comedy, festival traders, a host of children’s activities and much more.  Vantastival has something for everyone, with or without a campervan. 3-day, 2-day and single day tickets are on sale now.

"We're Sun.Set.Ships and we play electro indie progressive folk.” Ryan introduces the band as we find a quiet spot at Vantastival after their killer set. “I play the laptop and drum machines. We play loops in the background and other sounds. A lot of people say there's an ‘80s sound to it.”

It’s an unusual mix of heartfelt, traditional folk songwriting and modern electronica. “I am surprised there's not more people doing similar things and there aren't more people doing it, mixing the live band and the drum machines. We're delighted that we seem to be on to something that is a bit different”, he adds. Conor (keys and vocals) chips in, “We seem to appeal to a lot of age groups. A lot of older people love our stuff but there's a lot of young people too. It encompasses a wide spectrum.” Guitarist and vocalist Ciaran reckons, “There is that bit of pop to it so everyone can enjoy it”.

The Monaghan band have just played on the Firestone stage and they’ve had an amazing reception with people dancing like crazy. Conor is impressed, “It’s our first time here as a three piece, we (indicates Ciaran) were originally Sun.Set.Ships and we played before. Ryan was meant to play with us but he'd only joined three weeks before. We underestimated how long it was going to take to programs all them drums and stuff on the computer. We used to play off a synth.”

Back when they were a duo, they played chilled acoustic music but what started out like Bon Iver or James Vincent McMorrow became more electronic. Ryan was producing dance music at the time. “It was going that way” says Conor, “It used to be shakers. Then we needed to get a proper beat going. Then the synths came in. Then Ryan came along and he was producing drums much better than our ready-made loops. It was repetitive stuff. Now we have the freedom to do pretty much whatever we want.”

“One of our friends’ dads said to us that we're not a band because we don’t have a drummer, “You’re just DJs with instruments”. It's a lot of work programming drums. It would be much easier for us to have a drummer. We leave it ‘til last. We do everything else and then look at the drums. Sometimes you change the hi-hat a tiny bit and we get really excited. It sounds class. And no one will notice. You make these tiny tweaks that you think are unreal but people are just listening to the songs.”

The songwriting is where the magic happens, according to Ryan, “The songs took so long to write and make. They took on a different look. They didn’t sound like anybody else. But they all sound like us. If anyone brings a song to the table you never know how it’s going to work out. If Ciaran brings a guitar line and we add bass, synths, and drums, you don’t know where it will go, but it seems to work.”

They finished the set with a version of Caribou’s ‘Can’t Do Without You’ that brought the house down. “It's a big festival tune from about two years ago. It's not quite old enough yet to be a classic but we still love it, and we haven't played it for that long.” They’ve been recording in the studio, with that cover amongst the tunes. “We don’t know if it will be an EP or if we'll make it into an album”, says Ciaran, “We all have full time jobs so we only get to meet on Saturday. Something always comes up on Saturday. Like today, we're playing Vantastival so that's the day gone, from a writing perspective.”

The challenge of balancing their musical ambitions with regular paying work is tricky. “We've lots of singles ready. There's one that will be out soon. We might do a few singles. We did the EP and we want to keep it moving”, says Ryan. Conor shares the sentiment, “It took us nearly a year to do a six song EP. We kept adding things and getting delayed. We want to bang out a couple of songs quickly, get a bit of interest. Maybe put up the cover of ‘Can't Do Without You’. We have it recorded already, so maybe bang it up and keep a bit of momentum going. We've been quiet of late.”

Nonetheless they are looking for more festival slots. Conor confirms, “We're playing Arcadian Fields in Bellurgan, the old Vantastival spot. We played there last year”. Ryan isn’t settling for that alone, “We're still hoping to get into Electric Picnic too. We played last year and there's just so many stages, surely we'll get in somehow. We might just turn up anyway with our gear”.