Sea Power announces Krakenhaus Festival

In February 2022, the BAFTA-winning, Mercury-nominated group Sea Power became the highest ever charting Cumbrian band when their Everything Was

Forever album entered the Official UK Album Chart at number four. Now Sea Power are expanding on a reputation for innovative and thrilling live action by hosting their own Krankenhaus Festival in West Cumbria – a festival set to feature live appearances from snooker great Steve Davis and Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. Legendary New Order drummer Stephen Morris will be interviewed live on stage by 6 Music’s Mark Radcliffe and there will also be a live interview with the writer Amy Liptrot, who is soon to be represented on the big screen by Saoirse Ronan, star of films including Brooklyn and Lady Bird. At Krankenhaus, Steve Davis will be DJ-ing and playing live with his band The Utopia Strong. Daniel Wakeford, star of the Channel 4 reality-TV show The Undateables, will be appearing live at Krankenhaus with his band The Daniel Wakeford Experience.

Alongside all the above there will be full sets from such hugely acclaimed musicians as The Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys, This Is The Kit, Richard Dawson, Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi, The Bug Club and, all the way from Minnesota, the critically-revered Low. As well as hosts Sea Power, other Cumbrian artists include Hayden Thorpe (Wild Beasts) performing solo, Nat Sharp presents MARRA, Jack O’Neil and the Cleator Moor Brass band.

Sea Power have been praised by artists including David Bowie, Lou Reed and The Flaming Lips. The Sea Power fanbase has also included Doctor Who, Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes – in the guise of their Sea Power-loving screen representatives Peter Capaldi, Daniel Radcliffe and Benedict Cumberbatch. As Capaldi wrote in the sleeve notes for the reissue of the band’s 2003 debut album: “A band of stark originality, their songs bring you the bite of the wind, the fury of the sea, and music that is simply exhilarating.”

Sea Power are well known for playing in unusual and exciting locations. They’ve played atop the Great Wall Of China, at the CERN atom-research labs in Geneva and beside the diplodocus skeleton at London’s Natural History Museum. They have also played within the Arctic Circle, on ships at sea and deep inside Cornish slate mines. The intensity and invention of the band’s concerts made them Time Out magazine’s Live Band Of The Year in 2004. Sea Power’s remarkable live presence is now underline by their own Krakenhaus Festival, taking place at Muncaster Castle.

Krankenhaus Festival will feature three Sea Power sets – music that will be mixed with birds of prey flying displays and a mass festival ramble across Muncaster Fell.