Fail Better presents LOST & FOUND: LOST CROWNS / WILLIAM D DRAKE

Name: Fail Better presents LOST & FOUND: LOST CROWNS / WILLIAM D DRAKE
Start: 2026-04-16T20:00:00+01:00
End: 2026-04-16T23:00:00+01:00
Location: A L P H A B E T Brighton

Schedule

Thu Apr 16 2026 at 08:00 pm to 11:00 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

A L P H A B E T Brighton | Brighton, EN

Due to circumstances beyond our control we are having to postpone Lost Crowns and William D Drake gig at The Alphabet. Please stay posted for the new date. If you would like your ticket to be refunded, please let us know. We apologise again for the inconvenience caused and hope to see you at a later date.
We are beyond honoured to meet and host our heroes LOST CROWNS and WILLIAM D DRAKE at ALPHABET on July the 18th.
This event is a priceless collection of diamond musicians from Cardiacs, Knifeworld, Prescott, William D Drake and the North Sea Radio Orchestra.
Please come to the gig and share with us this stimulating and exhilarating experience filled with prodigious music and run-of-the-mill (un)related facts about a thief putting the crown jewels down his trousers, controversial diamonds not invited to a certain coronation, and a king who managed to lose his own crown.
LOST CROWNS
A magnificent collective, formed with the intention of redefining the over-stretched term "psychedelic" with joyous, fluttery music, rife with relentless complexity suggesting the full intensity of visionary experience.
Unsatisfied with the "disappointingly conventional" majority of psych sounds from the 60s, band leader Richard Larcombe formed Lost Crowns from various characters who have played with Cardiacs, Knifeworld, Prescott, William D Drake and the North Sea Radio Orchestra. The songs are unpredictable mini-symphonies, with clarinet, harmonium and Mellotron careering wildly around the guitars and double-kick drums.
Exceptionally elaborate, including ALL the notes and bar lengths. A bizarre and joyous experience.
https://lostcrowns.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/lostcrowns
https://www.instagram.com/lostcrownsofficial
https://www.facebook.com/lostcrowns
WILLIAM D DRAKE
William D Drake is a musician, pianist, keyboardist, composer and singer-songwriter.
The music William D Drake makes is a feast of gorgeous instrumentation, masterful piano, jaunty wheezing hurdy-gurdy, harmonium, clarinet, guitar and drums – narrated with growly vocals and angelic choral singing. Betwitching pastural chamber music, lop-sided stately marches and hearty, thumping sing-a-long shanties. Weaving layers of textured melody with rock and ancient folk flavoured undertones, he journeys through the surreal and psychedelic, telling curious tales with a sideways humour.
A former member of influential cult band Cardiacs, he has gone on to release two albums with Cardiacs off-shoot Sea Nymphs and a further five albums under his own name; “William D Drake’, ‘Briny Hooves’, ‘Yew’s Paw’, ‘The Rising of the Lights’ and ‘Revere Reach” … a sixth album is slowly taking shape.
Prog Magazine ranks William D Drake simultaneously 89th and 14th Greatest Artists of All Time (solo and with Cardiacs). He is regularly championed by Marc Riley and Stuart Maconie of BBC6 Music and snooker legend turned DJ and broadcaster Steve Davis!
His other musical enterprises include performing in an experimental adaption of the opera ‘Poppea’ at Theatre du Châtelet, Paris, alongside Marc Almond and Karl Barat (Libertines). He guested with North Sea Radio Orchestra and John Greaves, in performances of Robert Wyatt’s ‘Rock Bottom’ album in its entirety, at two arts festivals in France.
williamddrake.wordpress.com
williamddrake.bandcamp.com/music
facebook.com/williamddrakefriends
Wire
Anyone who cares about proper songwriting should take a look at what he’s come up with. Adventures in harmony and melody are rare these days; his arrangements glisten with bowed saw, dulcitone, choral vocals, classy clarinets… This is Drake’s fifth solo album, and it’s possibly his finest… heartfelt and memorable… an accomplished and blatently enjoyable set.
Prog Magazine
…Revere Reach is richly detailed, consistantly impressive and, at times, deeply affecting.
Uncut
Delicious off radar folk…. this fifth effort is an enthralling exercise in stately prog-folk, drawing on a love of sea shanties, centuries old poetry and chamber music…
Louder Than War (‘Best Albums of the Decade’)(‘The Rising of the Lights’)
Bill Drake’s albums are always a delight, deliciously eccentric and very English, his delicate vignettes spiced to perfection, and for me, this is the perfect feast, a beautiful and largely acoustic album of the wonderfully unexpected that makes me smile each and every time. It takes Cardiacs as a starting point but is much gentler, the pointy edges filed down to a sophisticated jab rather than a blood-curdling stab. It’s mad as a bucket of badgers and all the better for it, willfully obtuse with a cheery wave and a glint in its eye, led by Bill’s formidable piano talents. Just wonderful, and long may Mr Drake continue to plough his idiosyncratic furrows of magic.