News

Our full line­up is final­ly here, with over 200 artists set to per­form at this year’s festival! 

New­ly announced head­lin­ers include indie pop musi­cian, visu­al artist and trans activist Vivek Shraya, exper­i­men­tal met­al duo The Body, Port­land-based heavy psych five-piece Black­wa­ter Holy­light, Mon­tréal post-punk trio Cola (fea­tur­ing past mem­bers of Ought), Mex­i­can grunge-meets-shoegaze out­fit Mar­gar­i­tas Podri­das, Brook­lyn-based art punks Gustaf, acclaimed elec­tro-pop star and SOPHIE col­lab­o­ra­tor Cecile Believe (for­mer­ly known as Mozart’s Sis­ter), Philadel­phia-based elec­tron­ic beat­mak­er and Bar­tees Strange selec­tion JWords, pop­py alt-rock group Weird Night­mare (the new side project from Metz front­man Alex Edkins), and Mane­ka, the genre-agnos­tic alter­na­tive act fea­tur­ing for­mer Speedy Ortiz gui­tarist Devin McK­night (also select­ed by Bar­tees Strange). These acts join already announced artists such as Osees, DEHD, Bar­tees Strange, Sun Ra Arkestra, Hela­do Negro, Akin­toye, Emma Ruth Run­dle, Man­nequin Pussy, Amin­di, Havi­ah Mighty, SPEL­LLING, and many more!

New this year, Sled Island has estab­lished a part­ner­ship with Iran­ian artist-run fes­ti­val SET Exper­i­men­tal Art Events, who has curat­ed a selec­tion of some of the most excit­ing elec­tron­ic and exper­i­men­tal musi­cians from Iran and its dias­po­ra, to per­form at this year’s fes­ti­val. ⁠The project, titled SLED X SET, is the begin­ning of what is hoped to be an ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion meant to build rela­tion­ships between the Iran­ian and Cana­di­an artis­tic scenes, and to bring more cut­ting-edge and bound­ary-push­ing music and mul­ti­me­dia art to Cal­gary and beyond. The excit­ing exper­i­men­tal artists join­ing Sled Island this year include Sepehr, Temp-Illu­sion X Amir B. Ash, Roya, HERR SPEC­TRE, Maryam Sir­van, SarrSew, mHz and Hail­stones.

On top of that, there’s plen­ty of excit­ing emerg­ing acts in the 2023 line­up, with over 200 artists that were hand-picked through Sled Island’s sub­mis­sion process. High­lights include indie rock singer-song­writer Mar­lae­na Moore, ​‘90s-inspired hip-hop big band Super Duty Tough Work, Toron­to-based noise rock four-piece Gloin, Mon­tréal alter­na­tive R&B/hip-hop artist Maky Laven­der, dusty garage rock duo Ghost Woman, Win­nipeg bed­room pop artist Jay­Wood, Indige­nous hard­core group Indi­an Giv­er, psy­che­del­ic art rock six-piece Moth­er Tongues, soul-bear­ing singer-song­writer Sis­ter Ray and First Nations elec­tron­ic pro­duc­er Young Dene.

As always, there’s an incred­i­ble selec­tion of local tal­ent join­ing this year’s fes­ti­val, includ­ing beloved neo soul duo Sargeant X Com­rade, old-timey singer-song­writer Amy Nel­son, eccen­tric trap artist 86LOVE, ambi­ent art-rock out­fit Sunglac­i­ers, psych-laden song­smith Ryan Bourne, femme-pow­ered garage rock duo Miesha & The Spanks, cher­ished singer-song­writer Saman­tha Sav­age Smith, laud­ed R&B new­com­er Kaeyae Alo, esteemed elec­tron­ic pro­duc­er Caris­sa Gem, and post-punk super­group Stuc­co, fea­tur­ing mem­bers of DRI HIEV and Slut Prophet.

Last­ly, Sled Island is excit­ed to announce that Juno award-win­ning come­di­an and actor Dave Mer­he­je will be this year’s com­e­dy head­lin­er! Aside from his high­ly orig­i­nal stand-up acts, Mer­he­je is known for his role in the acclaimed com­e­dy series Ramy, and co-starred in the indie film Some­times I Think About Dying along­side Daisy Rid­ley. This year’s head­lin­er will be joined by oth­er hilar­i­ous acts includ­ing Jor­danne Brown, Tin Lor­i­ca, Mark Lit­tle, Amy Edgar, Jeff D’Silva, and Sarah Adams.

To see the com­plete line­up, vis­it SledIs​land​.com. The Sled Island 2023 sched­ule will be announced in the com­ing weeks, along with film, art, spe­cial events and con­fer­ence pro­gram­ming. Give it all a lis­ten on our web play­er, or vis­it our Sled Island 2023 Spo­ti­fy playlist, fresh­ly updat­ed with over 170 new tracks!

Pass­es are on sale at SledIs​land​.com, and Lukes Drug Mart (112 4^th St. NE). A lim­it­ed num­ber of sin­gle tick­ets to new­ly-announced Sled Island 2023 shows will go on sale this Fri­day, May 5 at 12pm MDT.

Keep eyes peeled and your ears open — UMFM will once again be pro­vid­ing a whole bunch of Sled relat­ed con­tent — includ­ing pro­gram­mer picks and even some spe­cial live ses­sions with some of the great Win­nipeg bands head­ing West! Plus, as always, we’ll be doing a tick­et giveaway!!