Grace Jones to headline UK festival this summer

"Cultural icon" Grace Jones has been announced arsenic the headliner of the adjacent Bluedot festival.

The singer, histrion and model, who curated London's Meltdown successful 2022, volition play nether the regard of the Lovell Telescope astatine Cheshire's Jodrell Bank Observatory successful July.

Lo-fi pioneers Pavement and electropop queen Roisin Murphy volition besides headline.

It volition beryllium the sixth clip the four-day festival, which celebrates euphony and science, has been staged.

A festival typical said that arsenic "one of the astir influential musicians of her generation", Jones needed nary introduction.

"Her power has made her a towering fig of popular for implicit six decades," they said.

"From the classical beats of Slave To The Rhythm and Pull Up To The Bumper to her gold-selling astir caller medium Hurricane, [she] has go synonymous with a unsocial fusion of music, creation and manner that has inspired a caller procreation of artists."

They said Pavement's quality would beryllium the American band's lone UK festival amusement successful 2023, portion Murphy's header slot would beryllium the archetypal clip she has topped a festival bill.

They said the festival's organisers were delighted to springiness her the apical slot, arsenic the "de facto queen of electropop" would unfastened the play with "a cosmic creation party".

They added that the festival's opening night, which traditionally sees an unexpected enactment apical the bill, would spot composer Max Richter present "a unsocial orchestral show beneath the iconic Lovell Telescope".

Also announced for the festival are creation duo Leftfield, Mercury Prize winners Young Fathers, creation rockers Django Django, post-punk 4 portion Dry Cleaning and experimental rockers Black Country, New Road.

Away from the music, the lawsuit volition erstwhile again big talks from galore technological luminaries, including BBC Sky astatine Night's Chris Lintott and Maggie Aderin-Pocock, clime alteration researcher and writer Mike Berners-Lee, the UK Space Agency's Libby Jackson and the Open University's Professor of Planetary and Space Science Monica Grady.

Festival manager Ben Robinson said the festival had ever been "ambitious successful its programming and mission".

"Looking astatine the standard of iconic talent, breadth of genres and one-off moments, it truly has matured into a precise peculiar event," helium said.

"We look guardant to gathering unneurotic again beneath the telescope."

Bluedot volition instrumentality spot astatine the Cheshire observatory from 20 to 23 July.