THUNDERCAT, The Sugar Club, Dublin Sunday & Monday.
Bass virtuoso Thundercat was one of the stars on Flying Lotus’s freewheeling broken jazz epic You’re Dead!, but his slapping and high fretwork at FlyLo’s gig in Vicar Street in April was almost a distraction among the intricate beats.
His solo show will surely be more on the money. His new album The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam is pretty slim at 16 minutes, but this isn’t a straight-up album tour.
Thundercat shreds his tracks beyond recognition, improvising and jamming with abandon, proving he’s better in the live setting when he’s calling all the shots.
KING KONG COMPANY, The Academy, Dublin, tonight
A dance act who come out with all horns blazing, Waterford six-piece King Kong Company are the ultimate “you gotta see them live” band you may have missed at a festival.
It’s a frantic mix of dubby bass, trombones and a bit of squelchy acid, with a theatrical slant. Expect ape masks, megaphones, an electro/brass take on the Dr Who theme and their own female version of Bez who veers between dancing with a cardboard box on her head and jogging on the spot in a crash test dummy onesie.
VITALIC, Hangar, Dublin, tomorrow
Vitalic aka Frenchman Pascal Arbez has found himself in a bit of a limbo over the last few years — after a string of releases in the last decade that jumped the gun on the maximalist EDM and electro-house aesthetic. Vitalic crossed over from the underground techno scene in 2005 when his colossal electro-punk track La Rock 01 divebombed off DJ Hell’s Gigolo label and onto every mash-up album.
Acts like Justice and Simian Mobile Disco then spent the rest of the decade nicking his ideas from albums OK Cowboy and Flashmob.
On his 2012 album The Rave age, Arbez wound his neck in for a more considered eclectic release, with lead vocals, hip-hop flourishes and sloganeering that diluted the nosebleed synth riffs.
DJANGO DJANGO, Vicar Street, Dublin Tuesday
On their first Irish headline tour in three years, Django Django have been leaving a trail of ace reviews behind them over the last few months.
It sounds like one of their biggest triumphs was this year’s Electric Picnic, with many telling me I missed the boat when I was arsing round Body & Soul.
Second album Born Under Saturn follows up their lo-fi new wave 2012 Mercury-nominated debut with more conviction, adding woozy psychedelia and electronic pop to the mix.
@conradio37
Printed in Irish Daily Star
Moo Kid 