Thursday bounced between pop technicolour, darker edges and late-night experimentation.

Our day started at Dust with Japanese five-piece Necry Talkie, who instantly injected the day with colour and joy, as part of Wall of Sound PR's Inspired By Tokyo showcase. Performing abroad for the first time, the band expressed how happy they were to be in Brighton through the English they knew, with the audience returning that warmth and some. Their combination of wonky pop, electronic textures and infectious energy captured the room. Playful keyboard lines gave parts of the set an almost video game-like quality, whilst sweet head-bopping choreography between the singer and bassist heightened the sense of fun running through the performance. (MS)

Borscht brought a completely different atmosphere to East Street Tap as part of the Alt Escape programme. Their set shifted between humour, darkness and social commentary, pulling from folk and alternative rock traditions without settling in one place. At one point the band introduced a song about an anxiety dream involving a chicken, complete with chicken noises supplied by various members onstage, which somehow felt perfectly natural within the off-kilter world they’d constructed. Frontman Ernst’s distinctive drawl, coloured by subtle German inflections, gave the songs an unusual character whilst the band around him moved fluidly between tightly wound tunes and explosive climaxes. Artist Spotlight feature coming soon. (MS)

Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, 22-year-old Dylan Young's solo project Way Dynamic performed their UK debut in Komedia Basement. The solo act was accompanied by a plethora of instrumentalists, the six-piece helping to harness the intricate layers of the tracks. It was clear there were some nerves on stage but they subsided once we embarked on some of the better-known tracks, including single ‘Miffed It’, which had the packed out awe-stricken crowd mouthing back the entire song. It reflected the impact this band and their folky sonic aesthetic have had on a city that's seeing increasing love for shoegaze and more ambiguous indie. It's great to see the love for refined minimalist folk/pop music still being retained. As we ventured further into the set, we experienced some promising new tracks which varied on a theme of jovial and soft deliveries, really honing in on that cohesive output that has everybody eager for what's next. (BW)

Thursday’s most transportive performance came courtesy of Ceann Capaill at The Oak - a pub in Kemptown hosting some of the best free shows of the weekend. Surrounded by pedals and a collection of instruments including violin, clarinet, saxophone, guitars, samples and keys, the project felt more like an evolving piece of theatre than a conventional band set. Project leader Declan Haughian’s spoken word passages intertwined with traditional Irish samples to tell stories touching on mental health, memory and nature. When vocals were rested, clarinet lines were pushed through distortion pedals, creating textures that felt both ancient and unsettlingly modern. The final piece gently erupted into something overwhelming and cathartic as the drummer abandoned their sticks for bare-handed percussion, whilst waves of wailing instrumentation collapsed in around the room. (MS)

Just weeks after opening Green Door Store’s new outdoor stage, it felt fitting to see Brighton's Lime Garden commanding the huge crowd down at The Deep End. Singer and guitarist Chloe Howard’s start-of-set swipe at the stage sponsor Ticketmaster, “thanks, said no one, but thanks for putting us on," earned cheers but really underlined the strange tension at the heart of The Great Escape itself: artists sitting alongside industry machinery, both dependent on and at odds with it. Chloe also joked about still being billed as an ‘emerging artist’, despite releasing music since 2020, but whatever the framing, Lime Garden are unquestionably established: confident, razor sharp, joyous and fully in control of their own sound. New material from their recent album Maybe Not Tonight landed brilliantly alongside older favourites like ‘Clockwork’, cementing them as one of Brighton’s defining bands. (MS)

Upstairs at Patterns, Lewes-born artist Bert blended soulful indie songwriting with flashes of breakbeat and jazz-inflected rhythm. Introducing ‘My Me, My Who, My How’, Bert spoke movingly about becoming a live-in carer for his grandad and using music as a way to communicate when ordinary conversation becomes difficult. The vulnerability of this moment only deepened the warmth already oozing through the performance, with rich harmonies and fluid instrumentation keeping the packed room entirely engaged and grooving. Tracks shifted naturally between tender introspection and more rhythmically driven passages, reflecting Bert’s background in hip-hop whilst never losing the intimacy at the heart of the set. (MS)

More coming soon.