Review: East London Block Party
REVIEW – EAST LONDON BLOCK PARTY 2026 A crucial reminder that some of the best new talent in music is being built and platformed in small, local venues [2027 Ticket Link] Words by Niamh Hughes Photos by Alex Andrews 27 August 2026 With new music constantly fed to us through algorithms, big management companies and social media feeds, genuinely stumbling across an artist you’ve never heard before can feel increasingly rare. East London Block Party seems determined to keep that feeling alive. Returning for its fourth consecutive sold-out year, the festival has built its reputation around a simple idea: bringing together some of the best emerging artists and letting audiences discover them for themselves. East London Block Party proved itself again this year to be a trusted source of exploration, turning venue hopping through Shoreditch into a form of discovery of the some of the best upcoming voices in the scene. There were names I already knew and others I’d never come across, but that is largely the point. It’s a festival that is less about arriving for one big headliner and more about taking a chance on whoever happens to be playing in the next room. It really is an essential date in summer for anyone looking to discover their next favourite artist before everyone else catches on. Running all day across Colours, The Old Blue Last, Strongroom and Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes, this year’s event brought together more than 20 rising acts spanning a careful curation of indie, post-punk, electronic and everything in between. The 2026 line-up featured SILVERWINGKILLER, Ain’t, thistle., wing!, Truthpaste, alphabet, KiosK, cruush, Bone China, MM’99, Cracked Lime, casual smart, Adore, Potato, Canned Pineapple, heavy wild, Huarinami, Honest Work, Slumber, Dreamwave and benchwarmer, alongside DJ sets from Faris Badwan of The Horrors, Mandrake Handshake, Lover1k and Slippery People. What makes East London Block Party a success is that it’s as much about the venues as it is the music. There’s really something to be said for keeping the radius tight and showcasing grassroots venues – they create an intimacy that allows for a refreshing lack of pretension. With every act I saw, there was a genuine feeling that everyone actually wanted to be in that room, to discover something new and to enjoy the tapped in proximity that bigger festivals can often lack. Nowhere was that intimacy more obvious than during Northampton band thistle.’s set. Before heading in to see them I caught up with Josh from fellow line-up act Benchwarmer, a friend of band members Cameron, Carey and Lewis. He told me two things; that their set is guaranteed to be one of my highlights of the day, and perhaps to not stand directly in the middle of the crowd if I’m planning on keeping a hold of my pint. In both cases, he was right. thistle. are difficult to squeeze neatly into just one genre. If I were to attempt a description, shoegaze collides with indie rock and hardcore, creating something gritty and noisy. As soon as they started performing, the crowd responded accordingly and the room descended into non-stop dancing and moshing, transforming their set into one of the most chaotic, and as Josh predicted, memorable of the day. Irish duo Adore offered a different kind of energy. Made up of guitarist and vocalist Lara and drummer Naoise, they provided a garage-punk sound that was both punchy and immediate. Lara’s stage presence is one that possesses the kind of effortless cool that makes it difficult to look anywhere else. They’re one of the bands I came away excited to continue listening to. And I couldn’t finish without mentioning London’s own five-piece Ain’t who previously caught up with TNAM at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton. Their hazy, ’90s-leaning guitars felt particularly at home in this roster of artists, sitting somewhere between the dreaminess of shoegaze and the sharper edges of post-punk. Watching them also reinforced one of the strongest threads I found in this year’s line-up – alternative guitar music is very much still alive! At its core, East London Block Party works because it provides, and in a sense also protects, the thrill of discovery in an era of algorithmic fatigue and AI generated playlists. On top of this, it serves as a crucial reminder that some of the best new talent in music is being built and platformed in small, local venues. I arrived there with a handful of names circled on the line-up and left with several more, and at its core, that is exactly what a festival for new music should do. You Might Also Like Recent Posts You Might Also Like Recent Posts
Single Review: ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ – Dummy
Single Review: ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ – Dummy This collision of the past and the future conjures up some serious grooves By George Bicknell 27 August 2026 Ahead of their hotly anticipated third album, ‘do you love the color of the sky?’, Los Angeles-based indie pop band Dummy have treated us to a new single, ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’. Building on the caustic yet hazy psychedelia of 2024’s ‘Free Energy’, this new single finds Dummy at their most insatiably groovy and at their sharpest politically. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7OQIVHfQ0c Waves of distorted guitars, a steady breakbeat, and singer Emma Maatman’s typically cool performance combine to instantly take you back to some of the best Madchester bands of the early 90’s while still presenting something incredibly pertinent. On crafting the new single, guitarist Joe Trainor said: “I was trying to make something just heavier, and we joked it was our nu metal song. During the recording, we added the tambourine that gives it a more dancey vibe, Deee-Lite meets Deftones.” Emma added, “This is the Technofeudalism bop. Tech billionaires are treating AI like the new Alchemy, using it as a source of power and magic. This supposedly soon-to-be all-powerful technology could not exist without harvesting all of humanity’s intellectual property and collective work. ‘Prima Materia’ is the building block of all alchemical matter, so in the canon of the song, we humans are the Prima Materia.” Dummy – Photo by Kyle Berger The anti-AI message of the song is cleverly captured both through the satirical lyrics and the anxiety the production successfully builds by sticking to the steady funk beat as the guitars warp into a shoegazey wall of noise and Emma’s voice bounces between the headphones. This is a band that not only has excellent taste in their influences but is also incredibly in touch with the here and now, and hearing those two features combine in their songwriting creates something incredibly cool that we can’t wait to hear more of. ‘do you love the color of the sky?’ arrives on 16th of October via Polyvinyl Record Co. You Might Also Like Recent Posts
Single Review: ‘Mobius’ – Cyn Cwsg
Single Review: ‘Mobius’ – Cyn Cwsg Chaotic, energetic and in the best of ways, unruly By Niamh Hughes 27 August 2026 If their previous single ‘Megan Plis’ showed Cyn Cwsg at their most delicate, ‘Mobius’ is the sound of the Welsh quartet throwing caution firmly out the window. The Cardiff-based band’s latest single is chaotic, energetic and in the best of ways, unruly, trading the softer restraint of their earlier release this summer for jagged guitars and heavy drums. There’s something immediately familiar about it too. The confidence of the track, specifically the vocal hooks, accompanied with indie rock guitar carries echoes of what is often referred to as the Cool Cymru era of the 90s and early 2000s – a spinoff from the Britpop fuelled Cool Britannia movement. Cyn Cwsg – Photo by Sam Stevens ‘Mobius’ shows an allegiance to the sounds and off kilter lyrics of the Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci but it does so in a way that doesn’t feel like a complete nostalgia exercise. Produced by Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard frontman Tom Rees, whose production credits also include The Bug Club and Panic Shack, his own style of indie-rock music that almost bursts with excitement is definitely stamped on the track. ‘Mobius’ takes its name from the mathematical shape with only one side and edge, and while referenced indirectly in the lyrics, there’s also a fitting sense of circular chaos to this single. Ideas seem to chase each other around, building towards a final burst of mayhem as spiky guitars and punchy drums reach a triumphant finish. Speaking on the track, the band described it as “A juxtaposition of the mind and something too complex to comprehend (a bit like your brain). A concept of projectile madness echoed through guitar tones and mental drumming. Also just a song about the möbius strip.” ‘Mobius’ is one of those tracks that leaves you with the slightly frustrating feeling of wanting to hear it live. It has that restless energy but also infectious optimism that almost certainly demands a crowd. You Might Also Like Recent Posts