Kilkenny Arts Festival

Various venues, Kilkenny Until Aug 14 kilkennyarts.ie

Kilkenny Arts Festival continues to embrace the fresh, the innovative and the downright exciting with a fine batch of music acts this year.

New names to these ears include trioVD, a UK band that seem to tread similar improv, ear-bashing ground as Northern Ireland’s And So I Watch You from Afar and Scandinavia’s Opeth; and Hanggai (above, a Mongolian unit that blend throat singing with Mongolian traditional music).

More familiar acts include Cathal Coughlan, the one- time Microdisney/Fatima Mansions frontman whose solo work is as underrated as it is excellent; James Vincent McMorrow, a Dublin singer- songwriter who has long since transcended those lazy Bon Iver references; and Agnes Obel, a Danish singer whose debut album, Philharmonia, is a quality, delicately spun item.

That’s just this week in Kilkenny – next week sees equally good acts such as Emmy The Great, Luka Bloom, Gemma Hayes and Mark Kozelek.

Can't see that? Catch thisPatrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands Thurs, Galway