Handmade Festival will be returning to Leicester’s O2 Academy in 2018 for two days of the finest music, comedy, art, film, performance and photography, hand-picked and carefully curated. The festival will take place on May 5 & 6.

Last month, Handmade Festival announced the first wave of bands for the 2018 music programme, and now they are thrilled to announce the new line-up additions with the second wave of bands. The full line-up so far is as follows:

Circa Waves / Drenge / The Big Moon / Idles / Little Comets / Dinosaur Pile Up / Protomartyr / Future Of The Left / Spector / Turbowolf / Girl Ray / Findlay / Get Cape, Ear Cape Fly / Spook School / Grace Petrie / The Orielles / Thought Forms / Anteros / Weirds / Indoor Pets / Easy Life / She Makes War / Rascalton / Her’s / Strange Bones / Delta Sleep / Dream Nails / Peaness / Nelson Can / Phobophones / Rattle / Gender Roles / Black Futures / Mellow Gang / Magique / Natalie Evans / Crosa Rosa / Babe Punch / Eyre Llew / Sports Team / Soft Boys & Girls Club

Plus many more acts performing across multiple stages to be announced. Weekend tickets are on sale from: http://www.handmadefestival.co.uk

Tickets are being released in price tiers starting start at £40, going up a tier as each one sells out. The remaining tiers are as follows: £45, £50. The first three tiers which were being sold at £25, £35, and £40 per ticket, have all already sold out.

More acts and further details to follow.

‘State of The State’ is the new EP from queer, all-girl Irish indie rock group Pillow Queens. The four tracks will be released via Bristol-based indie Specialist Subject Records on March 16. The first taster of the new collection is ‘Favourite’, a maniacal composition about self-delusion, which fizzes with intent and boasts a perfectly potent hook.

Despite the sunny disposition of Pillow Queens’ catchy melodies and rambunctious riffs, the songs found on ‘State of The State’ tend to have a darker undercurrent. Opener ‘Puppets’ is “a song about the frustration of trying to succeed in post-recession Ireland and the effect that has on mental health,” explains vocalist/guitarist/bassist Sarah Corcoran. Elsewhere on the EP, the band muse on emotional highs and lows, the inevitability of anxiety and paranoia.

‘State of The State’ is the product of Pillow Queens’ first year being a band. Their intense year of gigging, touring, and really getting to know each other’s abilities fed into this recording, in contrast to the creation of their delightful debut Calm Girls EP, which was recorded just after the band got together.

Producer Peter Ashmore tapped into the wide-reaching references PQ threw at him, which included the likes of Hop Along, Yuck, Weezer, Manchester Orchestra and The Pixies, in order to attain a timeless feel befitting of the beautifully crafted songs. Rachel Lyons (drums/vocals) observes that the EP draws “from all our teenage musical influences which have been chewed up and poured out, PQ style.” The resulting creation is something special and unmistakeably “Pillow Queens”.