BAND OF HORSES
Tues 5 Sept
De La Warr Pavilion
The mighty Band of Horses return to the DLWP with some new music from their acclaimed fifth studio album, Why Are You Ok, in an exclusive UK venue gig! Beginning with their first LP, Everything All The Time, the group have been a mainstay of indie rock for a decade – recording four studio albums in total, including 2010’s Grammy-nominated Infinite Arms and Mirage Rock produced by the legendary Glyn Johns.
Formed and led by singer and songwriter Ben Bridwell, the South Carolina-based band have also given us many much-loved singles, including The Funeral and No One’s Gonna Love You, and have played globe-spanning headline tours as well as dates with musical greats like Pearl Jam and Neil Young.
RODDY WOOMBLE
Sun 10 Sept
Con Club, Lewes
New single, Jupiter, sees Roddy Woomble and his band in a surreal and playful mood, channelling both solo McCartney and Pavement in a quirky, melodic, and memorable pop song. It follows on from the brooding, atmospheric Like Caruso single released back in March, and showcases the diversity of his upcoming and highly anticipated fourth solo album, The Deluder. Woomble, who also fronts Scottish indie rock band Idlewild, already has eight acclaimed albums and three compilations under his belt. They have released twelve UK top 40 singles and toured throughout the world as a headline act, and also as support to REM, U2, Pearl Jam and The Rolling Stones amongst many others.
THE SALTS
Sun 10 Sept
Brighton Open Air Theatre
One of the most exciting and energetic concepts around, The Salts perform a mixture of traditional sea shanties intermixed with their own original songs. This unique style has won them droves of fans and taken them to festivals, venues, tall ship regattas and pirate events throughout the UK.
Their debut album, She Rises, has received rave reviews across the board and their live performances are guaranteed to get people dancing, clapping, and singing along. Drawing influence from ship-board work songs, this band bring them to life with so much vigour you can almost feel the cold sea spray on your face and the wind in your hair.
BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT
Thurs 14 Sept
The Hope & Ruin
The band’s Tales of the City EP did some tidy business during the summer for vocalist, songwriter and producer Rod Thomas – also known as Bright Light Bright Light. Its title was taken from a seminal Armistead Maupin series, and chronicles, in part, Thomas’ move from London to New York.
The EP serves as a companion piece to Bright Light Bright Light’s acclaimed 2016 release Choreography, and features that album’s stand-out track Into The Night, as well as new tune Thinking About It. This wondrous DIY electro-pop project hits the UK roads this September, showing everyone how you keep it retro without bowing to clichés. There should be a place in everyone’s hearts for colourful ‘80s-inspired melodic brilliance like this.
CORY FLYNN
Fri 15 Sept
The Brunswick
Brighton-based Cory Flynn is an enormously talented young singer-songwriter and musician. His songs give an edge to folk, country, and blues in a style heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. He produces a driving rhythm and flatpicking style on his guitar, with a bluesy approach to piano.
Cory’s songs tell stories in a very original way, displaying an insight, intellect, and humour far beyond his years, and as a result he’s attracted major praise for his inventive use of language. Remarkably, Cory has already been playing live for nearly six years, both solo and in bands, at clubs and festivals locally around Sussex.
FLYTE
Sat 16 Sept
Patterns
Flyte released their highly anticipated debut album, (The Loved Ones), last month. In the school of Grizzly Bear, Alt-J, and Fleet Foxes, it uses their four voices to guide their sound. It swerves any use of crashing cymbals and layers of electric guitars in favour of a more crafted, carefully constructed approach. Lead singer Will Taylor’s style of lyric writing weaves threads of George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh with Nick Drake and Ray Davies, tapping into the English malaise and coming of-age nostalgia like so many writers before him.
Accomplished songwriters who quickly earned a reputation for their trademark arrangements and fierce live shows, Flyte released a flurry of alternative singles before pairing up with Courtney Barnett producer Burke Reid to create their stunning first full-length record.
PHIL RUDD (AC/DC)
Sun 17 Sept
Concorde 2
Phil Rudd powered the legendary AC/DC to superstardom with his dogged consistency and unshakeable backbeat, and has since become an indelible part of rock history. After playing on all but three of AC/DC’s 18 studio albums the veteran musician now takes his solo project on the road. During 2014 he recorded and released his excellent debut album Head Job alongside Kiwi musicians Allan Badger and Geoffrey Martin.
However, the promotion plans for the album were scuppered by Rudd’s well-publicised legal problems, but he’s now determined to put his destructive behaviour behind him. Rudd has now turned a corner and completely dedicated himself to the more important things in his life – family, friends and music.
THE MAINE
Mon 18 Sept
The Haunt
Since releasing their new album Lovely Little Lonely in April, The Maine have been touring non-stop. It’s a good thing too. Since their last album, American Candy, the band disappeared almost completely. Now they’ve finally resurfaced with a work which fuses American rock with a melodic edge. It’s agreeably accessible, but knows when it wants to shake its hair.
It’s easy to see them filling huge venues with songs like these. It’s a step away from their alternative roots, but The Maine’s most faithful fans will find plenty to love in the new material, as will those only recently catching-on to their majesty. If you’re looking for a solid rock act with an ear for fantastic tunes, this is your first stop.
CATTLE & CANE
Tues 19 Sept
The White Rabbit
Led by siblings Joe and Helen Hammill, Cattle & Cane are heading out across the UK for an acoustic tour this September, which includes a show with Folklore Sessions Brighton. They’ll be accompanied by their brother Fran on piano as well as guitarist Thom Fripp for the stripped-back dates, which will see gigs in a launderette, a library and even a deli.
Previous support slots with chart-topper Tom Odell, Seattle’s The Head and The Heart and Montreal’s Half Moon Run have helped Cattle & Cane build up a loyal and passionate following. This fanbase has propelled the unsigned band’s sophomore album Mirrors into the top 20 of the Independent Album Chart earlier this year thanks, in part, to a hugely successful PledgeMusic campaign.
POM POKO
Weds 18 Oct
The Prince Albert
If you mix sing-song vocals with intense grooves, bouncy guitars, and absurd riffs and there you have the pure Norwegian punky sweetness of Pom Poko. Their new track is an eclectic concoction of crowd pleasing vocal hooks, 70’s disco riffs, and raucous rhythmic changes all of which combine to make this band a feat to behold live.
IS BLISS / AIR FORMATION
Fri 20 Oct
The Prince Albert
Portsmouth-based trio Is Bliss have already been making massive strides on the south-coast and London music scene. Gaining critical acclaim due to their original sound, 6music airplays and incendiary live performances on the increasingly growing new psychedelic gig circuit, they are a band to look out for. After successful support slots with the likes of Mark Gardener (Ride), Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) and The Jesus And Mary Chain, the band continue to make waves and turn heads.
Air Formation (pictured) formed in Brighton in 1998, playing shoegaze when shoegaze was still a dirty word. Influenced by the likes of Flying Saucer Attack, Spacemen 3 & Sigur Ros they set about creating their signature soaring melancholic soundscapes, backed by a driving rhythm section with soft understated vocals.
MICHAEL NAU
Sat 21 Oct
The Greys
With his successful debut album out last year on Full Time Hobby ‘Mowing’, Maryland-based singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Michael Nau already returns with his second offering, Some Twist. A new collection of twelve songs represents some of his most sharp and moving work to date, he crafts an enticing mix of psychedelic and folk-influenced indie-pop.
While last year’s Mowing and its standout single Love Survive can be viewed as commercial and critical successes for Nau, it was the act of putting the album out to begin with that was perhaps the biggest victory. After veering away from two different outfits he had fronted in the mid-to-late aughts (Page France and Cotton Jones) Nau had spent and a good deal of time overthinking his next move to a semi-paralyzing degree.
Upon the urging of others around him, Nau did eventually put Mowing together and saw fans and the critical community alike respond in 2016. Shortly thereafter, the uplifting single ‘Love Survive’ caught the attention of various BBC Radio DJs and programmers leading to an extended run of airplay that has spread to a brand-new audience throughout Europe.
PETE HOWELLS
Sat 23 Sept
The Prince Albert
Brighton-based Pete Howells is a singer/songwriter trading in lovely, lyric-driven folk-rock with Latin and acoustic blues influences. Originally from Hartlepool, he’s toured the UK extensively, playing folk clubs, colleges, and concert halls with his various bands – most notably, Household Names and World Service. His 1974 debut, Ode, is one of the earliest in psychedelic folk and is now a valuable collector’s item.
Playing music since he was five years old, he learned to play the guitar at the age of ten and began to play in coffee bars and folk clubs from 16. In fact, he’s never stopped playing and writing songs. Now, the new Dead Cat Bounce album represents a culmination of tunes and ideas he has been trying out for the past few years.
GUY ANDREWS
Thurs 28 Sept
Rialto Theatre
This British electronic music producer has become renowned for assembling beautifully intense, sparse, textural music. He combines aggressive, organic, and electronic percussion, fuzzy synth leads and post-rock driven guitar to create a wonderful palette of atmospherics, distinct and authentic compositions, and broad soundscapes.
From the outer reaches of minimalism with his Moving Dawn Orchestra project to the mellower, jazzier fringes with iambic, Andrews is an explorer at heart. He’s recently started pulling together all of the wilfully disparate themes from his side-projects and enthused them with a bold cinematic voice. Space invaders may come and go, but this one will have you begging to be let aboard the mothership.
DENAI MOORE
Fri 29 Sept
Komedia
The last couple of years have provided an intense and sometimes painful period of growth for Moore. It’s an experience which she documents now with unflinching openness on the We Used to Bloom album. Its ten songs reveal someone figuring out the world and their place in it, while also charting Moore’s evolving relationship with herself.
This fearless attitude to tackling tough topics only highlights her exceptional lyrical talents. Moore is certainly a complicated artist, capable of being vulnerable and assertive, outspoken and withdrawn, or angry and loving all at the same time. This is an artist who is growing, and realising there’s more life to experience yet – and we want to hear all about it.
THE XCERTS
Fri 29 Sept
The Haunt
After new single Feels Like Falling In Love was released and accumulated over 240,000 streams on Spotify in a week, Brighton’s very own The Xcerts have announced a huge UK tour. It follows their epic set at 2000trees Festival and a recent sold out headline show at London’s The Social.
This three-piece fuse the heady euphoric production and stadium pomp of ‘80s Springsteen and Tom Petty with the dry, sharp wit of Cheap Trick on Feels Like Falling In Love. It’s their first release since 2014’s much loved and critically lauded There Is Only You album, and follows on from three years touring and playing with Biffy Clyro, Nothing But Thieves, Deaf Havana, The Amazons, You Me At Six and Manchester Orchestra.
SPECTRUM: OBJECTS LTD
Sat 30 Sept
The Basement
Brighton Dome’s celebration of the city’s vibrant and diverse music scene presents a Brighton Digital Festival special. It’s curated by Lara Rix-Martin of Objects Limited, a record label releasing music by those who identify as female or nonbinary. She headlines as Meemo Comma, offering a stripped back, dreamlike and evocative sound, with elements of footwork, instrumental grime and drone.
Joining her is Drill Folly, a Melbourne-born artist that combines machinery and emotion – realised through found sound, synthesis and studio manipulation. Completing the line-up isa Ingrid Plum, who uses her voice to produce layered soundscapes, spoken word and songs. She creates work which sits between sound art, improvisation, and multi-media installation.
TOM GRENNAN
Sat 30 Sept
The Old Market
Influenced by the likes of Ray Charles, Kendrick Lamar and Amy Winehouse, Tom Grennan continues to mark the release of his EP, Release The Breaks, with a headline show at The Old Market. Born and raised in Bedford, the 21-year-old has already collaborated with Chase & Status and earned himself a spot on the BBC’s Sound of 2017 longlist.
He clearly has a gift for songwriting, with broad and candid looks at contemporary life. It took just a drunken spot of singing at a party to make this 21-year-old realise music was the only path he could ever take. Now, his soulful take on blues-soaked indie is drawing in devotees everywhere. Catch him while you can – he’s going to be massive.
