Biffy Clyro, Edinburgh
Credibility has come belatedly to Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. Farewell Runrig and Del Amitri: these days, Scottish rock talent is such that this traditional celebration can be conducted in the company of a moderately cool bill. Arty shoegazers Honeyblood are your opening act, presenting a mixture of floating melodies and distorted guitar. Then there’s Idlewild, once chaotic noise merchants turned slightly folky rockers. Everyone loves a success story, though, and Biffy Clyro are undoubtedly that. After ditching their difficult and uncomely art rock eight years ago, they subsequently decided to mix the music of the Foo Fighters with the music of the Foo Fighters, a decision that led to a major commercial breakthrough.
West Princes Street Gardens, New Year’s Eve
JR
Hozier, Killarney & Dublin
Andrew Hozier-Byrne (or plain old Hozier to the many members of the Ken Bruce army who buy his records) is pretty much the male Adele. Granted, there’s no suggestion that he has quite the same mighty voice or even the same vaguely indie cred – despite how distant a memory that may be for her. However, somewhere between his busker appearance, his agile and fruity voice and his full-on gospel arrangements, Hozier has found himself a byword for a kind of modern soulfulness. Take Me To Church is the song that has done the most business for him so far, but there’s plenty to suggest that this tall Irish performer is cut from a fractionally different cloth to “hey, nice voice” contemporaries such as George Ezra. Popular, but no stoker of celebrity, Hozier’s conduct hints that his sound derives from something more like integrity.
INEC, Killarney, Mon 21 Dec; 2FM Xmas Ball at 3Arena, Dublin, Wed 23 Dec
JR
Boxed In, London
Oli Bayston clearly isn’t afraid of filling big shoes. A British producer and performer, his dominant mode is dance music, but with the warmth of what some naive travellers in these parts might call “real” instruments giving the whole thing a less-streamlined, more human edge. As, say, LCD Soundsystem or Radiohead might tell him, he’s not exactly alone in this, but despite what he may offer in terms of familiarity, Boxed In also has his own twist. Not a writer of ironic purpose – he has no satirical anthems to offer on a prevailing culture – his appeal lies in the sense of intimacy that comes with personal songwriting. A breathless pursuit of his inner woodblock has led Boxed In to something like the punk-funk that was being assayed in New York nightspots in 1980 or so, but his way with restless live drums and decent tunes ultimately leads him to the tense urban vibes of In Rainbows.
JR
Hieroglyphic Being, London
As Hieroglyphic Being, Jamal Moss is incredibly prolific, working at the points where the different tectonic plates of electronic music rub up against each other in leather wristbands and bicep-baring shirts. His New Year Cafe Oto marathon starts with a six-hour DJ set, followed by a live show on New Year’s Day, with some unannounced collaborators. As a DJ he uses speed and pitch so outrageously it verges on collage (expect an air raid siren threaded through the B52s, followed by New York disco and 80s industrial). As a musician he has produced an enormous catalogue of Sun Ra-influenced Afro-futurist cosmic jams and beat-based synth work with rarely a duff moment. A soft spot for extreme levels of distortion brutally applied means his records come with warnings: How Wet Is Your Box cautioned: “this is no pressing failure”.
Cafe Oto, E8, New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day
JA
Claire Martin, Coventry & Steyning
British jazz singer Claire Martin won an international reputation soon after her emergence in the early 1990s, but she has always balanced mainstream popularity with a technical inventiveness that also makes her a musician’s musician. Martin combines a lustrous sound with a frank and forthright delivery, as if the last thing she wants to do is pull at the heartstrings of an audience with sentimentality, even on the most emotional material. With last year’s Time & Place album, dedicated to her late singing and composing partner Richard Rodney Bennett, Martin took on a swathe of songs by Bennett, Kurt Weill and David Bowie, among others. She made that session with the Montpellier Cello Quartet, with whom she plays at Steyning. The Coventry show presents Martin in full swing with the BBC Big Band.
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, Sat 19 Dec; The Steyning Centre, Wed 23 Dec
JF
Exaudi, London
You can rely on the vocal group Exaudi and their ever resourceful director James Weeks to come up with something a bit different for their pre-Christmas concert. Extracts from Heinrich Schütz’s Geistliche Chormusik are accompanied by a special commission. Christopher Fox’s Trostlieder (In Widerwärtigkeit Des Kriegs) is a setting of poetry by Martin Opitz depicting the bloody events of the thirty years’ war, with remorseless rhyming couplets and 12/13 beat lines driving the music.
AC
