Mastodon

Mastodon are heavy metal’s gateway drug: you try it, and before long you’re cutting the sleeves off a denim jacket and tucking your hair behind your ears. Yes, the Atlanta band have heavy riffs, big solos and double-tracked guitars, but they also know when to tone it down. Never mind the big dragon on the cover of their new one, Once More ’Round The Sun, they don’t solely explore a sword and sorcery world, but also get into some meditative Radiohead-style guitar playing. This is a group with tattooed heads playing heavy rock in a place where much beer has been consumed, but there’s still plenty to investigate.

JR

These days, Lily Allen is as much critic as pop star: her Sheezus album has so many reference points (Lorde, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Kurt Cobain all appear in the first 10 minutes), it’s as though it’s both cultural review and musical statement. There was a time when Allen seemed hipper than that, but having lived her life in the public eye for so long, it’s not surprising she’s been drawn to the celebrity recipe of self-reference and kneejerk defensiveness. While that makes her records a bit less interesting than they once were, live she has incorporated it all seamlessly into her act. At the Glastonbury festival this year, she brought her usual blend of impish irreverence and old-time stagecraft, while one imagines that this comprehensive tour should reconnect her with her real fans.

JR

Other artists make albums, Sharon Van Etten releases broken hearts. Unafraid of airing her rawest feelings, the singer’s work draws heavily on her personal life, most of her records being written in the aftermath of romantic disappointment. Not that she’s some kind of weepy sadsack; Van Etten goes after the blood and guts of a song, her voice capable of great power as well as aching vulnerability. Misery loves company, and so far Van Etten has found staunch collaborators from all sections of the secondhand bookstore of US indie rock: the National on 2012’s Tramp, and now the War On Drugs and Okkervil River alumni on new one Are We There. Ultimately, though, it’s about succeeding on her own terms: this latest work has brought Van Etten her biggest success yet.

JR

The 20-or-so-strong Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra isn’t about difficult free jazz. Formed in 2002, they have been staging this wide-ranging festival for seven years, bringing together some of the best (but not always the best known) experimenting and improvising musicians around. This year’s lineup holds promise, with a performance by political vocal improviser and performer Maggie Nicols; a new piece by conductor Ilan Volkov with Tel Aviv-born pianist and vocalist Maya Dunietz (and check out her Nina Simone performance piece on YouTube); while John Butcher pairs his feathery sax with percussion by Tom Waits and John Zorn collaborator Gino Robair.

CCA , Thu to 29 Nov

JA

The Blue Note record label, host to stars from Miles Davis to Sonny Rollins and one of the most influential and stylish enterprises in the history of jazz, has been celebrating its 75th anniversary all year. This high-profile gig on the final weekend of the London jazz festival pays tribute to a unique story. Two of the label’s most creative keyboardists, the visionary and virtuosic Jason Moran and popular jazz/hip-hop crossover artist Robert Glasper, play the first half as a freewheeling, improvising duet, shuffling and splicing everything from traditional boogie-woogie to free-improv and funk. The second set assembles a superband of rising Blue Note stars, including Glasper, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, guitarist Lionel Loueke and bassist Derrick Hodge, fusing visions of how 21st-century jazz might sound with a collective sense of the music’s past.

Royal Festival Hall , SE1, Sat

JF

James Dillon’s connection with the Huddersfield contemporary music festival goes back 35 years: he won the festival’s first composition prize in 1978; and he was one of the first composers it commissioned a few years later. Since then, many of Dillon’s works have received their premieres at the festival, and it has acted as an increasingly important British showcase for his music since he went to live and teach in the US seven years ago. At Huddersfield this year, though, the feisty, Scottish-born composer takes centre stage as composer in residence. Concerts include the world premiere of his Stabat Mater Dolorosa, commissioned by the festival and BBC Radio 3, and performed by the BBC Singers and the London Sinfonietta (St Paul’s Hall, Sun), as well as the premiere of his Physis I & II from the BBC Scottish Symphony (Town Hall, 29 Nov).

Various venues , to 30 Nov

AC