Fusing hip hop, soul, jazz and pop, Leicester band Easy Life are damn funky.

Signed to the influential Island label , they went down a storm on Jools Holland’s Later earlier this year, buzzy sets at Glastonbury and Coachella, now they are on tour – and heading to the O2 Academy on Tuesday.

They come armed with new single Earth – tipped as Annie Mac’s Hottest Record In The World on BBC Radio 1. It follows the release of recent mixtape Spaceships and acclaimed lead single Sunday.

With a surreal video directed by Sophie Muller in Morocco, the group’s playful mix of hip-hop, R&B, trippy electronics and confessional pop may make Earth feel effortless, but its lyrical truths run deeper.

“The world is a [messed] up place, and sometimes it can feel terribly isolating,” says lead singer Murray, having worked on a farm all his life and become a passionate environmental advocate.

On Earth, Easy Life set out to write a song addressing the fact that “we are running out of resources, and the future is looking bleak”. But with the typically-positive spin of a band who, as the lyrics to Earth put it, ultimately speak for those who “don’t feel at home on this planet”.

In what’s already been a breakthrough year, Easy Life have continued to evolve their wry and affecting way with the minutiae of everyday life.

Oxford Mail:

Multi-instrumental, multi-tasking and multi-talented, these musically curious and lyrically open young men have earned an impassioned global fanbase. Whether tackling the future of the planet or, as a recent B-side had it, spaghetti hoops, Easy Life represent that new generation who are as attune to Chance The Rapper as they are Arctic Monkeys – and always in search of that next great band.

  • Funky pop - Easy Life
  • O2 Academy Oxford
  • Tuesday
  • ticketmaster.co.uk

Klub Kakofanney is an Oxford musical institution and this weekend of music to celebrate its 28th birthday shows why it is as fun, daring and relevant as ever.

It kicks off at 7.45pm tomorrow with Smiley & The Underclass, Pandapopalypse and Screamin’ Irene. Saturday features The Deadbeat Apostles, The Mighty Redox, Knobblehead and Easy Listening, sounding off from 7.15pm. Then it all ends up with a free day of music from 3.30pm on Sunday with Monkeyfist, Mark Atherton and Friends, Tony Batey and Sal Moore, and Edwin and The Keepers.

Oxford Mail:

The fun takes place in the cosy surroundings of the upstairs room at The Wheatsheaf. Use it or lose it.

  • Rock
  • Klub Kakofanney
  • The Wheatsheaf, Oxford
  • Tomorrow-Sunday
  • Fri& Sat: £8 per night or £14 for both nights, Sun: free

Swaggering Scouse indie-pop with plaintive trumpet, emotive lyrics and driving drums, Red Rum Club are this autumn’s band to watch.

The black-clad Liverpool six-piece have been going big guns since their debut Matador was released in January, hitting a high point, locally, with a stomping show in a packed out marquee at Truck Festival, near Steventon, this summer.

Their gritty lyric and guitar and horn-fuelled Western soundscapes have seen the band of Fran Doran, Tom Williams, Michael McDermott, Simon Hepworth, Neil Lawson and Joe Corby dubbed spaghetti western rock’n’roll. They certainly lasso the listener with their widescreen grandeur and bandito blues and Joe ‘The Blow’ Corby’s mariachi-style trumpet, which first found voice on live fave Angeline.

Oxford Mail:

They hit Oxford with new release, Kids Addicted, co-written with Rich Turvey of Blossoms.

“It’s is an observation we wanted to make on the modern age of social media and the effect it has on youth culture,” says Fran. “The constant interaction with a vast amount of people and the highs and lows of its addictive nature.”

  • Indie-rock
  • Red Rum Club
  • O2 Academy Oxford
  • Sunday.
  • Tickets from ticketmaster.co.uk