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 and gigs that you and your friends should not miss throughout May 2025.
This month, we take a special look at Les Nuits Botaniques festival (but not only!).
Best gigs this month:
15 May
Circuit des Yeux
AB Club
Circuit des Yeux is the stage name of Haley Fohr, an American singer and musician based in Chicago. Fohr has a four-octave vocal range which she uses to great effect as part of her Gothic songs. Her music is not for the faint-hearted.
Circuit des Yeux
Her last single was called God Dick (which doesn’t sound as bad in the original Latin "phallus dei"). On her latest release, Halo on the Inside, she combines her operatic singing voice, sounding at times like US avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás or Anohni, with hardcore electronic beats.
15-25 May
Les Nuits Botanique
Botanique
Les Nuits Botanique is back for its 32nd edition with a major and much welcome change: instead of having to buy more than one ticket each day to watch bands on each of Botanique’s stages, buying a day ticket now gives you access to all the artists playing that day.
Les Nuits Botanique. Credit: Bart Van der Sanden / Les Nuits Botanique
So it’s even more like a mini-festival in the city. At the same time, the organisers have booked artists in a different genre each day so gig goers can choose when to go. For example, the first night features metal bands.
17 May
Tim Bernardes
Botanique (part of Nuits Botaniques)
We don’t get anything like enough Brazilian artists performing in Brussels so I urge all fans of that country’s fantastic artists to catch singer and multi-instrumentalist Bernardes. Bernardes has worked with giants of the Brazilian music scene including Gal Costa and Milton Nascimento.
Tim Bernardes
He features on Nascimento’s recent album with US jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, and has also played with US neo-folkies Fleet Foxes. Listening to Bernardes’ songs transports you to a place where a warm breeze brushes against your skin and unfamiliar and beguiling scents fill your senses.
18 May
M(h)aol
Botanique (part of Nuits Botanique)
For my money, M(h)aol are the best band to come out of Ireland since Fontaines DC. They are a four piece from Dublin, Cork and Belfast, and their stance on gender and sexual politics is at the heart of their music. Their first LP, Attachment Styles, (a reference to the relationship theories of English psychoanalyst John Bowlby) featured songs including Asking for It, about rape (“I’m just the dumb bitch that left the party with you/I was asking for it”), Period Sex and Bisexual Anxiety.
M(h)aol
Their music is a squall of distorted guitars, often used more as a backdrop that for melody or rhythm. I saw them in Dublin three year ago and they were still shambolic, although their lyrics were powerful. Since then, they signed to cult US indie label Merge (home to singer songwriter Waxahatchee and label founders Superchunk) and have tightened up their sound. They have a new album out, Something Soft.
20 May
Azaelia Banks
Botanique (part of Nuits Botanique)
US rapper Banks burst onto an unsuspecting world with her breakout hit 212 in 2011. Wikipedia coyly describes the track as Banks "rapping about cunnilingus". While strictly correct, the description doesn’t quite capture the flavour, no, the thrust, no, the, um, gist of the track whose chorus, featuring a four-letter Anglo-Saxon word, is chanted at her legendary gigs by her fans. Interestingly, the beats behind 212 were made by Belgian DJ Lazy Jay. Banks hasn’t released an album since Broke with Expensive Tastes in 2014 and her last single came out in 2023.
Azealia Banks
Her live performances are high energy and she whips her audience of adoring fans into a frenzy. She is almost as famous for her social media accounts in which she picks fights with other celebrities, including Elon Musk. She has endorsed Trump for president, saying that although he was evil, he was at least transparent, but subsequently attacked him. She has made racist and homophobic comments on X although she also speaks about black and LGBTIA+ rights. Not for the faint hearted or those easily offended by cuss words.
24 May
Greentea Peng
Botanique (part of Nuits Botanique)
Aria Wells hails from Bermondsey, one of south-east London’s less glamorous boroughs, and she has named herself after her preferred drink and a London slang word meaning “good” or “attractive”. Her music is inspired by her heroes, hip hop star Lauryn Hill and neo-soul queen Erykah Badou, but British ears will be reminded of early Massive Attack and Tricky tracks.
Greentea Peng
There is a strong reggae/dub element to her music that also put me in mind of Finley Quaye’s classic 1997 album, Maverick a Strike. Ms Peng seems to be playing every summer festival going this year so catch her now in a nice small venue like Botanique before she’s selling out much bigger places.
Yukimi
Botanique (part of Nuits Botanique)
Yukimi Nagano is the singer in Swedish electro-dance outfit Little Dragon. She has been much in demand for collaborations with other artists including De La Soul and UK musician and producer SBTRKT. She sang Wildfire on his debut album and on Empire Ants from Gorillaz’s 2010 Plastic Beach album. She released her first solo album, For You, earlier this year after thirty years with Little Dragon.
Yukimi
She has always co-written the songs she has performed, so it’s not surprising that her solo album includes some great electro-pop tunes. It also includes guest appearances from artists such as UK soul-jazz singer Lianne La Havas who joins Yukimi on Stream of Consciousness and De La Soul returning a favour on Jaxon.
Martha Da’ro
Botanique (part of Nuits Botanique)
Martha is a one-woman cultural phenomenon. Originally from Liège with parents from Angola, she was cast as the female lead in the Belgian gangster film Black when studying in Brussels. Despite having no acting experience, she was nominated for an award for best actress. Since 2018, she has been performing music under the name Da’ro (her family name is Canga Antonio). Since then, she has transformed her look and developed a persona and musical style influenced by artists such as British dancer, singer and musician FKA Twigs.
Martha Da'ro
This year, she brought out her first full-length LP, Philophilia, a reflection on how we humans both need and fear love. She is a powerful live performer where she is accompanied by two musicians from Antwerp’s live drum and bass act, KRANKk: Thomas Geysen, a phenomenal drummer, and Aram Abgaryan, the band’s keyboardist and music director. As a sign of Martha’s rising fortunes, she recently supported Belgian act Oscar and the Wolf at his sold-out concerts at Sportspaleis where she played in front of nearly 20,000 people.
25 May
Julie Rains
Botanique (part of Nuits Botanique)
Julie Rains
Julie Rains is a Belgian singer, songwriter and instrumentalist. She came to the fore as half of the mega fun duo Juicy with Sasha Vovk who performed incredible covers of RnB and hiphop classics like Warren G’s Regulate. Rains’ solo music is darker and more experimental than the songs she made while part of Juicy, combining dense beats and electronic drums sounds with her impassioned vocals.
Stereolab
Botanique (part of Nuits Botanique)
Formed in London in 1990 by Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier, Stereolab are the cult indie band par excellence. Gane and Sadier brought together the motoric drumming of German krautrock groups like Neu! with classic 1960s French pop and Brazilian Tropicalia. Onto that musical canvas, Sadier sprayed political slogans from French student revolutionaries of 1968.
Stereolab
Their best track, French Disko, a surefire dancefloor filler in any student indie disco in the 90’s with its retro Farfisa organ stabs, contains the chorus La resistance!. In case this is starting to sound like your worst nightmare, they are a great live band and pack more melodic hooks into their sets than a Teenage Fanclub compilation album. Their show on the last night of Nuits Botanique promises to be barnstorming.
