This coming Saturday (7th November), festival returns for its 12th edition. The annual one-day, multi-venue festival not only hosts some of the world’s most cutting-edge music, but also works in intertwined tandem with its Bristol location. The city is a hot bed of forward-thinking music, boasting a sometimes overwhelmingly rich musical culture. Simple Things functions as a celebration of this vitality.

This year, the festival has somewhat shaken things up and, for the first time, invited esteemed guest curators to help build the lineup. These are Australian sampledelic legends , UK jazz genius , art-indie pioneers and avant-garde art innovator . Each act has selected several acts to perform at the festival and will also be performing themselves.

The lineup and stage splits have recently been revealed, check them out . There’s a mouth-watering array of sounds to explore, from avant-rock acts (, , ), abstract rap experimentalists (, , ) to ultra-contemporary pop innovators (, , ). 

Beyond the dizzying selection of music, what gives Simple Things its beating heart is the killer selection of venues that the festival utilises. It consistently adds up to an extremely positive portrayal of not only the state of innovative modern music, but also the rich music culture that the city of Bristol has fostered over the years. After all, in what other city would an old Debenhams have been turned into a massive music venue and skate park?

Let’s start with a big one. Along with being one of the festival’s guest curators, revered jazz experimentalist is also performing at this year’s Simple Things. The musician’s cosmic-scaled ambient jazz will surely sound spectacular in the grand Beacon Hall; the festival’s biggest room, situated in the Bristol Beacon venue. Expect to be overcome by wonder, as Shabaka’s array of woodwind instruments layers of gorgeous percussion reverberate around this grand venue. Oh yeah and you also have the option of finding yourself a seat, if you fancy really locking in to these transcendent musical wonders, like the Jon Hamm in the cinema meme.

At this writer’s last visit to Simple Things festival (in 2024), his highlight of the entire stacked day was seeing performing on the Bridgehouse Stage at the Bristol Beacon. This stage is situated in the huge foyer of the building and you can watch the stage and crowd from various tiers of stairways that ascend above it. Manchester duo ’s electronica/punk/hyperpop fusion is going to set an inevitably rowdy nighttime crowd alight, so make sure you either get amongst the dancefloor nice and early or grab yourself a spot up above to watch the madness unfold.

Continuing our genre shifting, let’s head over to Shreddenhams for . The US three-piece are a proper cult band; the kind of act that, in the mould, just capture everything that a rock band should be. Their large discography tilts from emo-tinged indie to full-throttled post-hardcore and screamo, so expect a range of energetic bangers. Oh yeah, Shredenhams. It’s a key venue for this year’s Simple Things and, as mentioned in the introduction; these two stages are an old Debenhams shop that’s been converted into a huge skatepark and venue. Peak Bristol move.

Onto one of this writer’s personal favourite venues. Strange Brew is an amazing, mid-sized venue that’s an aesthetic stunner; adorned with colour, unusual light fixtures and an amazing sound system. Their programming, beyond just Simple Things, is also consistently brilliant, hosting myriad club nights and countless interesting bands. Mid-evening at this year’s festival sees take to Strange Brew’s stage. The London trio feel like a perfect fit. Their engrossing electronica/trip-hop sound is a neat middle ground between club night and live band and should prove a nicely hypnotic and danceable set to start the night off right.

The final act on our preview is the intriguing . The band are playing just over the road from Strange Brew in the black box room at the back of Rough Trade Records. Another room that sounds amazing (this writer fondly recalls seeing jazz-punks here at his last Simple Things), it’ll provide a fitting setting for the Belfast band, whose make very-contemporary, genre-shifting music, the kind that’s so vivid and colourful you just want to stick your head inside it. Their jazz-inflected indie-pop is laced with so many killer vocal hooks you might wonder if you’re watching a band about to explode upon the world.

Limited remaining tickets for Simple Things 2026 can be purchased .