For a while now Brightonsfinest have been discussing broadening our horizons, looking increasingly beyond the safe shelter of our seaside base to discover more of the great emerging musical talent on offer around the country. The first birthday of Secret Sessions Live seemed like an excellent opportunity to see some mystery live music up in London and find out a little bit more about Secret Sessions itself. Secret Sessions has, in fact, been going for five years, as a YouTube channel that films intimate live performances from touring acts. It started as a humble project in Brighton, that quickly started landing some really big names (Ben Howard, The Lumineers, Bastille and many more). Clearly they'd found a bit of a niche – people were eager to see artists perform in this stripped-back fashion and artists were keen for a chance to perform to a potentially huge online audience. Fast forward five years and Secret Sessions have developed into a real force in the discovery of new talent. For the past year they've been running these live shows in partnership with The Hospital Club and have also launched the Artist Accelerator programme. Over the course of a year they will be selecting six artists who will each receive £10,000's worth of investment in their musical careers.
I travelled up to London on the hottest day of the year, narrowly avoiding another rail catastrophe that saw Brighton Station closed by transport police, a really close call! I made it just in time to The Hospital Club, with no idea what to expect – I didn't know who was on the bill and I had no idea what the venue was like. You enter through a hotel lobby, give your name at reception and take an elevator to the fourth floor to find yourself in this exclusive wood-panelled private members club. Basically the venue is gorgeous, somewhere a little bit more special than I was expecting, seeing as most live shows I attend seem to be in dingy black-walled boxes. The first band tonight are one of the first groups to be selected via the Artist Accelerator programme.
Signals are a really exciting prospect, hailing from nearby Southampton this four-piece play the little known genre of math-pop. To put it simply they mess around with time signatures and complex arrangements (the math) whilst keeping things for the most part light and beautifully melodic (the pop), I for one was smitten from the off. Although they all seem very young, Signals say they have been playing together for about five years, which must be how they manage to make their extremely detailed songs come across so effortlessly. Their drummer seems relaxed as he steers the group from one pace to another and through some very clever transitions as the bass-player careens around the stage hidden behind a wall of red hair. The guitarist manages to take finger-tapping to a new level, striking a chord with one hand while holding the next one below, it's a really interesting effect that makes for some unique guitar riffs. Their single is a bundle of energy, bouncing around the stage and just dashing back in time to embellish with a few choice chords from her keyboard. Signals keep you guessing the whole time, which is something I really love, where a band can surprise not just from song-to-song, but within a three or four minute arrangement. I'm hoping they've got enough of those pop hooks in there to be able to breakthrough with a little help from the Secret Sessions investment. I'll be keeping an eye on them, that's for certain.
Tonight's surprise, h
eadliners are Alpines, synthpop duo Bob Matthews and Catherine Pockson, who was pulling off a pretty amazing femme fatale glittery jumpsuit tonight, to add a bit of glamour to the affair. I'd heard the name but not really listened to their stuff before, which is moody and soulful whilst sticking to a largely mid-tempo groove. Their set opened with 'Completely' which is a new single, released in May this year, acting as a teaser for their second album which is probably not too far away. After Signal’s dynamic performance this was quite a significant change of pace but, even though Alpines’ music is not the sort of thing I'd stick on to listen to at home, they certainly drew me in. First of all it was their excellent live drummer, who added a whole new dimension to the group’s sound for this performance, he was really hitting the kit hard, when the opportunity presented, and provided a really solid back-bone, which was augmented by sampled electronic beats. Once you've got the groove tied down, everyone is slowly bopping along and carried away by Pockson's soulful vocals, Bob works away with a keyboard player on the other side of the stage, occasionally picking up a bass guitar and showing off some impressive skills on that instrument. By the time they reach their set closer 'No Other Lover' from 2014's Oasis album I'm completely there and would have gladly watched another half an hour, if not for my growing sense of unease about having to face the disrupted trains back to Brighton…
Adam Kidd
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