Cait Stoddard December 2nd, 2025 - 12:53 PM
Finland’s Flow Festival has announced the first artists for its 21st edition, which will once again take over select venues in and around the iconic Suvilahti Power Plant in downtown Helsinki. From August 14-16, 2026, the festival will present a characteristically eclectic lineup that brings together diverse scenes from around the world for a three-day celebration of contemporary pop culture. For tickets and more information, click here.
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Leading the list of international names come two quietly radical artists, whose enduring presence in the charts over the past 15 years belies their experimental nature. Florence + the Machine sees the return of a true icon to Flow, whose emotionally charged lit-rock has inspired a generation of songwriters to be themselves, unapologetically; while Sweden’s Zara Larsson’s surface pop perfection belies a deep understanding of dance music history, and to whose back catalog, hyperpop owes a surprising debt.
Also announced are two contemporary pop icons from different sides of the Atlantic, both making their Flow Festival debuts. London’s PinkPantheress has dominated the internet in 2025 thanks to the diabolically catchy ‘Illegal’, a track that, with its nods to UK garage and the hardcore continuum, showed her as an artist uniquely in command of the zeitgeist. Similarly, flipping the script, New York’s Sombr has emerged from the shadows of bedroom pop as a generational songwriter, whose I Barely Know Her, marries confessional Gen-Z ennui with an ear for ecstatic earworms inspired by everything from new-wave to disco via glam rock.
The starting lineup also includes the long awaited reunion of Pusha T and Malice as Clipse, the pioneering rap duo whose stripped back, gritty ‘coke-rap’ has had an outsized influence on many of the most interesting sub-genres that have come to define the form, from Atlanta trap to UK drill. 15 years after their last studio outing, the brothers return to the international stage with Let God Sort ‘Em Out, once again produced by long-term collaborator Pharrell.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds pass through Helsinki after two years on the road in support of their critically acclaimed Wild God LP. Consistently rated as one of the best live acts in the world, the band, featuring Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood and Cave’s long time creative foil Warren Ellis, will be performing tracks from their more than four decades of soundtracking a changing world. And, in a world more divided than ever, two bands on this year’s lineup represent the power of righteous anger to bring us all together, with the sheer hardcore assault of Turnstile.
Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna
