While there was a lot of activity around Edinburgh dismantling everything from the Edinburgh International Festival that finished the day before it was the 10th edition of the Edinburgh Psych Festival that attracted music lovers to the city for the day. Summerhall and Queen’s Hall were the usual venues but this year The Mash House and The Caves were also added spreading it out a little more. With our wristband collected we headed directly for The Queen’s Hall, a venue that can hold over 1000 people, for Welsh rocker Gruff Rhys, the former Super Furry Animals band member who was a great opening act for the festival, a few hundred got down early to see the man in action, with more than a few Super Furry Animals fans in the hall. Gruff released his latest solo album Sadness Sets Me Free in January 2024 from which we would get to hear a few songs during the hour-long set, the crowd were very appreciative of every song that he played. Gruff is on vocals and guitar and is joined by two keyboard players, a drummer and a bass player that also doubled up on the double bass. Towards the end of the set Rhys held up cards to the crowd intermittently asking for applause and towards the end it became more comical as he held up more intense ones such as ‘go apeshit!’ which the crowd duly did. This was a very fun start to the day. 8/10
TTSSFU were next up at Summerhall, the main hall is visually stunning with murals dotted around the ceiling, Tasmin Nicole Stephens brought her band to Edinburgh to play a 45-minute set filled with psychedelic guitar riffs and some chilled indie tunes to continue the great start to the day. Her EP Me, Jed and Andy was released back in February, the Manchester band have been playing a lot of festivals during the summer. The 350 or so folk that turned up for this performance weren’t disappointed, Stephens was playing a retro 1960s style love-heart shaped guitar so anything goes today! The first two tracks were very energetic – California and At All – the guitarist provided extra entertainment with his eclectic style of playing. I Hope You Die was the best of the set and poses a question from vocalist Tasmin “Have you ever wanted to murder someone?” A few shouts of yes from the crowd! Looking forward to seeing TTSSFU again at The Tenement Trail in Glasgow on 12th October. 9/10
Queen’s Hall has everything you could possibly ask from a venue that was originally a church: great acoustics, viewing balcony and a long history. Earlier this year Nottingham band Divorce supported The Vaccines on their UK tour, gaining lots of new fans on the road with their mix of shoegaze and country inspired music, they played a few new tracks today, all of them sounding great alongside some of their better-known songs such as Gears, My Room and Checking Out. 7/10.
A quick run back down to Summerhall, this time in the Dissection Room, a fair sized venue where Hastings trio HotWax had just began their set, already Tallulah Sim-Savage and Lolo Sam were ripping it up with their stage energy seeing a lot of the fans nodding along to the high-energy guitar and bass riffs, most of whom would most likely be seeing HotWax for the first time today, they wouldn’t forget them in a hurry either with this very loud punk-inspired performance which was one of the best of the day. Treasure and Rip It Out were special moments in the set, on the way out of the sweaty room everyone was talking about how good HotWax were and that they were worth the festival entrance fee alone! You don’t get much higher praise than that. Tallulah also announced that the band would release their debut album in June 2025, and new song I Wanna Be A Doll was played today and sounded great live. 10/10
Brighton four-piece Lime Garden released debut album One More Thing in February of this year, led by vocalist Chloe Howard they have been making music since 2020, the forty-five minute long set was over in a flash and was so enjoyable, the indie-electro band pulled in a decent crowd and we even got to hear the soundcheck, the joys of festivals. Howard’s vocals reminded us of Stevie Nicks at times with her wide vocal range, the best of the set were Sick & Tired, Mother and the last song Clockwork was a great end to the set. 8/10
Coming all the way from Brooklyn, New York Hello Mary have been slowly building a fanbase at home and abroad, the band are just about to release their third album Emita Ox later this month, following on from two previous releases Ginger in 2020 and Hello Mary in 2023. Like HotWax earlier they are a three-member band that know how to impress a crowd with all three band members basically doing two jobs: vocalist Helena Straight is also playing guitar, bass player Mikaela Oppenheimer also on keyboards and psychedelia sound duties and drummer Stella Wave is also on backing vocals, it works perfectly. Ginger is by far their biggest song to date and was the best of the set along with Sink In and 0%.. 8/10
After a quick bite to eat it was back to the same venue for New Zealander Molly Payton, this talented indie artist moved to London at the age of 16 to try and break into the music industry and we think she has been rather successful in doing so. Molly has literally just released her debut album on Friday 30th August, YOYOTTA is the title and we made sure to have a listen on the way over to Edinburgh, it is a very well put together album. Already gaining a reputation with her indie and rock style Payton has toured with band such as beabadoobee, Tom Odell and Arlo Parks already and will only gain in popularity. The vocals reminded us of Toronto band Slow Pulp with the sometimes grungy sound, a cover of Teenage Dirtbag went down well with the crowd while Warm Body was the best of her own work. 7/10
Galway four-piece NewDad have had quite the year following the release of debut album MADRA followed by a long tour and numerous festivals during the summer. Queen’s Hall was packed out for this set, led by Julie Dawson on vocals the band were the perfect fit for this intimate venue with an eclectic mix of shoegaze and indie music allowing the perfect acoustics of this venue to flourish. All the NewDad big hits came out tonight including Blue, Angel and Sickly Sweet, appreciated all round while the cover of The Cure track Just Like Heaven was a highlight. Some news broke a couple of weeks ago that Julie Dawson was also embarking on a solo project, lets hope that it doesn’t have too much of an impact on the bands plans for 2025. 10/10
We headed into the heart of Edinburgh to The Caves for the final act of the night, Seattle band La Luz playing an hour-long set to end our festival. Formed in 2012 the band are Shana Cleveland (vocals & guitar), Maryam Qudus (keyboards), Lee Johnson (bass) and Audrey Johnson (drums). This was definitely the most psychedelic band we had saw today, they released 4th album News Of The Universe in May after which a couple of the band members departed. The crowd in the packed venue were well up for this band knowing it was the last chance to let go today and most did just that, there were some really groovy dance moves down the front that’s for sure! The pick of the set would be Floating Features, Strange World and I Can’t Speak but it was all thoroughly enjoyable.. 10/10
Looking at the nine artists we saw today it was no coincidence that eight of those bands were female led, this festival was a great opportunity for up and coming artists to make a good impression with their music and we think that box was ticked time after time. The diverse mix of music on show at the Edinburgh Psych Festival was very enjoyable for this 10th anniversary event and it was an outstanding success. We’re looking forward to 2025 already!
Written by: Alan Brown
