For those not familiar with Offset Festival, as its on something of a hiatus at the moment, it was formed as a reaction against major festivals in 2008 with an ethos of creativity and influence in its line ups. What I always found so inspiring about Offset was its approach to bookings, carefully selecting the most influential bands in the UK’s sweltering underground indie scene whilst complimenting them with lashings of past influence, creating something of a post industrial claustrophobic air to an otherwise pleasant forest in Hainault East London. Then there are the people, united in a love for good music and with a shared respect for the scene in general there was no tent burning, no being kept up all night by louts, no violence and rarely any incidence of theft. This discordant tribe were best summed up in and around the Experimental Circle Club stage where common unity was found loitering behind its transient fabric wall. 

Thomas Kavanagh captured this subculture within a subculture and with the help of Ciaran O’Shea the two are releasing the images as a self published book, ECC Photographs from Offset Festival 2010, the launch party is being held at the equally forward thinking Beach London Gallery.