Project Arts Centre, Dublin Wed Feb 13-Sat Feb 16 12points.ie01-8819613
It might sound a little tongue- in-cheek (say it in French and you’ll get the joke), but peripatetic New Music festival 12 Points has fast become one of the highlights of the Euro musical calendar, winning awards for adventurous programming and bringing a new generation of creative European musicians to a wider audience. And it all started in Dublin.
The festival alternates annually between Dublin and another European city. Last year it took Porto’s ultra-hip Casa da Musica by storm, and next year the whole show travels north to Umeå in Sweden. However, in the year of Ireland’s European presidency, it seems appropriate that 12 Points is coming home to Temple Bar’s Project Arts Centre for four nights of no-holds-barred, caution-to-the-wind music making.
New music often struggles to escape from a ghetto of its own devising, so a festival such as 12 Points, where the programme is expertly curated (by Improvised Music Company artistic director and Lyric FM presenter Gerry Godley) and the acts are chosen as representative of what’s hot in European jazz, is an excellent opportunity to become instantly hip.
This year’s offering includes mutant post-rock noise from Strasbourg’s Ozma (Wed), eclectic electric grooves from Dubliners OKO (right Thurs), deeply skewed disco from Vienna’s koenigleopold (left, Fri) and No Wave punk from Amsterdam trio Cactus Truck (Sat).
Still, with a festival like 12 Points, you don’t really worry too much about who’s on the bill. Just show up with an open mind. That’s the point.
