Its time again for our roundup of the week to come. Find our top picks of the live music scene in Brighton this week. We have a great selection of bands for you to choose from, personally I’ve found that there’s so much good music spoiling us locals this week that I can’t deicide!
Monday 30th
PIXX @ Green Door Store
Fresh off of the release of her debut album ‘The Age of Anxiety’, this dark take on electro pop is matched with an intensity of performance that will impress with its balance of weirdness and honesty. If you’re a fan of Grimes’ first album then check out ‘Waterslides’ for a track that takes the brand of electro-pop in an interesting new direction infused with a sense of laconic punk. Certainly a gig not to miss.
TURBOWOLF @ Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar
With the upcoming album ‘The Free Life’ set for release in early March 2018, Turbowolf will be touring with a collection of new tracks and old classics chocked full of dark and heavy riffs and hard hitting rhythm are to impress anyone interested by a mix of Black Sabbath, Fat White Family, and Led Zeppelin, with a hint of the more rocking tracks by The Strokes. Check out title track ‘The Free Life’ for a taste of what the band has to offer.
BAYWAVES @ The Joker
Glittering and glimmering hipno-pop-ers, with shoe-gaze dreaminess held together by warm tight baselines and laid back jazzy drumming, this band hailing from Madrid are certainly not one to miss. If you like your Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Tame Impala, or the collaboration between Mild High Club and King Gizzard, then i’d recommend checking these guys out. Listen to ‘Time is Passing U By’ or ‘Brazil’ for a taste of what this band has got, certainly more than enough to get your week started on the right foot.
Tuesday 31st
THE ORIELLES @ Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar
Exciting, apocalyptic, and full of an energy of oddness, this band is sure to deliver a performance to remember. Hailing from Halifax, this trio expound a jangling kind of funk that will get your booty shaking an asymmetrical pattern. Steeped in indie flavours from right across the sonic spectrum, expect a hint of garage rock, a sprinkle of surf-pop shimmer, and a disco-funk kick. Listen to the epic ‘Sugar Tastes Like Salt’ for an introduction to this exciting outfit.
AJ TRACEY @ Concorde 2
Fresh off of the release of Secure The Bag EP which charted at 13 in the official UK Album charts, AJ Tracey is the 23-year-old West London grime artist set to gatecrash the world stage in 2017. AJ’s addictive sound combines the razor sharp wit of UK street music with an array of international rap influences, and it’s already seen him appear on tracks with Denzel Curry, Rick Ross and A$AP Rocky. AJ picked up two MOBO nominations and a whole host of industry accolades in 2016, including selection as one to watch by MTV, Vevo and the BBC Sound Poll.
BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB @ Brighton Dome
With hard hitting blues-rock influenced riffs full of distortions and darkness, this band sound as if Norman Greenbaum’s spirit in the sky had been a journey downstairs rather than up. Expected to play to a packed house at the Dome, this band is one not to miss for anyone riding the wave of the rock resurgence. If you like ‘The Black Keys’, ‘The White Stripes’, or ‘Royal Blood’ is sure to find a home with these unabashed rockers. Check out ‘Whatever Happened To My Rock And Roll (Punk Song)’, or ‘Stop’ for a taste of what’s to come.
Wednesday 1st
SLOWCOACHES @ The Joker
With their new single ‘Complex’ getting it’s release earlier this month, any fans of the frenetic punk exported by The Sex Pistols and The Ramones, or the more contemporary twists on the genre by the likes of ‘Bleeding Knees Club’, ‘No Age’, ‘Male Bonding’ and to a certain extend ‘The Raconteurs’, these guys are loud, relentless, fast, and angry. Slowcoaches are sure to deliver a fierce night riding their fast rhythms, alongside a swift and sharp slap of punk purity.
BLOODY KNEES @ Komedia Studio
Lo-Fi pop-punk quartet pack enough of a punch to keep you on your toes with each and every listen. Full of energy and angst, this band take a certain Nirvana-esque garage-grunge out of the basement and into Komedia this Wednesday in a gig that will impress those looking for a moody and dynamic night of noisy riffs and pounding drums. Check out ‘Not Done’ if you like Nirvana (you’ll like this), or ‘Maybe Its Easy’ if you’re on more of a Pixies vibe.
10 000 RUSSOS @ Green Door Store
‘Tutilitarian’, release in early March 2017, mixes a sense of industrial dread with a techno two-step together with some howling guitars, and achieving a end result that will take you on a journey to the dark depths of a dystopian daydream. With their second album ‘distress distress’ being released in April earlier this year on the apply named ‘Fuzz Club’ label, their unique sound emerged from what they call “a dark, decadent city of a peripheral country in a peripheral continent”: Porto, Portugal. A MUST SEE!
Thursday 2nd
BIG THIEF @ The Hare and Hounds
Floating on the flotsam of the folk resurgence, Big Their sprinkle their tracks with interesting angles and unpredictable directions anchored around the angelic country tones of vocalist and guitarist Adrianne Lenker, alongside some rocking bluegrassy solos by lead guitarist Buck Meek. If you like Scandinavian exports ‘First Aid Kit’, and the chugging country rhythms of ‘White Denim’ then this might just be your gig. Check out their NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert Session on YouTube for a taster.
JAPANESE BREAKFAST @ The Joker
With soft sounds from another planet, vocals that shine stop melancholic arrangements that evoke both a sense of shoe-gaze experimentation alongside a classic indie rock armature, this band have been described as “uncomfortably personal, and unpretentiously profound”. A mixture of laid back guitar parts and dreamy electronic soundscapes, this band’s eclectic mix of influences is sure to peak your interest. Reminiscent of the disparate likes of ‘Kate Bush’, ‘MGMT’, ‘Com Truise’, and ‘Sunset Rollercoaster’, alongside a solid surf-rock base, I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a counterpoint to the rain and wind on Thursday night. Check out ‘Everybody Wants To Love You’ and ‘Road Head’ for an introduction.
DINOSAUR PILE-UP @ The Hope and Ruin
Heavy-hitting angular math-rockers Dinosaur Pile-Up play the intimate Hope and Ruin for a gig that has had this date circled on many Brighton calendars for a while now. If you’re a fan of the weighty and awkwardly grooving riffs ‘Queens of the Stone Age’, or the early angular work of ‘Biffy Clyro’, then you’re in for a treat with this gig. Listen to ’11:11’ for an introduction to this exciting band.
Friday 3rd
THE LOVELY EGGS @ The Haunt
Witty punk that marries the Ramones with Jilted-John and John Otway, this band stuff their songs with hooky charm and weirdo skits that aim their sites on contemporary quotidian life. With a strong working-class aesthetic and a home-made DIY ethos, these distortions of everyday experience are suited to fans of grunge new wave that don’t take themselves too seriously. If you’ve a low tolerance for daft one-liners and songs built around mini-sketches then maybe this isn’t for you, but the band’s honesty and unique voice will win them many fans in Brighton this Friday night.
MARTIN ALVARADO @ St Georges Church
A tango troubadour who has been described in Argentina as the “best voice in Buenos Aires” and in Britain as “one of the world’s finest vocalists’, this mesmerising tenor is know for his sublime live performances. Enchanting audiences around the world for 14 years, Martin has performed in the 6,000 seat Kremlin Palace Concert Hall in Moscow earlier this year! Martin will be playing alongside the ‘London Tango Orchestra Trio’ in a night that will fill the halls of St Georges with sounds from the heavens.
SWITCH X FOUNDATIONS: KILLJOY B2B PAVV @ Patterns
SWITCH are back in Patterns, this time with a wealth of talent from around the UK and some excellent local support. Killjoy’s been making his mark in the bass scene for some time now. With a slew of weighty releases and remixes on a range of labels, including Tumble Audio and for the first time he’s going B2B with Brighton’s very own Pavv. The local don has been making wave after wave with releases on local imprint Southpoint, and has definitely cemented his name within the scene.
Saturday 4th
LUCY ROSE @ The Old Market
Something’s changing in Lucy Rose. After two albums of feeling her way through the densely-populated landscape of contemporary singer-songwriter music she has picked a point in her career when most people are recycling their hits to bin the satnav, head off the map and commit to a graphically authentic version of her musical self: “It’s like I was an-uncracked glo-stick…and now I’ve been cracked,” says Lucy in the music/travel documentary which accompanies her third album Something’s Changing. With a new partnership with Communion Records and an exciting new band for touring, Lucy Rose is as revitalised as it gets.
PINS @ The Haunt
Bella Union’s, Manchester-based band PINS are a noisy, garage, catchy shoe-gaze pop who have supported the likes of Sleater-Kinney, Drenge, The Subways, Best Coast and most recently Honeyblood, aswell as perform their own headline gigs and shows at festivals including SXSW and Secret Garden Party. Their recent collaboration with Iggy Pop for song ‘Aggrophobe’ is a unique and engaging mix of spoken word and PINS’ signature lo-fi gritty guitar pop.
LOMELDA @ The Joker
If you were to ask Hannah Read what Lomelda means, you’d probably end up with some kind of non-answer and a new topic. It is a guarded secret reserved for those who really pry. It is a high school attempt at describing something vast and powerful yet uniquely quiet and complex. And it is ever-changing. Lomelda is about memory, intimacy, and the tragedies of distance. As a band, it has appeared in several forms over the years, but always, to Hannah, Lomelda has been about discovering friendship and connection. Close collaborators have become closer friends. And when you see Lomelda, when you hear it, it is apparent that Hannah cares deeply about the connection made with the people on stage, the connection with you.
Sunday 5th
BIBLEGIRL @ Patterns Upstairs
On her first ever UK tour, BibleGirl has amassed a huge social media following by leaning into her persona as “internet reality trash”, and is the queen behind www.dragqueenmerch.com. The New York queen appeared at this year’s Drag Con in New York alongside the likes of Trixie Mattel, Chad Michaels, Violet Chachki, Sharon Needles and hundreds of other notable drag queens. Lo-Fi electronica full of sampling and audio manipulation, and reminiscent of a mixture of vapourware and chillwave laced with video-game soundtrack influence, this gig is sure to keep audiences hooked. Check out ‘Chinatown’ on the BIBLEGIRL666 soundcloud account (I found it hard to find anything else!)
KREPT & KONAN @ Patterns
Casyo “Krept” Johnson and Karl “Konan” Wilson are taking Thornton Heath to the world. The south London rappers have been steadily building a reputation these last few years, thanks in part to a series of cheeky covers of US hip-hop hits. Now the Americans have come to them. With an Atlanta trap influence peeking through the backing tracks that are unmistakably stories from contemporary London.The frenetic ‘7 Days’ courses with restless energy; it’s a relentless party from tracks one to 11. Take the deceptively simple ‘Wo Wo Wo’, which is underpinned by trap beats and ice-cold synths as Krept & Konan pout through fabulously luxurious lines.
GRAVE PLEASURES @ The Hope & Ruin
This Finish post-punk band from Helsinki pack one hell of a punch. Reminiscant of the likes of Interpol, Joy Division, Grave Pleasures are one of those rare bands out there in the world that have a unique ability to combine macabre, mystifying rock with a more pop-oriented flare, a la early Bowie or early The Cure. Grave Pleasures are such a band that is equally suited for playing on a stadium stage, or in some Lynchian nightmare. It’s that duality and electrifying contradiction that makes their music so exhilarating.