Sound City is now just weeks away, taking place across the first bank holiday weekend in May right across Liverpool.
As the UK’s leading independent festival for emerging talent, it is a definitive zeitgeist of sounds, styles and cerebral sessions. There’s a heady mix of amazing music from across the world mixed with a world-class conference, Sound City+, and a vibrant range of wider arts to be edified by and immersed in.
Taking place in a range of venues across the Baltic Triangle, Sound City is now back to its roots as a multi-environment weekend odyssey of discovery. Some of the most inspiring new artists and performers from across the world and closer to home will descend on the city, to revered headliners who set the agenda as some of the most illuminating names of their generation.
Leading the announcement are Shame, described as possibly the best band in the UK. The widely acclaimed group continue to create cultured, anthemic magic on stage, and will bring their best to Sound City. Next up, harmonious guitar band Blaenavon are awash with gorgeous melodies and heartfelt vocals, whilst the sublime Aussie outfit Confidence Man bring their dance-pop joy to the city. They join the already announced headliners including Mabel, Loyle Carner and The Magic Gang.
Liverpool's acclaimed Tea Street Band joyfully merge 808 State with The Doves infused with the spirit of The Happy Mondays, whilst dynamic indie rockers King No-One continue to take the live scene by storm. Kara Marni blends her beautiful soul music with pop riffs, local legends Clean Cut Kid’s lo-fi American East Coast sound has won them plenty of fans, and Irish experimental folk singer Soak continues to inspire. Then there’s the wondrous Stella Donnelly, whose lo-fi bedroom folk-pop is spiked with wit and feminist defiance, to Spinn who are the masterful Scouse feel-good four-piece, and energetic indie-rockers The Jungle Giants make the trip from Down Under. Further artists include Estrons, Benny Mails, Monks, Pizzagirl, Sunshine Frisby Laserbeam, Talkshow, Childcare, Emily Burns, Lennie Dies, Saltwater Sun and Tamu Massif.
International artists include everything from the visceral thrill of Italy’s Husky Loops’ unorthodox take on modern rock music to German indie-poppers Giant Rooks taking centre-stage, whilst Shortparis’s decadent dancefloor post-punk rocks from Russia, Slovakia’s post-rock group 52HertzWhale also drop in, and Say Sue Me are Korea’s biggest indie-pop band with their smile-inducing surf-sound. Further artists include Luwten, Hope, Surma, Mateusz Franczak, Josh Island, BOKKA, Them Lights, Loving Embers, Vera Jonas Experiment, ANNELIE, КУКЛА, Blaž and Oscar Soul Experience.
Saturday’s headliner Mabel is a mesmeric child of the halcyon-age of 00s R&B, harnessing the energy of her idols from that hallowed era. She has also collaborated with everyone from Stormzy to Tate Modern and toured with Harry Styles to Bryson Tiller, and is already an ebullient iconic pop icon.
Liverpool’s own star
Louis Berry has gone from having Radio 1’s Hottest Record in the World to honing his mercurial style as a widely feted genre-skipping artist, who has audiences eating out of the palm of his hand one moment to moshing to .45 the next. He will be keeping it very much real at Sound City.
They are joined by a wealth of further artists in the first announcement, including (A-Z): Alligator, Benin City, Cousin Kula, Dancing on Tables, Dayo Bello, Dot, Giant Rooks, Goodies, Harry Miller, Heavy Lungs, Indigo Lo, Jvck James, Molly Rainford, Monks, Our Girl, Red Rum Club, Roman Lewis, Ryan McDermott, Saltwater Sun, Sophie and the Giants, Spinn, SPQR, Tamu Massif, Tracky and Vistas. 100s more artists will be revealed soon.
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