Photographer Finetime and I have our first pints outside Dalton’s, a bar on Brighton seafront, at almost exactly midday. They are Beavertown Neck Oil IPA at 4.3%. The sun is out, glinting off the sea. Feels like the calm before the storm.

“Tell me what you see” invites Robert Forster during Strawberries' “Tell it Back to me.” The album’s eight songs do not, however, necessarily say what Forster actually sees. These vignettes about encounters between characters come across as imaginary scenarios.

This contrasts with the former Go-Betweens lynchpin’s last album, The Candle and the Flame, which was a direct – albeit allusive – reaction to the diagnosis and treatment of his wife Karin Bäumler’s cancer.

As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on Spotify”, it’s also a great time for those who relish gigs by new talent from all over the world. For three days (four, if you count warm-up Wednesday), every nook and cranny has half-hour showcases running from lunchtime until close. And on top of that are the freebie Alternative Escape fringe events.

It is a family affair at Supergrass shows these days. There were plenty of parents and offspring filing onto the Barrowland’s famous old dancefloor, and during the encore a pair of excitable, bouncing teenagers turned around and started bellowing for their dad, off on the sidelines, to join in pogoing. He declined, but was singing along with vigour nonetheless.

I’ve got an admission: I never really got Radiohead, in no small part because of Thom Yorke’s singing. I appreciate his technical abilities and songwriting, and that a lot of people find his anguish cathartic, but the more he goes for it the more I switch off.

After kicking off with the psychedelia-tinged “Sgt. Major,” they keep coming. A string of songs as Sixties-influenced as they are edgy and propulsive. The tempo may not be speedy but there is always forward motion, even in a song where different sections unite in a portmanteau structure.

20 years on from their first appearance on record, the seventh long-player from Canadian indie-art-rock behemoths Arcade Fire comes off the back of four consecutive UK album chart-toppers.

Over its crisp 32 minutes and nine songs, Altogether Stranger embraces electropop, lo-fi terrain and gothic solo contemplation. By deconstructing modern R&B, the upbeat “Come on” is as close as it gets to pop’s mainstream. The unifying factors are Lael Neale’s way with a tune – she writes a memorable song – and her penetrating yet translucent voice.

There’s this mod milieu, harking back to the Eighties. Weller at the forefront; Dr Robert and his Blow Monkeys; all righteously hate Thatcher; then the electronically groovy 1990s arrive; Acid Jazz Records; boss mod Eddie Piller; his collection of snappily dressed muso's who magazines wrote about and who nearly had hits. These sorts are still about, endlessly churning out music. It’s impressive. Sometimes the music is too. As with this album.

Luster’s fifth track “Halo” has the lyric “mystical creatures… of Éirne,” referencing the Irish river and lough of the same name – both of which are associated with a mother goddess. Earlier, the album’s opener is a short, ambient-styled, scene-setting instrumental titled “Réalt,” where birds, wordless vocals and a harp are heard. Réalt translates from Irish Gaelic as “star.”