The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into Thursday

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.

This writer starts in Chalk, arguably Brighton's best venue, an approximately 800-capacity space, open and airy, with great sightlines and an acceptable range of drinks at the bar.

First up is Luvcat, the project of Liverpudlian singer Sophie Morgan (pictured left). They appeared last year with a luscious series of retro-poppy singles. She adopts the time-honoured tactic of being accompanied by attractive young men in Reservoir Dogs black suit/white shirt/black tie combo. She, herself, petite and topped with a mop of blond hair redolent of early Bridget Bardot (but with one black streak), wears a pink baby doll négligée covered in flowers, a black bra peeping out.

At first glance Luvcat seems to fulfil retrograde stereotypes, dealing in catchy songs, tinted with John Barry charm, their subject matter apparently a submissive, pre-Beatles longing for her boyfriend. Dig deeper, though, and there’s something delightfully sinister going on. A case in point is “He’s My Man”, an easy listening exotica ballad in which Morgan sits at home, dreaming of her fellow’s return. But unpick it further and, as she explains, it's about “a bored housewife slowly poisoning her husband with arsenic”.

Her set is solid. One highlight is her catchiest song, “Matador”, among last year’s finest singles (“I gladly got undressed, put all my cards on the table/And by cards, I mean me”). Another is “Love and Money”, a cynical ode to making a sex tape (“Let’s make love and lots of money”). Her stage persona is unique, part Sixties burlesque star, part Chappell Roan, part sexy Scouse tiger, part scary stalker, part Lana del Rey, part Hammer Horror mad woman in the attic.

Regarding the latter, she closes with “Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel”, a ballsy number with the rhythm of “The Stripper”. “Hey, baby,” she sings, “I promise I'm not crazy/Ask the others/But they're already dead”. All her lyrics, indeed, are pithily narrative and on-point. She has the tunes to match and performs them with panache. She seems to me an original readymade pop star for right now.

Following her is Welsh singer Catty (pictured right), proudly Lesbian and characterful. Clad in a jacket, a bra top, and a fashionista version of skater shorts, all in black, she has a full throttle voice. She performs to a backing tape accompanied by a drummer and a charismatic mulleted guitarist. She is patently very nervous and gabbles so fast between songs that it’s hard to hear what she’s saying until she calms down, near the end of her set. But she’s also likeable.

It’s not my sort of thing. Imagine Kesha channelling Eighties stadium popsters Pat Benatar or Laura Brannigan. But there are a couple of catchy songs along the way, notably the epic stomp of “I Dated a Monster” and the Sparks-like closer “Joyride”.

Then it’s time to hit Patterns, a near-seafront nightclub venue with two floors. On the upper one, the schmoozers are determinedly milling, but I squeeze in to catch the enjoyably ludicrously named Japanese outfit Chameleon Lime Whoopiepie (pictured left). Fronted by red-haired Chi-, in what appears to be an outsized, hooded fisherman’s garment, they are less weird than I was hoping but still good fun. At Chi-'s side are Whoopie 1 and Whoopie 2, her accomplices in boiler suits with Donnie Darko-esque head-pieces and skull-like masks. One is on bass, the other on drums and electronics.

They seem as much a colourful Tokyo nightlife aesthetic as a song-making unit, the music coming over like a jolly Nineties-centric DJ set. Think hip-house, songs redolent of Stereo MCs and Deee-Lite, a snippet of an early Chemical Brothers bassline grounding one track. They are the sort of outfit that would light up a club night for half an hour or add sparkle to a festival dance tent, but, beyond that, I'm not sure.

Finally, in the same venue, it’s Disgusting Sisters, the London sibling duo of Julianna and Josephine Hopkins who burst into hipster consciousness last autumn with their excellent Speedy Wunderground single, “Killing It”. They play it second in their set, a dryly stated, lyrically spot-on, post-Wet Leg, punk-funk takedown aimed at givers of unwanted wisdom (“Perched outside my local cafe/Light up a cigarette/Old man in a baseball cap tells me that I’ll regret… but wait I missed the bit where I asked you for your advice”).

Dressed in tartan micro-skirts and American football shirts (marked “Samuel” and “Beckett” on the back, respectively), their hair is long, fringes bowl-cut at the front. They are backed by a tight band and have more than just the one song. There’s a catchy one with a chorus about Calvin Klein and another sneery whopper aimed at the tediousness of banal workplaces and job life “(“I don’t care about the weather/Your useless babysitter/The crap you watch on TV/Or your partner’s family”).

They perform synchronized dance routines that still have a little at-home-in-front-of-the-bedroom-mirror about them, which is both appealing and a signifier of how near the start of things this band is. There’s a stage looseness that will come. Happily, they have the attitude. Of the bands I’ve seen today, it’s Disgusting Sisters and Luvcat I’d put my money on seeing blow up in future.

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Below: watch the video for "Matador" by Luvcat