Music: Sea Monsters
Brighton’s brightest bands arise from the depths for the Sea Monsters festival
Inspired by the now defunct Brighton Live, Sea Monsters is the brainchild of Alex Murray of Brighton-based promoters and record label One Inch Badge. After a successful festival last January, Sea Monsters is back with a series of gigs at the Prince Albert and a compilation CD of those acts performing, representing a snapshot of the continually evolving Brighton music scene, which continues to be full of fresh and inspirational musicians and bands.
Over the six days you can see anything and everything, from the brilliantly purist folk of Mary Hampton to the cerebral indie-pop of Black Black Hills (ex-Pope Joan).
Folk and its many sub-genres are playing an increasingly significant
part in the current new musical landscape of Brighton and the UK, and there are plenty of interesting and innovative acts to get your teeth into here including the oh-so-fragile sounds of Jane Bartholomew, the eccentric piano/percussion-based intellectualism of American-born Robert Stillman, and the minimalist folk of Birdengine.
Retroism is also increasingly in vogue these days, cases in point being the 8-bit quirkiness of Drum Eyes, the alt-country sounds of Salter Cane, and the mental instrumental surf of The Squadron Leaders.
Some of the acts here have been around a good few years now, including the semi-legendary I’m Being Good, back in action and still purveying their leftfield post-hardcore sounds, but there’s plenty of new talent to get your teeth into, much of it exploring the outer limits of what rock’n’roll can mean for today’s music makers: for instance, the aptly-named Speak Galactic are like nothing on this earth, a wonky mish-mash of Animal Collective and Hot Chip, whilst Brighton favourites Restlesslist eschew vocals in favour of driving instrumentals and crazy rhythms that are both imaginative and fun at the same time.
It’s not all arty and leftfield sounds though; there’s more traditional sounding acts such as emo-hardcore outfit Jumping Ships, epic indie merchants Munich and lo-fi indie throwback Fear of Men among the 24 acts performing.
For those who would like to hear a concentrated snippet of what
Brighton is currently up to music-wise, then look no further…
Sea Monsters 2, Prince Albert, Thursday 23–Tuesday 28 Jan, 7.45pm all days, £4 advance. A £20 six-day pass is also available, and includes a free copy of Sea Monsters 2 Compilation CD
