Ako, Bialystocks, go!go!vanillas, and Kroi live in Brighton: A rare double bill from IRORI Records at The Great Escape 2025

IRORI Records brought four of its top artists — Ako, Bialystocks, go!go!vanillas, and Kroi — to The Great Escape 2025, where each act made their UK live debut across two Brighton showcases. While Kroi and go!go!vanillas are no strangers to arena stages in Japan, these intimate UK sets were held in the low-ceilinged corners of Brighton’s Queens Hotel and Casablanca Jazz Club. For fans who crossed continents to be there, that intimacy was the draw.

Thursday’s wristband-only showcase at the Queens Hotel had all the hallmarks of a conference room gig: midday timing, plain setting, and a crowd made up mostly of delegates. But Japan’s alt-rock talent cut straight through the formality, delivering tight introductions and a dry run that set the stage for what was to come. Friday night’s free-entry set at Casablanca Jazz Club, part of The Alternative Escape, drew a packed room of festivalgoers, curious locals, and fans of all ages. Louder, sweatier, and looser across the board, it was the real deal.

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Day 1 – Warm-Ups and First Strikes

Bialystocks ease in with late-morning clarity and falsetto warmth

Opening Thursday’s lineup, duo Bialystocks eased the room into motion. Their mix of jazz-rooted piano, soft-focus guitar, and cinematic pacing made for one of the most immersive sets of the day. Pianist Go Kikuchi’s featherlight keys acted as ambient glue, holding the mood steady while frontman Sora Hokimoto steered it with shifts in vocal weight, moving from soulful midrange to falsetto peaks with natural ease. The band’s command of tone and space gave the set a sense of calm without slipping into passivity, while the low-key groove kept the room swaying.

Ako floats through jazz, indie, and whispered catharsis

Ako followed with a set that felt like flipping through polaroids from half-remembered dreams. Her whisper-toned vocals gave off a sense of closeness, like a romantic whisper that drifted over distorted guitar tones and shimmering synths, giving her songs an emotional elasticity. Soft and hazy, but punctuated by moments of force, her stage presence was unassuming, almost still, yet magnetic. She didn’t perform so much as inhabit each song, letting arrangements steeped in jazz, UK indie, and melancholic funk unfold at their own pace. In a brief MC, Ako explained timidly that she has been looking forward to performing in a country that homes some of her favourite artists, from Beabadoobee to Radiohead. As the final track closed, Ako gave a quiet goodbye and stepped offstage, leaving the band to wind down the set.

go!go!vanillas break things open with swaggering garage rock

Then came the shift. go!go!vanillas, walking the line between throwback and reinvention, pulled the crowd out of their heads and onto their feet. Drummer Jett Seiya, all leather jacket and shades, turned soundcheck into a sideshow, hammering out Matsuri-bayashi rhythms before the crew even finished setting up (and may have dented the ceiling in the process). Frontman Tatsuya Maki broke the fourth wall early with a dry, “Sorry, we’re fucking louder than the other bands”, before launching into a set of tightly wound garage rock and wild-eyed abandon. Their sound was danceable, swaggering, and surprisingly sharp-edged. It hit harder live, with Maki diving into the crowd, the keyboardist clambering across his rig, and Seiya clutching fists full of sticks as he wailed on the kit. The whole thing felt joyfully unhinged.

Kroi bring funk-rap fusion and deadpan cool

Closing the day, Kroi pulled from deeper in their catalogue and came out swinging. Rather than leaning on anime tie-ins that no doubt have brought them the most international attention in recent years, the five-piece opted for older cuts like 2019’s ‘Fire Brain’, a funk-rap barrage that hit as hard as anything in their recent release. The band dressed like they were heading to fashion week but played with the loose confidence of a group that’s put in their hours. Their hybrid of R&B, funk, rock, and hip-hop never felt forced, stitched together with tight transitions and an obvious belief in what they were doing.

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Day 2 – Full House at Casablanca

Casablanca Jazz Club was packed, sweaty, and fully alive, the kind of energy the Queens Hotel could only hint at.

Attendees were welcomed by Ako’s hushed vocals cutting through the dimly lit basement, pink neon glowing behind her. The intimacy of her voice didn’t get lost in the crowd noise but instead demanded attention as soon as you entered the room.

Kroi made the most of it. Before and after their set, the band were already in the crowd, chatting with locals like regulars at a house party and dancing around the venue during go!go!vanillas’ performance. Somewhere mid-set came a brief pause for celebration, with a chorus of birthday wishes for frontman Leo Uchida. Onstage and off, the band were locked in and letting loose.

Bialystocks’ second set carried over that same atmospheric control, but with the night-time energy of Casablanca Jazz Club feeding back into the performance. The grooves had a little more give, the swing in Kikuchi’s playing more hit just right. Hokimoto, visibly more relaxed, leaned into the moment by taking a pair of sunglasses from a fan in the front row and wearing them through the final song to cheers across the venue.

go!go!vanillas, closing the night, hit the peak. Their gritty, danceable rock drew the loudest reactions of the Japanese contingent. Pulling the most diverse crowd across both days, young and old alike, they proved that rock ‘n’ roll’s retro edge still has plenty of pull. The band earned the first encore chants of the two days, followed by chants for another. Jett Seiya, ever the chaos agent, leapt into the crowd post-show, crowd-surfing beneath a ceiling that barely cleared his head. It was loud, unpredictable, and entirely deserved.

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A label making the most of the small stage while it still can

Taken together, the IRORI Records showcases at The Great Escape 2025 went further than first impressions. They gave UK audiences a rare chance to see four sides of Japan’s alternative scene up close, each their own and each performing in a space they may never return to. After a successful showcase in the US at SXSW 2024, another international test run from IRORI Records had landed, showing that the UK audience also has an appetite for what these artists are putting out. And for those in the room, especially on night two, it was a reminder of why small stages still matter.

If you caught even one set, you caught something rare.

Photos by Charles Shepherd

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