Pick of the week
Cascando
Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD. Ends Apr 23 6pm, 7.30pm, 9pm
panpantheatre.com
"It is an unimportant work, but the best I have to offer." So said Samuel Beckett of his 1963 radio play Cascando. People might have already formed that opinion about his radio works, which tend to graft disembodied musings onto arch experiments with the form. That resulted in some fine pieces, but they have mostly been regarded as companion pieces for the stage works. Pan Pan Theatre Company, however, has eked out a fascinating place in staging Beckett – not by transposing the plays to the theatre, but by creating riveting new experiences in which to encounter them.
Their approach, rigorous and unusually fun, started with All That Fall, an existential mystery story, which director Gavin Quinn, set and lighting designer Aedín Cosgrove, and sound designer Jimmy Eadie turned into a sensory treat for an audience in rocking chairs in a fantastically transformed space.For Embers, a meditation on life and death, art and creation, they took the idea of a “skullscape” – the voices inside a head – and made it literal: the performers spoke within a huge sculpture of a grimacing skull.
With Cascando, a fragmenting story of a man making walking away from life, told by a disassociated character called “Opener”, a memory-like “voice” and fugitive passages of music (put them all together and they might make a single mind), the play here becomes a more individual experience: you listen on headphones, wearing a cloak, and negotiate a black labyrinth with the audience. That sounds about right. After Beckett’s modest appraisal, he added that Cascando does show, “what passes for my mind and what passes for its work”. Pan Pan, with its unique, refreshing and revealing approach, may have come closest to understanding them both.
Friday
Anderson
Cyprus Avenue, Cork 8pm €10
cyprusavenue.ie
Dubliner songwriter and singer Anderson was one of last year's most welcome success stories, and his debut album Patterns one of 2015's little gems. On tour promoting new single The Existential Vacuum, Anderson will be performing Patterns in its entirety, stripping back its songs for acoustic guitar and piano. Nice? Very nice.
All City
Sugar Club, Dublin 10pm €12/€10
allcityrecordlabel.com
The All City gang is in the house with live sets from two top-drawer producers. The label's relationship with Onra is a long one and the Parisian producer's sweep of releases for All City since 2008 are a great indication of his progress and prowess as a sound sculptor. Onra is joined tonight by Mo Kolours, aka London-based producer Joseph Deenmamode, whose records – such as last year's Texture Like Sun album – have demonstrated his smarts when it comes to fuzzed-out, spacey soul and jazzy, funky loops.
Karenn
District 8, Dublin 11pm €20/€18/€15
district8dublin.com
There's a lot of love out there for Karenn. A collaboration between A-list techno shapeshifters Arthur Cayzer (Pariah) and Jamie Roberts (Blawan) and their collection of machines, Karenn's live shows are what have caught the techno scene's attention. While there have been a few releases for the Works the Long Nights label, it's the duo's fierce, magnetic, largely improvised live show which has made them such a big draw. Support from Irish techno globetrotter Sunil Sharpe.
FCL
Opium Rooms, 11pm €15/€12/€10
facebook.com/ therealfcl
It's You was the track which introduced a lot of folks to the house sounds of FCL when it landed in 2014. But Belgian DJs and producers Nicolas Geysens aka San Soda, and Bart Van Neste aka Red D, were living large long before they hit the jackpot with that remake of a Chicago house classic. Tracks like Let's Go and More Than Seven spread the word about the duo and their We Play House label. Geysens's solo album Immers & Daarentegen from 2010 is also well worth a listen.
Seán Mac Erlaine/Eivind Aarset
Music Room, Christ Church, Dublin 8.30pm €18
note.ie
Saxophonist Mac Erlaine is one of life's envelope-pushers, blissfully ignoring genre boundaries and blending the traditional and the avant-garde without prejudice. In the coming months, Note Productions is pairing him off with a series of like-minded visitors and first up is the brilliant Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset. Best known for his work with "nu jazz" trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer, Aarset, like Mac Erlaine, deploys all manner of tech, but he does so with the spirit of a folk musician. Top drawer improv for the musically adventurous.
The Kilfenora Music Festival
Various venues, Kilfenora, Co Clare
kilfenoraclare.com/events/kilfenora-music- festival-2016/
107 years strong this year, the country's oldest and feistiest céilí band anchor this weekend festival that celebrates Clare music in all its glory. Concerts, céilidhe and sessions abound, with Tony Linnane and Noel Hill, and At The Racket among the visiting musicians. An ideal place to get up close and personal with the tunes.
Saturday
Twitch
The Bunatee, Belfast 10pm £12
Thomas Franzmann is Zip, the Berlin-based DJ and producer who co-founded minimal label Perlon with Markus Nikolai back in the late 1990s. Before that, he was a singer with German industrial band Bigod 20, but his role in the Perlon label's groundbreaking minimal machinations overshadows that earlier career. Franzmann has released tracks for the label under the Dimbiman, Pantytec and Narcotic Syntax monikers and has also collaborated with Ricardo Villalobos and Richie Hawtin on the Narod Niki project and with Baby Ford on releases for the PAL SL label.
Zaska
Sugar Club, Dublin, 8pm €12/€10/€8
facebook.com/zaskamusic
Wicklow funkster Max Zaska (right) is coming out of the jazzy end of the soul spectrum with catchy, feelgood melodies and grooves that go on for ever. Past members of his band include Hozier and Wyvern Lingo’s Karen Cowley, so he certainly knows how to pick ’em. He launches his new single tonight , Got To Go, with a performance from his current group and a “Lemonade” after-party with sets from Kojaque, Dip, We Three Kings, Lex Woo and Junior Spesh.
Sunday
Chris Cornell
Ulster Hall Belfast 8pm £46.50
ulsterhall.co.uk
Chris Cornell's real name is Christopher John Boyle, so it's a safe bet to say that he has Irish blood coursing through his veins. Welcome home, then, to grunge band Soundgarden's frontman, who will be filleting his latest solo album, Higher Truth, for tunes.
Aeroplane
Pygmalion Dublin 4pm €10
Over the past couple of years, Vito De Luca has proven to be an expert guide when it comes to soulful, emotional, deep Balearic and Italo-disco with a twist. Between remixes (MGMT, Grace Jones, Green Velvet and Friendly Fires ), Aeroplane tracks (debut album We Can't Fly and the Caramellas track), festival shows and club nights, De Luca has the skills to bring the new-disco scene to life.
Rock Against Homelessness
Olympia theatre Dublin 8pm €25
ticketmaster.ie
This is a shoo-in for fundraising gig of the season, as it features The Strypes, Le Galaxie, Mundy, Camille O'Sullivan, HamsandwicH, The Stunning and Heathers. The gig is part of the Irish Youth Foundation's One For Ireland campaign (oneforireland.ie) which aims to raise €1 million this month to help the 1,800 children and young people in Ireland who are homeless and/or living in emergency accommodation. Who's that backstage? Just a special guest.
A Tribute to Edna O'Brien
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin €20-€100
gaietytheatre.ie
Joseph O'Connor hosts a celebration of the great Irish writer, with contributions from guests including Paddy Moloney, Eleanor McEvoy, Mary Black, Michael Harding , Marty Rea, Brenda Blethyn, Michael Longley, Olivia O'Leary, Aoibhin Garrihy, Stephen Brennan and many more.
