Animal Collective, On tour
An Animal Collective show takes inspiration from 90s raves, 70s soundsystems and 60s psych-rock shows in equal measure. All of their gigs walk a perilous line between sonic revelation and an unspooling mess. Now, three years after the breakthrough success of their Merriweather Post Pavilion album, the band are a far tighter proposition, with individual songs now emerging pristine from the confusion of what is a generally demented audio-visual experience. New album Centipede Hz is musically even busier than usual, but the band are piloted expertly down its many twists and turns by the customary clarity of Noah Lennox's (aka Panda Bear) vocals, and their own interior logic.
Roundhouse, NW1, Sun; Vicar Street, Dublin, Tue; O2 ABC, Glasgow, Wed; The Warehouse Project, Manchester, Thu]
John Robison
Mark Kozelek, On tour
On his new album, Mark Kozelek wryly summarises his job description: "A travelling singer who plays good guitar," he sings. "At outdoor festivals, theatres and bars." That is exactly what he's been doing for 20 years, first with his band Red House Painters and latterly with Sun Kil Moon. Both have been vehicles for poignant love songs, and references to San Francisco, boxing and cats. Along the road, Kozelek has gathered a wealth of what you might call "private material", and it's these sexual encounters, anecdotes and complaints about Europe, that form the substance of current album Among The Leaves. Ironically, for an album in large part about the rock business, it's enormously accessible, thoroughly amusing and well worth seeing live.
Button Factory, Dublin, Wed; Union Chapel, N1, Fri
JR
Holograms, On tour
A bit like Iceage, Holograms sound like a British post-punk band from 1978 but are really teenagers from Scandinavia. Much like their Danish neighbours, the Swedes specialise in a clanging guitar thrash, and have songs that sound like something you might shout at a football match – but they seem far less likely than that band to be responsible for a crime scene littered with macabre runic daubing. Theirs is an enjoyable noise: the band's debut on Captured Tracks is a pleasing addition to the label's customary menu of polite indie-rock, while their use of primitive synthesisers occasionally brings some surprisingly welcome melody to proceedings.
The Green Door Store, Brighton, Wed; Louisiana, Bristol, Thu; Hare And Hounds, Birmingham, Fri
JR
Robert Glasper Experiment, London
If the 2012 London Jazz Festival – featuring 250-odd gigs across the capital from 9-18 Nov – wanted to remind the world that jazz is a vibrantly contemporary and constantly evolving genre, it could hardly have done better than book American pianist, Mos Def collaborator and prodigious jazz improviser Robert Glasper for one of its curtain-raising shows. In a few startling years, Glasper and a succession of gifted sidemen have given a credibility to the sometimes treacherous world of pop/jazz fusion that has both enthused the cognoscenti, and attracted younger audiences to jazz. The cast of Glasper's recent Black Radio album included the aforementioned Mr Def, Erykah Badu and Lalah Hathaway and, although those stars won't be present, underground rap star MF Doom will be joining Glasper's band in what's likely to be another of the pianist's game-changing partnerships.
Royal Festival Hall, SE1, Fri
John Fordham
Marilyn Crispell/Eddie Prevost/Harrison Smith, On tour
Baltimore-raised Marilyn Crispell, a baroque/classical piano student who jumped ship after hearing John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, went on to become an intelligent and resourceful keyboard partner for the avant-garde radical Anthony Braxton. Subsequently, Crispell has often sounded more reflective, but recent work with former Braxton drummer Gerry Hemingway confirms that the harmonically-advanced Crispell is still up for high-energy improvising – and her partnership on these gigs with UK improv percussionist Eddie Prevost and Coltranesque saxophonist Harrison Smith is likely to trigger comparable reactions.
Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham, Tue; Cafe Oto, E8, Wed
JF
The Pilgrim's Progress, London
60 years ago a fully-staged production of the work that defines Vaughan Williams was first seen in London. Covent Garden hosted the premiere of The Pilgrim's Progress in 1951, but abandoned its staging a year later, and performances have been few and far between since. Now the English National Opera has ended the neglect with a new version, which will be directed by Yoshi Oïda and conducted by Martyn Brabbins. Vaughan Williams extracted his own libretto from John Bunyan's epic allegory and described the result as a "morality" rather than an opera. But he'd worried away at the work for more than 40 years before it finally reached the stage, and almost all his development as a composer is reflected somewhere in the score. Anyone with the slightest interest in 20th-century English music should seize this opportunity to see one of its real landmark works.
London Coliseum, WC2, Mon to 28 Nov
Andrew Clements
