Brighten The Corners 2025, various venues, Ipswich • Festivals • DIY Magazine

When it comes to supporting grassroots venues and DIY artists, the team behind Ipswich festival Brighten The Corners do it better than most. With half a decade under its belt, the two-dayer sees gigs split across seven different spaces, half of which are owned by the organisers. “We all share the same determination when it comes to making Ipswich a viable touring destination and rejuvenating the music scene in our town,” the small team says.

From folk to rap, punk to rave, there really is something for everyone. Friday’s highlights include Isle of Wight punk duo The Pill, whose satirical lyrics and thrashing riffs thrill those who manage to squeeze inside the tiny Smokehouse; and indie-rapper JD Cliffe, whose tireless energy turns nearby swimming-pool-turned-venue The Baths into a party.

On Saturday, Y prove an early highlight. The phrase genre-defying gets thrown around a lot these days, but the London quintet genuinely deserve the title. Like O. but more intense, they tear through wonky anthem ‘Ladies Who’ and the psych-tinged ‘Marianne’, while the sax-fuelled ‘Hate’ slows the pace, with founding members - guitarist Adam Brennan and singer Sophie Coppin - sharing vocal duties. Set closer ‘Why’, which sits somewhere between Madness and Black Country, New Road, gets heads bobbing along to the frenetic concoction.

Over at the larger Corn Exchange, Mandrake Handshake’s feast of krautrock, art-pop and psychedelia bursts forth with kaleidoscopic colour (much like their floral shirts). With each member of the Oxford/London collective fully immersed in the instrument they’re playing - one on maracas and tambourine at the same time - it feels like stepping back into the 1970s via Texan trio Khurangbin; a second coming of the summer of love, perhaps (indeed, the older audience are certainly keen on the throwback to hippy-er (and happier) times).

Later, indie’s next-generation star Master Peace delivers cathartic energy during a set that draws from his brilliant debut album. Set closer ‘Home’ - which is chanted like a football match - sees the Londoner jump into the crowd and bounce with his fans before he perches on the barrier to conduct the room for one final singalong (and to plug ‘Red Wine’, his new collaboration with rapper AJ Tracey).

The festival’s most unique venue, the recently-transformed St Stephen’s Church, is well-suited to the maximalist, cinematic drama of The Orchestra (For Now). Performing beyond the arch, the seven-piece’s beguiling sound adds cello and violin to a post-punk blueprint; during ‘Skins’, vocalist/pianist Joseph Scarisbrick lets out guttural screams as flashing white lights and searching strobes turn blood red. It’s certainly one of the day’s less forgettable shows.

Two equally-as-intense performances take place at the city’s most intimate live music space, the 70-capacity Smokehouse, which acts as a home for Brighten The Corners' most boundary-pushing bookings. Despite not having any music out in the world, SILVERWINGKILLER have built a reputation for wild shows - including at London hotbed Windmill Brixton - and their first time in Ipswich is no exception. Melding aggressive bass, pummelling breakbeats and multilingual vocals (English, Mandarin, Shanghainese) into industrial electro-punk, their speaker-shattering barrage leaves ears ringing and incites a fist-pumping sweatbox rave. A fast and furious exhilaration of chest-pounding sounds, their sonic chaos is made for the attention deficit generation.

Two hours later, BLACK FONDU proves heavily compelling, the Ghanaian-born artist unleashing his full-throttle electronic-rage-rap on an unsuspecting room. Thrashing his body around the small stage and shouting over glitchy synths and samples, the apocalyptic production would be lapped up by fans of Playboi Carti, a sonic exorcism that you can’t stop watching.

Less abstract but just as powerful is the festival’s official headline act, Bob Vylan, who incite mosh-pits at the Corn Exchange. With a Palestine flag perched on top of boxes that have the Mobo-award-winners’ name on it, frontman and rapper Bobby starts the show with “some light stretching and meditation” as blood red lights flood the room and white strobes flash. “We’ll see you on the other side!” he adds, the crowd following his every move ahead of ‘I Heard You Want Your Country Back’. The grime-punk duo’s lyrics don’t pull any punches, either: Bobby’s flow during ‘Get Yourself A Gun’, which takes aim at rent-rising landlords, is an unflinching highlight. Having already conquered Coachella and toured with Aussie punks Amyl & The Sniffers, their Glastonbury show later month is sure to be a walk in the park.

Also heading to Worthy Farm are Mermaid Chunky, a DFA Records-signed performance art duo who bring transfixing eclecticism to St Stephen’s Church. With Moina Moin curtsying in a regal dress while playing a recorder (or two at the same time) and bandmate Freya Tate sporting a Druid-like cloak (then a woollen, Marge Simpson-style yellow headpiece), their outfits command as much attention as their patiently-building maypole-dancing songs. Alongside a table full of instruments including a tiny maraca and, most obscurely, a teeth chattering toy, a call-out for witches and mention of vampires and garlic add an element of perplexing storytelling.

‘céilí’s unique concoction of folk-y sonics gets an ever-growing number of people dancing before, upon request, strangers link arms, swing their partners around, and pretend to ride a horse during the acid-tinged gallop of ‘Chaperone’. It’s all incredibly silly, yet uninhibitedly fun and refreshingly unifying. “Have we got time for one more tune? It’s only 15 minutes” Tate laughs before the pair take a bow and bounce off the stage to spiralling, laser-like synths.

With their fingers very clearly on the pulse, the passionate team behind Brighten The Corners continue to curate line-ups that are not only diverse but daring - the antithesis to an era of often interchangeable festival posters.