New Music
Preview
Meet the acts performing across three EYOE Recommends shows this July
Some of EYOE’s favourite new artists take The Shacklewell Arms stage to help raise money and awareness for Doctor Without Borders
One venue, three nights, 12 must-see emerging acts: genre-surfing music promoters Eat Your Own Ears and Ticketmaster co-host another EYOE Recommends series in aid of Doctor Without Borders, who deliver medical aid to people in crisis in over 70 countries.
On 3, 10 and 17 of July, Rowena Wise, Radio Free Alice, PUNCHBAG, ladylike and eight more handpicked acts, from London to Melbourne, bring the heat at The Shacklewell Arms across three free summer shows with an optional Pay What You Want charity donation. Expect heart-tingling singer-songwriter balladry, jazz-flecked alternative, punk angst – and everything in between.
3 July
Radio Free Alice
With a kinetic, nostalgia-laden sound spanning new wave, post-punk and ‘00s indie rock, Melbourne’s Radio Free Alice layer their jittery guitars with vulnerable vocals and a liquid lyricism that emotively repurposes steady points of reference like The Cure and The Smiths. “My heart is breaking / My heart explodes for you” sing the five-piece in their latest single ‘2010’, pretty much summing up the experience of coming across their guitar-fuelled confessionals for the first time. The Shacklewell Arms will be the final stop on their current European tour on the 3rd of July, and your last chance to catch them live before they make their way back Down Under.
Dreamwave
Also stepping on the Shacklewell stage on the 3 July, in a haze of Krautrock, dream pop, raw garage and luscious psychedelia, Bristol’s Dreamwave come armed with their appropriately polychromatic new EP Dreamwave And The Mindcave. Sixties and alternative references abound as the four Bristolians extend their insistent guitars, billowing keys and reverb-drenched vocals out to the cosmos, happily “Daydrifting” in sinuous, escapist 21st-century fantasies. And all London fans are invited for the ride.
Sunglasz Vendor
Fellow Bristol avant-gardists Sunglasz Vendor are familiar faces here. The underground guitar-bass-drums trio have been focusing on gigging in both their home city and the capital, serving up brooding, unpolished post-punk and alternative, contemplative emo melodies and experimental outbursts.
Rowena Wise
Amidst the night’s post-punk and psychedelic fever, Aussie singer-songwriter Rowena Wise rounds off the first event of the series with pop-leaning, bravely self-searching indie folk. Learning to play instruments her father built, and honing her performance chops from a young age as a member of the touring Wise Family Band, she later moved to Melbourne and focused on her solo output, writing beautifully nuanced, resonant paeans to love and self-empowerment. Her 2024 debut album Senseless Acts Of Beauty chronicles her bumpy journey into adulthood in a stream of languorous, sublimely melancholy melodies elevated by meticulously crafted lyrics.
10 July
Attawalpa
London-based British-Peruvian singer and multi-instrumentalist Attawalpa, a.k.a. Luis Felber, has many startling facets. A definite highlight of the 10 July line-up for fans of iridescent alt-pop, he crafts winding melodies that playfully shimmer and sparkle, scattered with soulful strums, whimsical synths and unavoidable truths. With his 2022 debut album Presence under his belt (a captivating exercise in staying in the moment after years of partying left him with faded memories), he navigates profoundly relatable themes like love, anxiety and depression on stages big and small, with the band that takes his name or various collaborators. From BST Hyde Park to tiny indie venues, all ears are on Attawalpa.
For Breakfast
The EYOE series’ second event promises to reach new genre-crossing crescendos with uncompromising North London septet For Breakfast. A band capable of sweeping through a fertile land of flute-laced psychedelia, noise rock and jazz in under seven minutes, they come loaded with releases such as 2022 EP Trapped In The Big Room – recorded on an abandoned Cold War airbase in Suffolk – four tracks that spin a rare sonic tapestry of dream pop, post and experimental rock that constantly push the envelope of their sound.
Caleb Kunle
Pairing balmy, soulful jazz with irresistible groove and bounce, Caleb Kunle artfully threads cosmopolitan influences from “the three cities I call home, Lagos, Laois and London” in Nigeria, Ireland and the UK. With honeyed vocals able to slip into dim-lit boudoirs and sweaty dance floors, he promises a night of style-defying surprises on Wednesday 10 July as soul, folk and pop intersect on stage. Inspired by the struggles and triumphs of young Nigerians during the SARS Epidemic in 2020 and the End SARS social movement, his latest single ‘Power’ sends a forceful message against discrimination and disinformation, drizzled with doses of gospel and funk.
PUNCHBAG
An emerging brother-sister act from South London, PUNCHBAG lay their bracing, defiant brew at the intersection of pop and punk. Storming the stage with a liberating combo of visceral vocals and alt-pop euphoria, they provide the perfect recipe for sanity in a rough, fast-moving world.
17 July
Gal Go
London-based Argentinian saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Gal Go, a.k.a. Ignacio Salvadores, takes the stage on 17 July, threading guitar-laden, alternative Latin melodies and sax-driven experimentations that keep audiences positively buzzing. A trusted collaborator of King Krule, including in the Mercury Prize-nominated album The OOZ (2018), he joins the EYOE series with his own 2024 EP A deshacer in hand, a seductive set of languid, sun-dappled serenades and temperamental alt-rockers that guarantee gripping moments on stage.
Zander
The music of the future. Trust us.
ladylike
Hailing from the music-loving city of Brighton, indie-rock foursome ladylike have already made their mark gigging in live music institutions like The Hope & Ruin and Chalk. Their self-released debut single ‘Southbound’, a swivelling meditation on belonging with an existential streak, came in late 2023. They’ll be returning to The Shacklewell Arms on the 17 July with a mix of serpentine riffs, psychedelic swirls, post-rock invocations – and a healthy sprinkling of irony.
naafi
Filling Glasgow’s dark skies with luminous rays of techno and ambient soundscapes, musician and DJ naafi packed a set of boundlessly feel-good sounds in their 2024 EP UVA. Taking inspiration from the likes of dreamy experimentalists Floating Points and Kelly Lee Owens, as much as vintage trance and acid house, they aim to stand out on The Shacklewell Arms stage with a shimmering hybrid live/improv/DJ show.
Doctors Without Borders teams deliver emergency medical aid to people in crisis, with humanitarian projects in more than 70 countries. More information can be found here
