Mutations Festival 2025: Our Picks
At Sherwood we love nothing more than discovering under-recognised live acts, and this weekend Brighton’s sea-sprayed lanes will be beating with another rich multi-venue celebration of new music. Across Friday and Saturday, Mutations Festival will host an exceptionally diverse roster of artists across the city’s beloved grassroots venues, the perfect opportunity to dive into the unknown and discover the unexpected.
These are our picks of the acts that are guaranteed to make an impact:
Winter
When: Friday, 7:05-7:40
Where: Dust
Samira Winter and her band make dream-pop to melt your heart, and their recent album Adult Romantix captures the rush of new love in all its dizzy, opiated wonder. Pure shoegaze comfort with warm guitar tones, luminous melodies, and a smiley, narcotic beauty that really does feel like falling in love.
DITZ
When: Friday, 9:10-10:00
Where: Revenge
Brighton’s DITZ have built a strong reputation as one of the UK’s most unmissable bands as Cal Francis turns every venue and crowd into a climbing frame in a collision of sweat, danger, and dark theatrical tension. If you want to feel some raw electricity then make sure DITZ are on your weekend itinerary, or you’ll spend the rest of the weekend hearing about it from everyone else.
Golomb
When: Friday, 10:30-11:10
Where: The Hope & Ruin
Golomb are a trio that embody the DIY spirit at its most heartfelt, with songs that dart between fuzzy, ragged garage-rock and tender, slow-burn balladry that’s full of warmth. With an unpredictable radiance in everything they do, you can feel the family chemistry in their charming, scrappy songwriting. Expect to walk out lighter and happier than you went in.
Coilguns
When: Saturday, 4:30-5:05
Where: Revenge
Restoring our faith in rock, Coilguns are a swiss quartet blending noise rock’s abrasiveness, punk’s showmanship and buckets of experimental precision into an intelligent and emotional performance that’s alive with tension. Louis Jucker is a dynamite frontman, charging around the stage and dragging the room around with him, converting whole crowds within minutes. Expect a chaotic masterclass in what live music should be.
Waldo’s Gift
When: Saturday, 6:20-7:05
Where: Patterns
Bristol trio Waldo’s Gift play avant-garde instrumental rock that’s half shredding metal, half bass-heavy club bangers. Armed with an arsenal of effects pedals and a deep sense of groove every show is a jam session on the edge of combustion with dazzling musicianship and a crowd that’s moving and dancing rather than just standing and admiring. Body-first, brain-second dance music made with guitars, Waldo’s Gift are a phenomenally inventive trio.
Benefits
When: Saturday, 8:40-9:20
Where: Dust
Benefits second album Constant Noise is one of the most essential electronic records of the year. A furious reflection on what it feels like to be trapped between frothing race riots and a political class manifesting consent for a genocide that draws on the lineage of Underworld and Leftfield, channeling the original rave movement into something darker. Blistering protest music you can move to with full moral voltage, Benefits are a rare act.
Lambrini Girls
When: Saturday, 8:50-10:10
Where: Chalk
There couldn’t be a more fitting way to close Mutations than Lambrini Girls, having spent the past year tearing across Europe and the U.S and dragging punk back into the global spotlight. Since their debut album Who Let The Dogs Out dropped in January they’ve become one of the most important punk bands on the planet bridging generations with a rallying call for teenagers finding their way, and a fist-in-the-air triumph for crusty anarcho veterans who still live for this music at a ripe old age. Lambrini Girls have somehow bridged two impossible worlds, and this chaotic homecoming show is destined to be one for the history books.
Stealing Sheep
When: Saturday, 9:10-10:00
Where: Green Door Store
Chalk will be bursting at the seams, so if you don’t make it in for Lambrini Girls head straight to Green Door Store for Stealing Sheep. Their recent album GLO (Girl Life Online) takes the dazzling sonics of classic rave and reimagines them as irresistibly catchy indie pop packed with hooks tailor-made for a late-night festival finale. An inventive and euphoric end-of-weekend dance-pop extravaganza guaranteed.
