This coming 1st October sees the return of Southsea Fest, the one day, multi-venue, new music festival which currently features the likes of Kassassin Street, Eagulls, Dream Wife, Black Honey, Kagoule and Strange Cages plus a number of others including Arrows of Love, Crows, Melt Dunes, Wyldest, Hunck, Saint Agnes and Gang who also play our Strong Island Recordings stage at The Festing.

Today sees new additions with some of the stand out acts from the latest batch being British Sea Power, Demob Happy, Virgin Kids, Palm Honey, Bad Breeding, Happy Meal LTD (more on them below), new shoegaze trio Drug Store Romeos, new Portsmouth grunge outfit Violet Mud and also Portsmouth regulars and good friends of ours, punk duo Frauds.

We also have the final additions to our incredible Strong Island Recordings stage at The Festing that include Southsea veterans and former SIR label family, Is Bliss who are now signed to Club AC30, Bristolian post-punk outfit Lice who tore up Al Burrito recently, Brighton grunge outfit Brain Queen, Southampton dream-poppers The Diamond Age and Portsmouth math rock meets heavy punk trio trio Freak.

The label is also hosting a pre Southsea Fest party the night before Southsea Fest taking place at one of our favourite, psychedelic sweat pits The Loft on the 30th September with our good friends Pie & Vinyl.

The line-up for that is incredible with Hull grunge outfit Vulgarians who are big favourites of The Wytches (and ours) after being hand picked to go on tour with the Brighton trio plus Happy Meal LTD one of the single most exciting bands from London and the UK at the moment. NME have picked up on the London quartet already who create sleazy post punk meets glam rock enthused almost with electronica and are currently rehearsing in the same studio Jesus & The Mary Chain used to poke around in. They’re definitely one of the most captivating bands in the UK and this will be one of their first ever shows outside of London. Don’t miss them as you’ll certainly regret it down the line as these guys back up their buzz in a serious way!! Also playing the show is Hotel Lux a brand-new Portsmouth based sleazy post-punk in the vein of The Fall, Shame and Fat White Family as well as a new super sleazy garage rock outfit featuring Melt Dunes members called Uncle Jimmy’s Wandering Hand Band plus special guests to be announced.

Also the Pie & Vinyl team will be deejaying vinyl throughout the evening. This is going to be one insane show and we’ve been trying to book these bands for a while as they’re quite frankly some of the best new bands in the country at the moment so be sure to head down!

Tickets for the pre party are just £5 and can be purchased HERE and further info about the event is HERE.