Next week in Munich – Moop Mama, Matthew E. White, Radical Face

He’s perhaps most famous for supplying the music to Nikon’s 2013 ad (Welcome Home), but Radical Face, aka Ben Cooper, is a tour de force on the music circuit. He also makes up one third of the excellent Electric President, along with Alex Kane and Nick Teeling. As Radical Face, Cooper has just released a new album – The Family Tree: The Branches. He’s playing Backstage on Monday, tickets cost 21.60 € in advance.

Matthew E. White’s debut album, Big Inner, released last year, was called “one of the greatest albums of modern Americana” by Uncut magazine. He’s playing the Kranhalle on Monday (tickets just 21 €), and this is the gig of the week for me.  The Guardian has named Big Inner as one of the albums of 2013, while stating his live set was one of the best new festival acts of the year. His music is just magical:

You can catch an excellent Danish singer-songwriter for free on Monday – at the Hard Rock Cafe. Ebsen Svane will be playing a set there from 8:30pm. Get there early to get a burger in before he starts.

Tuesday’s also packed with gigs, notably Sweden’s The Sounds, playing at Backstage Werk. They’ve been compared to Blondie, and if you give this music video a watch, you’ll see why. Expect catchy, energetic, new wave tunes. Tickets cost 20 € and support is well worth a watch – Viktor & The Blood will be taking to the stage (with Viktor Norén, Sugarplum Fairy’s singer and Samuel Giers, former drummer of Mando Diao).

The very talented British singer-songwriter Kieran Leonard was meant to be playing Strom on Tuesday, but the gig’s sadly had to be cancelled. He has a beautiful, silky voice and his poetic lyrics are to die for. He’s opened for so many big bands over the past few years (The Libertines, Billy Bragg, The Bluetones, Dirty Pretty Things), and it was nice to see he was headlining his own European tour – I do hope he rearranges the gigs and comes to Munich soon. His Warhol-esque video for Hipster, Jesus is also bloody brilliant.

Wednesday’s a little quieter, and I’m almost thankful. It seems that there’s so much on at the moment I don’t know where to start. California’s Deap Vally are playing the Atomic, and Bring Me The Horizon are in the Theaterfabrik, should either of those float your boat.

On Thursday, Philadelphia’s Dave Hause is performing at Strom – but if you don’t already have a ticket, it’s unfortunately too late – the gig is completely sold out. Sweden’s Miss Li is performing at the Atomic Cafe. Her music’s not really my sort of thing, but if you like it, tickets cost 22.70 € in advance. Nerd Nite‘s at the Volkstheater on Thursday, this time as part of the Zündfunk Netzkongress, which gets underway at midday at the Volkstheater on Thursday. The Zündfunk Netzkongress will discuss our digital world – with topics ranging from blogging, cyborgs, sex and technology, to football and the internet, the NSA and disturbing parts of the internet. Tickets cost just 15 € in advance.

If you’re celebrating Thanksgiving in Munich, you probably host at home – or visit American friends in the city. If you do fancy going out for dinner, there are a fair few places in the city offering Thanksgiving menus. At the very least, it’ll save on washing up. I’ll post a full list of places celebrating tomorrow.

On both Friday and Saturday, super fun Munich band Moop Mama are presenting their new single at the Freiheizhalle, with tickets costing 20 €.

Boston band Lake Street Dive have a whole lot of buzz surrounding them at the moment. Actor Kevin Bacon tweeted about them last autumn, giving the then small band a great deal of coverage, and they’re now on their first European tour. They’re playing Milla on Saturday, with tickets costing just 9 € in advance. Here they are performing their lovely rendition of The Jackson 5’s I Want You Back:

The very first Puls Festival‘s on at the BR Funkhaus (near Hackerbrücke) on Saturday, with a whole host of bands for you to enjoy, if you managed to get tickets in time. It’s completely sold out, so if you fancy heading there, I’d check out the Facebook page to see if anyone’s selling their tickets. The line-up’s varied, with American rapper and producer Le1f, Munich harpist MarieMarie, Brooklyn musician St. Lucia and English indietronica trio Is Tropical, to name a few.

And if you fancy going out to dance after all that, Detroit’s Ryan Elliott is at Kong with the Zenker Brothers until the early hours.

Also, I was at the Johnny Flynn gig last week, and caught experimental Cosmo Sheldrake performing as support (here’s a video of him at the Atomic). If you haven’t heard of him, you must check out his stuff. It’s lovely.