Look what’s been trapped in the nets of The Hold, down in the basement of The Shipping Forecast - the rather excellent Freelance Whales. An EVOL event, this is set to be a far more nuanced and memorable affair than some of the recent nights down in the sweaty Slater Street venue. The Freelance Whales say, of themselves: ‘over the past two years, they’ve been collecting instruments, ghost stories, and dream-logs. Somehow, from this strange compost heap of little sounds and quiet thoughts, songs started to rise up like steam from the ground.’

They even find time to create strange woodblocky booklets about weathervanes, but, really, their music is what sets them apart from the rest of the art school grads, strange, syncopated loops, insistent, stripped down - almost childlike - melodies, and sudden squally outbursts, like a storm front approaching. They’re at Reading and Leeds - but, we imagine, they’re most at home in the damp basements of maritime cities.

Freelance Whales, Tue 31 August
The Shipping Forecast, Slater Street