Start planning your summer festival season

01:36 |

Friday 3 April 2026

Hello everyone! I hope you all have a restful (long) weekend planned.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be putting together our annual festival guides, hopefully offering something for everyone - whether you're looking for a sun-soaked Sicilian adventure, a party in Lisbon or a chance to clear your lungs while surrounded by spectacular Welsh mountains.

This week we celebrated the return of two festival partnerships with The Independent: Montreux Jazz Festival and The Great Escape. The fantastic team at Montreux unveiled the programme for their 60th edition and they've outdone themselves again: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, The Roots, Zara Larsson, Lewis Capaldi, Deep Purple, and a third consecutive performance from British pop queen RAYE, who will be curating her own lineup and performing in front of a one-off stage set-up. If that wasn't enough, they've also booked former Police frontman and solo artist Sting (one of my favourite shows when he played the festival in 2024), South African star Tyla, James Taylor and PinkPantheress.

At The Great Escape, we'll be hosting a matinee stage on the seafront at Daltons on Friday 13 May with performances from brilliant emerging bands Twat Union, SLAG and Girl Tones, with more to be announced soon. After you've witnessed the best of the up and comers you can head over to the Brighton Dome, where we're also hosting the spotlight show from pop provocateur Peaches. See you there!

Finally, a heads up that I'm on holiday next week, but The Independent's music coverage will be in great hands with my colleagues on the culture desk.

Roisin x

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Tracks of the week

Subscribe to the official Now Hear This playlist on Apple Music and stay up to date with all the best new releases

1. "Reputation" - Ravyn Lenae ft Dominic Fike

2. "GREAT PRETENDER" - Kasabian

3. "Jury of One" - Rita Wilson

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Q&A

Spotlight on... April + VISTA

Hello! Tell me about yourselves

We are April + VISTA, an indie alternative duo based out of the Washington, DC area. We love blending multiple genres (electronic, downtempo, soul, alt-rock) to make multi-layered, eclectic music that feeds the soul. We are both composers, multi-instrumentalists, avid gamers, and curious crate-diggers. When we're not recording in our make-shift studio in the city, you'll most likely find us searching for the best buffalo wings in town.

What are the inspirations and influences behind your music?

We are deeply inspired by bands like Broadcast, Stereolab, Gorillaz, Primus, Alabama Shakes, and Massive Attack; composers like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Richard Smallwood, and Emile Mosseri, and producers like Madlib, J Dilla, Flying Lotus, and Gustavo Cerati. We spend a lot of time reading graphic novels and watching anime films; our favorites are Satoshi Kon films like Paprika and Magnetic Rose and books like Stages of Rot by Linnea Sterte and Masterplasty by James Harvey. We are most inspired by colorful, immersive storytelling with a dash of darkness and grit. We try our best to reflect these elements in our own work.

What do you have lined up for 2026?

We are releasing our debut album, Traditional Noise, on April 22! This album is a multi-layered, amber-colored fossil passing down stories about the people and memories we hold dear; it's an analog snapshot of the world from our vantage and aims to serve as a proper introduction to who we are creatively. We've released four singles from it so far; Love Unspent, Bless My Heart, Grotto, and Standing In Place. We like to think of each song as a portal to different moments in our lives; they are available to stream on all platforms now.