IN FOCUS: NOTTINGHAM

It’s a hot June night, a dreamy play of brass, keys and electrified strings emanate from the midst of a wood workshop called, We Make Our Way. The acoustics amongst the timbers are excellent, and the smell of fresh cut wood is in the air. The dancing audience spills on to the street where a few doors down is, The Grove. Pounding out from the old retail space, is an explosion of trashy noise rock, played to an audience of gen z goths, punks and subversives, a roomful of the neighbourhood's alternative queer scene. The band, Idiocy, is thrashing out screeching, distorted guitar riffs and vocals, atmospheric synths, with a sickeningly hard hitting bass line and drums. The lead singer wears a tshirt with the words ‘Cunt Baby’ scrawled across, and the crowd jump around with plenty of satisfyingly unrestrained head nodding. Just a typical night, in the eclectic and vibrant, DIY music scene of Nottingham.

Gaining a reputation for many things, Notts isn’t often praised for its creativity and culture. Positioned under the prominent seam of Northern cities running, halo like, above it and connected to London, with its plethora of everything, via a short trip down the M1. To its West, is its midland brethren, and the mecca of metal, Brum. I believe that is what you call a ‘strategic location’. Sort of like Singapore, but grimier, and in the East Midlands. Underestimated by its humbleness and lacking in bombast, could this be the cultural underdog of the UK?

Full of left of centre rebelliousness, Nottingham’s creatives seem to invite strangeness and freedoms, unthinkable in larger, self aware cities. The city council is bankrupt and distrust of the establishment is felt everywhere, so ofc, people are making their own fun. Traditional folk nights can be seen across the city, blurring with young musicians experimenting with sounds, both acoustic and electrified, with an especially regarded session held down at the King Billy pub on the edge of town. And what is folk if not creativity from the bare essentials, art for arts sake? Folk, real folk, is not an aesthetic or a rigid musical genre, but a necessary form of working-class self expression, its punk, its metal and its anything but mainstream. 

This grassroots creativity effortlessly bleeds through to the adjacent Sneinton Market area. We Make Our Way and The Grove are based here, but also the equally innovative and radical venues, JT Soar, The Carousel, Stuck On A Name Studios and Movers - the home of Swing Dash Radio, and The Nottingham Female + NB DJ Directory.

Idiocy are one of the most exciting bands coalescing at this artistic nucleus, made up of Ella, Rachel, Jacob and Solstice. Spilling over with anti-capitalist spirit, the group live and breathe their ethos, refreshingly without an ounce of pretension or self-importance. Having just finished recording their album with Galen Sounds, and releasing some much anticipated singles later this year, they are part of an experimental and politicised scene of musicians and artists including Retina, Finbar Ansbe and Cheap Dirty Horse. Forming a sort of post-folk sound, which criss-crosses with other heavier ‘post’ and noise genres; a Venn diagram that includes bands like Pict, Odio and Earth is Doomed as well as crews of organisers, like the queer anarchist group, The Art and Crime Collective and the weird and wonderful, Rights For Flies, keeping rosters busy, platforming diversity where their very existence becomes an act of defiance. 

Creating safe and inclusive spaces for people from all walks of life isn’t all just serendipity, organisations like the Pastel Project are working hard to make Nottingham genuinely open to gender diverse and trans lives. Aiming to be the first ‘sanctuary city’, they are holding companies and venues accountable, in real time, for their commitment to inclusivity. Look out for their sticker on the door of any public venue! 

Mainlined into the city's approach to culture, is the legacy of the infamous DiY Free Party Crew, an integral part of the 90s UK dance music culture who fused their anarchic values with traveller knowledge. Today, renegade festivals like Notts Punkx Free AF and Punk 4 the Homeless carry on this anti-establishment approach, with local punks, Smear, harnessing that raw, rebellious energy, at every gig. 

Over in the historic inner-city neighbourhood of St Anns, sits CRS, Community Recording Studio, a remarkable grassroots youth centre set up by the legendary community leader, Big Trev. Dedicated to supporting its local young people into music and film, they also produced UK underground hip-hop giants, Out Da Ville, and more recently ALT BLK ERA. Made up of sisters, Nyrobi and Chaya, ALT BLK ERA are proudly independent and fiercely innovative, blending genres of metal, electronica, hip hop and alt pop, whilst advocating hard for disability inclusivity and accessibility within the industry. They released their album, ‘Rave Immortal’, on Notts own Earache Records; a pioneer of extreme and experimental music since the 80s, releasing records like Napalm’s game changing ‘Scum’.

The extreme music scene here, still fosters a milieu of genre-bending music; bands like Lindow Moss, notable for their brutal death metal and sporting a very fetching Tom of Finland style album cover for ‘Run Free, Run Amok: .....Among Dark Satanic Markets’ and FILTHxCOLLINS, masters of the <1min grind song, are just a few that keep the blastbeats drumming through this heartland. Hardcore band Skitz, along with promoters Wake The Dead, are giving some of the best HC nights in the Midlands. Even the established venues like the Tap & Tumbler, The Angel, The Bodega, Rescue Rooms and the new Mist Rolling Inn, provide a reliable constant full of metal, hardcore, punk, and rock, and host many of the underground-focused festivals like Mangata, 99 fest, Tonehenge and Tuckstock. 

Providing an anti-fascist, anarcho voice to the ‘Is__sketch?’ question, Nottingham’s Underdark, is in the vanguard of the new wave of black metal, bringing intense, atmospheric darkness and an unapologetic leftist clamour. With her hauntingly ferocious vocals and performances, the band seemed to really crystallise when singer Abi Vasquez came on board in 2019. The uprising of RABM bands has breathed fresh life into the scene, making space for those who are not specifically politicised, but nonetheless emerge from this political shift away from gatekeeping and towards progress.

Shadowvale emerged post-covid with their brilliant dark drudgery, which crosses multiple metal cache’s, a sort of Rorschach of sound, delivering a wretched orchestration you want to throw yourself into the pyre for. Band members, Richard, Ryan and Lee, drive this melodic sludge, where vocalist Lara, delivers a potent mix of pained visceral growls with lyrics drawing on some of her darkest depths. It's a poetry that ventures far beyond your standard gothic narrative. Their next big release for 2026 promises to deliver some exceptional sludgy blackened death.

In a constant, palpable flutter, the creative ley lines crossing the city pulsate, and it is impossible to follow all its vital paths. It really needs to be experienced. Vampireish, you can crawl the streets yourself, end to end in an evening and find the depravity, the headiness, the experimental and most importantly, the fresh blood.

Words: Alana Madden

Photos: Kayleigh Fryer, Robbin Dobbin, Sam Hull