I.JORDAN’s appearance at Field Maneuvers this summer is not simply another festival booking: the I.JORDAN Field Maneuvers set will serve as the official birthplace of a new, multidisciplinary project called History of Euphoria, a concept the artist says will shape their future work for years to come.
The festival runs 21-23 August, with the site opening at midday on the Friday, according to the Field Maneuvers official website. It is the kind of considered, unhurried arrival that suits a festival whose organisers, I.JORDAN tells us, simply ‘give a shit’. The artist, known for high-octane DJ sets and full-throttle productions, and for regularly spinning at queer parties globally, was invited back after attending last year as a guest. The condition, as co-founder and director Ele Beattie put it, was that any returning act bring something different. I.JORDAN’s response was History of Euphoria.
What History of Euphoria Actually Is
‘It’s a showcase of all the classic sounds across the wider UK electronic music spectrum that create a feeling of euphoria,’ I.JORDAN explains. ‘Music that makes you really happy and want to hug your friend.’ The set travels through house, trance and hardcore, the genres for which the artist was specifically booked, but the concept reaches beyond a single playlist. I.JORDAN describes it as a whole world: something to be grown, presented, archived and documented. ‘It’s not just sound, it’s environment, it’s how you live. It’s not one thing that’s building the feeling, it’s the whole experience.’
The personal roots of that feeling run deep. At thirteen, I.JORDAN encountered a trance compilation called The Sound of Euphoria, the first point of contact with what would become a lifelong relationship with euphoric music. By sixteen, happy hardcore had entered the picture. The set at Field Maneuvers will include a trance edit of Depeche Mode‘s ‘Enjoy The Silence’, along with material from Scott Brown. These are not nostalgic gestures for their own sake. They are the founding documents of something I.JORDAN is now turning into a creative framework. ‘I’ve always made happy, feel-good music, but now I’ve got a focus to hone in on.’
Why Field Maneuvers and Why It Works for I.JORDAN Field Maneuvers Sets
The artist is specific about what makes this particular festival function differently. The scale is part of it: stress-free entrance, easy navigation, the ability to actually find your friends. But the programming philosophy matters just as much. Field Maneuvers consistently foregrounds DIY, POC and queer communities, and not only those based in London. I.JORDAN singles out DJ Sharkey and Angel D’lite as highlights from a previous visit, and notes that the crowd’s queerness is reflected directly in the curation rather than sitting awkwardly alongside it.
‘It doesn’t feel like a specifically queer festival, but it also doesn’t feel like anyone’s getting excluded,’ the artist says. ‘It’s very open.’ The argument being made here is not simply about inclusivity as a value but about what good parties actually require. Queer communities, I.JORDAN suggests, bring accumulated knowledge from years of building their own underground spaces, a collective understanding of the responsibilities each person carries when they walk into a room. That knowledge, transplanted into a field in late August, produces something difficult to manufacture: a room, or a field, where the music can do its work unimpeded.
I.JORDAN’s own formation is inseparable from that tradition. ‘I’m from that world. I’m working class, northern, queer, taking on all these fucking marginalisation problems. I’m used to being a part of something where things aren’t handed to me, where we have to make things ourselves.’ History of Euphoria, in that light, is not just a DJ concept. It is a continuation of a way of working that has always been present: making the thing yourself because no one else will make it for you, and discovering, somewhere in the process, that the thing you make is what euphoria actually sounds like.
Field Maneuvers opens at midday on Friday 21 August, with the site closing by 1pm on the Monday. Tickets are available via the Field Maneuvers website.
