It’s that time again when new music fans and the music industry in the UK descend to the south coast for the annual multi-venue music festival known as the Great Escape in Brighton.
I guess I’m part of the furniture at the festival now, having attended 17 of the 18 events since the very first one in 2006. Along the way I have witnessed a number of now high profile artists in their infancy, playing tiny venues. From Adele playing to about 100 people at the Red Roaster café in the early days of the festival to more recently the controversy courting Kneecap in 2024.
2024’s edition of the festival was an odd one, with many of the artists scheduled to play withdrawing in the days leading up to the event due to the festival’s partnership with Barclays bank, who hold financial ties to companies whose weapons, components and military technology are being used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians. This led to a lot of frantic rescheduling of shows and updating of the timetable by the organisers, which to give the people doing the work credit, they did an excellent job at, with punters being kept informed of the changes by the constantly updating app.
The boycott by artists did achieve its aim and this year the festival is no longer sponsored by Barclays. However, the horrendous number of deaths in Palestine show no sign of abatement. On the ground at the festival last year, most punters I spoke to fully acknowledged the sincerity of those withdrawing, but questioned what the boycott would ultimately achieve, except for enabling artists to feel better about themselves if Barclays pulled out. 1 year on, the withdraw of the artists doesn’t appear to have resulted in even 1 life being saved to date as Barclays have not changed their business partnerships or ties.
2025’s edition of The Great Escape, minus the corporate sponsorship of Barclays, appears to be business as usual, with one change. This year’s event has now expanded to include live music on the Wednesday night as well as the normal full days on Thursday to Saturday. Whilst traditionally there has always been a number of unofficial showcases on the Wednesday night this year the festival has added a number of official Great Escape gigs as part of the ticket offering.
Once again there are 100’s and 100’s of artists playing Great Escape. Not only at the official showcases but also at many of the free ‘Alt-Escape’ events that occur at the same time. If you are a first timer, the festival can feel almost overwhelming with the choice of artists, so as a way of help, Breaking More Waves is offering you a handful of recommendations of acts to see.
So let’s dive straight in with 10 recommendations for trying to catch (clashes and venue capacities permitting!)
Luvcat
Already named as one of Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch 2025 (here) and winner of the Northern Music Awards Breakthrough Act of the Year Award. Luvcat gives you murder ballads about poisoining your husband, being in love whilst making a sex tape and other twisted dark pop tunes that are way more interesting than the norm.
Sunday (1994)
Formed from members of Xylo and Viva Brother, Sunday (1994) make beautiful chiming guitar pop that pays reference to the likes of The Cranberries or The Sundays.
Mixing jazz with rock influences they’ve signed to Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings and have been tipped as the next jazz band to do an ‘Ezra Collective’. If you want something away from all the indie guitar bands and something a bit more noodly at Great Escape Oreglo could be your thing.
Cliffords
Poetic and gritty, Cliffords are another band that were on the Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch list. Gearing up to release their 2nd EP this Irish band make big music and life affirming anthems belted out by the highly charismatic Iona Lynch.
Tara Nome Doyle is a Norwegian-Irish singer songwriter based in Berlin. Her current album Ekko, released on the 11th April is a collection of gorgeous indie folk / chamber pop mixing violin and piano and clocks in at just 30 minutes long. This means if she ditches the first instrumental she could play almost all of it in her scheduled half hour at the Unitarian Church on Saturday night.
Zimmer 90
Around 10 years ago when music blogs like this were everywhere, Germany's Zimmer 90 would have undoubtedly been receiving plenty of ‘Blog Buzz’. They’d have been on a label like Kitsun and songs like What Love Is with its wholesome soft electronic dance feel would have no doubt been number 1 in the Hype Machine charts. However, it’s not 2015, but 2025. That doesn’t however mean that Zimmer 90 are not worth your attention. They are.
Westside Cowboy
This April Westside Cowboy beat 1000s of other entries to win the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition and bag a £5,000 talent development prize and a slot on the Woodsies Stage at the festival. Surely enough of a recommendation on its own?
Goodbye are playing 5 shows at this year’s Great Escape including some Alt-Escape ones so there really is no excuse for not catching them at some point. They haven’t released any music yet save for a live ‘bootleg’ cassette of one of their gigs via Bandcamp (which they state ‘None of us own a cassette player so don’t even know if it’s any good’). However, I saw them last year at Mutations Festival and they were certainly a band that showed some promise. So, if you want to check out one local Brighton band, Goodbye are my recommendation.
Ruby Duff
If you like your pop a little bit quirky, a bit experimental and a bit cartoonish, Ruby Duff might just be the one for you. Her exuberant sounding tune Belong Here sounds like it belongs on radio.
Yet another Breaking More Waves One to Watch for 2025, Chloe Qisha does knowing, sassy, cool as f*ck pop.
