Local band Afrit Nebula have been gigging mainly around Hastings, St Leonards and Brighton (but also as far afield as the Czech Republic) for 12 years. They have worked with dancers and film-makers, most recently composing the original music for Sleepwalk: The Dream of Lady Macbeth, a dance performance film by Mark French. What Next? is the band’s fourth release, and the second with the present lineup.

They are known for their eclecticism: the improvisatory tracks are inspired by Japanese Noh flute, mediaeval Hispanic (Muslim/Christian/Jewish) folk tunes, Middle Eastern popular music, African landscapes, Monteverdi, and the blues.

This is true World Music – not just a marketing tag but three human beings’ original response to the world.

What Next? was recorded in 2026 by Aram Zarikian at RavenFish. Orders and enquiries: ken@realitystreet.co.uk 07706 18/9253. Limited free streaming/download: afritnebula.bandcamp.com/album/what-next 

Max Baillie, violinist, musicologist and entrepreneur, has been touring with his outstanding and unusual Lodestar Trio, who many of you will have heard when they played for the first time at Christchurch St Leonards in 2024. Folk Odyssey (with works by Bartok and Grieg) was recently recorded live for German national radio and broadcast at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, where the trio has appeared several times. The project was also recorded live for Belgian national radio last year, and there are plans for an album in November.

Other of Baillie’s concerts have included playing with celebrated cellist Laura van der Heijden at the Ryedale Festival, another programme seen first in St Leonards. He also played his first concert at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie with star saxophonist Jess Gillam, in front of 2,600 people.

Upcoming concerts in St Leonards are on 20 October 24 November: two great programmes with fabulous guests. October will see piano quintets by Vaughan Williams along with Schubert’s Trout, featuring Simon Crawford Phillips and other special guests. The November concert at St John’s Church will be the majestic and complex Goldberg Variations, with acclaimed cellist Laura van der Heijden and internationally-recognized violist Hélène Clément. Not to be missed.

HASTINGS PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA AND CHOIR

Meanwhile Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra previewed their new season with a performance of Mozart’s Magic Flute on 22 August. Coming up they have a trio performing works by three notable female composers – Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, and Lily Boulanger. They have a program of John Williams’ film theme music at the White Rock in October, and in early November the Hastings Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra perform fabulous works by Saint-Saёns, Schubert, and Debussy, plus Aaron Copland’s glorious clarinet concerto. Full details on their website. 

Tickets and details: St Leonards Concerts: stlconcerts.co.uk/events, Hastings Philharmonic hastingsphilharmonic.com/2026-2027-season

CHRIS CONNELLEY

Some musicians start early. Mozart, for example, is rumoured to have composed his first piece at the age of five, while Prince mastered the piano by the tender age of seven. Others take longer to get started, and join the party much later.

Hastings-based rapper, Noah Rockett, 20, sits firmly in the second camp. He spent his teenage years stuck in his room playing video games, but that all changed when he started listening to the old school hip hop so admired by his dad. It intrigued, then snared him, and led to his exploring more deeply, and getting passionate about epic performers like Wu Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest.

From here, it was just a (hip) hop and a jump, from listening to others to rapping along himself. This in turn led to him writing his own material, sharing it on social media and releasing five EPs (under different names) in short succession.

Like any new starter, it took time and effort to hone his craft and find his authentic voice, and reflecting back with ruthless honesty, Noah describes his early efforts as “pretty bad”. But, having gotten the bug, he kept at it, listening, learning and developing. Now, after a period out of the public gaze, he’s back with a new incarnation, Sun-z, and a stack of new material on a brand new EP, Who Am I? It’s been a year in the making, but he’s confident that the time is right: he’s now ready and “good enough to go back out there and go for gold”.

Against the backdrop of this summer of intense heat, he has pushed his new EP relentlessly on social media and has started performing live, which he admits has been a surprise highlight of his year and that he really enjoys.

Over recent weeks, he has formed part of the bill at the Kofi Stone gig at the De la Warr Pavilion, performed a short set on the overhead walkway at the intimate St Andrews Mews, and rapped to a sizeable audience of around 300 at the Oval as part of Remi Vibesman’s feted Hidden Beach Festival.

Looking forward, he is hoping to build his profile on social media, having recently notched up over 2,000 followers on Instagram. He would of course love to secure a record deal, and is busy making contacts with that end in mind. As an accomplished wordsmith, he’s also contemplating dipping his toe into the burgeoning local spoken word and poetry scene, recognising the potential for exciting collaborations and crossover in a town that oozes culture from every pore.

As he puts it: “The great thing about Hastings is that there are loads of cool, creative people and everyone is trying to build something for themselves and each other, with lots of support out there.”

Heading towards autumn, Noah is in a confident mood, in it for the long run, and clearly enjoying himself. All of which comes across clearly in his new tracks. If you haven’t encountered him yet, it’s time to check him out. So prepare for something sassy, soulful, authentic and grown up. And expect to be delighted.

To find out more, hear some of his tracks, and details of how to buy the new CD, go to Solsun-Z on Insta or to his website, sun-z.co.uk.

Staged within the space of Tawfik Nas’s installation at Flatland Projects in Bexhill, the 17-piece incarnation of the Statue of Liberty Big Band (SoL) was brimming with inchoate noises – and this is a small format for them.

As before, SoL performed to raise funds for the local Refugee Buddy Project (see details below). Arriving early at Flatland to browse some of the art installations and exhibits, I could hear the band settling themselves, although it occasionally sounded like some contorting machine, freewheeling electronics running against clusters of horns.

Produced and conducted by Ed Baxter, the group capped off the first day of Bexhill’s Art Weekender, performing a particularly inspired, inclusive selection of glorious tunes, many politically motivated. The works of composers and musicians from Chile and Peru were represented, as were some from Sweden and Japan (composed by the fiercely improvisational saxophonist Eiichi Hayashi), among other gems such as Pretty Fly, Walter Schumann’s eerie, premonitory theme from The Night of the Hunter.

Moving closer to home, they played Another Green World (the Arena tune) by Suffolk-based ideas genius and producer Brian Eno. Eno was/is seminal as a musician in Roxy Music and with Robert Fripp, and producer of class acts Talking Heads, Devo and Coldplay, but achieved immutable world-wide fame as composer of three-and-a-quarter seconds of Windows 95, bing-de-bang-bong, bang-bong – you know the one!). Hastings-based improvising minimalist from Slapp Happy, Anthony Moore, generated the electronics. Baxter clearly carefully chose the set for its universality, its radical nature and its inclusiveness, characteristics which also exactly represent the ethos of the Refugee Buddy Project.

The band’s personnel is employed comprehensively, to great effect. The work of the percussion section – Kit and Julian – was particularly impressive. It brought strong momentum and some lively, Latin-tinged grooves like Entradita de la Cabana, whilst Adam’s vibraphone feature on the classic Left Bank Two theme perfectly fitted its art environment. Music of political resistance was expressed through the words of Chilean political martyr Victor Jara’s El Derecho de Vivir En Paz (The Right to Live in Peace), sung passionately by Spanish-speaker Otti Albietz.

The closing suite (combined Sun Ra and Anthony Moore) ensured plenty of rebellious, free-form wailing by horn players Toby Bula and Stuart Griffiths. A fitting end to a marvellous afternoon’s music.

On 15 August, The Statue of Liberty Big Band was: Ed Baxter: producer and conductor, Otti Albietz guitar, voice on El Derecho de Vivir en Paz, Matt Armstrong: bass, Ted Barrow: electronics, Kit Bula: drums, Toby Bula-Edge: sax, Adam Bushell: vibraphone, Julian Humphries: percussion, Anthony Moore: electronics, feedback generator, Lucy Griffiths: oboe, sax, Stuart Griffiths sax, Helen Heleni: voice on Pretty Fly, Kitty McCarron: voice on Bad Samaritan, Love in Outer Space and Slow Moon’s Rose, Vladimir Miller: piano, Jude Montague: keyboard, Robbie Robson: trumpet, Eoghan McCarron: mixdown. 

Refugee Buddy Project: therefugeebuddyproject.org.uk/; Flatland Projects: flatlandprojects.com. Review by Resonance fm: tinyurl.com/yc2x2amy

In the latest exploration of trailblazing women who travelled great journeys around 1000 years ago, Explore The Arch Theatre explores Agatha of Hungary at Pevensey Castle. Early-career team member, Zoë Zics, channels this politically significant female decision-maker from the eleventh century who mirrors Zoë’s heritage.

In Agatha in the Wind they have re-imagined Agatha at Pevensey Castle. It isn’t actually known where she lived in England, after she arrived from Hungary and settled for more than a decade before migrating again to Scotland. William of Normandy’s landing at Pevensey on 28 September 1066 would have had particular significance for her, and this act of the imagination helps us to step inside her shoes.

The installation, with music by Alice and Juliet Beadle is located in the base of the North Tower. Ten years ago, Explore The Arch was supporting Juliet and her sister Alice as they started out on their creative journeys. Juliet and Alice spent much of their time performing in a cupboard or on a shelf at Archer Lodge – which seems to have stood them in good stead: Juliet has just become Sussex Young Musician of the Year!

She and her flute now enter the final year of a Masters degree in music at the Royal College of Music and will be playing with the Sussex Symphony Orchestra in 2027 as part of the prize. We congratulate her and wish her every future success.

The installation will be at Pevensey Castle until October 2026. Tickets to Pevensey Castle are required book at english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/pevensey-castle

For all of you who have seen Bob Log III live before, you will know he defies description. For any of you who haven’t, that makes my job tricky, given that the main purpose of a review is, largely, to describe what you’ve seen. And I’m not entirely sure what I have seen.

But it was, certainly, transcendentally eccentric. Perhaps as a shorthand, I’ll start by describing Bob Log as a cross between late-period Tom Waits – the ragged discordant Tom Waits of Hoist That Rag – and Frank Sidebottom, with his large papier-mâché head swapped for a motorcycle helmet with an alien-looking breathing nozzle. Or maybe Elvis Presley reimagined by David Lynch, dark and impish. Bob wore a glittery one-piece jumpsuit beneath his silver helmet and emitted the frenzied sounds of a carnival barker on acid.

He also had stage props: a giant inflatable duck whom he introduced as his angry stage manager, then later reintroduced as a large yellow inflatable goblet for passing prosecco around the crowd – something I would describe as impractical. He also had a yellow working toaster on the corner of the stage, which was fed sliced bread throughout the show so the audience could listen to his music while enjoying the soft aroma of toast – which brings me to the music.

Without having heard it, you could be forgiven for thinking that everything described so far veers between self-consciously oddball and, well… gimmicky shit. But Bob’s special talent is that it doesn’t. It works perfectly together with the bizarre stage presence, and if anything, acts as a sleight-of-hand misdirection to show how virtuosic a slide guitar player, and effortless one-man band, he is. His music is all clang and stomp and driving rhythm with the sound of Delta blues mixed with hillbilly electronica, beneath a muffled rasping voice distorting into the microphone down the black funnel of his crash helmet.

INTIMACY AND ENGAGEMENT

The effect of this oddly funny lunacy was unique. I’d seen Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds two nights before in Brighton: they are a force of nature, but so is Bob Log III in a way you’re just not going to get from big stadium acts. There was an intimacy and a real engagement with everyone in the room. People were invited up on stage to be anointed with little gold stickers, or to take selfies sitting on his lap (as long as they had a piece of toast). They shared the sacrament of a giant inflatable duck, and everyone danced and smiled.

There was a rare sense of real joy, an ode to eccentricity and community and fun, that was both about the music and not about the music, yet only really worked because the music was so good and everything was done deftly so that nothing jarred or took you out of the moment. When it was all over, everyone poured out of The Piper into the dark summer night with the kind of smiles on their faces that only come from having shared in the strangeness of what it can mean to be human.

A fresh wave of emerging talent will take over Studio 27 at Hastings White Rock Theatre on 23 August, as Skinny Sunday – the one‑day festival curated, produced and run by the young people of the Hastings Fat Tuesday Club – returns with a vibrant line‑up of rising regional artists.

Running from 3pm to 9pm, the event showcases the best new bands from across East Sussex and beyond, selected by the club’s young musicians as part of their year‑round youth music programme.

Supported by Youth Music and Love Hastings, Skinny Sunday gives young people hands‑on experience in event management, at the same time offering audiences a chance to discover the next generation of local talent.

Snapshot of Rising Artists

This year’s line‑up brings together a mix of indie‑pop, alt‑rock, grunge, synth‑driven dance rhythms and fresh songwriting. Amelia & The Housewives are Brighton’s shimmering indie‑pop outfit, currently riding a wave of excitement ahead of their debut album. They are known for sharp wit, chiming harmonies and infectious, sun‑soaked songwriting.

Cicadia are a 3‑piece alt/indie rock band from East Sussex whose debut EP blends confident riffs, tight musicianship and a growing catalogue of original material. Also from East Sussex, Fresh Air are a Mathrock/Midwest emo 3‑piece, formed in late 2025 and already making waves with their debut single released this year. They are known for intricate rhythms, emotive guitar work and a growing presence on the regional live circuit.

WaveMachine are Hastings’ own grunge‑punk‑surf fusion band, driven by gritty bass lines, high‑energy drums and powerful harmonies. From Bexhill, Tellums are an upbeat synth‑and‑guitar‑driven outfit, blending dance rhythms with indie sensibilities to create bright, energetic live performances. Sam Senior is a compelling songwriter whose recent EP showcases raw, emotive alt‑folk storytelling. A Platform for Young Creatives

The Fat Tuesday Club Performers are the young musicians who produce Skinny Sunday, taking to the stage and presenting original work developed through the club’s year-round programme. Skinny Sunday is part of the Fat Tuesday Club’s mission to give young people real industry pathways. The event has become a key moment in Hastings’ music calendar, celebrating creativity, confidence and community.

Tickets are available now, with free entry for under 18s (ticket reservation required) and £5 tickets for adults, keeping the event accessible for families and young music fans. .Tickets at tinyurl.com/SkinnySunday. Contact: Hannah Deeble at hftuesday@gmail.com for more information.

Two extraordinary female African musicians, Hanitra Ranaivo from Madagascar and Haymanot Tesfa from Ethiopia, visit Hastings this summer.

SONGS OF MODERN-DAY MADAGASCAR

On July 12, on a boiling hot Sunday afternoon, Hanitra Ranaivo, accompanied by Jean-Marc Bontemps, played her unique songs inspired by the ethnic sounds of Madagasy and fused with Afro-Cuban rhythms. She has recently taken up bass playing: having met The Police during her first trip to the United States, she said to herself (inspired by Sting) that one day she would sing while playing the bass. Thirty five years later, she has realised that ambition.

Ranaivo’s 2013 album Songs From Madagascar features her astonishingly pure vocal sound in songs with accompaniments both jazz-influenced and African traditional, with a hint of South American. Throughout, there are echoes of the wonderful multi-layered polyrhythms of Madagascar’s traditional music, which is necessarily influenced by its extraordinary multi-national history.

Her 2017 album Lasa is dedicated to the acclaimed singer Lhasa de Sela, who died at 37, leaving a truly international musical legacy of songs influenced by Mexico, French Canada, USA and Chile. Hanitra says: “I found her style of music bewitching and her songs very moving. I was very distressed by her premature disappearance.” 

The lyrics on Lasa, however, deal primarily with social issues. One song, Ampela, tells of the plight of Madagasy fishermen. Despite local oceans once rich in fish, now huge industry fishing fleets (particularly from China) are plundering nearby stocks. Local boats must now go very far to fish: sometimes they never return and their wives grieve. Other songs sing of deforestation, same-sex love, mistreatment of wives and a rebellion of housewives. Instrumentation is provided by Bontemps on French hand-made guitar, Pascal Bouterin on drums and traditional percussion, and Mikael Seznec on bass, rubab, and satar. It’s a global, universal, inimitable sound.

Hanitra’s trip to Hastings was supported by Eleanor Thorn who runs Tuned In London, a unique world music venue in an ornate Rotherhithe church. Eleanor translated, for the audience, the story of the lament of a farmer for a missing zebu. An animal going missing causes distress and shame for both the farmer and the community. 

ETHIOPIAN TRADITION, VIA ROTHERHITHE

Haymanot Tesfa, who is due to play a Tuesday in August, plays the six-string lyre of Ethiopia (2,000 miles to the north of Madagascar) as an accompaniment to the voice. Her vocals are mesmerising, and she is inspired by the ancient roots and landscape of her land of origin. No two songs, or versions of songs, are ever the same. “I play in my own way, because I love improvising.” Her singing has not been widely recorded but you can find examples on youtube and vimeo (links below). 

The song Ambassel is about the beautiful town of Gishen Mariam, known for its honey and its holy monastery, where crowds of pilgrims gather each year. It is a piece of meditative poetry, transporting both performer and listener to a transcendent state. It is believed the right arm of the True Cross of Jesus was buried and given to the Ethiopian Orthodox monastery by St Helena of Constantinople, wife of Marcus Constantius, the first Christian emperor of Rome. 

Though now UK-based, Tesfa sings in the ancient language of Amharic, one of the most widely spoken Ethiopian languages (which, incidentally, is represented in one of the most beautiful and esoteric written scripts). This year’s performance at the Goat Ledge will be her second here. At her first, in July last year, she was lauded for both her extraordinary, almost other-worldly, sound and her colourful and artistic dress. Besides being a musician she is a visual artist and paints vivid scenes, both figurative and imaginative, and still life. Bright colours and textures are of daily importance to her. 

Haymanot Tesfa plays live on the beach at Goat Ledge, Tuesday 11 August, 5.30pm, FREE as part of Sunset Sessions.

ELIZABETH ALLEN

A highlight of the Battle Festival was Barefoot Opera’s performance of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, and it proved particularly well-suited to the distinctive Barefoot style. That style involves an emphasis on movement, and the energy and extravagance of the production, its fun and farce, were highly appropriate to the crazy devices of the story line. 

In Cosi there is a potential for emphasis on darkness and pain, but here the comedy was always to the fore: it played effectively in the over-acted despair of the sisters (Katerina Oikonomou as Fordiligi and Ilona Nastase as Dorabella) at the departure of their lovers (Isaac Conibear as Gugliemo and Beartsz Thiede as Ferrando) and the lack of acrimony in the final reconciliations.

This production introduced a new complication. Here Don Alonso (Joel Robson) was not an ageing cynic determined to prove to young men that their trusted beloveds can easily be corrupted into infidelity because “all women are like that.” Instead he was a scientist setting up an experiment to prove this hypothesis. This seemed an unnecessary addition, and the Don’s putting on and discarding his white coat in the opening scene was rather confusing. 

Other production choices, such as the emphasis on changes of clothing – for the sisters as well as the disguised lovers and Despina (Zara Donaldson) – lent a strong visual correlation to the themes of shifting identities. A lively addition was the integration of always excellent keyboard player Lesley Anne Sammons into the plot – and a big shout out for those gold boots, Lesley Anne. 

There has been much critical discussion of the way in which in this opera Mozart’s music runs against Da Ponte’s libretto, Da Ponte being a cynic who supports Don Alsonso’s belief that all women are thus, while Mozart provides, conversely, particularly radiant music for deception and betrayal. Unlike Figaro and Don Giovanni, it is not the grand arias for which one remembers Cosi. The majority favourite is the tender ensemble of the sisters and Don Alonso, May the Wind be Gentle. The emphasis on ensemble pieces suited the always firm and clear singing of all the young cast. 

Due to be released in August is an album written entirely by pianist John Donaldson, founder of Jazz Hastings. We Were Together, I Forget the Rest, dedicated to his late wife Agatha Coffey, is an absolute joy. Surely one of the most underrated talents on the British jazz scene, Donaldson has assembled a fine octet and produced seven outstanding tracks that showcase both his own compositional prowess and the particular gifts of each artist.

Who knew how well the idiosyncratic vocals of Rebeka Edlund and the (now octogenarian, still indomitable) Norma Winstone would combine, for example? And then Rob Luft, clearly one of the UK’s foremost jazz guitarists, employs characteristic technical brilliance and tasteful restraint on each number. Drummer Jeff Ballard has long been universally in demand – listen to his work on Evening Song for example, alongside the joint vocals, and you’ll immediately understand why. Mason’s bass throughout is unobtrusively faultless. Iain Ballamy’s soprano sound, too, is exactly right – on Agatha’s Song, say, which maintains a lilting, piano-led 5/4 riff while the horn blows across it – haunting, free, occasionally ecstatic.

The tunes have style and sensitivity without over-complexity. The careful arrangements, which along with the rhythmic variety, lend novelty to every number, and the audible, almost-palpable, commitment of all the musicians, make this one of the most memorable jazz releases of 2026. While totally new, the album’s sound contains within it all the best of British jazz over the past fifty years. It’s also particularly well produced: balanced without sounding over-slick, carefully dynamic with dramatic interludes, enriched with melodic diversity and overall that elusive thing, swing.

You can find a sample on our website at tinyurl.com/47hb24j7. CD features John Donaldson (composer, piano), Iain Ballamy (sax), Rob Luft (gtr), Tom Mason (bass), Rebecka Edlund, Norma Winstone (vocals), Jeff Ballard (drums), Graeme Flowers (trumpet) Hexagonal Records, releasing August 2026. Production and artwork by Gregory Heath.

Perello consists of virtuoso classical guitarist, Eleanor Kelly, and Mike Hughes, percussionist, on vibraphone. There are few guitar/vibes duos, but Kelly and Hughes feel the combination is successful due to the instruments’ similar timbres and melodic ranges. Committed to promoting a wider understanding of the vibraphone, Hughes has collaborated with contemporary classical composers and with leading musicians on the British jazz scene. 

Perello play a mix of classical and jazz tunes by various composers ranging from Satie to Jobim. Kelly is also a particular champion of works by female composers. She has recently released Dedicatoria, a splendid CD of pieces by Carmen Guzmán, a once-celebrated but now largely forgotten Argentinian guitarist and composer who died in 2012. Kelly will play some of these.

The Beacon is worth a visit in itself. Judy Dewsbury (ex-fashion designer) and family moved into the rambling former language school in 1992, and have developed part of their home into a creative hub with a distinctly Bohemian feel. With the next generation already actively involved, The Beacon’s future appears to be secured.

Throughout the summer, The Beacon in St Mary’s Terrace offers food and drinks from Friday-Sunday inclusive. On Friday evenings there will also be free, curated live music and performances, of which the Perello Duo is one. 7 August, 7-9 pm. Perello Duo on youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=9kF2o3L7eYw

BOO – (Battery Operated Orchestra) make “highly charged electronica with incredibly addictive melodies” and are an independent act now based in St Leonards. Their new album Sea Views Soft Rains, was made during the year in which they moved here from Newhaven. It’s out on stream now, and is to be released on CD in early August.

For everyone but the fortunate few who can survive solely on the quality of their music, their notoriety, or their retrospectively nostalgic appeal, sale of a modern album is much more than the simple laying down of ten or twelve quality music tracks. This – BOO’s eighth studio product – is, like many contemporary outputs, a concept album, based around pictures of an apparently fading seaside town. 

For your £17 album price you get not only twelve carefully-synthesised songs, a box lovingly folded with their own hands, but also 15 photographs. The whole package is intentionally fadeable, mutable, easily-damaged. It’s based around themes of love, loss, and redemption, ‘refracted through rain-streaked windows, empty promenades and abandoned ballrooms.’ 

This is a sophisticated collection of impeccably-produced, wholly electronic tracks The voices are part of the digital whole – controlled, measured, pitch-constant; the beat is crystal clear, decibel-sharp, bpm-consistent. What in other genres we might regard as the normal ebb and flow of musical engagement – natural variations in rhythm, pace, volume, pitch, sustain, and a lot of other things that imbue music with emotion, become secondary to a pinpoint-sharp, other-worldly exactitude. Why not? We live in a world dominated by these kind of images, where the medium is, definitively, the message. 

BOO are Brigitte Rose, born in Tasmania, and Chris Black, from Scotland, who now live here. Album release is 3 August.

The Coven Club, a fabulous new live music night to showcase femme-fuelled rock, punk and metal bands, returns to The Carlisle Rock Bar in Hastings in July this year. The night has already lived up to its aim of promoting up-and-coming talent, with April’s headliners Vampyra having since secured a coveted slot at this year’s Bloodstock heavy metal festival.

Vampyra, the feisty Kent-based horror punks who headlined The Coven Club just weeks after debuting their revamped line-up [pun intended!], have gone on to win the regional Metal 2 the Masses competition, securing them a place on the New Blood stage at Bloodstock.

The Coven Club is run by vocalist Amanda Brooks-Byron and bassist Steph Bennion of Hastings rock band Ditch the Demon. Both are keen to do more to support women who want to forge their own path in the male-dominated world of heavy rock. Hastings already punches above its weight in terms of its music scene and Amanda and Steph see the potential for something a bit different in town. All the big names in rock music started life in grassroots venues like The Carlisle. Vampyra are but one success story and The Coven Club will undoubtedly see more.

The Coven Club runs quarterly at The Carlisle Rock Bar in Hastings, with at least one local act appearing on each bill. The next event on Friday 24 July will feature: Key Change Electric, Deity and Devilry, and headliners Kindred Spirit Band, prog/folk-rock.

Tickets for 24 July (£5) are on sale from The Carlisle, online at Skiddle and will also be available on the door. Money raised through ticket sales will go directly to the bands, supporting original music.

Joseph Stannard is an enthusiast. He loves music and he loves film. When he isn’t editing record reviews in a music journal, he is exploring the paranormal. “I’ve always been interested in the paranormal, the supernatural, and … weird music as well” he says.

While living in Brighton he noticed that a lot of music was influenced by horror, and that there were also a lot of horror films that featured experimental soundtrack music So he organised something called The Outer Church, a series of events which combined the two. They toured, in the UK and abroad, for about five years. He tried London but wanted to get back to the sea, and was eventually attracted by the rich occult history in Hastings.

Watching The Stimming Pool he realised that The Electric Palace, which appears in the film, was a beautiful Hastings venue, and began planning an event series to happen here. His event names come from the mind of Grant Morrison, who drew and scripted The Invisibles for DC Comics. It turns out in the end that the Outer Church and the Invisible College are actually two sides of the same organisation. Historically, The Invisible College was a name for the group of individuals, including Robert Boyle, who eventually founded The Royal Society.“It’s good to pay attention to synchronicities” continues Stannard. So, about his move from an outer church to an invisible college, he remarks “you could say I’ve moved from the ecclesiastical to the educational.” 

The Invisible Collage Vol I – puts together of some of the music he has assembled for the event (track list at the end of this article) 

The first event will show the film Body Melt (“there’s a lot of slime and gruesomeness, and it’s very splattery, very day glow”, he continues) directed by well-respected film writer Philip Brophy. Essentially the film has been called ‘the Substance before The Substance’ – though on a much lower budget – and features the horrors of Big Pharma, and Ian Smith (Harold Bishop from Neighbours) on a gun-toting rampage.

The evening will also feature live artists Trigger Objects and Dream Skills, both of whom make music that is thoroughly in keeping with this kind of film. “A lot of the stuff I put on is stuff I really love, and if other people like it, then hopefully it will bring out other freaks.” There is also of course a considerable tranche of avant-garde musicians in Hastings who might well be interested in this series of events, which with Stannard’s combination of enthusiasm and expertise, is sure to be a success.

The Invisible College will present as a special event at the Electric Palace Cinema on Sunday 16 August. For more details see electricpalacecinema.com. Mixtape tracklist as follows:

VICTORIA KINGHAM

The Love Supreme jazz festival takes place this weekend at Glynde Place, near Lewes. Tickets are still selling but it starts now (3 July) and if you like jazz, and you get the chance, you should really get over there.

I admit it’s outside this newspaper’s local area, but some of the greatest and/or most popular jazz musicians are there – Courtney Pine, Lemar, Ezra Collective, De La Soul, Joe Lovano, Jalen Ngonda. Represented in the programme (in slightly smaller letters for some reason) are two of the most exceptional musicians you’re ever likely to hear, both supremely gifted. I was privileged to speak with them ahead of the festival.

EMMA RAWICZ

Emma Rawicz, saxophonist, graduated from music college two years ago. A year before that, she had already made two albums, the second, Chroma, gaining her international recognition at the age of just 22.

It’s the most astonishing album – a combination of variety and whimsy, intricacy and sheer joy. Rawicz is known for experiencing chromesthesia – seeing colours and shapes when hearing sounds. If this sounds unlikely to you there is a long record of composers whose chromesthesia forms the basis of their music, from Messiaen, Scriabin, and Ligeti through to Duke Ellington and Billie Eilish. Visual artists Kandinsky, Van Gogh and Hockney also attested to it.

Even if you didn’t know this, there are unique forms in Rawicz’s music which defy genre and transcend boundaries. My favourite of her albums is the one she made last year with pianist Gwilym Simcock, the British updated equivalent of Keith Jarrett. Music pours out of him, and I could (and occasionally have) listen to his music all day. There’s so much freedom on this album, from two musicians who produce more or less stream-of-consciousness invention, alongside technical excellence. “I love playing with Gwilym” she tells me. They have exceptional rapport. “We both went to Chetham’s school (of music) and the Royal Academy, and had the same teachers we were there, and we both got into jazz and improvised music via the same sort of gateway people, like Keith Jarrett and Egberto Gismonti. We both love Brazilian music and we love ECM, and as a result, I think there’s a lot of unspoken stuff that works really well.” They have toured together “probably in five or six different countries” and written music together. “He’s such a really lovely, kind person, and obviously musically brilliant,” she adds.

Her tour schedule this year looks punishing, but she seems astonishingly fresh, not to say joyous. She divides her time, and her residence, between London and Berlin, and speaks to me from Berlin, from where she is touring festivals in Portugal and France, then the Love Supreme here, and straight afterwards at Copenhagen then the North Sea Jazz Festival at Rotterdam. “A busy summer,” she laughs.

The tenor has been her saxophone of choice, though she loves playing soprano too, and bass clarinet – she doesn’t always take all her instruments with her because it’s “just too much to carry!” For female players there is the additional fact that playing the tenor demands physical and internal strength. Whereas a six-foot, built male can sometimes be seen to swing the tenor, on its strap, round his bull-neck muscles, for women it’s a more significant weight. To maintain and improve her strength, Emma has become an avid weightlifter. To clear her mind of clutter between different activities (she’s also a huge reader, and has credited authors like Murakami and Adichie with inspiration for composition) she practises mindfulness techniques.

She is quick to praise the people she works with, and is especially enthusiastic about her current band Inkyra. At the Festival they will largely perform music from their latest, eponymous album. The band comprises David Preston on guitar, Gareth Lockrane on flutes, Scotty Thompson, Kevin Glasgow, and Jamie Murray. “I really feel one of the biggest privileges I have,” she adds, “is to be surrounded by such brilliant human beings.”

esperanza spalding

…writes her name in lower case. This is an aesthetic choice, but in my subjective opinion signifies a shift away from ego, thus away from personality or persona, and towards ideas: melodies, music, poetry, all the things that she is and that she does.

She has long been a jazz phenomenon, and a hero of mine since, in concert at a young age, she filled the main auditorium at the Barbican. In the 20 years or so since then she has had an unstoppable, world-class career trajectory.

On stage, she presents as one, organically, with her instrument – on that occasion an upright double bass. Just a few great musicians have this quality. It’s very special, and I think a kind of genius – like looking at a great picture, say Wheatfield With Crows, and as you gaze, it becomes all the wheatfields and all the crows in the world. In the same way, watching and listening to spalding becomes all the music in the world. More generally, jazz brings with it each moment the sum of the musicians’ skills and influences, cultures and backgrounds. It’s never the same way twice; the ultimate ephemeral art form, composition on the wing, human achievement at perhaps its most immediately creative point.

She has played at the Festival before, at the inaugural one in 2013 and again in 2016. She has also played at all the major venues in the world and with almost every top named jazz musician you can mention, and at the Obama White House. Neither her creativity nor her stamina seem to know any limits. She cites Milton Nascimento as one of her inspirations, and the last album she made (2024) was actually in collaboration with him, with a glittering cast of guest musicians. He’s 83 now, but you can still hear the kind of ethereality (one of his finer albums is called Angelus) that makes him one of the greatest vocalists of his time.

She agrees. “We’ve become friends, over the years” she says, “and developed a great rapport and mutual affection. You know, he has heart, joy in the whole process.” Recorded in the exotic climate of Brazil, there is some fine music on this album. Besides viscerally faultless bass playing, spalding sings too – singing is integral to her performance – with an enviable purity of tone. Some of the songs on the Milton + esperanza album are her originals, others could become, but aren’t, clichés – a far-out version of the Beatles Day In the Life for example. Some are inimitable Nascimento-Brazilian standards. All her albums incorporate a different musical approach – this one has Brazilian rhythm and language at its heart.

There are some very personal-sounding lyrics on the album Radio Music Society – but, she said “it’s fiction. Speculative. Just imagining contexts for these dimensions of the human experience to be at play.” Most of her words make sense not as straight narrative but as poetry, perhaps the ‘open-field’ mid-20th century American poetry where form and content are purposefully intertwined. I wondered about her process of composition.

“It very much feels like an architectural process, a structural craft. And it’s laborious, you know? Toni Morrison talked about writing as suffering. Like, don’t expect it to be all pleasure and fun.” The numbers grow organically. She sometimes creates a sketch, so “here’s the form, here’s the harmonic progression” then she hands it over to Matt (Matthew Stevens) and Justin (Tyson) and they put the flesh on it. “With a project like Exposure [her 2017, 77-hour one-take, limited edition physical album] we were really creating in real time.”

From 2017 to 2022 spalding was a professor of music at Harvard, and looking at various accounts, there seems to have been some controversy about her resignation. She’s quick to disabuse me of that idea. “It’s become this scintillating story! I just realised that the subject matter of my classes was at odds with the track record and current priorities of this institution.” Basically, representative of some of the traditional musical ideas she is trying to transform. “But I loved my experience. I loved my department. I left on such positive terms. It was just time.”

I wondered if she has a new album in progress, but she said no, not just now. She isn’t even quite sure what they’ll play on Saturday: “perhaps a combination of numbers from the last nine albums.” Love Supreme is just one of a swathe of prestigious international dates – after Cincinnati, Dallas, Atlanta, Portugal, then on through Spain, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands (at the North Sea Jazz Festival, where Emma Rawicz will also be – I hope they meet), then Norway, then back through the US again.

So there you go. At the age of 42, a unique, supreme musical powerhouse. You may already be at the Festival to see her. It’s a significant date, Independence Day. One of her songs, ‘Vague Suspicions’ [2012] she tells me, is about “the shit that my country was perpetrating around the world … standing by watching people being obliterated.” At that time, US versus Afghanistan, plus their Global War on Terror in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Pakistan. One wonders if any of her music at the festival will form a reaction to the current Great American Nightmare.

There’s a good reason The Piper has been hosting Syd’s Last Stand – an annual tribute to Syd Barrett – since opening seven years ago. Syd Barrett, the most enigmatic figure in the British 60s psychedelic underground, played his last increasingly erratic show with Pink Floyd – the band he’d formed – at the Pavilion Ballroom on old Hastings Pier in 1968. By then, the band’s writer and charismatic frontman had become a disconnected figure in his own band, perched on the edge of the stage, randomly strumming a detuned guitar, empty eyes gazing from beneath a tumbling mass of corkscrew hair.

It’s exactly that unsettling rejection of pop idol status that’s become his enduring legacy. Syd Barrett transformed from a fading musician into something close to myth, a conduit for the dark unknowable realm of the human psyche. The consensus narrative blames drugs and calls it madness. But others ask: what is madness? What if it’s a dark visionary place, a lifting of the veil between subject experience and reality itself? We don’t know. And it’s precisely that not-knowing which captivates us.

The Floorboards Between Two Worlds

After The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (a title borrowed from The Wind in the Willows – the reason The Piper is called The Piper), Syd recorded two albums in 1970: Barrett and The Madcap Laughs. The latter is a stark, disjointed masterpiece with huge cult status. Its iconic cover shows Syd crouched on self-painted blue and orange floorboards in his London home: ghostly, both present and absent at the same time.

I bought the album in the late 80s, and remember being struck immediately by those floorboards. How often do you say that about floorboards? Unless you’re a carpenter or a family of termites: not very. But they felt iconic even then: the kind of detail you assume has been painted over, ripped up, or vanished into some collector’s vault as a novelty item. Like the desiccated head of Oliver Cromwell, which circulated as a curio in a leather drawstring bag through the 17th century – a whole other story of objects that shouldn’t persist, but do.

Except these floorboards are here. In Hastings. Rescued by Chris Barnett, The Piper’s owner, and two friends, they’ll be unveiled on 5 July as the centrepiece of this year’s Syd’s Last Stand—a kind of holy grail for psychonauts. The festival runs eight days, featuring talks from Syd’s ex-girlfriend Jenny Spires, live psych-rock from Ozric Tentacles, and luminaries like Bernard Butler. It promises to be extraordinary. You will not want to miss it.

For full details: thepiper.club

[Paul Wertico (drums), Enrico Pinna (guitar), Josephine Davies (tenor, soprano), Terry Pack (bass), Joss Peach (piano)]

Soft-spoken and unassuming, Paul Wertico becomes, behind his kit, a force to reckon with. You can hear why he remained for many years the lynchpin of the Pat Metheny band, and why his lifelong list of awards, recordings, professorships, books, and compositions is unrivalled. Hence his lead, in a rapidly-organised session on a normally quiet Monday night in Hastings, resulted in a superb one-off.

He flew in from Copenhagen, and along with acclaimed jazz/fusion guitarist Enrico Pinna, was joined by tenor/soprano maestra Josephine Davies, the Monk-like spare piano sounds of Joss Peach, and the mellow, unflinching bass of local luminary Terry Pack – these last three work together as (most of) Pack’s Full Circle. Nobody knew what was going to happen, Wertico announced, but that was jazz, experiencing the moment.

Under his unobtrusive but definitive direction, his elegant fills, faultless time, intuitive dynamics, and technical brilliance, that moment rapidly expanded into two exceptional sets. Beginning with a pensive line from Davies, the music morphed into an exploratory guitar/bass alternating riff session. A subsequent blues-based  number, in which Davies’ concentrated awareness and clarity absolutely shone, clearly drew the attention and response of Pinna and his guitar. Together the two emerged as a formidable duo lead – outstanding renditions of ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’ (we all hope for that, don’t we? said the woman on my left) and ‘Willow Weep For Me’ – favourites which, in lesser hands than these, could have sounded trite (overshadowed by so many immortal renditions) but instead settled in, moved forward, developed, and transfixed a wildly enthusiastic, capacity audience.

The second half progressed seamlessly through free-improv to ‘Open Water’ (from Full Circle’s latest CD) and finally into the modalities of ‘Impressions’, foregrounding not only Davies’ unique, windswept soprano inventions, but also Pinna’s incisive, casually brilliant work on a supreme electric guitar that he had custom made from a vintage Steinberger (a firm specialising in minimalist, headless instruments) and which Pinna finished himself with dye and wax, pickups and other hardware. A completely original evening in all directions then – but that’s jazz: experiencing the moment…

So Jazz Hastings has moved to Barnaby’s with a definite, defiant noise. The jazz musicians who have always played here because they love it now have a new outlet and potentially a double-sized audience. There are whispers that Barnaby’s may have to expand to the next-door building … 

Paul Wertico played at Barnaby’s Jazz Lounge on 15 June and went on the day after to The Jailhouse at Arundel. All a quick trip from Copenhagen where, until 27 June, he is taking part in a three-week tour with The Doky Brothers, whose eponymous gold-winning 1996 album featured The Brecker Brothers and Curtis Stigers. Further information: www.paulwertico.com, Barnaby’s at barnabyslounge.co.uk, and many tracks on Bandcamp https://tinyurl.com/Wertico 

TOBY BULA-EDGE

Shifting in style and sound over a two hour performance, Sonics’ Spin Cycle returned on Sunday 7 June for its fifth edition.

The experimental brainchild of James Weaver and William Bunch, Spin Cycle sees a group of musicians play over two hours, in 15-minute overlapping sets. From this, a variety of trios are created. And from that results an ever-shapeshifting performance.

The fifth edition brought together a diverse group of musicians, including: Kyle Macleod (The Defamation Project and Sons of Ugly), HIP’s very own Harry Hawkins (Halfneck), Kit and Toby Bula (The Brothers Bula and The Mystic Shed),James Weaver (The Warrior Squares and Sonics), Jason Williams, William Bunch (Sonics), a poet, also called William, who kicked off proceedings with a poem he wrote a couple of hours before. Others included Spin Cycle stalwart, Dana.

With a variety of players came a variety of instruments. For example, Kit Bula played a couple of chairs by hitting them on the floor. William Bunch scratched some records. Harry Hawkins plucked away on a small banjo. Jason Williams smacked the strings of an acoustic guitar.

All of this made what Bunch referred to as “unconventional music”. But he hastened to add “it’s still music.”

The performance was a success. Weaver added: “It was experimental music in its purest form – exploration and collaboration – while remaining playful and fun.”

The next Spin Cycle will be in September. More details to come.

The Henry Ward Hall on Robertson Street is bringing a massive musical landmark to town, and in the process raising money for local charity The Refugee Buddy Project. The main players are the Statue of Liberty Big Band, a recently convened musical collective made of players who may be familiar to keen Arts readers or punters in the Hastings music scene.

Their first show was last September at Electro Studios in St Leonard’s (a recording of which will be released on budding new label Either Ore Records), but they have since renewed and strengthened their number.

Trombonist and co-founder of improvised music festival Two Ship, Tullis Rennie, Slapp Happy and Henry Cow/Pink Floyd collaborator Anthony Moore, and local art/print/music combo Jude Montague and Matt Armstrong (MARS) are but a few names in their roster; it’s as rotating and eclectic as the music they choose to play. Some of the expected repertoire comprises selections from Sun Ra, Brian Eno, Chilean protest singer Victor Jara and the BBC Music Library. Like a traditional big band, there are horn and rhythm sections, but did Count Basie have an electronics section?

Statue of Liberty is the brainchild of Ed Baxter, who sought to create a sonic sculpture to welcome people crossing the channel – an opposing current to the current tides of anti-immigration. As founder of radio station Resonance FM and a composer himself, he has had considerable connection and experience with the outer reaches of music. Statue of Liberty reflects this wide-eyed perspective, with pieces selected to fit the tastes and skills of the band’s particular performers.

Statue of Liberty Big Band play the Henry Ward Hall at 7.30 on Friday 19 June. Support provided by Sussex folk institution The Copper Family, whose members have been singing since the 17th century. Tickets available at the door or in advance at Eventbrite, £12.50 standard, £7.50 concessions, or pay what you can

Watching this highly co-ordinated jazz performance, it’s difficult to imagine that the musicians don’t spend all their time together writing, playing, and living the tunes. But the members of Matt Ridley’s outfit all have individual musical careers, long experience, and endless versatility. Together they form a powerful unit. Yet the Hastings gig was only the third for this new line-up, The Antidote. While Ridley’s previous band made two albums bearing the Antidote title, it now refers primarily to the music – “an antidote,”he remarks, “to jazz so abstruse that it can alienate the listener, while it doesn’t pander to the merely popular.”

The distinctive combination of very personal styles certainly makes for some intricacy. Rory Simmons’ trumpet was necessarily much in evidence, compensating that evening for the unavoidable absence of Mark Lockheart’s saxophone. Simmons’ playing is fast, fluid, and uncompromising – a mellowish tone from what looks like a vintage instrument, and a highly exploratory improvisational style. Ivo Neame’s piano is key to the band’s unique sound: there’s a complexity about what he does with any tune that lifts it truly out of the ordinary.

Ridley’s tunes aren’t ordinary anyway. He himself plays a distinctive, antique upright bass. Coupled with Dave Ingamells’ careful drum patterning, the music is driven unhesitatingly forward, sometimes in unlikely time signatures – a characteristic Ridley may have absorbed from his long-term presence in Darius Brubeck’s band.

All the evening’s material was Ridley’s own, apart from a fast, driving version of the Thelonious Monk standard I Mean You. It remains a continual wonder that jazz standards like this one are now 80 years old, others more than a century, yet can always be newly-made. Monk’s familiar structure and bebop chords have been worked and reworked by countless bands, but the trademark style of this band rendered it yet again modern, distinctive.

Contemporary British jazz, while it acknowledges and incorporates the music’s American roots, adds European influences sometimes coupled with a modern classical approach. Matt Ridley’s Antidote is a prime example.

Matt Ridley’s Antidote played at Jazz Hastings on Tuesday 2 June. After the summer break the club re-opens in a brand-new incarnation at Barnaby’s Jazz Lounge on Robertson Street. 

John Donaldson, pianist, composer, and founder of Jazz Hastings, will launch an exceptional CD in September, featuring Donaldson, Rob Luft, Rebecka Edlund, Tom Wilson, Norma Winstone, and the amazing Jeff Ballard. Here’s a preview:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdu8zqmI5hM

Jazz Hastings will also relaunch in September, at its new venue Barnaby’s Lounge. Watch out for further details soon.

Hastings International Piano is delighted to present its annual Summer Picnic Concert at the stunning Fairlight Hall, just outside Hastings, on Sunday 5 July. This special event offers audiences the chance to enjoy exceptional live classical music in the relaxed and picturesque surroundings of the Hall’s gardens.

This year’s concert is headlined by 21-year-old Ukrainian pianist Roman Fediurko, runner-up at the 2026 Hastings International Piano Competition. Described by Artistic Director Vanessa Latarche as “a truly extraordinary and thoughtful pianist who clearly has a tremendous career ahead of him” Fediurko arrived in Hastings fresh from winning the prestigious Takamatsu Prize in Japan, before impressing the international jury with his refined and compelling performances.

For this return visit to Sussex, he will perform Scriabin’s evocative and impressionistic Second Sonata, followed by Chopin’s virtuosic and technically demanding Sonata No. 3.

In an exciting new collaboration, Hastings International Piano is partnering for the first time with the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, an organisation dedicated to supporting the next generation of outstanding young pianists. The concert will showcase three of the Foundation’s Young Scholars; Deva Mira Sperandio, Julian Zhu and Aidan Siqi Zhao, exceptional emerging artists at the start of what promise to be remarkable careers.

Set against the backdrop of Fairlight Hall’s beautiful gardens, audiences are invited to bring a picnic and enjoy an afternoon of glorious music performed by some of the most exciting young pianists of today.

Hastings International Piano Summer Picnic takes place at Fairlight Hall on Sunday 5 July at 2:30pm. Grounds open from 12 noon. Details and ticket link: hastingsinternationalpiano.org/news-events/2026-picnic-concert

Being a rock musician in 2026 is not easy.

The romance of the road is still there, somewhere, but it is increasingly buried under fuel costs, hotel bills, stretched audiences and venues fighting to stay open. For Chantel McGregor, that reality is not something to dress up.

Chantel is a musician strongly grounded in reality. When we spoke about her latest album The Healing, which she is now taking on tour, she did not reach for myths about life on the road or the grand romance of rock music.

Instead, she talked about the work of it: the travel, the pressure, the costs, the venues, the audiences and the fragile ecosystem that allows live music to happen at all.

That does not mean she has lost her affection for it. Far from it. But she is clear-eyed about how difficult things have become. “The state of live music at the moment is so difficult in this country,” she says. “I’d like to say I’m optimistic, but I’m not at the moment.”

The reasons are familiar, but they land differently when set out by someone living with them night after night. Audiences are under pressure. Touring is expensive. Venues are struggling.

“People are really struggling, and I completely get that,” she says. “If you say; ‘It’s 20 pounds a ticket’, people have got to choose: do they do the shopping that week or do they go to a gig? And that is such a difficult thing.”

For bands, the sums are no easier. Accommodation, fuel, food and the basic costs of moving people and equipment around the country have all gone up. The margins, already thin, are getting thinner.

Still, Chantel does not sound defeated. There is a practical resilience in the way she talks about it. No false certainty, no grand solution, but a determination to keep doing the job properly for as long as possible.

“Just keep doing it for as long as we can afford to keep doing it,” she says, “and hope there are still venues that survive throughout everything.”

It is places like Hastings, she says, that help make that possible. The Carlisle, where she will perform on Friday 5 June, is the sort of venue with its own history, character and audience. For a touring musician, those things matter.

“I love it,” she says of Hastings. “I think Hastings has got a lot of really incredible people … absolutely gorgeous fans that are really welcoming and respectful and lovely.”

Touring can make even the most interesting places blur into each other. Days are often shaped by load-ins, soundchecks, a quick meal, the show and then the next journey. Still, Chantel has had time to enjoy Hastings and the Old Town and speaks warmly about returning.

Her own route into music began early. Her father was a musician, and guitars were part of the household. By the age of 12 she was taking in jam sessions, and by her mid-teens, she knew what she wanted to do.

“I sort of stuck at it … and decided that’s what I wanted to do as a job, as a life, and it went from there.”
Asked to describe her music, Chantel is pleasingly unfussy: “primarily rock, with a little bit of progressive and singer-songwriter.”
It is “very guitar heavy, technical and good fun as well.”

There is serious musicianship behind that, but Chantel does not speak about the guitar as though it is something she has mastered once and for all.

“I don’t think you ever finish learning,” she says. “I always perceive it as whatever room you walk in, there’ll be somebody who can play something better than you can.”

Her influences give some sense of the range in her music. Fleetwood Mac were an early love – “I wanted to be Stevie Nicks” – while Jeff Buckley remains “a massive influence songwriting-wise.” There is heavier progressive music in there too, including Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree.

“It’s quite diverse, my influences,” she says, “but I guess there’s maybe a fraction of everything in what I do.” Or, more simply: “It’s a mishmash. I always just call it Chantelle music.”

Her latest album, The Healing, released last year, is perhaps her most personal work. She describes it as “a very, very emotionally sensitive album,” centred around heavy rock and progressive sounds, but also “very in touch with emotions and feel.”
It is a record shaped by grief, loss, self-confidence and the long process of finding a way through. For Chantel, that meant moving into territory she had previously avoided.

“I’ve always been quite scared of being vulnerable,” she says. But with this album, “this album was an outlet for me.”
She adds that “it was emotionally very difficult to write.

“When you’re singing songs about the worst thing that can happen in your life, and you’re trying to get through it, it’s hard. But you’ve got to sometimes work through those things.”

For all that, the Carlisle show is not being presented as an evening of solemn introspection. Audiences can expect songs from The Healing, older material, possibly some acoustic moments, and the kind of guitar-led rock performance that has earned Chantel such a loyal following.

“It’s just gonna be a really, really lovely night, and we’re so excited to come back,” she says.

What comes across most strongly is not rock-star mythology, but care: care for the music, for the craft, for the people who turn up, and for the venues that keep the whole thing alive. Chantel understands the pressure live music is under, but she also understands the pleasure of it.

Music, she says, is not some decorative extra.

“It’s so intrinsic in what we do,” she says. “We love going out and hearing music, and I think it would be such a massive shame if that becomes too difficult for live bands to go out and do that.”

That is a good case for going to The Carlisle on Friday 5 June, because Chantel is bringing a proper rock show to a proper Hastings venue. In difficult times for live music, and for many of the people who love it, that remains one of the best reasons to leave the house.

Hastings-based punk skiffle bar band Fear of Last Orders will be recording a new live LP on Friday 12 June, publicly, at 1200 Postcards on Queens Road. They invite all fans of live music to join them and be part of the action, and have made it clear that they welcome heckling, dancing, drinking and anything else legal that adds to the traditional barroom vibe at the heart of their live show.

Since forming over two years ago, Fear of Last Orders have established a loyal following, who have bought into their unique mixture of punk, pub rock, skiffle and rockabilly. Their first on-line release last summer was a love song to Hastings Pier, ‘The End of the Pier’, in support of the campaign to save the historic structure and bring back its glory days. Earlier this year, their first vinyl release, In the Last Chance Saloon, showcased four original songs, introducing a wider audience to their mix of high energy bangers and tales from the wrong side of the tracks.

The band’s manager, Arthur Hastings, said: “We want to capture all the energy of a Fear of Last Orders show on record, and invite our fans to be part of the whole shebang. We have been packing out venues across Hastings and this is an opportunity to thank our loyal supporters for being such a wonderful bunch.”

Band member Geoff Martin also recently launched a novel, They Smelt of Pubs. It’s set between London and Brighton, while the protagonist also looks back to the time of the Rock Against Racism festivals in East London and the rise of two-tone and The Specials. There’s a scathing honesty about the book and the injustices suffered by its (initially a little shiftless) protagonist – the brawls and the intrigues at the night-club security end of law enforcement against a drug gang, a fit-up for armed robbery, bent coppers, and pursuit to near death by neo-Nazi criminals. It’s written in an internally audible, completely authentic narrative style, and in itself is a little piece of South Coast history.  “It’s widely accepted that the first working class novel was Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthopists,” states Martin. “That book was written here in Hastings. More than a century later I’m proud to help keep the tradition of working class literature alive in the town.” 

They Smelt of Pubs and all recordings are available from record shop Pressing and bookshop Printed Matter on Queens Road. Live recording takes place on 12 June at 1200 Postcards, Queens Road, Hastings. The fun starts at 7 pm.

Hasting’s vibrant jazz scene is set for a powerful dose of energy as Matt Ridley’s Antidote take the stage for a special live performance. Led by acclaimed bassist and composer Matt Ridley, Antidote has earned a reputation for its dynamic blend of contemporary jazz, intricate rhythms, and expansive improvisation. Ridley has performed across the UK and internationally with a wide cross section of artists, most prominently the Darius Brubeck Quartet (who performed at Jazz Hastings a couple of years ago, see review at https://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/articles/culture/arts/its-about-that-time/) of which he has been a member since 2006. As leader of Antidote, he has released two critically acclaimed albums. This session will feature music from the band’s celebrated recordings as well as brand-new material, showcasing Ridley’s imaginative writing and the ensemble’s razor-sharp interplay. Antidote promises an evening that is both boldly creative and deeply engaging.
“Performing this music live is where it truly comes alive,” says Ridley. “We’re excited to share fresh ideas, take risks, and connect with the audience in real time.”

Join Antidote for an unforgettable night of boundary-pushing modern jazz on Tuesday 2 June at EHSAA, The Stade

Rob Luft and Elina Duni have been making music together for about nine years, resulting in a near-perfect harmonic rapport. Their choice of numbers is truly universal – from Kosovo through Albania, France, and Switzerland to Tin Pan Alley, the American outlands and Hollywood, with the lullaby from Rosemary’s Baby, written by influential Polish composer Krzysztof Komeda. This is contemporary jazz at its finest: consistently creating and recreating, recognising sources, but transcending musical and geographical boundaries.

This performance was part of an extensive European tour promoting their latest album – they hurried down to Hastings between Germany and Poland, and it’s a tribute to this club that they chose to break their journey to come here. It’s a great album, but nothing compares to the magic produced by the live show.

Luft’s versatility has few limits. As a band member he has enhanced such diverse outfits as those of John Surman, Avishai Cohen, and Corrie Dick, and he has also recorded a work of his own with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Of nine released albums, this is the second showcasing the duo. He has a fine, fluid fretboard technique unusually sensitive to dynamics. On a Gibson electric, he makes the most of his effects pedals in a process with which he seems almost casually at ease, so that the audience hardly notices it going on. His adroit changes in volume and style, though, always leave space for Duni’s vocal command and dexterity.

Her voice is stunning: warm without being cloying, effortlessly on pitch, an authentic jazz vocal. She knows how to decorate and scat with discernment, never allowing the descent into over-showy bathos that vocal improvisation occasionally induces. Clearly, she is also an accomplished linguist: she moved easily between English, Italian, her native Albanian and her adopted French, plus Kosovan, Russian, and Iranian.

While some of the English numbers – Irving Berlin’s Reaching for the Moon for instance – elicited a definite middle-eastern modal feeling, I’ll Be Seeing You (from their 2023 album) while remaining faithful to the original, is beautifully unlike any other version you’ll ever hear, Luft providing a stylishly understated but perfect solo break. A tribute to the groundbreaking jazz of the American Beat era was Mal Waldron’s heartrending Left Alone. Gainsbourg’s Couleur Café was also a surprise, airily elegant and given a samba treatment. Local, nationally-acclaimed reedman Jason Yarde joined spontaneously into the final number, guesting on soprano.

This exceptional evening was dedicated to Julian Norridge, journalist and TV producer, who, in his retirement, among other local musical activities, had a long-running association with Jazz Hastings, but died in March this year.

Rob Luft and Elina Duni played at Jazz Hastings, The Stade, on 5 May.

The Let’s Get It Together Festival have announced a special deal on tickets for local people wanting to join their three day celebration of dance music culture, which is taking place across 11 venues on May Bank Holiday weekend, 22nd–24th May 2026, in Hastings and St Leonards on Sea.

Those still requiring weekend passes or day tickets can take advantage of a “2 for 1” special offer, set up with local dance music fans in mind, by inputting the codes below into the Evenbrite booking site.

Original ticket prices are £20 for day passes and £45 for full weekend passes.

In addition to legendary international talent including Vikter Duplaix, Seamus Haji, Trevor Fung and Smokin Jo, the 3-day festival will be showcasing many grassroots, local DJs including Jon Carter, Mark Bartlett and Soulprovyder.

Guests can look forward to immersing themselves in a weekend filled with uplifting and diverse
sounds straddling differing musical genres, from soul and jazz-funk, to house, electronica and Afro-
Latin.

Food and drinks will also be available to fuel revellers throughout the weekend including food from 3 Souls In A Bowl and cocktails from Copper Pot Gin, who are both sponsoring this year’s event.

The festival kicks off at The Courtyard on the afternoon of Friday, 22nd May, with an official opening
party that night at French’s.

Throughout the weekend, attendees can explore a curated trail of music across the participating venues, including The Courtyard, The Crypt, The Piper, Barnaby’s, Barista & The Shack, Crown House, Oscars, Collected Fictions, The She and Blackbox.

To take advantage of the 2 for 1 offer, please use the following promotional codes at

letsgetittogether2026.eventbrite.co.uk

241LGIT WEEKEND PASS

241LGIT FRIDAY PASS

241LGIT SATURDAY PASS

241LGIT SUNDAY PASS

Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, under the redoubtable leadership of Marcio Da Silva, have deservedly secured funds to enable them to perform no less than seven free concerts during the month of July. Called HPO Open Doors, these concerts offer unmissable opportunities to hear live classical music performed by some of the finest musicians on the South Coast.

At Christ Church St Leonards the HPO ensemble – a subset of the orchestra – will perform the much-loved favourite, Prokoviev’s Peter and the Wolf – accompanied by a puppet show explaining the action. For the older generation, they will also play a selection of tunes from The Sound of Music.

After that there is a ‘Choral Immersion’ at St Clements Church in the Old Town – a selection of elegant choral work by composers spanning four hundred years. They are: William Byrd, one of the greatest Renaissance choral writers; Brazilian 19th century composer José Nunes Garcia, born to impoverished parents, grandson of two slaves; and the extraordinary American composer Eric Whitacre, born in 1970, who turned from a techno-pop synth whizz to a fully-fledged composer during an instant of choral epiphany – and learnt to read music only after he entered music college. His choral music is completely, viscerally, beautiful.

Then there’s an open-air afternoon concert in Alexandra Park on the bandstand, with the HPO wind quintet playing favourites by Mozart, Puccini, Bizet, and Rossini. After that comes a full orchestral concert at the White Rock Theatre with selections from Carmen, Saint-Saёns’ Danse Macabre (you may know it as the theme from Jonathan Creek!), Ravel’s Mother Goose suite and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. This promises to be a highlight of the series – familiar music played excellently in familiar surroundings – and free.

The last two concerts are Holst’s Planets in the grounds of Battle Abbey at twilight, and a final Wine and Song recital at Christ Church. These concerts are sure to be exceptional and more especially, a unique opportunity for those to whom classical music is unfamiliar or who fear it may be inaccessible, expensive, or too serious. Go along, and experience the joy of creative humanity at its finest.

Tickets and details: hastingsphilorchest ra.co.uk/hpo-open-doors-2026. Full season details: hastingsphilorchest ra.co.uk/2025-26-season 

Adventures in Pop has been running original creative rock and pop nights at the Jenny Lind for over a year. The scene has built up, and the First Tuesdays have become a music hub on Hastings’ High Street, with Electric Palace Cinema running music films on the same evening.

On Tuesday 5 May the pub was busy with electric sounds and enthusiastic audiences, as fans and friends came by to see guest bands Thee Headshrinkers and The Mystic Shed, local bands who created a wild musical happening: punky, loud and vibrant. The two bands were joined by house band Mars(the lately renamed Montague Armstrong Rippengal) who played their signature Anglo-Baltic electro-folk-pop, taking the modern music night to a loud, progressive level.

Thee Headshrinkers are a rock trio who cheerfully describe their music as garage trash. Rob, the lyricist, says: “Hastings took me in when I was very poor and virtually homeless. It has always had an edge, the people are the salt of the earth. As a band, someone will always give you an opportunity to play somewhere.”

The Mystic Shed developed their musical passion locally. Kit (drums) and Tom (guitar) began their band in the lunch hour at school. Kit remembers: “There’s something exhilarating about spending your lunch break making incredibly loud noise and then not being able to hear for the rest of the day. In a way it was also one of our most creatively unhinged periods because we had a lot of ambition, a modest amount of skill, too much time and none of the cultural exposure that can be simultaneously liberating and suffocating.”

The sound was driven through valve amps, mixed live by multi-instrumentalist Matt Armstrong, and both bands sounded acute and vital. Of the sparse lyrics Rob (Thee Headshrinkers) says: ‘‘I’m still not sure if I’m any good at articulating my feelings as opposed to just putting a brick through someone’s window. I have a fear of forgetting what I am doing and where I am at any given moment, so I find I have to cull the lyrics and repeat a lot.”

Both bands resist dominant trends and the way they play out in social media. Kit (Mystic Shed) continues: “I think one of the most depressing aspects of music over the last century is the creation of the band-as-commodity, like Elvis, the Beatles, Radiohead, Nirvana, et cetera. And on social media, we’re expected to emulate [these entities] by commodifying ourselves.” Kit explains further that The Mystic Shed is his relationship with Tom, not a commercial product, and an expression of who they are together.

Mars and The Mystic Shed played at The Jenny Lind, High Street, on Tuesday 5 May

It’s a Tuesday evening, and someone can’t quite get the Zoom camera working.”I like it when you’re visible!” says one. “I like it when you’re risible,” replies another. The band is The Utopia Strong, a trio who have been making heady (and lysergic) electronica since 2018.

They have an intriguing lineup. Kavus Torabi is a British-Iranian multi-instrumentalist who currently spearheads British prog institutions like 70s weirdos Gong and the prog-punk-pop of Cardiacs. Michael York, another multi-instrumentalist, has worked in the world of eerie folk and post-rock music with groups and artists such as Current 93, Nurse Without Wound, and Coil among many others.

The third member, Steve Davis, is the many-titled snooker player (famously one of his titles is ‘the most boring player in the world’ – a compliment in the snooker community because of his accuracy, objectivity, and lack of distracting emotion – who now proves himself versatile and, in fact, endlessly interesting.

Currently absorbed by the disciplines of progressive music and modular synthesis, he has long been an enthusiast of outsider music. Davis admits that since his musical ventures began he is far less devoted to snooker, though he has offered the occasional game commentary and been involved with some interesting occasions where sport and music collide. He was last seen potting shots, for example, in a 2021 music video for Newcastle folk songwriter Richard Dawson’s single Lily.

The Utopia Strong formed as a group in 2017, though its members had not necessarily been aware of each other before that. Steve jokes that Michael thought he was a football player. Kavus and Davis met through their love of French progressives Magma, and eventually played radio sets and DJ’d together, until one Glastonbury Festival, where the two were put up at Michael’s house. There an impromptu jam arose, and became a format through which many of the band’s pieces have emerged. York describes their music as “for our future selves sitting on the sofa”, rather than being directed towards a specific audience.

The Strong have already issued several albums with Rocket Recordings. Their newest release on the same label, Doperider (October 2025, digital), is both spacey and industrial. The title track centres on an improvised core of three blissful synths, and is evocative of the ‘Berlin School’ of 70s electronic music, the post-Krautrock of Tangerine Dream, for instance. There are suites of metallic riffing, Aphex-Twin-like bubbles and skitters and morose, ancient melodies.The group’s collaborative approach investigates and interrogates the musical process, probing for depth and democracy.

In their live sets, the group make no attempt to replicate specific recordings. The process, however, is similar: they describe it (with honesty) as “seat of your pants”. The sound engineer often plays along using various effects. Each show is therefore unique. Kavus plays guitar and harmonium; Michael brings synthesisers, percussion, and Armenian duduk. His duduk playing is a particular highlight, moving the group away from a purely electronic sound palette, and providing a haunting voice which he describes as “invoking the apocalyptic”.

Steve describes his setup as a miniature TARDIS. He was looking for an instrument that required no particular musical dexterity but is more curatable. Without a keyboard, he employs filters and sequencers, applying his known skills for calculated objectivity and precision in a wildly different context.

Each member of The Utopia Strong has performed in various different projects locally. Kavus and Steve have returned to St Leonards in the last few years as DJs on solo tours, or with different bands (Kavus with Gong, and Michael with the Witching Tale, an atmospheric folk duo with Katharine Blake). Michael York has worked with musicians now based in Hastings, such as Current 93’s enigmatic leader David Tibet, and legendary folk singer Shirley Collins. He has also played pipes at Jack in The Green.

The Utopia Strong play at The Piper on Sunday 24 May, the last stop of their 2026 tour.

First put on as a birthday celebration in 2022, Let’s Get It Together was founded by local DJs Gary Oehme (Gary O), Ian Milne (djsoulprovyder) and Charles Osaji (Sheer Bronze) to celebrate the local dance music community and showcase emerging talent.

The festival has been growing since its inception with this year’s festival being billed as its biggest yet.

The 2026 festival features an impressive roster of 30 big name and local DJs spinning a diverse and eclectic range of dance music genres across 10 popular Hastings and St Leonards venues.

Sets will be happening from 12.00pm noon until 3.00am from Friday 22nd through to Sunday 24th May and into the early hours of the bank holiday Monday itself.

Venue Hopping

The festival’s will be spread across the areas best venues and include;

The Old Town: The She and Blackbox
Hastings Town Centre: The Courtyard, Barnaby’s Lounge and The Crypt
St Leonards:  The Piper, Crown House, Oscar’s and Collected Fictions

Who’s playing at the Let’s Get It Together Festival?

Starting off with Friday’s opening party at French’s in Robertson Street, festival-goers can expect a wide range of music: Funk, House, Electronica and Latin music from Big Beat DJ Jon Carter, Grammy nominated Philadelphia soul producer Vikter Duplaix, and Smokin Jo, the first woman to win DJ Mag’s DJ of the Year.

How much are tickets for the festival?

Tickets for Let’s Get It Together are £20 for day pass or for those wanting to dance all weekend it’s £45 for weekend passes.

Visit letsgetittogether.co.uk for tickets and further information, and find updates on social media @letsgetittogether_events

Even in a town that boasts its fair share of post-punk prodigies, sightings of DIY luminary Bing Selfish are as rare and as welcome as new socks. Cutting his teeth in London’s fertile squat scene of the 1980s, releasing records too recondite for Rough Trade, publishing a myriad of zany zines and even directing a couple of full-length movies, Bing has been a one-man underground art movement for over thirty years. An unexpected visit to The Pig this month finds him in the company of exquisite Okinawan folk duo Luuchuu Sisters, spunky local funksters Simon and The Pope, and moving image montage maestro Duncan Reekie.

It’s a typically eclectic setting for this restless songster, whose corrosive wit is matched only by his plaintive politics worn lightly on a paisley patterned sleeve. With the aura of a faded playboy and the stage presence of a recently drowned rat, Bing sings of bitter existential angst, quixotic subcultural cravings and the pressing need for a leftist revolution. Imagine Alexei Sayle trying to channel Nick Drake and you’re halfway to his heart.

A cult, a myth, a legend, a loser all rolled into one, whose songs of intrigue / betrayal / lust / science and imagination scan the centuries, Bing is also the creator of the Bing Selfish Radio Show on Resonance FM. As the music establishment sinks to new depths of mediocrity and plagiarism, Selfish and his phenomenal associates have created the perfect antidote: pure pop music, adventurous and subversive, a truthful call to arms for all who know there’s more to life than apps, likes and vibes.

Diehard fans will doubtless call out for such hardy perennials as Sold Down the River by the Labour Party and the all-golden Orwellian hymn to The Government of Love. The rest of us can expect numbers from his spanking new CD, The Day I Fell in Love with Everyone. Selfish offers a savvy, savage, sardonic pop opposition to our daily dumbing down: timely, often touching and entirely necessary. Sparks will fly.

Bing Selfish + Luuchuu Sisters + Simon and The Pope + Duncan Reekie (live visuals),The Pig, 37 White Rock. Saturday 16 May 2026 at 7pm

VICTORIA KINGHAM

Guitarist Rob Luft has been a regular visitor to Jazz Hastings, having appeared here with his own band and with other musicians celebrated for their originality: Byron Wallen, Corrie Dick, Dave O’Higgins. Luft is in constant demand: his guitar technique is constantly inventive, versatile and original, and he was rightly named ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ in the Parliamentary Jazz Awards for 2025.

In 2017, his path crossed with that of the singer Elina Duni at the Montreux Jazz Festival, marking the inception of a unique project. They have since toured the world, releasing two critically acclaimed albums on ECM Records in a quartet formation with Fred Thomas (drums) and trumpeter Matthieu Michel. For those of you familiar with the ‘ECM sound’, expect a characteristic dreamy ambience, open chords, judicious reverb and a display of excellent musicianship. For this session, they’ll be promoting their new 2026 duo album, Reaching for the Moon, which has already attracted a number of very favourable previews. This performance here is one of only three in the UK; the tour runs through Europe from Italy through Austria and Duni’s adopted country, Switzerland, to Barcelona.

A stripped-back duo effort, the album revisits the essence of their initial meeting. Duni’s voice blends beautifully with Luft’s guitar lines – her singing is intense and intelligent, and her voice softly compelling. Several albums have been released under her own name, as a singer-songwriter with her own quartet. She has also a long-held interest in the folk music of Albania (where she was born) and there is one beautiful solo album, Partir, where she accompanies herself to folk songs that are effortlessly rendered in nine different languages. Don’t miss this performance – it’ll be something very special.

Elina Duni (vocals) and Rob Luft (guitar) Tuesday 5 May, EHSAA, The Stade, Hastings: 8.30 pm.

It’s always a joy to remember that the first person recorded as having written music down systematically, was a woman. Hildegard of Bingen was a highly-regarded, highly devout Catholic Abbess, a woman polymath whose ‘sacred monophony’ spawned a whole universe within the musical art form. In between casual jottings such as treatises on theology, botany, and medicine, she invented a way of writing down holy songs for nuns to sing. That was in about the 12th century – but apparently (and I’ve just learned this) God tells Job somewhere in the Old Testament that during the act of Creation the morning stars all sang together and the Angels shouted for joy, so he made music at the same time as he made everything else, but actually (he continued to tell Job) Jubal, the son of Lamech and Adah, was the first to make a musical instrument and sing to it – and now I’ve realised why we call happy musical expression, jubilation. Musicologists’ theories are slightly more prosaic: Charles Darwin thought that music developed as a form of sexual selection, from the mating calls of animals. Purely from Wikipedia, and very little prior knowledge, I understand that the oldest object thought to be an instrument, a nose flute carved from the thigh bone of a bear, is about 40,000 years old. The Ancient Egyptians also had stringed instruments, which you can see in their ancient drawings on papyri.

SEVEN

It’s quite a stretch from the harps and lyres of antiquity to the modern violin and viola, but working from the general to the particular, I need to ignore the countless stages in between. So on Good Friday last I attended what was probably the nearest I would nowadays get to a church service, a performance (in an Anglican church) of Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross. Diligently counting words in my head (none of them added up to seven), I realised it actually means seven last expressions, and a vicar read from the pulpit the phrase that inspired each movement.

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do/To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. … /Woman, behold, thy son! … /My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? … /I thirst. … /It is finished. … /Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

Of course it was a sublime performance of one of Haydn’s more celebrated works, worthy of any international concert hall, but happening here in a church in St Leonards on an occasion which (if you were so inclined) you might say was blessed. We are certainly blessed, to see this quality of performance here.

The church was subdued on Good Friday – the main icons were neatly covered in made-to-measure shrouds, and the lights dimmed. It was a ‘candlelit’ occasion, and the four musicians were illuminated at floor level with an elegantly-arranged grouping of tealights. Very atmospheric: it caused me to wonder what it is about the long endurance of candles, as symbols, in this case in an Anglo-Catholic church. After all, since about the 1890s candles have been pretty redundant as light givers (except among the very poor), since many homes already had gas lights which were more efficient and effective. Candles are still retained to create ‘atmosphere’ and a ‘softer light’ at supper, for example.

The musical occasion was pretty, and indeed soft and atmospheric, but what is it that continues to retain the candle so strongly as a cultural symbol, in our language and in the customs of many faiths, while their daily use is virtually redundant? Of course they were always a Christian symbol, the light under the bushel, the Light of the World, I am the Way, the Truth and the Light, and are massively symbolic in other religions – Judaism, Buddhism, Hindu, Taoism, Kwanzaa, Islam, Paganism all use the symbolism of the candle to mark certain occasions. Please, I don’t scoff, it was beautiful, but it’s still a mystery. Maybe that’s the point, the Mystery.

LAST WORDS

Sometimes referred to as the Father of the String Quartet, Haydn was born a musical genius. His impoverished parents, realising that they could not afford to nurture this, apprenticed him to a well-to-do local musical family, and he never lived in his parents’ home after he was six. He had a terrible childhood with the Frankhs, often in filthy clothes and with not enough to eat, which facts, some say, accounted for his parsimony in business dealings in later life. But he learned and studied enough and had enough genius to gain all kinds of exalted royal and religious residencies later. He always remained a devout Catholic, so this most stately series of pieces was commissioned by a leading Spanish church for Good Friday so that the priest could deliver a little sermon on each of the seven phrases, with the music immediately following. The priest paid Haydn by sending him a cake filled with gold coins. They knew how to live in those days.

Taken together, there was something in the music, the musical heritage, and the church setting that made it a religious occasion even for non-believers, if religion is to be interpreted broadly as a set of rules to live by. The seven phrases undoubtedly epitomise an enduring message, expressing central catholic tenets: forgiveness, eternal life, sanctity of motherhood, betrayal and doubt, supplication, acceptance, and the submission of the Spirit. There was a reverence about the whole occasion that transcended the mere playing of music – though that may have just been the effect of the candles. It’s a pity therefore that even the most basic idea of universal forgiveness does not translate, in the real world, or even in most religions, to action.

Talented local singer/songwriter Jason McNiff is launching a new theatre show at the Stables on 7 May, which is lined up afterwards for dates around the country. Songs of Love Loss and Light is essentially a Leonard Cohen tribute, interwoven with McNiff’s own work and story: basically, a show about inspiration.

The performance places McNiff’s songwriting alongside that of the Canadian master, tracing the thread between influence and originality, and offering a rare glimpse into the enduring art of songcraft. 

McNiff has been a substantial feature of the Hastings music scene for at least ten years, as have the other members of the quartet – Richard Moore (versatile violinist), Matt Armstrong (double bass), and multi-instrumental reeds player Bjorn Dahlberg. This show also marks the launch of Jason’s 10th album – a live recording made here in this surprising locality that nurtures so many excellent musicians playing so many kinds of music.

You can catch tracks on YouTube, by the quartet and by McNiff solo. His guitar picking is elegant – he acknowledges an enormous debt to the late Bert Jansch, the simple perfection of whose lyrics and musicianship some of you may remember but if you don’t, find him on streaming platforms to give you an insight into McNiff’s hallmark style. Add a touch of Americana and a touch of authentic blues and you’ll get somewhere near; and with this new performance include Leonard Cohen in the mix. 

Jason McNiff and his band explore songs of Love Loss and Light at the Stables theatre on 7 May.

On 23 April, multiple award-winning Afrobeat ambassador Dele Sosimi is set to bring his signature grooves to Hastings’ White Rock Theatre. Hackney-born and UK-based, Dele has long been a prolific, worldwide performer, having earned his musical chops as a young keyboardist in Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 band between 1979 and 1986.

Now, four decades later, he remains a restless champion for the musical movement. His blend of complex funk grooves, traditional Nigerian music, African percussion and jazz is all tied together with his virtuoso keyboard skills and rhythmic vocals – making him one of the most respected Afrobeat authorities of his era.

Following his foundational years with Egypt 80, Sosimi teamed up with Fela’s son, Femi Kuti, to form Positive Force, serving as the band’s musical director. After touring the globe and gracing the stages of major international jazz festivals – from Montreux to Montreal – Sosimi relocated to London in the mid-90s. There, he infused his Yoruba rhythms with the city’s multicultural landscape, absorbing the influences of deep funk, Latin music and UK jazz.

His globetrotting life and diverse musical influences have spawned some captivating collaborations, from his hit single Mo Se B’ólá tán alongside The Estuary 21 and Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, to his work with Lokkhi Terra on collaborative album Cubafrobeat. But for those unfamiliar with Dele’s own infectious Afrobeat sound, look no further than his celebrated 2015 album You No Fit Touch Am.

For his upcoming White Rock appearance, audiences can expect a high-energy live show. Presented by African Night Fever in collaboration with The Guildhall Trust and WemsFest, the Afrobeat Experience with Dele Sosimi Quintet takes over the venue’s Studio space from 8:00 pm. For this standing event, the room is perfectly primed for a feel-good, carnivalesque atmosphere. Backed by his world-class quintet, Dele delivers raw horns, energetic percussion and soaring melodies that The Guardian notes balance a “typically joyous Afrobeat sound” with “intriguing experiments into downtempo grooves”.

Dubbed a “total music legend” by BBC 6 Music’s Cerys Matthews, the Afrobeat pioneer promises to uplift the spirits with his irresistible soul. Tickets are £20 – come ready to dance.

This small town must surely be unique in the number and extent of its international musical connections. Think of any venue – the Kino-Teatr for example with its Russian and Irish connections, Barnaby’s Lounge hosted by international traveller and musician Barnaby Davies, a Japanese restaurant owned by a French musician. Then there is at least one Anglo-German violinist with world-wide connections across Europe and Asia and Africa, one Brazilian maestro with many European connections, and a truly international piano competition. The list goes on. I dare say it isn’t unusual for music to connect the world like this, but so many connections in this one small town are to be nurtured and treasured. 

In addition we have many, many, talented and enthusiastic local bands and singer-songwriters of which again, I think Hastings has produced far more than is reasonable for towns of this size. We also have exceptionally enthusiastic and engaged audiences, made up of all classes and races and generations.

Readers may remember last issue’s article about a film exploring the mythology of Latvia, made here and shown in the Art Documentary Festival in Riga.  Also mentioned in that article was the fact that, among its many other unique artefacts, Hastings now supports an Anglo-Baltic Electro-Folk outfit, Montague Armstrong Rippengal. They have a monthly slot at the Jenny Lind on the first Tuesday of every month, but here they are, in analogue mode, on the Fattest Tuesday of 2026. 

COVEN CLUB Music Review

Local Pink Floyd tribute Band, On Thin Ice, who pay an extraordinary nod to quintessential band Pink Floyd, drew in an extra special energy recently to the Black Box in Hastings Old Town.

The famous Pink Floyd sonic provocation of blood-rushing angst and feelings of disconnection amongst their listeners was undoubtedly manifested with genuine musicianship. Nigel Polley issued authentic Dave Gilmour vocals besides playing on rhythm/lead and lap steel guitars. He delivered the rhythmic flow and groovy intricacies that underpin Floyd’s work.

The ebb and flow of Floyd’s tempos were authentically reproduced by drummer Nigel Dawson, dissolving into a mixture of stunning bass grooves by Alan Holbrook, superb saxophone solos from Glyn Roberts, broad sonic gorgeousness from keyboardist Dave Balentine, and euphoric lead guitar by Chris Barnett.

Floyd, renowned for strong musical encounters imploding into themes of deep, personal interpretations of life as an earthling, were summoned into being by this local Hastings tribute, who produced an equally unsettling experience.

QUADROPHONIC SOUNDSCAPE

Despite the ambush to get a position in the ‘sweet-spot’ (the centre – achieving the best Floyd full quadrophonic soundscapes and consummate psychedelics), sound pioneer Wee Jock allowed sound to diffuse and surround, travelling and sweeping through all four speakers that were positioned high, pointing downwards from all four corners, to best maximise the music’s emotional impact. This was not just quadraphonic sound in an ethereal lit room, it soon became a sonic adventure, in a degree of sound design rarely executed in local live music venues.

CLOUD NINE

Just like the real Floyd deal, the audience zoned in to the laser and video show, compiled by Sean. The display not only walked hand-in-hand with the quadraphonic soundscapes, but also magnified the significance of Floyd’s discerning themes and their essence, reinforcing narratives and becoming a multi-sensory experience.

Backing vocalists Mish B and Sarah Feleppa brought powerful harmonic intricacy to a vast set of Floyd tracks. Enhancing Floyd’s thematic exploration, Mish B’s powerful version of Great Gig in the Sky was very much the icing on the cake, highly reminiscent of vocalist, Clare H. Torry on Floyd’s original version. Mish B’s vocal gymnastics were well respected, generating a roaring, wall-to-wall applause from Floyd purists.

The Pink Floyd tribute took place at The Black Box, 6 March, 2026. Dave Gilmour’s Birthday.

Jude Montague

Xelis de Toro, writer and performance artist from Galicia, performs at the Jenny Lind music pub with the band ChopChop – a collective of remarkable, inventive musicians which he fronts with his dynamic movements and poetry. The poet has been in England for about 30 years, but moved to Hastings from Brighton only last year. I met this creative neighbour on the Kings Road recently, and was delighted to find out he was from a place I have had an interest in for many years, as my good friend the artist Susana Sanromán is a creative visual artist also from Galicia.

Xelis has a strong Galician/Spanish accent, which he uses to good effect as a poet and performer for UK audiences. Although he used to enjoy being a foreigner, he says that since Brexit some of the fun of that has been lost. He is from the green North West of his country, where it rains.

Some describe the Galician tongue as being, linguistically, more closely related to Portuguese than to Spanish. Galicia has its own illustrious history, and is internationally well-known for the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, housing the shrine of St James (discovered and attributed in the ninth century AD) that is the destination of the world-renowned pilgrimage. This phenomenon has subsequently shaped the cultural and economic development of the Kingdom. Although the Galician language has survived in modern Spain, it is seen as a minority language.

Xelis, however, is very much a defender of Galician identity. He writes books in the Galician language, a number of which have been used in the local school curriculum and been awarded important prizes. He also won a prize for the best Galician novel of the year 2000, for Os saltimbanquis no paraíso [‘The Clowns in Paradise’]. This novel and another, Feral River (2020) have been translated into English.

I know Xelis as a movement artist, and I asked him about this. I saw him perform with ChopChop at the White Rock, for their regular monthly Thursday jazz night ‘Berth of the Cool’. He explained: “I was initially a writer and was for many years. And then I started to move, dance, perform in a variety of contexts, theatre, live art, vocal improvisation. I am more a performer than a musician, I move, I dance, I gesticulate, and yes, I deliver words too. I see myself within and outside Chopchop as a performer, a mover, a word delivery machine.”

“I have always been interested in mixing text with other disciplines. In Brighton I did lots of work as a cross-disciplinary artist collaborating with other artists under the name Boca2mouth, with virtual artist Jim Sanders and artist and musician Ed Briggs. I have also done a project on the history of Sound and Concrete Poetry, of which I am a practitioner.”

MUSICAL PHILOSOPHY

Xelis explained ChopChop’s musical philosophy. “It is a band that creates new music – on the edges of experimental music but with a groove. In brief, people dance in our shows and we love it. We are not a generic band. We are sometimes seen as influenced by new wave and post-punk from New York or the Funky Fall. Far out music! Whatever they call us, as long as they keep dancing, we don’t care!”

“ChopChop is a completely democratic band, there are no leaders, no egos, we discuss, we talk and make decisions together. We know that doing new, and difficult -to-categorize music, our options are limited. But we love what we do, we get great pleasure, and after ten years we still get on well, because we still manage to surprise ourselves with new music. When I get together with my colleagues to rehearse, I count myself lucky, I think, man! There is no other place I want to be. I just love every time we come up with a new idea. I am really aware that I am working with three very sophisticated musicians. In our gigs, some of the people dance and the others look at us saying “what the hell are these guys doing?”’

He says he likes awkwardness, difference, and strangeness. He wants to see and listen to things that he doesn’t know and doesn’t understand, and wants to see more things that challenge him in Hastings. There is an experimental scene here that he values, including gigs organised by Ben Thompson and Two Ships, and impromptu gatherings hosted by Montague. Both Montague and Thompson have been regulars on Resonance FM, the experimental music station from London. Recently the former director of Resonance FM, Ed Baxter, has moved locally, and last summer initiated the Statue of Liberty big band who performed for the XMTR Festival, organised by Lucia Scazzocchio of Social Broadcasts.

THE PERSONNEL

ChopChop are Brighton based. Their line-up and instrumentation display their unusual creativity. Drummer Ed Briggs is a sound artist and instrument inventor, and uses a small kit that swaps cymbals for ‘gongs, general cluttery, and a small hat-kick.’ Al Strachan, from bands Crayola Lectern and Zofff, brings cornet, keys, synths and electronics to create a multi-layered melodic dynamism. Eddie Hayden on bass might play with gloves, and produces an eclectic sound, possibly created through his own progress from ‘noise metal’ to folk. This vital rhythm section is sometimes nicknamed ‘The Steady Eddies’. There is some humour in their experimentation.

As an audience member, I have been blown away by this band. As well as sound artists I think of such modernists and art revolutionaries that have challenged convention with energy and humour: Marcel Duchamp, the Futurists, the Brazilian Anthropophagia, Andy Warhol and Pop Art. ChopChop’s music is angular and avant-garde, visceral, with a jarring intense movement that stretches back to The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky’s pagan experiment that scandalised Paris in 1913.

ChopChop, with Xelis, will perform at ‘Adventures in Pop’ on the first Tuesday of each month at the Jenny Lind. The team are pleased to welcome the band to the ‘First Tuesday’ original creative music slot. See them on Tuesday 7 April, 8pm, free. Further information: chopchopsounds.com

Next, on 30 April, TUFT’s artistic director Ellie Westbrook shares an ambitious adaptation of Shakespeare’s most controversial play, Titus Andronicus. Bringing together an extremely talented team of multidisciplinary collaborators, the production will confront the challenges of the play head on, using clown, opera, music, movement, humour and rage. Featuring artists Shannon-Latoyah Simon, Jess Mabel Jones, TD van der Beek, Patricia Langa, Jessie Maryon-Davies and Nina May, with sensitivity support from Kyla Jardine. This will be an early-stage sharing of a short development period, so audiences are invited to attend with open minds. We also recommend that you research the piece before attending, to be informed on whatever challenging topics may arise. But remember: this will be adaptation for the modern day. Expect to be stirred and invigorated.

Join us at the newly renovated Stables studio space on 10 and 11 April for A Dublin Story, and the Titus Andronicus adaptation will be at the White Rock Studio 27 as part of TUFT’s New Work Night on 30 April.