1 Field Day
The UK’s hippest festival lineup descends on Victoria Park once again, this year featuring eerily slick pop from Hannah Diamond, chillwave R&B from Abra, post-ironic country from Whitney and no-prisoners rap from Lady Leshurr. Plus, Aphex Twin performs in a barn.
Victoria Park, E3, 3 June
2 Gorillaz
By renouncing material reality, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s illustrated band were able make some of the most genuinely genre-defying music of the 21st century, fusing Blur’s esoteric indie with hip-hop, cartoon effects and a pick’n’mix of iconic vocalists. Back in a big way, this week the band warm up for their Demon Dayz festival (Dreamland Margate, 10 June).
Portsmouth Guildhall, 4 June
3 MIA’s Meltdown
Following in the footsteps of David Bowie, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono and David Byrne, MIA curates this Southbank Centre festival. The lineup isn’t quite as out-there as you’d expect from one of the UK’s premier practitioners of mouthy contrarianism, but it will still encompass exciting UK rap (Giggs, Abra Cadabra) and more experimental hip-hop from further afield (Mykki Blanco, Princess Nokia, Yung Lean).
Southbank Centre, SE1, 9-18 June
4 Mitski
Fuelled by alienation both social and cultural, Japanese-American musician Mitski Miyawaki’s Puberty 2 album of last year was a collection of haunting indie that rivalled Smiths-era Morrissey for maudlin melodrama. Witness her brooding confessionals during this Irish mini-tour.
Cork, 6 June; Belfast, 7 June; Dublin, 8 June
5 Perfume Genius
In a neat move, Mike Hadreas brings his queer chamber pop to the London venue that propelled gay nightlife into the British mainstream. But new album No Shape is not about losing yourself on the dancefloor; instead, it’s Hadreas’s subtle, textured hymn to sobriety, love and stability.
Heaven, WC2, 8 June
