| Event | Two Sisters |
| Date | July 11 – 13, 2025 |
| Location | Secret Location, Ayrshire, Scotland |
| Attended | 4pm – 4pm |
| Performers | JayJay, Jacob Stockings, Dj Young Couple, Champagne Douglas |
A Renegade in Scotland
The sun is rarely this out in Glasgow, even for July, so the whole city is simmering with a pure, tantalizing heat. I’m in a stifling hot office, in a newbuild towerblock in Springburn—the top of the town—where I’m eagerly waiting for my friends to arrive. I’ve got a few too many bags, full of camping gear and a bottle of Cachaça and I am ready to leave my workplace, which smells of stale cigs and cleaning solutions, in equal measure. Almost unforgivably my friends have run fifteen minutes late—a whole lifetime when you’ve been looking forward to this exact moment for weeks.
Soon we’re bombing over hills on the Ayrshire coast, a jungle mix is playing and the sun’s rays reflect off the sea and into the car. I let out a hoot and the boys join in, the sheer buzz of imminent arrival at “two sisters.” We talk in circles. I’m DJ'ing playing back to back with one of them, so we discuss a little bit of where we want to take it.
We arrive and immediately pull alongside fellow partygoers who have flown in from Amsterdam. I’m both excited and nervous to meet them; they are dear friends of my partner who organizes the party. When I went the year prior we were friends. This year we are together, and the newness of this position makes me oscillate between joy and nerves. Inevitably I want to woo these new faces, but the land and the party itself will do most of the wooing for me.
The “site” of the rave is the foundation of the parties. It becomes the bank of memory. These places are endowed with their own mythologies. Two Sisters is relatively younger, ongoing for 5 years in the coastal setting of Dunure; the mushroom party on the castle island Loch Awe, fourteen. This party on Loch Awe is, like two sisters, a pseudo birthday party. Its longevity is matched with a storied history for its unique location. The Innis Chonnel castle, which has lain in ruin since 1806, was first built as long ago as the 13th century, a chief stronghold of the Campbell clan.
The semi-regular Pollok raves in Pollok Park were the first outdoor parties I ever attended. I remember how excited I felt the first time I went, drifting towards the sound with other ghostly figures, across the golf course into the cluster of trees. They trace their roots to the creation of the Pollok Free State in the 90s, where local activists congregated in the woods to prevent the expansion of the M77 motorway into the park land. The birdman of Pollok, Colin Macleod, emerges as a semi-mythical hero whose nine day tree-sit in the canopy above the encampment, the site of which is where today’s free parties now take place, has become integral to the fabric of Glasgow’s history of protest. Invitation to these parties is by word of mouth, usually organised by a set of close friends. They grow in attendance cautiously, wary of disruption or unwelcome behaviour.
The United Kingdom on a macro level has long been the site of a notorious and expansive raving culture. On the micro, the geography of Scotland and the enshrining of the “right to roam” where you can camp and wander where you please, makes it fertile ground for raving. These sites of parties and the collation of memories attached to them overlap with their historical lineages, their use by people and by nature, many things have grown and happened here. Across the grassy hillside and over to the isle of Arran beyond, I see the outcropping of two grassy rocky mounds: the—two sisters—after which the party was named.
We trudge our portion of the kit—CDJs and tents and bassbins down a sharp bit of hill. The build is part of the value of these parties, the amalgamated kit ferried in by volunteer drivers and assembled with a mixture of furniture under a marquee, the beating heart being the generator, a fairly costly and essential element. At the Loch Awe party the bassbin dipped dangerously low to the waterline as it was being canoed over—just for a night. The effort and intention to create these spaces of free(dom), and the risk, is intrinsic to their worth. The nightlife culture in Glasgow has not been spared the impact of the global financial downturn. Not all is lost, but with promoters and clubbers feeling the pinch—the landscape is definitely a challenging one for those who dance and for those who create the opportunities for others to do so. The moments and nights, days, of being with all the people in the place—so to speak—have become more fleeting.
There’s hugging and a fair amount of graft. The system needs setting up on the small cove—a perfect, if a bit treacherous, dancefloor of salty rocks. Others wander off to get their tents set up on the cliffs, or to gather wood, the evening is still warm and sweet, and the high grass is activating my hayfever. I splash my face in the sea, joining other ravers in the realization of just how many massive jellyfish have become beached around us. My friend joins me by the water and in tandem we swallow an especially large antihistamine pill, something we did together last year, combatting runny noses and watery eyes. Last year I mistook the medicine as some new brand of eccie—“oh damn, where is this from?” we laugh, catching up one cove over from the dance floor.
As string lights go up and fires are built, and the first vibrations echo, anticipation builds—there is the sunset and there are all the dancers huddled by the fire, looking out to sea. As night falls the brain so quickly becomes an unreliable narrator. There are moments of hilarity and hugging hard and kissing long, layering and delayering as one sweats and then feels the nip of the cold consuming outside. Two dancers—one schooled in northern soul and the other in contemporary dance—battle. Naked photo shoots in the rock pools. Adventurous peeing. Little zones of rest, of meetings between these perfect strangers and old friends—those who have returned and those who have never come before.
The setting, at each of these parties, encourages play—dressing up in seaweed, stacking rock cairns and eating blue berries off them, jellyfish presented as gifts on the dance floor, humming hymns in castle crypts. Climbing to great heights—up cliffs where you can watch the ravers from above, and along castle parapets looking down the lake as the sun rises. The castle on the island in Loch Awe capitalises on the majority of the land, and its inner courtyard provides a perfect sequestered dance floor. There's a spookiness but also a warmth to the ruin itself. At dawn we leave the island, canoeing to a different one which we find is covered in lichen, lizards, and chanterelles, and my favorite tree, the monkey puzzle.
I’m seeing a little differently, aided by liberty caps that are abundant in early fall in Scotland, if you know where to look, and if you are a little bit lucky. At the Loch Awe party, the founder and rumored professional forager does a speech—highlighting past stories of broken legs and laughs, fourteen years of learning what a good party can be, before the ravers line the castle’s inner courtyard in a circle and he spoons the shrooms, which are preserved in honey with cacao nibs into your mouth.
As morning comes I nestle myself at the top of a grassy knoll overlooking the dance floor. I close my eyes and feel the sun beam down on me with such force I feel like it’s another human laying beside me, our arms touching. Tears leak out of my eyes as I think of my friend V, missing him. I often hang out with him at parties, apropos of how he came into my life with a huge white speaker on his shoulder playing really bad drum n’ bass in our student dorm. He would have loved every second of this weekend, his enthusiasm for people, for adventure, for nature, for music and meaning, all knew no bounds. Writing about someone who has died from cancer, someone who was so expansive, always feels glib. I feel he is part of why we all try so hard for each other, the sun we all revolve around. Taken a million light years too soon. My partner comes to check on me, telling me I look beautiful and asking if I’m sleepy, encouraging me to head up to the tents if I am. He is grieving his own expansive person, someone I never met, but who nonetheless plays on my mind in a kaleidoscoping array of stories, a semblance of knowing granted by all the people who carry him with them. Looking up at him all haloed by the sun, I feel the mesh of new and past love.
*
The music has moved from reggaeton and dancehall, to more trashy house and club, to tripped out and distorted pop edits. Dj Young Couple is on the mic, making the dancefloor cackle in between tracks. A staggering array of sounds—people playing whatever they like—for their friends, an imbued sense of “if you know you know,” comes to a relatively early close, and at 7am, I make a teetering and giggly walk to the sea, making an awkward beeline across the now exposed stones, the tide has receded as the party has ebbed and flowed, before I reach the sea. I strip off my tank top and my mini skirt, and clamber down the last craggy bit of coastal shelf, naked. The water is placid and warm all over my body, and there’s no one.
These tiny moments of being blissfully alone‚ embodied‚ you make the call—one feels them at the club—when you are moving your limbs solo or taking yourself to the toilet for bumps and a quick once over in the mirror—they are best suited to the rave.
The chance to reverie and play and grieve is something I’ve always associated with these free parties. Something about the tree lizards and the castle ruins and the dead jellyfish on the sand lets me go into those quiet but often cobwebbed spaces inside myself, and with others, too. It is each time the slippage, inner to outer sphere, the joy of engaging with a reality that is accessible—in that it is absolutely free—as much as it is outside of the norm.
*
The swimming and nudity continues a few hours later once the ravers awaken. Revelers gather at yet a different cove along this stretch of coast, perching themselves on the rocks, chatting and swimming. My pale body is unused to this riviera. Folks make use of the fire pit to make breakfast rolls, beans, and very oversubscribed coffee bubbles out of mocha pots. Everyone is laying on top of each other under the marquee—I’m eating the entirety of a grocery store Spanish tortilla, the sweet and salty potato and egg combo met with lager and a few sips of vermouth. Ice is a precious commodity. My friend is graciously bringing me some, swinging down the coast from where she was camping the night prior. It's almost time for me to crack the cachaça for a birthday surprise I have planned for later.
Again the time moves fast—I've feverishly muddled my limes and sugar for my caipirinhas, an ode to V, who was Brazilian, and had made us the sickly sweet cocktails as an antithesis to deep dark covid times, and a reminder of a past trip to Rio, dishing them out to my friends. Seven little sunset watchers, their backs up against an alcove of stone, big grins as they sip the sugary concoction and watch the sun eat the isle of Arran for dinner. The DJs play lovers rock.
Later, Champagne Douglas and I play b2b for hours, he has sunflowers down his back like armor—and we carve some space in the hardcore continuum, every song a dialogue and a small lesson. We are treated to a techno set from Jay Jay and spatially dissonant chops of Jess Glynne from Jacob Stockings. It comes to a head with the entirety of Rihanna’s Rated R on CD, which is played on the last night, every year. It takes us well into 10am, and the few left on the dancefloor settle into a crescent in the sun, someone mistakes hot sauce for a smoothie—a fatal glug, and I pass grapes around, a nightcap before bed. It’s too hot in the tent, so my partner and I settle our camping mats under the marquee. What could be a sweet scene somewhat muddied by the early hour/ late bedtime and my neverending sneezes.
The takedown is hard, as weary ravers muscle kit back up hills, across lochs, through golf courses and into vans and tiny cars alike. I’m covered in dust or like my return from Loch Awe—muddied trousers, with the dregs of tuna pasta under my acrylic nails. That journey home is the best, through some of the first touches of the highlands. Swinging past Loch Lomond, not far from Glasgow now. I don’t talk a lot, instead thinking about the 140 heavy set Heatnavi delivered, and how the lichen on the walls concealed a cigarette we all thought was a sacred joint. We are all slathering stolen English mustard on cold Scotch eggs, and I’m somewhat dreading the return home to my work, and the smell of stale cigs and cleaning solutions—but buoyed by the transcendency of the weekend, of the rave.