Moon Idle (plus support)

Moon Idle *****

Moon Idle illuminate new depths

in a luminous, shapeshifting

Brighton tour opener.

Moon Idle opened their first headline tour at Brighton’s Hope & Ruin with a set that felt both like a return and a quiet redefinition. The room has long been part of their story, but tonight the band stepped into it with a new sense of scale with their dreamsoaked triphop foundations intact, yet stretched into bolder, more exploratory shapes.

They began with ‘Godzilla’, a slow, deliberate unfurling. Jasper Fergus darkened the edges of the sound through his pedalboard, while Felix Burton on drums and Felix Essex on bass settled into a patient, unhurried trip-hop groove. Above it, Quilla Robinson’s voice drifted with delicate melancholy, a soft counterpoint to the tautness beneath. Midway through, the track bent into a new form with keys swelling, tension tightening. It was an early sign that Moon Idle were treating their material as fluid rather than fixed.

‘Seed’ followed with a newfound assertiveness. Quilla added shaker, Jasper’s guitar flickered with a twinkling intricacy, and the bass cut through with clarity. The song grew almost imperceptibly, its rise and fall wrapping the room in a slow, luminous swell, ending in echoing effects and Felix’s mesmerising drums.

Two new songs marked a clear forward stride. ‘The Greatest’ slipped into a latenight jazzclub atmosphere, Quilla’s voice revealing a sweetness and higher register that contrasted with her usual ethereal tone. Jasper’s guitar pushed into rockier, more experimental shapes, the track moving between altrock surges and gentler drops with easy confidence. ‘Come Into the Water’ was more urgent, driven by a strong bassline and a purposeful swirl of effects, keys adding depth and hinting at a broader horizon for the band.

The emotional centre arrived with ‘Bésame’, performed as a duet between Quilla and Jasper while the others stepped aside. Its cabaretleaning, softjazz intimacy revealed another facet of Quilla’s voice being poised, seductive, quietly commanding. It showed how compelling Moon Idle can be when they strip the sound back.

The full band returned for ‘Gone’, easing the audience back into their dreamlit world. It shifted midflow, as if being rewritten in the moment, a recurring motif that kept the performance feeling alive and responsive.

Their latest single ‘Delay Me’ drew one of the evening’s biggest reactions. Its triphop rhythm, think Massive Attack by way of spaceinvader electronics, had Jasper working his pedalboard and playing guitar onehanded before the track burst into a funkier, altrockleaning section.

They closed with ‘Oranges’, a gentle return to altpop roots, Quilla’s soft vocals rising and receding against clipped, stark effects.

Moon Idle’s stunning set suggested a band evolving in real time: adding layers, testing boundaries, and revealing new sides of themselves without losing the dreamy laid-back pulse at their core.

Lucy Darke ****

Lucy Darke opened the evening with a strippedback set that showed a different contour of her songwriting. Joined only by keyboardist Valley T, she drew the room inward with the quiet assurance that has become her hallmark. ‘Plaster’ set the tone with gentle keys and a dreamy shimmer, followed by ‘Lynton’, where her storyteller’s instinct came into sharper focus. ‘Cease’ added a further layer of vulnerability before ‘Saboteur’ lifted the energy, Valley T’s guitar and backing vocals giving the song a warm, glowing fullness. Lucy closed with ‘Frank’, moodier and more staccato, her voice rising cleanly in the final moments. A set that began in a hush and grew in presence and emotional clarity.

Alfreda **

Alfreda’s Brighton debut blurred the line between gig and theatre. Sweeping onstage in a striking blackandwhite outfit, she launched into a cabaretleaning opener full of character and sharp physicality. Her mishmash set moved rather haphazardly between playful musicaltheatre flourishes and softer, more emotional moments, with storytelling between songs. A new song shifted between spoken lines and soaring vocals, while ‘Pink Elephants’ landed with commanding force, before a gentler final number closed a charismatic, witty outing with the audience joining on the chorus.

Photo credit: Tom Izzard

Peter Greenfield, April 2026.