Impressive PR & Planetary Group’s Brighton Takeover

Melodrift Team
May 6
4 min read

In a festival increasingly crowded with industry showcases all claiming to spotlight “the next big thing,” Planetary Group and Impressive PR’s Secret Comedy Club residency continues to stand apart by actually delivering on the promise. Returning for its third year as an official Alternative Escape showcase, the Brighton institution has evolved into one of TGE’s most reliable hotbeds for emerging international talent — the kind of room where future headliners still play shoulder-to-shoulder with curious delegates and diehard music obsessives. The transatlantic pairing of Planetary Group’s tastemaker pedigree and Impressive PR’s deep roots in the UK alternative scene gives the lineup real credibility, favouring discovery over hype while still generating serious anticipation. Add the tease of a mysterious “Very Special Guest,” and this year’s stacked afternoon-to-evening programme already feels destined to become one of the week’s defining word-of-mouth moments.

ARTISTS INCLUDE:

There’s a reason Fool Nelson keep getting tipped as Australia’s next breakout indie export: the songs hit hard, the hooks land instantly, and the live shows reportedly leave rooms wrecked in the best possible way. Built around the chemistry of two brothers and their oldest mate, the Perth trio deal in emotionally charged indie-rock that pulls equally from grunge scrappiness and festival-ready catharsis, with Bad Dreams delivering six tracks of messy feelings and massive choruses. Triple j have already thrown serious weight behind them, BBC tastemakers are circling, and after selling out hometown runs across Australia, their first UK/EU tour feels less like a debut and more like an arrival. Elsewhere on the lineup, Bonnie Trash offer something far darker and far more unsettling — a gothic post-punk project that turns everyday reality into slow-motion horror. The twin-sister duo’s latest album Mourning You trades in bleak atmosphere, doom-laden tension and stark emotional weight, earning comparisons to Joy Division and early Sabbath without sounding trapped in nostalgia. Then there’s Montreal’s Yoo Doo Right, arguably one of the most sonically adventurous heavy bands operating right now. Their music stretches post-rock to breaking point, combining motorik repetition, crushing volume and psychedelic drift into longform compositions that feel simultaneously meditative and overwhelming. On record they’re expansive; live, they’re absolutely engulfing.

Sweet Unrest are tapping into something London guitar music hasn’t produced convincingly in years: genuine unpredictability. Drawing obvious comparisons to early Strokes and peak-era Libertines, the band deal in scrappy romance, bruised melodies and choruses that hit with pub-floor intensity rather than polished precision. Their self-described “Gritpop” sound thrives on contradiction — tender one second, feral the next — and that unstable energy has quickly turned their Camden residency into one of the capital’s most talked-about underground nights. The fact their debut vinyl release crashed into the UK charts only adds to the sense that this is a band moving faster than anyone expected. Joan & The Giants, meanwhile, balance vulnerability with arena-sized ambition, fronted by Grace Newton-Wordsworth’s emotionally direct songwriting and a sound that sits comfortably between alternative rock catharsis and modern indie-pop uplift. Their rise has already included major support slots, award wins and serious industry attention, but it’s the emotional honesty underneath the hooks that gives the band real staying power. Rounding things out, Sonny E remains one of the most singular figures operating on the fringes of UK alternative culture — a lifelong subculture obsessive blending Rockabilly aesthetics, primitive electronics and rave futurism into his own warped “Cyberbilly” universe. It’s strange, stylish and entirely committed to its own mythology, which is exactly what makes it compelling.

sundayclub make music that feels suspended in time — dreamy indie-pop soaked in nostalgia, static and emotional ambiguity. The Winnipeg outfit’s debut album SUNDAYCLUB thrives on atmosphere, balancing shimmering guitars and reverb-heavy textures with songwriting rooted in the awkward emotional in-between of growing up. There’s an understated sophistication to the record’s intimacy, avoiding melodrama in favour of something blurrier, softer and ultimately more affecting. It’s little surprise the band quickly caught the attention of Canadian indie royalty and landed themselves on Paper Bag Records’ radar. Sam Scherdel, meanwhile, takes a far more direct route into emotional catharsis. Armed with a weathered vocal and a clear affection for classic Britpop songwriting, the South Yorkshire artist channels personal upheaval into soaring indie-rock built equally for festival fields and late-night pub singalongs. His recent run of releases shows an artist stepping into a bigger, more refined version of himself without losing the grit that made his early material connect. The Tullamarines round things out with a gentler touch, blending folk warmth, indie-pop melody and collective storytelling into songs that feel reassuringly human. Their “cosy-pop” label might sound modest, but beneath the softness sits a band with serious songwriting chemistry and an instinctive understanding of emotional connection.

Afternoon Set List:

12.00-12.25 Fool Nelson

12.40-1.05 Very Special Guest (to be confirmed)

1.20-1.45 Yoo Doo Right

2.00-2.25 Joan And The Giants

2.40-3.05 sundayclub

3.20-3.45 Tullamarines

Evening Set List:

6.00-6.25 Chroma

6.40-7.05 My Life Story (acoustic)

7.20-7.45 The Sick Fix

8.00-8.25 Sam Scherdel