Brian Eno is a passionate advocate of singing, each week gathering a group of friends for a rousing bout of a cappella endeavour.

He has no intention of recording the results, or performing them live – it’s purely for pleasure. “A cappella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community,” he has said. “That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us.”

Tomorrow, the guest artistic director of this year’s Brighton Festival celebrates the power of the unaccompanied voice with a show that unites modern masters The Persuasions, up- and-coming New York septet Naturally 7 – who have pioneered their own take on traditional a cappella – and maverick singer, stand-up and “disinformationist” Reggie Watts, whose songs are created entirely on the hoof.

Naturally 7 don’t, at first listen, appear to fit the a cappella tag. After all, there are instruments in their songs. But look at their hit YouTube cover of Phil Collins’s In The Air Tonight (performed for some reason in the Paris Metro) and you’ll see the “instruments” are being created by their voices.

Committed Christians who grew up singing in the gospel tradition, they developed a style they call Vocal Play as a result of a parental ban on drum kits, Armand “Hops” Hutton explains. “Warren (Thomas, who founded the band with brother Roger) started practicing making drum sounds because his mum wouldn’t let him get a drum kit. He became the drum kit!

So we started singing harmonies around his drum noises. Then someone started making the sound of a harmonica and that was it – we thought, this could be our niche, we could all become the instruments.”

How does one learn to “become” an instrument, then? “You listen to it and watch it very closely when it’s being played. There are enough musicians around the world and with YouTube and our direct links to the church, we have access to a wide variety. We try our very best to get down to the detail that instrumentalists would do.”

They cut their teeth with impressive covers, but not, Hops adds, of the traditional Earth, Wind and Fire/Stevie Wonder variety.

“The goal is to do something that might not be expected of us. Because of what we do and our background, it’s almost expected of us to do certain covers but to do a Simon and Garfunkel or Phil Collins track is something that might not be. We try to push our boundaries and shock the listener. “ They also write their own material – “We try to stay away from instruments we know are very difficult to replicate like piano or violin!” Hops admits. “We will write a song with the drums and the bass in there and with a lead guitar or harmonica. We write around those instruments we know we can replicate.” And with a new album out now, interest from the likes of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Prince Charles and of course, Brian Eno, the group hope they – and their techniques – will become widely known.

“That’s the goal,“ says Hops. “We get so much delight when we look online and see people doing the sort of thing we do. We want Vocal Play to stand on its own as a genre, we want other people to get together and try their own versions. We’d love to be remembered as the architects of a new genre.”

* Starts 8pm, tickets £10-£18.50. Call 01273 709709.