After little glimpses of summer sun in Brighton over the last few weeks we’ve been getting excited for the fine weather to come and, following The Great Escape Festival’s announcement of a further 120 artists on Wednesday, we’re now absolutely desperate for festival season to roll around.
Taking place at East Brighton Park from Saturday 8th – Sunday 9th June, Land Beyond Festival has been making noises since the announcement of Dizzee Rascal as the headline act for the Sunday side of the event.
The GAK Vault is an exciting new addition to Brighton’s largest independent music store, The Guitar, Amp & Keyboard Centre; a specialist department dedicated to their collection of vintage, rare, custom shop and ‘exotic’ guitars.
Signed to Brighton label Cannibal Hymns at the back end of 2018, newcomer Nancy showed huge promise with debut single ‘Teenage Fantasy’. Thankfully, the artist has fulfilled that promise with his quite brilliant debut EP Mysterious Visions. A 17-minute treat, that truly creates its own surrealistic world, it’s an erratic, yet beautifully put together record that features ‘Teenage Fantasy’ and a beautiful cover of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walkin’’.
Not happy with being one half of the most celebrated and successful Brighton bands in recent years, Mark Breed and Kristian Bell have been working on a side project away from The Wytches. Simply titled Mark and Kristian Band, the offshoot project released the double A-side You Call that Rock n Roll / Eleven Days back in 2018. The duo have now returned with two more songs titled ‘Birthday’ and ‘Key to My Door’.
Brighton’s Banumathi have shown a glistening pop shimmer fused with r’n’b tendencies on their early singles ‘Sugar Rush’ and ‘Jam Cafe’. A soothing mixture of genres, they’ve announced themselves as something truly different in the Brighton music scene. Now the band have returned with their third single ‘Breathe’ which is, simply, a breathe of fresh air.
Despite being born in Australia, Nick Cave has always been considered an adopted son of Brighton, after making it his home for the best part of 20 years. An artist that needs no introduction, he’s a musician that has matured like a fine wine with his last two albums – Push the Sky Away and Skeleton Tree – becoming arguably his most well reviewed works to date.
Describing themselves, quite brilliantly, as “Organ-driven dark trippy alternative rock”, Brighton’s Something Leather have been impressing us ever since their debut 2017 single ‘Shotgun Persona’. Since then, the trio have followed that single up with the equally fantastic ‘Disappear on Me’, as well as dazzling us with superb support slots for the likes of Phobophobes.
Brighton’s Public Body were a band that came to our attention, and impressed us, when they opened Green Door Store’s eighth birthday celebrations at the beginning of this year. Describing it as an “assembly of punchy, dirty post-punk”, we certainly touted them as a Brighton band to keep an eye on. They’ve now proved that we were very right to think that.
It’s been a long time coming, but Brighton six-piece Pollon have finally announced their debut single ‘Strong’. After impressing us supporting Alfie Neale at his huge Haunt headline show, where we described them as, “A dizzying mix of rock and roll sounds that reach everything from theatrical Queen-esque vocals all the way to euphoric 80s post-punk”, we couldn’t be more excited for the single to drop.
