The Electric Disco.
Spirit of Eden Festival 2025
We chat to Stan Fontan about this years Spirit of Eden festival, bringing the balearic spirit to the picturesque woodlands of Edenbridge.
Words by Mark Limb • June 24, 2025
Spirit of Eden 2024
I'm excited to be playing at the Spirit of Eden festival in Edenbridge this summer, and earlier this month I caught up with co-promoter Stan Fontan to chat about the festival’s South London roots and find out what they have in store this year.
Stan, first of all thanks again for inviting me along to play at this year's event. For people that haven't heard of the festival before, can you tell us a bit about The Spirit of Eden and how it came about?
Spirit of Eden came about partly as a tribute to our friend Hugh who passed away a few years ago. He’d talked about doing something similar and it happened that my partners Ian Rennie and Dennis Banovic were also mad enough to actually will this into existence.
I’m not sure it qualifies as being ‘Balearic’. Party in the woods doesn’t sound very Balearic does it? I guess it sits somewhere between makeshift rave, village fete and glorified YTS scheme with the large contingent of younger people involved.
Sounds like the perfect musical venn diagram! Is Spirit of Eden your first foray into festival promotion?
It is, though we’ve messed around putting on the odd event outside over the years so in some ways we knew a bit about what to expect.
It’s a wholly different thing to running an event in the comfort of a venue. Doing anything outside for any length of time comes with many many problems.
Noise which has been a particular source of worry, so we’ve put a lot of effort (and money) into soundproofing and although there are certain accepted methods of dealing with this, much of it you’re making up as you go along.
It’s been a steep learning curve with everything and I have the utmost respect for those who put on larger events.
Spirit of Eden 2024. Picture by @fadgadget
It’s the second year for the festival, can you tell us a bit about what went on last year?
Last year was truly magical, helped by the location and the company. At points it really did feel like an all you can eat free buffet for the soul.
We’re so grateful to everyone who blindly put their faith in us and came and made it what it was. And those who had quite low expectations “I thought it was just going to be a couple of speakers and a gazebo”, and yet you still bought a ticket!!!!
It did have its moments. Setting up we endured the worst rainstorm they’d had in the area for a decade, it was truly biblical, there were hailstones piled high everywhere! We were probably about 10 minutes from having to close the whole thing down. Somehow everyone managed to keep it on the road and it was actually lovely for the crucial days.
Music wise we had this punk noise duo from Antrim Frank & Beans play, though that description is a bit misleading as they sound more like a live version of early Dust Brothers Brothers records.
We also were also lucky enough to have Ian Thomas’s band. He’s played with everyone from Robbie Robertson and Bryan Ferry to George Michael and Mark Knopfler. He’s a hugely respected drummer. They have this group who between them are all world class musicians, and are unbelievably tight, just playing mainly covers but with a real love of it.
Spirit of Eden 2024. Picture by @fadgadget
I remember seeing all the early promotions and then the pictures the followed after the event and was really gutted to miss it.
Can you tell us about this years lineup.
We have Ewan Pearson, who kindly agreed to come down and you’d have to have been under a rock to not know some of the amazing music he’s had a hand in over the last few decades.
Nancy Noise, who’s one of our favourite guests and always delivers. She definitely qualifies as South London!
Toby Tobias, another producer and Dj who we love, doing a more dub and bleeps type thing (he resides in North London shhh), and Brian, who’s obviously really versatile and played a brilliant set in our after hours tent last year.
Live there’s Charles Prest, who used to be in Flamingods, with his band Noon Garden, who play a kind of wonderful offbeat psych-pop, and Snapped Ankles with their log-synths who’ll just be finishing touring ‘Hard Times, Furious Dancing’, their 5th or 6th album I think. We’ve seen the Snapped Ankles show a few times and they sound like someone threw Can into an electronic hedgerow.
They’ve nurtured this sense of situationist art, coupled with a punk energy that sounds in places like pure techno. Much like Frank & Beans, they are as hypnotic as they are fun.
It may seem like a mismatch with some of the acts but there is a sort of vaguely unhinged thread running through. They all have a kind of other worldliness to them, especially in this context.
There are also some younger acts like Katoa, Nixon and Papa Shipton (from South London of course) who are all super talented musically.
Stan Fontan and Nancy Noise at Eden 2024
Did you always set out to feature a mix of DJ's alongside live music?
We had a residency at Cargo in Shoreditch for years with our night Comeshakethewhole. Their stipulation, in fact it may have been part of their licence, was that we couldn’t just put on DJs, we had to have a live act.
We had early live sets from i:Cube, Hot Chip, Crazy P, International Pony and would put them on in the middle of the evening, which worked really well. It felt like more of a show, bookended by me and Ewan and made for a better night. Sometimes it was just chaos. Daniel Wang turning up with just a theremin to a bemused bunch of ravers, wondering where the kick drum had gone sticks in the mind.
With Spirit of Eden both Dennis and Ian are more into the live side of things and it seemed like we should try and push that and see what would happen.
Spirit of Eden 2024. Photo by Ethan Holt
If you get a chance to down tools and relax is there anyone in particular you're looking forward to listening to?
Don’t forget to smell the flowers along the way! Some drunk uncle once told me. I love it all, but the bit that’s most rewarding though is seeing all these great people actually having an amazing time to music they might not have heard otherwise.
I mostly know all the acts there by humble luck, but If there was one I’m particularly excited about it would probably be Noon Garden who have loads of new stuff they’ve been rehearsing recently. Yourself of course Mark, as you manage to put very varied music together with an effortlessness we’ve long admired. I’ve wanted to make that happen for a while so we’re very glad you agreed!
It’s a lot of work obviously but the immensely selfish side of putting all these musicians and Djs you love in one place, helps you not notice the graft.
"The bit that’s most rewarding though is seeing all these great people actually having an amazing time to music they might not have heard otherwise."
There are quite a few other things going on alongside the music. Can you tell us a bit more about them?
We’ve a talk by Steve Langsford Beale on Psychedelics, the Literary Lounge hosted by Pearl as an open mic kind of thing for whoever wants to speak, we even have a choir this year. You may be asked to join in!
Our good friend Thirzah is also running an adventure house of clothing called 52 Festive Road. A guy who set up this little micro brewery called Haggerston Brewery will be there who last year brewed us a Spirit of Eden IPA in memory of our friend Hugh.
OKAN whose authentic Osakan dishes are really up there and if you’ve ever visited one of their restaurants, you’ll know they put a tremendous amount of love into everything they do.
There will be fishing instruction sessions and we might even have a record shop - we’re still working on that one!
Spirit of Eden 2024. Picture by @fadgadget
A record shop sounds dangerous…. (I’ll bring a spare bag just in case!!)
I saw some pictures of the lake last year and the location as a whole looks beautiful. Was it somewhere you were familiar with already?
It really is! I think there are certain things that come together, with it being partially wooded, really lovely views, secluded, but with very 2 different and separate areas.
The lake it loosely sits around makes it quite special. Hearing Papa Shipton’s set drifting over the water last year was really magical. As mentioned you can fish the lake too, so it’s possibly the only UK festival that offers course fishing as part of the ticket price!
We’ve known the site for a while and have built a relationship with the owner there, who’s been really supportive.
Festival camping. Photo by @fadgadget
Serenity by the lake. Photo by @fadgadget
With so much going on over the weekend I imagine it’s quite a challenge to manage the event? Do you have a big team down there to help keep everything running smoothly?
There are about 30-ish on the team. With the bar, the build, running power, looking after the sound and clearing it takes quite a few for our little gathering.
If any of them are reading this and wondering about the low wages, we’d be happy to do a profit sharing scheme, in which case you owe us 150 quid!
Haha ... you tyrant!!
When the festival launched last year, one of the first things I noticed was the lovely branding which felt quite different to what other people were doing in the same space. Who's responsible for your artwork?
Justine did the artwork. Her idea was an imaginary group of people and creatures who inhabit the site in our absence.
We did like the way those characters allude to a spiritualness and connection to the land, something lots of us are quite passionate about.
It’s a sort of visual representation of a strange Balearic Woodland. Woodland Balearica. There you go. I’ll cede to Sam Wilson for that.
Spirit of Eden graphics by Justine
There should definitely be more balearic woodlands in the world!
So the festival is only a month away. Are there still tickets available and if so how can people get hold of them.
There are a few tickets left, via spiritofeden.uk
Beyond Eden, do you have anything exciting lined up back in South London for the remainder of the summer?
There’s all sorts of neglected work that needs catching up on, but me and Andy (whose been a massive help with the festival) may do the first Tropical Traffic in a while at the end of the Summer. I will be in touch when I know more!
Stan, thanks so much for chatting to us, I can’t wait to head down and experience the Balearic Woodland first hand and get a chance to hear all the great DJ’s and acts you’ve got lined up.
Do you have any last words...
“Don’t forget to smell the hops along the way”
Tickets and more info about the festival here
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