Live music in Liverpool this week: 31 Aug-6 Sep

We dive into the listings to bring you the essential guide to gigs in Liverpool this week – plus the latest news on festivals, tour announcements and more. Think we've missed something? Hit up will@theskinny.co.uk with the details... 

1 Sep

Having begun life as a solo underground hip-hop project from Dan Smith, these days Listener functions as very much a plural affair, having evolved into the mysterious realm of mesmeric, tightly-knit spoken word rock – or ‘talk music’, as they like to call it. 
Buyers Club, 7pm, £10

Hot Chip, Photo: Amy Muir

Fancy catching some live music in one of the UK's most dreamlike settings? Get some Festival No. 6 down yer neck! The boutique festival is set in the unrivalled splendour of Portmeirion, a Mediterranean-inspired village in North Wales, which this weekend becomes home to the likes of Hot Chip, Super Furry Animals, Roots Manuva, Roisin Murphy, Blossoms, Andrew Weatherall, Broken Social Scene, Noel Gallagher and, er, Bastille, as well as a whole programme of talks, comedy and carnivals. It'll be bonkers-good.
Portmeirion, 1-4 Sep

2 Sep

Emotion Wave returns for another evening of fine local flava, this time promising a rich combo of gothic new wave, pounding techno and dark ambient electronic sounds from the post-punk influenced venture of Chris Luna and Ash Lerczak, Double Echo, technoheads Neo Luddites and audio-vidual mastermind Isocore, all bound together by intense industrial electro from Oscillik 'pon the decks. 
81 Renshaw, 8pm, £3

3 Sep

With Lee Rogers on guitar, mandolin and vocals, John Edge on guitar and vocals, Alan Williams on bass and vocals and Michael Holcroft manning drums, percussion, keyboard and vocals, Professor Yaffle are a psych-folk tour de force of galactic troubadours, hitting up the suitably atmospheric Nordic Church this week, with support from Charlie McKeon. 
Nordic Church, 8pm, £7

Animal Collective, photo: Aaron McManus

And from underground psychedelia to internationally-loved experimental pop, Baltimore's Animal Collective are back in town, following the release of their 10th studio album, Painting With, earlier this year. Check out our four-star review of the record to see what treats yer in for. 
O2 Academy, 7pm, £15

4 Sep

The Liverpool Funk and Soul Club returns with Oregon's 10-piece riot jazz outfit Youngblood Brass Band, who take the traditional New Orleans brass format and pump it up several notches with a punk and hip-hop mentality. No doubt some of you are sightly over kooky brass covers (we hear ya), but there's no denying it'll be a fun way to close the weekend, with a band that's still doing it well enough to feel fresh. 
The Magnet, 7.30pm, £12.50

6 Sep

And if you want either another alt brass fix or an alt alt brass fix, just wait a few more days for the arrival of Broken Brass Ensemble, also peddling a high-octane twist on the classic brass band. 
Arts Club, 7pm, £12

Now booking:

This December, Harvest Sun are putting up the Wirral's indie-rock quartet Hooton Tennis Club at the Kaz's new venue, the Invisible Wind Factory; having just finished recording their second album, Big Box Of Chocolates, we reckon it'll be worth grabbing a ticket here ahead of the hype.

Scottish lo-fi/indie duo Honeyblood are back on the touring circuit this November, heading to the O2 Academy in support of their forthcoming second album via Fat Cat Records, Babes Never Die. Tickets on sale now here.