Homegrown Festival
Homegrown Festival
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From seedlings to giant oaks: plenty to forage for in the musical undergrowth of Brighton
After being turned away from the Albert because we had turned up without wristbands, we went to the Hope to pick them up and decided to see Arjun Nala at the Rossi.
This, the first of ten bands seen over the course of the night, was immediately arresting and stylistically varied. Some bands refuse to be defined because they sit between different styles, but Arjun Nala seems instead to play several different, although similar, styles which are glued together by the magnetic power of his voice. From blues and soul influenced numbers to the more rocky ‘Fade Away’ (which made someone behind me shed tears), Nala has an impressive command of the stage. He injects the audience with pain, employing a combination of raw vocals and lyrics and expressive facial movements, including rolling his eyes into the back of his head. Comfortable both with near-scream and scatting, Nala is versatile, intense and one to watch.
Just down the street, we next caught LLSN at the Folklore Rooms. The dark, leafy ambience of the space suited their ethereal soundscape. In what looked to be a comfortable pair of socks, their frontman El Ellson used a variety of pedals to create a soft, reverb-full sound that transports listeners into the otherworldly space that the airy and delicate vocals help depict.
Other instrumentation was tastefully unobtrusive and it was possible to lose oneself in the stories spun by a master manipulator of words, calling back to literary antecedents as varied as Leonard Cohen (“call me Cohen and I’ll call you Suzanne / I’m deep in the river with you holding my hand”) and Robert Louis Stevenson (“Doctor Jekyll better Hyde”). The overall effect manages to be oppressive, light-hearted and haunting all at once, perhaps explained by the fact that the project started during lockdown (when most of us were losing our sense of reality in some form or another).
LLSN at the Folklore Rooms
After LLSN finished, it was up to the Hope to see Our Girl, whose Soph Taylor showed unshakable confidence with guitar and voice, including scratching out one the most interesting guitar solo of the night. Songs which boldly put out a loving, kind ideal of consent between peers (“I really like you / it seems stupid but I’m really proud / I really want you”) seem so healthy, beautiful and underappreciated in a business which prioritises the extremes of broken-heartedness and mad passion. Then Marika Hackman got up on stage with them and we realised who the ‘secret set’ was going to be (obviously not having scanned the printed set list hard enough).
We briefly dashed out to witness the soft, melodic overpowering of Ochre at the Rossi, whose alt-folk songs were set to beautiful piano accompaniment, lush harmonies and quiet malleted drums. Appropriately kitted out in simple patterns and outfits of co-ordinated natural colours, Ochre’s music channeled the history and mysticism of folkloric tradition with sad, ghostly ballads. The sporadic and subtle work done by the piano, guitar and backing vocals gradually overwhelmed words, perhaps becoming a sonic representation of “time” being “the ocean / it drowns me”.
OCHRE at the Rossi Bar
Unable to finish the set and see Marika Hackman, we went to the Hope and managed to find an only slightly sub-optimal place from which to see her. We are Hackman fans and she did not disappoint. Probably the worst thing she did was sit down (for the entirety of the performance) due to tiredness from football the previous day. This was the Hope and probably only 35% of the crowd got to see her. She sounded magnificent though. We thought her new album might be diminished live, but she played Slime, The Big Sigh and Blood (a favourite of ours) and they sounded spot on. She did lose her footing on Cigarette halfway through the song. It’s a difficult picking pattern, leave her alone. She’s a little lackadaisical, quite weird, but obviously at home here in Brighton. Soph Taylor joined her for an Avril Lavine cover for the final song of the set which was impressive considering they had learned it on the bus coming down.
Next stop was Belgian Chips, where no one was playing but our stomachs were satiated by the sharp explosion of Samurai sauce. After that, we pinched cigarettes off a couple of BIMM students next to the Albert and then went to see Projector at Green Door Store. Projector were quality as usual. They played their newest single, which went off like a small bomb, as well as songs off their first album, and the banger that still is Zero. Synth was replaced by someone depping on a second guitar for the evening, but, other than that, not much has changed: they maintain the capacity to man-handle their instruments with such efficiency and ingenuity that audiences are left slightly blindsided. They were the only band we saw with anything that resembled a mosh pit that night.
This is one nice thing about Homegrown compared to, say, The Great Escape. The crowd aren’t all music promoters and journalists from elsewhere. There’s an energy and people aren’t afraid to look a little stupid to express themselves.
Ensbury of Projector at Green Door Store
Next on were the Roebucks at Folklore. Energetic, interesting and impressive, this relatively young group of musicians on the back end of their first tour easily captivated onlookers. With vocals shifting between drummer, guitarist and bassist in different songs, they did not let up for more than a moment, pivoting in intensity from track to track and finally finishing on a rendition of ‘The Way you Walk’ which was an absolute barnstormer. This lot looked like they were having fun and, from talking to them briefly after, it was established that they were. They looked the part too, smart and arty, dressed in frilly, white gowns and Arabian-style shirts which suited their folky, bluesy melodies to a tee.
The Roebucks at the Folklore Rooms
Not being able to get into to see any of Goodbye, who have obviously risen to some fame since filling in for Sad Dads last minute at Mutations last year, we headed straight to AK/DK instead. One of the most innovative bands of the night, they drilled their music into our eardrums with fanatic precision. The synth and drum duo built into incredibly complex soundscapes with dramatic rhythms, melodies, noises and textures. They were clearly enjoying themselves and it was difficult not to get into dancing.
AK/DK and at the Hope
Next on the bill were Congratulations. Everyone had been raving about them all night and they lived up to their fame, channeling a lot of punk, but folding it into the danceability of 80s sound. Leah Stanhope berated the audience in her black tracksuit above a panoply of effects that sent us on a little trip through time to a world of glitter and disco. They set the post-midnight world on fire with their obvious command of the stage, making full use of the floorboards as a four-piece.
At Rossi a bit later, we had a band in quite the opposite position, a six-piece squeezed onto a stage about a quarter of the size of a boxing-ring. Much acclaimed Room Service, played at the high-octane fever pitch they are known for, sending out souly banger after funky groove. What a pleasure to see them revelling in the glory of Jean Claude Van Dam and shocking the audience with a cover of Park Life sung by a Frenchman putting on a British accent. The powerful vocals, infectious rapping, delicious guitar licks and gritty rhythm section made dancing inevitable.
Room Service at The Rossi Bar
Last, but certainly not least, came Flip Top Head at the Hope. Stepping in for Cowz late in the day, they played a set that saw the remaining minutes swirl dramatically above the edges of the abyss. With multiple singers, three guitars, trombone and keys, our senses were arrested for the final few minutes of Homegrown by a series of cynical modern day fairytales spoken and sung over the top of a large, orchestral sound that promised energy, hope and oblivion.
Flip Top Head at the Hope
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