VONA VELLA + JOE LITTLE + MOOKIE + TIA ICE – THE HOPE & RUIN, BRIGHTON 26.6.26
Hidden Herd’s latest showcase brought four rising artists to The Hope & Ruin stage, each offering a different pulse of new music. Nottingham’s Vona Vella headlined the night with a dynamic performance, moving from noise rock intensity to stripped back calm and bright indie pop, after three local artists. Tia Ice eased the room in with her laid‑back neo‑soul and spoken‑word touches. Mookie followed with an alt‑folk/Americana blend edged by dreamy pop and rockier moments. Joe Little shifted the mood into hazier, cinematic indie with flashes of tenderness. A strong, discovery‑driven evening, which is exactly what Hidden Herd does best.
Tia Ice opened the night with a laid‑back, soulful ease, her neo‑soul grooves settling over the room like the first warm hour of a summer evening. Hampshire‑born but firmly part of the city’s creative pulse, she blends jazz’s softness with funk’s bite, making self‑reflection feel sweet and unhurried.
Tia Ice opened with a spoken‑word introduction to her “journey of sound and movement” easing the room into laid‑back neo‑soul with box‑drum rhythms, warm sax lines and Latin‑tinged guitar. Poems and breathing exercises shaped the set’s reflective flow, while moments like her dance break in the audience during ‘Red Wine’ and the funkier ‘Let’s Ride’ lifted the energy. She closed with ‘Redefine’ bringing a reggae‑dub brightness that capped a fluid, summer‑evening performance.
Tia Ice setlist:
‘Lady Starlight’ (from 2026 ‘Love Personified’ album)
‘Summah Nights’ (from 2026 ‘Love Personified’ album)
‘Red Wine’ (unreleased)
‘Let’s Ride’ (unreleased)
‘Stay Tru’ (from 2026 ‘Love Personified’ album)
‘Getiah’ (unreleased)
‘Redefine’ (unreleased)
Mookie followed with a brilliant, quietly spellbinding set, folding alt‑folk and Americana alongside dreamy pop textures and rockier flashes. There’s something a little witchy, a little rock ’n’ roll in the way those celestial harmonies meet raw, earthy emotion, giving their songs a timeless but slightly enchanted pull.
Mookie opened with ‘Metamorphosis’, building from gentle, dreamy folk into stronger vocals and fuller instrumentation. ‘Set It Free’ brought emotional lift and early dancing, while the mandolin‑led more country sounds of ‘While The Wind Sweeps’ soon had the crowd two‑stepping, including Annie behind her keyboard. Their single ‘The Bugs’ shifted from mystical to rocky, followed by a tight, well‑received cover of Patti Smith’s ‘Dancing Barefoot’, the theme song to “Daisy Jones & the Six” an American musical TV drama. Mookie closed with ‘Stay Wild’, a soft, nature‑rooted finish to an impressively assured first full‑band show.
Hard to believe this was their first live show as a full band, given the quality and variety across the set. It felt like the arrival of a genuinely exciting new voice, one I strongly recommend catching live.
Mookie setlist:
‘Metamorphosis’ (unreleased)
‘Set It Free’ (a 2025 single)
‘While The Wind Sweeps’ (unreleased)
‘The Bugs’ (a 2024 single)
‘Dancing Barefoot’ (a Patti Smith cover)
‘Stay Wild’ (unreleased)
Joe Little shifted the evening into a hazier, more cinematic space, his songwriting moving between stillness and scale with raw emotional clarity. Drawing from post‑punk, folk and left‑field pop, he lets his influences blur into something fluid and quietly dreamlike.
A beautifully paced set opened with ‘Forever’, a clean, melodic indie track, before the softer dual‑vocal ‘Notice Me’ brought a gentle country tint. New song ‘Find You’ offered a fresh, 90s‑leaning guitar‑pop feel, leading into the standout moment of the night: ‘Ordinary’, performed largely solo, slow and fragile, with brushed drums and a room held in respectful silence. His quietest song rightly got the loudest cheer. The band lifted the energy again with ‘Loving For The First Time’, ‘Heartache’ and the punchy ‘Kiss’, closing on ‘I’ll Be The Best’, a bluesy, jam‑like finale.
It was a very strong set being DIY indie at its core, full of tender moments that lingered and also had almost everyone dancing.
Joe Little setlist:
‘Forever’ (from 2025 ‘You Bark, I Bite’ EP)
‘Notice Me’ (from 2025 ‘Soundtracks For Dreamers And The Wide Awake’ album)
‘Find You’ (unreleased)
‘Ordinary’ (from 2025 ‘Soundtracks For Dreamers And The Wide Awake’ album)
‘Loving For The First Time’ (a 2025 single)
‘Heartache’ (unreleased)
‘Kiss’ (unreleased)
‘I’ll Be The Best’ (unreleased)
Vona Vella closed the night with a top‑quality, shape‑shifting headline set, the Nottingham band moving effortlessly from noise‑rock walls of sound to stripped‑back solo moments and bright indie‑pop. Formed around songwriting duo Izzy Davis and Dan Cunningham, they balance interweaving vocals and wistful harmonies with a driving, dreamy energy.
Vona Vella opened with ‘I Wanna Tap Into Your Heaven Again’, a soft guitar introduction that burst into distortion as a wall of sound crept up behind Izzy’s vocals. It was a superb opener with noise swelling and falling while her voice held its clarity through both calm and chaos. The following songs continued that interplay of understated vocals threaded through rising waves of noise and sudden drops.
Mid‑set, they unveiled a brand‑new track, ‘Rosie Cheeks’, a dreamy indie‑pop piece that flipped between sweetness and percussive bursts of noise, settling into a slow‑building, atmospheric groove. ‘Thought We Were Falling In Love’ brought a lighter, up-tempo lift and got the room dancing, before ‘Brand New Boy’ offered a stripped‑back moment that let Izzy’s vocal quality shine. They pushed back into bright indie‑pop with ‘Settle Down’ and closed with ‘Carnival’ and ‘Bear Trap’, the latter a fast, Britpop‑meets‑jangle rush with three‑way harmonies and a stage energy matched by the dancers in the crowd. It was a superb finish to a strong night of new music, sending the room out on a high.
Vona Vella setlist:
‘I Wanna Tap Into Your Heaven Again’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
‘Bass Driver’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
‘Come By’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
‘You Can Be So Ugly’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
‘Rosie Cheeks’ (unreleased)
‘Thought We Were Falling In Love’ (from 2023 ‘Vona Vella’ album)
‘Brand New Boy’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
‘Settle Down’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
‘Carnival’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
‘Bear Trap’ (from 2026 ‘Carnival’ album)
What united all four acts, across their contrasting styles, was the way each managed to get the crowd moving even in a summer heatwave. By the end of every set, almost the whole room was dancing. The flow across the night was spot‑on, moving from Tia Ice’s laid‑back soul to Mookie’s alt‑folk Americana, through Joe Little’s indie haze and into Vona Vella’s full‑tilt noise. That variety never felt jarring, but instead, it created a natural rise in energy. A cleverly curated line‑up from Hidden Herd, and a reminder of how sharp their instinct is for new and upcoming talent.
