Northwest Gig Highlights – January 2016

There’s plenty this month to serve as salve for that month-long New Year’s hangover: hell, you could just spend the whole of January at the Royal Northern College of Music if you wanted, starting with its annual RNCM Strings Festival (9-10 Jan) and finishing with its New Music North West series (22-29 Jan), always fertile ground for new discoveries ranging from electronic to chamber music and involving highly regarded ensembles like Psappha and Distractfold.

If that won’t shift your epic headache, then your only option may be to match it with a big dose of spectral melancholy. The grand introspection of 4AD-signed three-piece Daughter promises to measure up to the looming architecture of Manchester’s Albert Hall on 21 Jan. Their moving melodies – led by Elena Tonra’s bowling, open vocal – have tilted direction slightly on new album Not to Disappear but still retain the drama and emotion of 2013’s breakthrough record If You Leave. While this show will surely be a spectacle in Manchester’s restored Wesleyan chapel, you can also catch them at Liverpool’s O2 Academy on the 22nd.

Also playing both Manchester and Liverpool is singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Touré; for an intimate club feel, head to Band on the Wall on 23 Jan, or for the acoustics of a recital hall, head to Liverpool Philharmonic’s new venue, the Music Room, on 29 Jan. The son of Malian legend Ali Farka Touré, and encouraged as a youngster to pursue music by kora legend Toumani Diabaté, he’s a musician of the highest order.

At the Everyman, audiovisual collective Deep Hedonia continue their monthly residency with improvisational musician Laura Cannell performing in the relaxed bistro space (21 Jan). Influenced by the landscape and early and medieval music, Cannell's startling instrumentals on the fiddle and recorder are as wind-blasted and raw as the environment that inspires them, as she resuscitates and reworks melodies from the 5th to 14th centuries. Truly transportive.

Elsewhere, a couple of our favourite locals play in a couple of our favourite locals: musical polyglot Kiran Leonard, who stole The Skinny’s hearts with 2013’s dextrous album Bowler Hat Soup, is at the Eagle Inn on 13 Jan, while memoiristic singer-songwriter Laurie Hulme, aka Songs for Walter, is at Soup Kitchen on 22 Jan. Finally, you’d be mad to miss on-the-up rapper Angel Haze at Band on the Wall on 12 Jan: recent mixtape Back to the Woods is an exhilarating mashup of everything from dub to pop, recorded with vim and sincerity.

Do Not Miss:

Neu! Reekie! presents: The First and Last, with Pete Wylie, Hollie McNish, Eugene Kelly, Eleanor Rees + more, LEAF on Bold Street, Liverpool, 28 Jan 

A joyous mash-up of music, live poetry and performance with a healthy helping of the unexpected: that's a Neu! Reekie! night. The Edinburgh-based collective have been putting on boisterous evenings of fine talent for five years now (past guests include Young Fathers, Irvine Welsh and Bill Ryder-Jones), and they make their first trip to Liverpool on 28 Jan with spoken word sensation Hollie McNish, Eugene Kelly of The Vaselines, local legend Pete Wylie (of The Mighty Wah!) and Liverpool poet Eleanor Rees in tow. All will be performing sets, jamboree-style, in the always festive environs of LEAF cafe – and if that weren't enough, they'll be joined by very special guests (to be announced) as well as the the resident Neu! Reekie! crew, including Polygon-published poet Michael Pedersen and fellow poet and activist Kevin Williamson.

On top of all that, it's a night of firsts: the date marks the first time McNish has performed in Liverpool, as well as the launch of a new record label, Triassic Tusk, which aims to compile and reissue rare records from the FOUND collective's vinyl collection. Not bad for a fiver, eh? (Tickets from brownpapertickets.com).