The Mummers at Sussex Arts Club

The Mummers - Sussex Arts Club

And so to the final day of our alternative 'Song-cram' festival. On Tuesday evening Andy and I found ourselves at Sussex Arts Club to watch the rebirth of The Mummers. Formerly known as Mummer (and as I later discovered, also released music as Raissa in the late nineties - which was funny as I have some of those early singles!) singer Raissa has relaunched her band as an eight-piece outfit, full of strings and piano. It's the first time I've been to see a band purely through discovering them on MySpace - I normally ignore 99.9% of band requests - but as this performance proved, an occasional gem can be found. The new band provided a lush orchestral background to Raissa's vocals, her voice strong and very much reminscent of Emiliana Torrini and Bjork, two fellow singers I greatly admire. Obviously the songs were all new to me, although I did recognise Stuck In The Middle from their MySpace page, plus they played an unusual interpretation of Smashing Pumpkins' 1979. A real talent to watch and accordingly now established as my new favourite local band. Splosh!