One of the city's great hidden treasures, the Brussels music scene hosts some of the biggest and best up-and-coming artists and bands in the international, European and Belgian scene.
Every month, Europe's capital has no shortage of thrilling concerts – and picking out the best gigs can be tough. This is why we have put together a monthly guide to discover the best live acts in the city, perfect for new and old Brussels folk alike.
Carefully selected by music journalist Simon Taylor, here are The Brussels Times' choices for the concerts that you should not miss with your friends throughout April.
Best gigs this month:
7 April
Deadletter
Ancienne Belgique
When AB announced the concert by this English six piece (now based in south London but originally from Yorkshire), friends of mine in a WhatsApp group for gig fans started raving about how their last show offered a great chance for some serious moshing. I have yet to see them live but they must be a lot more raucous on stage than they are in the studio. There are precious few advantages to being old enough to having been following music since the 1970s but one is that new bands remind me of old ones.
British band Deadletter. Credit: Daniel Delikatnyi
In Deadletter’s case, the saxophone on their tracks reminds me of a great late 70s/early 80s band, the Psychedelic Furs. The Furs made the song Pretty in Pink, which filmmaker John Hughes used as the title for his 1986 classic teen drama. Some of their songs (and the delivery of lead vocalist Zac Lawrence) evoke Birmingham band, Editors (who were in turn inspired by Interpol, who were inspired by Joy Division, and so on). Not only do Deadletter draw on the rich legacy of post-punk music from the late 1970s onwards, they also take up that era’s bands’ habit of quoting underground cultural heroes. One of their tracks name-checks French author and playwright Jean Genet, the writer of A Thief’s Journal and The Maids.
9 April
Fine
Ancienne Belgique
Fine (Fine Glindvad Jensen to give her full name) is a singer-songwriter-musician from Copenhagen’s incredibly rich scene of talented women artists. While each of them is distinctive, what many of them have in common (including Fine) is being on the Escho record label and having attended the city’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory (Fine did as well as the scene’s biggest name, Erika de Casier). All of the musicians make a form of twisted RnB, passing acoustic instruments through layers of electronic effects to make them almost unrecognisable, and combining them with off-kilter rhythms that make it hard to imagine them being played in a nightclub, let alone attracting people onto the floor.
Danish singer Fine Glindvad Jensen
Fine’s work fits this pattern, but her music distinguishes itself by bringing in elements of folk and Americana. At times, her songs put you in mind of 90s indie darlings, Mazzy Star, and their singer Hope Sandoval, the crush of so many indie bands' fans. You can also hear echoes of modern-day alt-folk troubadours Big Thief. Fine’s father was a bluegrass musician, so it’s not so surprising to hear that influence. I haven’t seen Fine live and I am curious to see how this gentle, beguiling music comes across live.
16 April
Just Mustard
Botanique
I have written above about having been around long enough to have heard dozens of music genres come and go. In the case of this band from Dundalk in County Louth (which borders the North), the influence of the woozy guitars from shoegaze bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine is clear. MBV (to use their fans’ abbreviation) was also an Irish band, founded by Kevin Shields in Dublin in 1983.
Just Mustard
When they are not overdriving their guitars, the five piece like to let their synths rip, sounding like Ireland’s answer to Glasgow’s Chvrches (whose powerful synth pop is sorely missed) or Yorkshire’s Working Men’s Club. Over the driving guitars or sequencer patterns, there is enough wistfulness in the vocals of singer Katie Ball to evoke 90s synth bands like Dubstar and their beguiling singer, Sarah Blackwood.
17 April
Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore
Église Notre-Dame de Laeken (tickets sold via Botanique website)
This concert, one of a series that Botanique has been putting on in this impressive church, promises to be something special. Barwick, originally from Louisiana, makes music using her voice and by layering vocal loops to create something sublimely human and simultaneously otherworldly. Barwick and LA-based harpist Mary Lattimore were given access to instruments of the Musée de la Musique in Paris and made their recent LP, Tragic Magic, after being inspired by a visit to the basilica of the Sacré Coeur de Montmartre.
Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore
The album contains their version of Rachel’s Song, part of the soundtrack written by Greek electronic musician for the cult sci-fi film Blade Runner. Rachael, as her name is spelt in the film, is a replicant or cyborg who tests Harrison Ford’s ability to tell them apart from humans. For the Laeken show, Barwick will be playing a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 (one of the greatest synths ever made – Vangelis actually used a Prophet 10 on the original recording of the Blade Runner soundtrack). The music, with its rich, electroacoustic textures, will be in the perfect setting of the Laeken church and its lovely acoustics.
18 April
Theatre of Hate
Het Depot, Leuven
Theatre of Hate, led by frontman Kirk Brandon, were a seminal band from the 1980s whose confrontational lyrics and his aggressive delivery made them one of the most exciting bands of the era. Their biggest hit was a track called Do You Believe in the Westworld?, a song inspired by the 1973 film about an amusement park in which robot cowboys start killing visitors (and starring Yul Brynner). The album from which the track was taken, Westworld, was produced by Mick Jones, the guitarist from the Clash, which showed the esteem with which the group were held at the time.
British punk band from the 1980s Theatre of Hate
Theatre of Hate’s visual style and Brandon’s delivery led to suspicions that they had sympathies with the far-right political movements of the period, although Brandon himself made it clear that this was not the case. When the group split in 1983, Brandon formed a new outfit, Spear of Destiny, which reformed in 2007. It will be worth seeing if the frontman and founder (who miraculously has kept his trademark blond quiff) can still spit out the songs with the same venom that made them such an electrifying live act all those years ago.
21 April
Peaches
Halles de Schaerbeek
Peaches (Merrill Nisker) is a Canadian artist who has blurred the boundary between music and performance art since at least the early 2000s. She started out singing backing vocals on tracks by her then-roommate, fellow Canadian artist Feist. In 2002, she released her seminal The Teaches of Peaches album, which contains her unforgettable hit, Fuck the Pain Away (which was remixed by Belgian musicians 2ManyDJs and is allegedly the inspiration for Radiohead’s 15 Step).
Indie electro pop singer Peaches
Peaches’ music is often described as electroclash, a mix of high BPM electronic beats and sexually explicit lyrics, a genre associated with artists such as Miss Kitty and Fischerspooner. But, to be fair to Ms Peaches, she practically invented the genre singlehandedly, with her signature track’s low-fi drum machine parts and her take-no-prisoners vocal delivery. Her show at Les Halles in Schaerbeek promises to be a riot of queer culture and tough beats. Don’t wear your best frock unless you’re prepared to get it ripped.
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