Tim Hughes Looks forward to a batty performance of music inspired by flying mammals

We've sung along to tunes by The Monkees, Eagles and Byrds, and danced to The Stray Cats, Seal and even a Flock of Seagulls. Now it's time to make sweet music with.... the bats!

Festival-goers gathering in the woods near Wallingford this weekend will be playing music performed – in a manner of speaking – by the small flying mammals.

The Neighbours Are Bats is among the more unusual features at a festival which prides itself on the wild and whacky – Supernormal.

The project is not so much a band as a collaborative sound/performance project by creative souls Esme Armour, Timothea Armour and Yasmine Akamune-Miles and the Bat Conservation Trust.

The group take recordings provided by the trust of bats noises and turn it into music.

The performances will be among the highlights of Supernormal, which takes place at Braziers Park, near Wallingford, from Friday to Sunday.

Matilda Strang, the festival's co-director, is expecting great things. "Combining the contexts of a summer music festival and a country park, The Neighbours are Bats uses recordings made using a bat detector to imagine a ‘bat band’, in which five common British bat species become five band members," she says.

"Echolocation calls are freed from the task of catching insects and the calls of each species are built into instruments that can be played in a jam session.

"With guidance from resident bats, audiences are invited to don a bat costume and join in a jam session.

"With bat calls’ resemblance to synth sounds, from percussive and rhythmic to trilling and bleeping, a noisy and multi-layered soundscape is created, varying and evolving as participants come and go."

If emulating a pipistrelle sounds too bonkers even for Supernormal devotees, there is more music – though scarcely more conventional – in the shape of Girl Sweat, The Lowest Form, Adrena Adrena, City Hands, Dwellings, Arvind Ganga, Christos Fanaras, Guttersnipe, The Wild Bunch, JK Flesh, Ashtray Navigations, Knifeworld and Millions of Dead Corpses.

Then there is experimental electronica from Japan's Turtle Yama featuring performance artist and guitarist Yuko Kureyama (formerly of Water Fai), electronic keyboard player Nahoko Kamei (who previously played with Urichipangoon), Lancastrian four-piece Wytch Hazel and Texan shoegazers The Cush.

Thene there is aerobics set to a heavy metal soundtrack and a tribute to two late giants of music in the shape of a Prince vs Bowie karaoke.

There are also a string of late additions to the bill in the form of Graham Dunning’s Mechanical Techno, Water, Urthona and Surreal Skin Decorator.

Oxford scene watchers will also be treated to collaborations by the city's Young Women's Music Project – an educational charity that offers free music workshops for women aged 14-21 – working with Oxford Contemporary Music and Modern Art Oxford.

The festival, which began life in 2010, has taken a year to put together, but, says Matilda, is now complete – with revellers rolling through the gates from 10 am on Friday.

"Coordinating well over 100 separate performances and activities, utilising the talents of around 400 artists, performers, musicians and general doers is always a challenge – certainly no less so this year," she says.

"But for us it’s also when, after months of admin, Supernormal starts to feel tangibly like a festival.

"So the task is complete and the fruits are now available for all to see.

"What’s more, we’re delighted to be able to squeeze some surprise last minute additions on to the bill.

"As one of our number put it “Black Metal Aerobics, Guttersnipe and The Wild Bunch? Bloody Ada, what a start to the day.”

Supernormal takes place at Braziers Park, Ipsden, near Wallingford, from August 5-7 August 5-7.

Weekend tickets including camping are £85 from supernormalfestival.co.uk