Selected highlights chosen by Jim Carroll, Tony Clayton-Lea, Siobhán Long, Aidan Dunne and Cormac Larkin
FRIDAY
SUMMER LOVIN'
Ballymaloe Malt & Music Weekend
Ballymaloe House, Shanagarry, Midleton, Co Cork 7pm (today; noon Sat/Sun) €28/€15/€10 ballymaloegrainstore.com Also Sat/Sun
The same people who brings you the Ballymaloe Litfest, Garden Festival and Craft Fair present the inaugural Malt & Music event, which combines love of homegrown produce and music very well.
Across the weekend, there will be many independent craft brewers, distillers and foodie options (including Wicklow Wolf, Brewdog, Volcano Woodfired Pizza, 12 Acres, Wildside Catering, Blacks of Kinsale, St Patrick's, Lolo's Kitchen, and Blackwater), as well as a good selection of music. Tonight, 8pm, sees Jerry Fish headline; tomorrow (Saturday, 9pm) sees Little Green Cars (above)perform. Meanwhile, Sunday, 3pm, the highly regarded Irish roots act Hank Wedel Band, brings proceedings to a close. TCL
FESTIVAL
Celtronic
Nerve Centre Derry 9pm £15 celtronicfestival.com
There are many reasons why Celtronic has remained at the top of the pile when it comes to Irish electronic music festivals for so long and a lot of that is down to line-ups like this. Carl Craig (below) is the electronic music sorcerer who is still creating a buzz many years after he came out of Detroit with his Retroactive and Planet E labels.
Over the years, tracks such as Innerzone Orchestra's Bug In the Bassbin cut, those mesmerising C2 remixes and, most recently, his Versus album with Les Siècles Orchestra, conductor François-Xavier Roth and classical pianist Francesco Tristano have shown a true innovator at work. He's joined by Shit Robot, Dubliner Marcus Lambkin's DFA label alter-ego who always turns on the style with thrillers and thumpers. Local flavours from the Jika Jika, Bekuz and Flux crews. JC
TRAD HAVEN
Traidphicnic
Various venues all weekend, Spiddal, Co. Galway traidphicnic.com
Propelled by their "donate what you can" ethos, Traidphicnic, now in its fourth year, is a three-dimensional celebration of Irish music, art and culture, with an eclectic programme of events running throughout the weekend.
Dublin fiddler Liam O'Connor will launch his exceptional album The Loom, with a raft of guests including John Blake. Kíla and Skippers Alley will be there, and Louth fiddler Zoe Conway and her husband and musical collaborator John McIntyre (above) will partner up with local accordion player Johnny Óg Connolly. Other guests include sean nós singers Saileog Ní Cheannabháin and Ailbhe Nic Dhonncha. This promises to be a fine summer gathering in a welcoming coastal setting. SL
CLUB
Mutate - Lewis Fautzi
Grand Social Dublin 11.30pm €10/€8 thegrandsocial.ie
An Irish debut for fast-rising Portugese techno star Lewis Fautzi is what's on the cards on Liffey St tonight. It's only a few years since Fautzi started producing electronic gems and he's someone who has already made quite a splash with his powerful, dark, deep and hypnotic sounds. A clatter of releases for such electronic music imprimaturs as Slam's Soma, Oscar Mulero's Pole Group and Len Faki's Figure have established Fautzi's credentials. As a DJ, he's made his bones at such establishments as Tresor and Berghain in Berlin and Gare in Porto. Support from Irish techno veteran Jon Hussey who has been working this beat since the Planet Dub night back in the day and who collaborated as a producer with Sunil Sharpe on the Tricaustic project. JC
TECHNO
Techno & Cans
The Hangar Dublin 10.30pm €15/€12/€10
The Netherlands has always been a decent source for top-drawer electronic music protaganists. In recent years, the likes of the Trouw club and the essential Dekmantel festival in Amsterdam have received a lot of attention, but the list of producers and DJ to keep an eye on also continues to grow. Keith Carnal is one to add to this list, an electronic music shaper with a strong profile throughout Europe. He had an early dalliance with house grooves before techno and the Amsterdam scene turned his head. Aside from standout shows at places such as Tresor in Berlin, Fuse in Brussels and Concrete in Paris, Carnal's tracks like Untold and Analysis for Affin have pushed him forward. Support from Aaron and Luke Xander. JC
SATURDAY
CLASSICAL
Young Composers Forum
St Brendan's Hall, Bantry, Co Cork 2pm Adm free westcorkmusic.ie
The world of public masterclasses is mostly focused on performers. But the West Cork Chamber Music Festival also presents a public forum for young composers. This year's workshop is led by Donnacha Dennehy, whose new opera with Enda Walsh, The Second Violinist, will be heard at the Galway Arts Festival in July and the Dublin Theatre Festival in October.
In Bantry, Dennehy will be working with composers Daniel McDermott (on his Sleamhnan, played by the Behn Quartet), Martin Keary (Bangalorian Civic Duty with the Aduno Quartet), Emma O'Halloran, above, (Flashover with the Beara Quartet), and Alex Dowling (Line Drawing with the Skellig Quartet). The four quartets will then be formally premiered at concerts during the festival. MD
MICROMAN
Sean O'Hagan
Grand Social Dublin 8pm €14 thegrandsocial.ie Also Sunday, County Cricket Club, Cork 8pm €14/€12 corkcountycricketclub.com
Who but the most avid of Irish rock music fans know anything about Sean O'Hagan? In the early 1980s, the musician/ songwriter co-founded (with Cathal Coughlan) Cork's Microdisney, one of Ireland's most underrated and largely ignored bands. When that band split up, O'Hagan went on to form The High Llamas, a London-based band lovingly in thrall to baroque pop and electronica. Time subsequently spent as a member of Stereolab outlined O'Hagan's future adventures in electronic and soundtrack music, yet his profile hardly rose above flatline levels. Not that O'Hagan is overly concerned about such matters – he has walked his own path for more years than he cares to recall, yet his music remains singular and still terrifically accessible. He rarely plays in Ireland, so you are advised to grab hold of the opportunity. The Dublin show also features a surprise return (presumably temporary) of class Dublin band Sack. TCL
WILLIE WEEK
Willie Clancy Summer School
Miltown Malbay, Co Clare July 1st - 7th scoilsamhraidhwillieclancy.com
Now in its 45th year, the Willie Clancy Summer School is the main event. A must for musicians in need of a re-up, for listeners in search of the finest of musicians, and for students in pursuit of workshops, classes and sessions with the best musicians from home and away. Miltown Malbay, Quilty and Spanish Point will be heaving with tunes and set dancing, and the distinction between morning and night will all but disappear for the week. For lovers of particular instruments, there are the nightly concerts, showcasing the best musicians on fiddle, concertina, flute, accordion, pipes and so much more. This is one gathering that has cleaved close to its roots from the get-go. SL
WE ARE FAMILY
Kings of Leon
3Arena Dublin 8pm €85 (sold out) ticketmaster.ie Also Sunday/Tuesday, Dublin
They are neither The Waltons nor The Osmonds, yet Kings of Leon (brothers Caleb, Jared and Nathan Followill, and their cousin Matthew Followill) continue the family business of making sure that their music won't make the horses bolt from the stable.
They began so promisingly as a souped-up, six-pack version of ZZ Top, delivering their Southern rock/blues with smarts and songs as catchy as Sex on Fire, Use Somebody and Notion. The energy levels may have faded, but their commercial appeal certainly hasn't, as these three major shows prove. Expect slavish if not feverish responses from the capacity crowds. Special guests are the highly regarded Nathaniel Ratcliff & the Night Sweats. TCL
CREATIVE IMPROV
Workshop
Arthurs, Dublin, 8.30pm, €10/€8 arthurspub.ie
Workshop is like a man shed for jazz musicians: five old friends – saxophonist Chris Engel, trumpeter Bill Blackmore, pianist Darragh O'Kelly, bassist Cormac O Brien and drummer Matthew Jacobson – gathering to tinker with each other's tunes and hammer them into shape. That's the plan anyway, but if jazz is a Venn diagram of converging influences, there is enough creativity and musical adventure in this quintet to guarantee a night of fresh sounds and newfangled grooves. CL
HORSES FOR COURSES
Area10
Navan Racecourse Co Meath 1pm €16 area10.ie
Area10 is the braindchild of Marc Kinchen aka MK, the veteran producer and remixer behind a huge number of hits over the last few decades as well as working with folks from Will Smith to Pitbull. He's also the dude behind the Area10 events which have featured at Creamfields, Parklife and Amnesia in Ibiza. This Irish outing will have appearances from Route 94, Sam Divine, Klangkarussell and MK himself. They're promising a spectacular outing that will include "a pop-up metropolis" and "world class production, the likes of which has never been seen in Ireland before". The going, no doubt, will be good. JC
FESTIVAL
Celtronic - Ellen Allien
St Columb's Hall Derry 1pm £15 celtronicfestival.com
Ellen Allien is the name at the top of this bill. Aside from running Bpitch Control, one of Europe's most respected labels, Allien continues to DJ and produce (her new album Nost was released last month). She is joined tonight by Levon Vincent, the New Yorker who continues to produce hypnotic and moody electronic sounds, and The Cyclist, aka Andrew Morrison, the producer behind such recommended releases as Flourish and Bones In Motion. JC
SUNDAY
CLASSICAL
Pieter Wispelwey (cello)
St Brendan's Church, Bantry, Co Cork 11am (also Tuesday) €10,€20 westcorkmusic.ie
Dutch virtuoso Pieter Wispelwey is one of the small number players to have recorded those pinnacles of the cello repertoire, Bach's suites for solo cello, more than once. He's playing the complete set at this year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Nos 1, 4 and 5 on Sunday, and Nos 2, 3 and 6. MD
SINGER
Macy Gray
National Concert Hall Dublin 8pm €55/€50/€45 nch.ie
Life has a way of making sure you can't be certain of anything. Macy Gray (above) knows this – from the immediate success of her 1999 debut album, On how Life Is, she negotiated a path that eventually took her away from mainstream success into areas less garlanded. Gradually, wisely, the highly distinctive singer decided to suit herself and not the wishes of those around her – in 2012, she paid tribute to a primary source of influence when she covered in its entirety Stevie Wonder's 1972 album Talking Book. And last year, she glanced lovingly back at her formative jazz inspiration with the album Stripped. Of course, there will be some people attending who will be disappointed if Gray doesn't deliver the "hits", but she has always been a singular artist, so who knows? This show is part of the NCH Summer Concert Series. TCL
ART
A Dream and an Argument - Dougal McKenzie
Upper Gallery, The MAC, 10 Exchange St, Belfast Until October 8 themaclive.com
Edinburgh-born Dougal McKenzie has long – some 27 years - been based in Belfast. While his work has consistently reflected on the past and memory, relishing a slight oddness in the world and how we see it, in this new body of work he explicitly sets out to revisit Edinburgh. The title is from Allan Massie's fictionalized life of Sir Walter Scott. McKenzie explores Edinburgh in the light of Scott's The Heart and Midlothian, the historic Porteous Riots of 1736, his own memories of the city and his father's recollections of studying at the university there. The quad served as a set for a film of Journey to the Centre of the Earth starring James Mason. McKenzie relishes the rich mix of fact, fiction and speculation. AD
