Contemporary Music

The Festival rekindles some fond associations with this year’s rock and pop programme, not least in returning to the atmospheric Leith Theatre for a run of shows by acclaimed bands, songwriters and performers.

Jarvis Cocker returns to the festival following his Room 29 collaboration with Chilly Gonzales with a new group project, Jarv Is, promising “an experiment” and “a live experience with no barriers”.

The innately dramatic Anna Calvi also makes a return visit, one of a number of strong, idiosyncratic female artists featured in a programme which includes first time appearances from the consistently cool pop diva Neneh Cherry, compelling performance poet Kate Tempest, This is the Kit, fronted by folk rock singer/ songwriter Kate Stables, and New Jersey’s sublime Sharon Van Etten.

The much-loved Scots pop maestros Teenage Fanclub play their first Scottish show since the departure of founding bassist Gerry Love, while the atmospheric Danish electronica outfit Efterklang break a seven-year silence to return with a new live band. Meanwhile, there is no mistaking cult Kiwi artist Connan Mockasin whose weird, intoxicating, psychedelic pop reveries are not to be missed.

Elsewhere, the Festival also continues its patronage of esteemed folk and roots musicians, with a double bill featuring Malian duo Amadou & Mariam and gospel veterans the Blind Boys of Alabama, an appearance by Lebanese oud legend Marcel Khalife, accompanied by his son Rami, and a local/global celebration hosted by Edinburgh’s Shooglenifty and featuring their friends from Rajasthan and Galicia.