Done right, Brighton’s The Great Escape festival is a hallucinatory post-impressionist blur; Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, only with queues and wristbands. You ricochet around it, tasting the joys of the unexpected.
You can nod along to France’s Forever Pavot, with its charming, funky cinematic psychedelia, part way between early Air and Tame Impala; then take in a mid-afternoon hotel-basement rave with the gorgeous, luxuriant, sylvan techno of Yosi Horikawa (featuring free sushi); then come across a barnstorming set by the honest-to-God Zombies at the end of the pier.
Ducking out and diving in, you pick up the general flavour of the moment’s new music – for better and worse. You learn that intense, po-faced, overwrought indie is being beamed back at us from as far afield as Latvia. That Canada remains, unsurprisingly, in thrall to the sound of Arcade Fire thanks to bands such Calgary’s 36. And that watery, tepid homegrown soul and dubstep are huge crowd-pleasers.
Mainly, however, you discover that female artists or female-led groups are the most thrilling and intriguing. Kate Tempest mesmerises the giant barn that is the Corn Exchange. Two French electro/new wave artists – the fascinating, disruptive Jeanne Added, and lyrically limber Chloé Raunet ( C.A.R.) – light up both stage and synapses. The surly Toronto stoners Kids in Despair, turn damage and dysfunction into black comedy. Chilly heartbreak pours in an avant pop avalanche from Norway’s brilliant Susanne Sundfør. Then there’s Kali Uchis, a bittersweet ice-cream sundae of a neo-soul singer from Colombia but raised in Virginia.
For the sheer spirit of rock’n’roll, however, nothing beats seeing the usually sedate Brighton Dome transformed into a deranged moshpit by the pulverising grime of Skepta and JME in the closing headline show. It ain’t safe? Good.
