HELENA HAUFF, District 8, Dublin, tomorrow.
Hamburg producer and selector Helena Hauff is one of the highest profile artists sticking to her electro guns, with her releases and DJ sets oozing with frazzled exposed wires and EBM grit. Her 2017 EP, Have You Been There, Have You Seen It, is another brilliant example of machine-tooled electronics, hacking away at your nerve endings.
Get there early for metallic techno and electro from Defekt, and driving techno from Ngoni Egan.
PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING: Academy, Dublin, Wednesday; the limelight, Belfast, Thursday
English duo Public Service Broadcasting have been bringing the concept album back in a big way – mining old WWII news reels and space race reports for recent albums, with a propulsive krautrock backing.
Their latest album Every valley charts the rise and decline of the mining industry in Wales, with interviews and archive snippets. If that all seems a bit schmaltzy, earlier tracks like Spitfire and Go! are sample-heavy live rockets.
THE KOOKS, Olympia, Dublin, tonight and tomorrow, sold out
The Kooks should feel like an odd booking after the indie landfill cull of recent years, but here they are selling out three nights at the Olympia – they also played last night. The Brighton lads are another one of the UK indie bands that were hammered into our heads by the music press dying to latch onto something, The Kooks play the most middle of the road indie-pop, and make the Arctic Monkeys sound like the Dillinger Escape Plan.
Moo Kid 