Liverpool Sound City announces chart-topping return for 2019

Sound City, is back in Liverpool in 2019, following on from this year’s spectacular sold out edition.

It's been revealed who the first wave of artists at the shows will be on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th May in the city’s iconic Baltic Triangle.

The festival is again set to showcase hundreds of the very best emerging bands, artists and performers from across the world and closer to home, as well as genre-defining headliners.

Championed as Britain’s new hope in hip hop, Loyle Carner is a true voice of his generation. A lyrical genius, street poet and wordsmith who captures the mood of his contemporaries, he electrifies audiences as much as he inspires them. Seeing him perform at Sound City on Sunday 5th May is going to be incredibly special.

Saturday’s headliner Mabel is a mesmeric child of the halcyon-age of 00s R&B, harnessing the energy of her idols from that hallowed era. She has also collaborated with everyone from Stormzy to Tate Modern and toured with Harry Styles to Bryson Tiller.

Liverpool’s own star Louis Berry is honing his mercurial style as a widely feted genre-skipping artist, who has audiences eating out of the palm of his hand one moment to moshing to .45 the next. He will be keeping it very much real at Sound City.

The Magic Gang are one of the UK’s most exciting new guitar bands. Their recent eponymous debut album achieved great acclaim, an uplifting showcase brimming with their youthful exuberance.

They are joined by a wealth of further artists in the first announcement, including (A-Z): Alligator, Benin City, Cousin Kula, Dancing on Tables, Dayo Bello, Dot, Emily Burns, Giant Rooks, Goodies, Harry Miller, Heavy Lungs, Indigo Lo, Jvck James, Molly Rainford, Monks, Our Girl, Red Rum Club, Roman Lewis, Ryan McMullan, Saltwater Sun, Sophie and the Giants, Spinn, SPQR, Tamu Massif, Tracky and Vistas. 100s more artists will be revealed soon.

The festival weekend will start with the Sound City+ conference on Friday 4th May, featuring a full day of illuminating, engaging and inspiring keynote speeches, interviews, roundtable debates, workshops, business meetings and much more at Liverpool’s historic Cunard Building.

Sound City Liverpool is the only major showcase and industry event for popular music talent development in the North. This year, Sound City very proudly became one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations for 2018-22 receiving £200k per year to support talent development for artists and industry via Sound City, Sound City+, Sound City Korea, Off the Record and Sound City Music Entrepreneur Training throughout the year.

In 2018 Sound City also commissioned the hub consultancy to do an independent evaluation on the festival and conference. The hub calculated that Sound City 2018 had an impact of £1.15m to Liverpool City Region and 1.43m to England’s economy; the return on investment for every £1 of Arts Council England investment is £30.

Since 2008, Sound City have worked with over 3000 emerging artists and 20,000 industry professionals and created hundreds of jobs across the sector via its U.K. and International initiatives.

Rebecca Ayres, Sound City’s Managing Director, explains: “We are all incredibly proud to announce the first artists joining us in May 2019 for the 12th Sound City. With Loyle Carner and Mabel we have two of the leading artists of their generation, and support from a wide range of emerging talent including our own Louis Berry.

Earlier this year, we had a truly magical return back to our roots in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle with our sold out 11th edition. It was an incredible weekend for all who attended from right around the world, and for 2019 we will very much continue to champion new music and the next wave of stars in the making which is Sound City’s founding ethos, as well as further embracing diversity and equality in everything we do as a festival, from right here the office and our team to the lineup itself, and everything in between.

We are also all incredibly happy to have been nominated for Best Metropolitan Festival and Best Small Festival at the UK Festival Awards 2018, which are great accolades for everyone involved."