The Nudge will be returning to Whanganui for a third time next February. Photo / Supplied
Kiwi dub heroes The Black Seeds, Wellington three piece The Nudge, and rapper Krisy Erin are the latest additions to Whanganui's inaugural Sound Valley music festival next year.
The newly announced performers will join Kora, Ladi 6, Tiki Taane, Ria Hall, Kings, JessB, and Kokoa Nashi on February 20 at an as-yet undisclosed location.
Festival organiser Gioia Damosso said the Black Seeds were set to drop a new single and album "very soon", and that she was excited to have them on the bill.
"Their new single comes out next week I think, so it's really great timing," Damosso said.
"They're an amazing band and it's always a thrill to get new music from them.
"The Nudge are a Wellington band who are hilarious. They've played in Whanganui a couple of times before so people here might already know a bit about them.
"Then we've got Krisy Erin, who's a rapper from Auckland. She's already garnered quite a massive following on Instagram and a ton of streams on Spotify. I think she's really talented."
Damosso said she was yet to be "filled with event management fear", despite there only being three months until the festival date.
"We probably went a little bit overboard with the lineup, and I think Koert (Wegman, fellow organiser) and I might have got a little bit excited.
"We said 'we love these guys, and these guys, and these guys, let's put all of our favourites into one day'.
"I just can't wait though. We're on track, we're locked in, and we know what we're doing.
Damosso said the venue;s location would be announced on December 1, and that while the initial plan to hold Sound Valley at the Basin Reserve didn't eventuate, Lost Arts would still try to use it at some point in the future.
"That's not off the cards for next year, and we definitely want to utilise that beautiful space as a venue, whether it be for Sound Valley or another event completely."
Another feature of Sound Valley would be a special run of 500 tickets for people aged between 15 and 18, Damosso said, with special areas being set up for younger people within the festival itself.
"They can go through and choose a different ticket type, and then we have a good register of the young people at the festival and a list of their contacts.
"We really wanted youth to have the opportunity to see this calibre of New Zealand artists right here in their home town."
Damosso said early bird tickets for the festival ($99) were on sale until November 25 at soundvalley.nz and that at "a couple more" local artists would be added to the final lineup.
To buy tickets for Sound Valley, go to http://soundvalley.nz/tickets