Last weekend we went down to Brighton for the Great Escape
festival of new music. Between discovering a new city, eating some
amazing food and rejoicing in a man dressed as Rowlf playing street piano, we saw some fantastic music.
A young Conchord-a-like with a honeyed voice for solo guitar. The original songs are good but I also have a feeling he'd be an inspired interpreter of others' work.
3. Popstrangers The great indie rock-n-roll revival part 2, this time from New Zealand and checking the boxes marked Pixies, Posies, Pumpkins. Live, they knock this stuff out of the park, so you definitely go see them play while they tour this coming fortnight.
Over the weekend we went down to Brighton for the Great Escape festival of new music. Between discovering a new city, eating some amazing food and witnessing the marvel of music industry reps buying cans of Red Stripe on expenses, we saw some fantastic music. 1. Christine and the Queens
Comfortably our favourite act of the whole three days. Came on like a gender-swapped Bobby Conn in a white suit, performed Jacko-moves to electro-pop. And absolutely slayed with accapella.
See also this amazing acoustic cover of Who Is It - a later period Michael Jackson song I had previously thought was irredeemable.
2. Mary Epworth Psychedelic folk with star-quality somewhere between The Band and Garbage. Had a song about opening the seals of Revelation which pressed my recovering evangelical buttons.
3. Wall Songs for sleepwalking fanzine editors. Comfortably the most beautiful thing we heard.
4. Ryan Keen One of the best acoustic guitarists I've heard in a long time.Held Brighton Unitarian Church rapt and got the staff dancing.
Also, claymation video!
5. Embers Not the finished article yet on record or in stagecraft, but having seen them twice over the festival these young shoe-gazers could become something special. It's not every band that can veer from Bono to blast beats from song to song.
