Team behind Victorious Festival's World Music Village puts together eclectic new monthly night at Portsmouth Guildhall

The People’s Lounge will be hosting the nights at Portsmouth Guildhall Studio, with an eye on the incredible wave of musical output bubbling up across the UK.

These nights will explore new frontiers in music and the sounds of our collective futures. Interweaving styles and traditions, there will be electronic, jazz, nu-funk, neo-soul, Latin and African music.

Opening the series on April 21 are the winners of the Latin UK Awards Best Alternative Act 2019 and the Yolanda Drake Award 2021, Colectiva, who explore the spaces between Afro-Latin music and Jazz while reflecting on themes of sisterhood and female empowerment, creating a genre that the group have affectionately dubbed ‘jazz tropicaliente’ (hot-tropical-jazz).

They are supported by high energy cosmic-jazz-funk trio Muttnik and DJ Sophie Darling on the decks.

Following on May 20 are Secret Night Gang. The jazz-funkers released their bold, self-titled debut album on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings in 2021. Fusing soulful vocals and punchy horn-lines SNG are a joyful slice of summer-soul goodness, a heady mix of funk, gospel, R&B, soul, jazz and more.

They are supported by hot property on the Pompey music scene Tash Hills and her infectious upbeat nu-funk band. Wax Equities’ Tom Finch will provide the grooves.

June 10 sees Yakul join the studio series line-up. Brighton based four-piece Yakul cut an idiosyncratic figure in British music marrying introspective emotive lyrics with deep grooves and jazz-infused progressions, they’ve created a sound that is matchless in its depth and its voracious fusion of styles and vibes across the musical spectrum.

They will be supported by local disco, funk and indie act Barbudo. Portsmouth-based record shop Nothing Ventured Vinyl will bring the vibes in between.

The People’s Lounge, formed in 2016, is a Portsmouth-based cultural collective of artists, musicians, poets, activists and chefs who create events and spaces for festive fusion, artistic collaboration, musical imagination and improvisation.

Proceeds from this series will be donated to the charity Arms Around the Child. AATC help children living in adversity throughout the world

Moses Milner, director of The People’s Lounge says: ‘We are excited to bring music and bands to Portsmouth that are cutting edge, high quality, culturally diverse and rooted in a history of different musical currents and traditions.

‘We can’t wait to give audiences the chance to experience some amazing new music.

‘We hope to inspire and foster the development of the musical imagination and possibilities within the city.’

Chief executive of The Guildhall Trust, Andy Grays adds: ‘We are delighted to be working in collaboration with The People’s Lounge to develop our programme of new and world music, which has proven to be such a popular feature of Victorious Festival.

‘We work with a number of local promoters to offer a rich and diverse selection of performances in our more intimate Guildhall Studio space that is completely different to anything on offer anywhere else in the city and we are sure this new series will be a great addition to the programme.’

For tickets go to portsmouthguildhall.org.uk.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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