TECHNO

Bastardo Electrico
Cyprus Avenue, Cork 10pm €12/€10, The Pint, Dublin Sat 10pm €12/€10/€8
facebook.com/bastardoelectricorecordings

The Cork club that marked a dozen years on the go last month gets revved up for the new year with the Irish debut of Abstract Division. This collaboration between Dutch techno dons Dave Miller (Audiosculpture) and Dynamic Reflection label boss Paul Boex has already found much favour at events such as Awakenings, Sonar and Dimensions, as well as the main floor at Berghain and Trouw.

HOUSE

Jamie Trench
Twisted Pepper, Dublin 10.30pm €10/€8
facebook.com/jamie.trench1

The early weeks of any new year is when tipsters offer their thoughts on who to watch in the coming months and years. Jamie Trench is one of those names who has turned heads with the finely plotted detail of his releases for labels Tsuba, Kaluki, Music Is Love and his own Roots for Bloom. The Milton Keynes native comes to Dublin for a show with new guns Benefit. JC

WORDS/MUSIC

First Fortnight: Therapy Sessions
Workmans Club, Dublin, 8pm, €5
firstfortnight.ie

There will be music and poetry aplenty at this highlight of the mental health arts festival. Among those taking the mic and stage are The Lost Brothers, Lethal Dialect, Paddy Hanna and Bairbre Anne along with poets Andy Craven Griffiths, Sean Lyons and Alvy Carragher. And all for a fiver. Check out firstfortnight.ie for more events.

Pick of the Week  

Many is the backroom that The Ticket has found itself in over the years, though rarely in the company of musicians as fine as those that will be in the National Concert Hall on Wednesday, for the Burren Backroom Series concert.

The series takes its name from the Burren pub in Boston, which lays a claim to be the best place to play in the US, at least according to Sharon Shannon. Local station WGBH has recorded and broadcast a series from there in recent years, and

Tommy and Louise McCarthy from the venue will be joined here on home soil by Dervish, Sharon Shannon, Lúnasa, Andy Irvine, Seán Keane, Seamus Begley, Dermot Byrne and more. The event will launch a Burren series CD, and raise funds for the Walk In My Shoes mental health campaign.

This week is also the final days of the First Fortnight festival, which raises awareness of mental health through the arts. Tonight there is a Therapy Session in the Workmans Club. My Name Is Saoirse is running at Smock Alley Theatre. And Saturday night sees a cracking line-up in the Button Factory featuring We Cut Corners, Booka Brass Band, I Have A Tribe State Lights and Le Galaxie DJs.