GUIDE & PLAYLIST: The Great Escape Festival 2023

Event: The Great Escape

Where: Brighton (various venues)

When: Thursday 10th – Saturday 13th May 2023

Ticket Info:
Full Weekend ticket: £105 / 2 Day ticket: £80.00 / Day ticket: between £40-55 (ticket link here)

General Info:
We’re excited to be heading back to The Great Escape Festival to tread Brighton’s pebbled beach and trek around the city trying to catch some of the best female, non-binary and LGBTQ+ new music talent! Spread across three days, the festival aims to showcase an eclectic array of artists to excited fans and music industry members. There’s also conferences and other music events running alongside the main festival.

In the lead up to Brighton, there’s a series of showcases in Glasgow and Dublin for The Road To The Great Escape. They will run from the 6th-9th May. Full info here.

Running parallel to the main festival is The Alternative Escape! Check out the venues that are getting involved and the full line-up for it here.

The Late Escape will also kick in once everything else is in full swing. It will feature after hours sets from dance and electronic artists at a number of Brighton venues on Friday May 12th and Saturday May 13th. More info here.

Who’s Playing: Full line-up & timetable here

GIHE favourites ARXX, Brimheim, Problem Patterns, Human Interest, Seraphina Simone and CLT DRP will all be singing by the seaside over the long weekend, but we’re excited to discover some brand new artists too. Below is a list of acts we’re keen to catch at the festival.

You can get to know them better by listening to our accompanying Spotify Playlist at the end of this feature, or you can listen back to our Soho Radio x Great Escape special show with SPIDER here.

Who GIHE recommend you catch:
Whitelands, Brimheim, Problem Patterns, Phoebe Go, JFDR, Cristale, ARXX, Girls Of The Internet, Alice Low, Blondshell, DEBBY FRIDAY, Witch Fever, CLT DRP, Coach Party, SPIDER, SPRINTS, Alice Longyu Gao, Gena Rose Bruce, Cumgirl8, Nuha Ruby Rah, Seraphina Simone, cumgirl8, CATBEAR, Trout, Lambrini Girls, Berry Galazka, GROVE, PVA, Delilah Holliday, Moonchild Sanelly, Mandy Indianna, Jessica Winter, PVA, Maeve, NikNak, King Hannah, The Oozes, FLOSSING, Heartworms, RUTI, Bobbi Lu, Amrit Kaur, King Isis, Baque Luar, Alien Chicks, GENN, Projector, Helen Ganya, Rauchen, O., LUCI, Gen & The Degenerates, NEY LIQA, Sans Soucis, October & The Eyes, Hinako Omori, Penelope Trappes, Jessie Marcella, Marysia Osu, CIEL, Dull, English Teacher, Flip Top Head, Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, Mindy Meng Wang & Tim Shiel, Boyish, HANYA, HotWax, Human Interest, Lime Garden, Nice Biscuit, The Big Moon, The Last Dinner Party.

Download the official Great Escape app for the full schedule & line-up

For more information visit The Great Escape’s official website

Check out our Great Escape Festival Playlist below!

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LISTEN: jellyskin – ‘Bringer Of Brine’

A heady rush of thumping beats, smooth vocals and dense synth textures, jellyskin have shared their latest single ‘Bringer Of Brine’. Taken from their upcoming debut album In Brine, which is set for release on 9th June via Wrong Speed Records, The Leeds-based duo combine their eccentric ideas with throbbing percussion and commanding electronics to create their techno-inspired, industrial sounds.

Formed of Will Ainsley and Zia Larty-Healy, jellyskin have spent the past four years meticulously writing and recording their debut record between Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, Palamos and Berlin. The pair invited Berlin-based producer Lewis D-t to co-produce, mix and master In Brine, and to “finesse the tracks into fat-free hunks of ecstasy and sonic exploration”. The result of this collaboration is a record that brims with a palpable sense of urgency and euphoria, with narrative themes that range from intense longing and desire, to misadventure by the sea and aquatic apparitions.

jellyskin somehow combine all of these elements on their latest single, ‘Bringer Of Brine’. Accompanied by a music video, shot and directed by Misha Warren, jellyskin star in the nautical themed visuals, which compliment the themes they explore on In Brine. Following high-profile UK festival slots and shows alongside luminaries, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Warmduscher, Sea Power, Moonlandingz and The KVB, and with their debut album on the horizon, 2023 looks set to be an exciting year for jellyskin.

Watch the video for ‘Bringer Of Brine’ below.

jellyskin’s upcoming debut album In Brine is available for pre-order from 5th May via bandcamp

Follow jellyskin on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Misha Warren

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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LIVE: Ailbhe Reddy – Moth Club, London 18.04.23

“I’m a one trick pony” joked Ailbhe Reddy to her attentive crowd at Hackney’s Moth Club last week. Referring to the similar content of the songs that make up her latest album, Endless Affair – “this one’s about being hungover” – Reddy’s self deprecating remarks and tender, clear vocals charmed her listeners at the East London venue.

Opening her set with bittersweet anthem ‘Between Your Teeth’, which is taken from her debut album Personal History, Reddy was backed by a full band for the majority of her show. Pausing briefly between songs to share personal anecdotes, including her memory of the disastrous last time she played piano live – “I covered a little song called ‘Imagine’, don’t know if you’ve heard of it? It didn’t go well” – Reddy’s headline performance made up for her past mistakes.

With a setlist full of tracks from her second album Endless Affair, Reddy delivered great renditions of ‘Inhaling’, ‘Shoulderblades’, ‘Last To Leave’ and the hugely relatable ‘Shitshow’, on which she scrutinizes her drunken reflection. On record, Reddy’s poetic, vulnerable lyrics are balanced alongside her wry humour, and this translated well in a live setting too. Whether Reddy was learning to “take love where it’s planted” on the beautifully sincere ‘Bloom’, trying to get under and ex’s skin on ‘ILYW’ (‘I’m Losing You’re Winning’), or simply owning up to being ‘A Mess’, she managed to retain these key elements of her craft under the spotlight.

Songs from her debut album, Personal History, also made the cut, including ‘Looking Happy’ and the title track, on which Reddy passionately repeated the lyric “I don’t want to go on dates / and hear personal history / I don’t want to share my own / unless it’s you listening”, which proved to be a real highlight of the set.

Whilst Reddy clearly relished playing with a full band behind her, there were moments when the collective volume of the instruments overpowered her vocal. This was atoned for at the end of the set, when she played her final three songs solo. Closing the night with the emotive ‘Pray For Me’, which was dedicated to her late Grandmother, Reddy’s crowd listened intently as she shared stories about the “wordless promises” she made to her relative in the latter stages of her life. It was a poignant and powerful note to end the set on, and one which will ensure fans keep coming back to see Reddy play live again.

Follow Ailbhe Reddy on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo credit: Niamh Barry

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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NEW TRACK: Circe – ‘Riot Of Sunlight’

A commanding, euphoric rush of cinematic dark-pop, London-based musician Circe has shared her latest single ‘Riot Of Sunlight’. Taken from her upcoming EP, Drawing Wings From The Light, which is set for release on 19th July, the track is a delightfully disorientating blend of reverb-heavy riffs, dizzying synths and seraphic vocals, all delivered with Circe’s distinctive and vivid charm.

“I wrote ‘Riot Of Sunlight’ when I was a teenager, now 10 years later I’m finally releasing it in its final form – all because of some magic I was blessed enough to encounter twice,” Circe explains about the context of her new track.

“When I was 15, completely by chance, I watched Jez Butterworth’s + Mark Rylance’s critically acclaimed play Jerusalem [now hailed as the greatest play of the century]. A week prior to this, I was disregarded by a frustrated science teacher as an ‘ungrateful fantasist obsessed with glamorising the occult’ — so when my wide eyed teenage self was witness to Jerusalem — a play and performance of such colossal, glorious, gigantic magic — my heart was completely derailed, and by the end of the play I existed on an entirely different plane to the one I walked in on. The next morning I wrote the first incarnation ‘Riot of Sunlight’ – a disciple-like sonic ode to Jerusalem.

Skip forward 10 years I was feeling disillusioned, suffocating under a soulless corrupt government when Jerusalem — like the fucking marvel it is — unexpectedly returned to theatres and I watched again, as ‘a rainbow hit the earth + set fire to the ground’ and I finished the song.”

Inspired by this collision of her past and present, Circe has created another passionate, rapturous offering on ‘Riot Of Sunlight’, which becomes more addictive each time it’s listened to. “Take my blood instead of wine” she offers, as the track builds to its blissful conclusion. This single is the opening track to her upcoming EP, and we can’t wait to hear the record in full.

Listen to ‘Riot Of Sunlight’ below.

Follow Circe on Spotify, bandcamp, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter & Instagram

Photo Credit: Zak Watson

Kate Crudgington
@kate_crudge

 

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