Staff Picks- Great Escape Festival 2016

The Great Escape Festival is a modern marvel. It’s a chance to get ahead of time and go see artists that will be huge this time next year in a tiny room with three other people. Thousands of fans descend on Brighton and compare circles on lanyards. To save some time, we’ve trailed through a good chunk of the line-up and picked out some stuff to go see that you may not have heard of. The Great Escape is an amazing place to see new artists, and Craig David.

There is a lot of 80’s lady pop at this years festival, continuing a trend that has had bands like Ekkah come and take off, and Shura is a great example of this. We’ve always had a soft for this melody centric kind of stuff. If nothing else it will be a lot fun live. It sounds straight off the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City sound track, know what I mean?

Fatoumata Diawara is probably one of the more established musicians at this years festival. That being said, she’s pretty unknown to the UK. Her voice is a real marvel and definitely something you’re unlikely to have heard before. Although there are hundreds of acts at Great Escape, sometimes it can be hard to find real variety, Diawara delivers it with grace.

KhruangBin translates in Thai as “Engine Plan” or “Aeroplane” but you knew that. They sound like an oriental Menahan Street Band or maybe Homeshake, which is a really good thing. The tracks rely on moving bass lines on which they sit and explore with a dreamy sensibility. Most of the tracks are instrumental or with a vocal track which takes place as an equal to all the other parts. They do this by heavily distorting the voice so the lyrics become secondary, because you can’t make them out, allowing the sound to be purely a melodic device. It’s really something beautiful.

Whatever you think about her lyrical content, her flow and persona are going to make a show not to be missed at The Great Escape. Lady Leshurr has racked up over 24million views on just one her Queens Speech videos. Just because the Brits ignored her doesn’t mean you should.

We’re a sucker for early 2000’s R’N’B. If we could have posters in the office, Usher and Maxwell would be everywhere. Maybe it’s because the festival is dominated by ten million(not really) guitar bands but is seems refreshing. Those Tory Lanez lyrics are amazingly slimy and in Singe’s picture he’s topless looking out the window. This could actually be 8701 part two. I wish it was. I don’t care what you think.

Finally, our top pick. Sly Johnson. Swap a letter around and you’ve got one the all time greats but in a way, this the music Syl would be making these days. It’s got that Aquemini Outkast feel mixed with a Gary Clark Jr vocal and what sounds like Pino Pallidino on bass. Its got a lot of heart and a whole lot of groove. It will keep you moving and all that good stuff.