For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan Sparhawk moves ceaselessly. Whirling, arms sweeping like the sails of a windmill, gliding across the stage. He sings, his voice treated: auto-tuned, pitch-shifted. The only breaks come with momentary pauses to set rhythm tracks for the next song. Then, off again.

Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end result feels more admirable than truly compelling. While the band still knows how to craft polished, politically aware alt-rock, the album often plays it safe musically, lacking the punch or experimentation that once defined them.

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Emily Saunders Moon Shifts Oceans (The Mix Sounds)

Johnnie Taylor’s big break came with the ever-fabulous September 1968 single “Who's Making Love.” His ninth 45 for the Stax label, it went Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Up to this point, the Arkansas-born singer had been on the R&B charts only. Hitting the mainstream countdown had taken a while: Taylor’s first solo single had been issued in April 1961.

Pixies might just be the ultimate Radio 6 Dad band. They’ve been around (on-and-off) for around 40 years; they’ve got a fine back catalogue of slightly weird, guitar-driven scuzzy rock music and they have absolutely no pretentions to being flash at all.

Photographer Finetime and I have our first pints outside Dalton’s, a bar on Brighton seafront, at almost exactly midday. They are Beavertown Neck Oil IPA at 4.3%. The sun is out, glinting off the sea. Feels like the calm before the storm.

Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on sale in 20 years’ time. To leave something behind when we die." That was September 1990, in a piece tied-in to their soon-to-be-issued debut single.

Songlines Encounters is your round-the-world ticket to great world music and performances, a chance to travel widely in music and culture without the burden of check-ins, passport control, flight delays, or transfers. 

As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on Spotify”, it’s also a great time for those who relish gigs by new talent from all over the world. For three days (four, if you count warm-up Wednesday), every nook and cranny has half-hour showcases running from lunchtime until close. And on top of that are the freebie Alternative Escape fringe events.

Lucy Farrell, one quarter of the brilliant, award-winning Anglo-Scots band Furrow Collective, and a solo artist whose stunning debut album, We Are Only Sound, was released in 2023, divides her time between the UK – she’s a native of Kent – and Prince Edward Island, a musically rich parcel of land off Canada’s eastern seaboard. The island is home to the other half of this sublime folk-acoustic double bill, Juno Award-winning songwriter Catherine MacLellan.