One of Europe’s leading metropolitan festivals of music and arts, Sound City, is making its much-anticipated return to the city centre across the first spring bank holiday Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th May.
During the weekend, over 250 emerging new bands and headliners will perform, with Sound City today revealing the first ten bands who will be joining the festival.
The first bands to be revealed are alt-psych rock outfit Peace (pictured), who have been compared to The Maccabees and Vampire Weekend, along with guitar-electro poppers Slow Readers Club who segue from catchy upbeat indie to angry, introspective ballads. They will rub shoulders with Eno Williams’ Ibibio Sound Machine, whose clash of African and electronic elements fills stages around the world, and Baxter Dury who weaves sparse but eclectically funny and touching lyrics through his music – his recent Prince of Tears album garnered great acclaim.
“We wanted to lay down a marker for what everyone can expect from our festival’s return to its roots.”
Becky Ayres, Sound City
Arch social commentators Idles chronicle the decline of the country and skewer the mainstream, there’ll be energetic indie pop from Jaws, alongside Low Island’s colourful, jazz-inspired sounds. Cassia will bring their calypso-flavoured afro-rock, there’ll be vibrant indie from The Orielles and Liverpool-born, enigmatic pop-rocker Zuzu completes the first wave of names.
Applications are still open for artists to apply to play at Sound City until 19th January 2018.
Becky Ayres, Sound City’s COO, explains: “We are all immensely proud and happy to reveal our first artists for 2018. We wanted to lay down a marker for what everyone can expect from our festival’s return to its roots, and we hope that the range and dynamism of these opening ten names reflects where we are taking Sound City for next year and far beyond.
“Seeing these guys performing up close and personal across a wide spectrum of locations is going to be really special. And of course, there is plenty more to come too as we enter the new year – this is just the beginning!”
Tickets for Sound City 2018 are available at the event’s website.Music Business Worldwide
