Hozier performs on the second day of the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California on April 11, 2015. (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)

Indio, United States. Hozier is a songwriter of melancholy and intimacy but the rising star embraced louder and even frivolous fun as he enjoyed a rapturous welcome at the Coachella festival.

The Irish singer-guitarist was one of the most keenly awaited performers on the second day of the influential music festival in the California desert, whose headliner Saturday was the retro-infused garage rocker Jack White.

Hozier released “Take Me to Church,” recorded in his parents’ attic, less than two years ago and the song — a metaphorical indictment of religious intolerance — quickly became a viral hit online.

For his Coachella debut, he sported a California chic look of sunglasses and free-flowing hair and invited Este Haim, of the Los Angeles-based pop outfit of three Haim sisters, to the stage.

Showing an unmistakable connection with Hozier, a beaming Haim danced and helped sing a cover of The Time’s 1984 hit “Jungle Love” whose funky refrain — “Owee/Owee/Oh” — is a far cry from Hozier’s usual austerity.

But, performing to thousands amassed under the setting sun, Hozier was well beyond his days as a solitary songwriter. His back-up band featuring a cello offered a larger, more theatrical presence to his intimate songs such as “Someone New” and “From Eden.”

By the time he closed with “Take Me To Church,” the crowd turned into a sea of smartphones taping his every note — a world away from his days recording in his parents’ attic.

Father John Misty 

On the surface, Father John Misty on the surface shares similarities with Hozier — singer-songwriters who prize intimacy, hold strong views on religion and sport tidy facial hair.

But while Hozier left to a sea of cameras, Misty entered on a stage that resembled a Las Vegas-style lounge with smoke, neon lights — and a heart-shaped sign that said, “No Photography.”

Father John Misty performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, April 11, 2015. (Reuters Photo/Lucy Nicholson)

While his no-photo orders were immediately defied, Misty has voiced misgivings about how to perform live from his new album, “I Love You, Honeybear,” a work of poignant personal vignettes, largely about his marriage.

His solution was to perform in an intensely confessional style, often clutching the microphone, but also to cast his show as ironic.

Misty —a former member of folk rockers Fleet Foxes and harder-edged Saxon Shore — questioned the crowd for staying to hear him sing “When You’re Smiling and Astride Me,” in which he relates a dream about kissing his brother.

Misty also described as a “sarcastic ballad” his “Bored in the USA,” a song of social commentary whose tone is less the earnestness of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” and more a meh.

”They gave me a useless education and a subprime loan on a craftsman home,” Misty sings.

”Keep my prescriptions filled / And now I can’t get off / But I can kind of deal, oh, with being bored in the USA.”

Misty’s show came to an eerie climax as he asked for a volunteer from the crowd, saying with no elaboration that he wanted to “make a very weird dream come true.”

The volunteer — a visibly anxious woman named Amy — came on stage to sit in a thatch chair festooned by balloons.

Misty knelt and sang Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” — with the lines “If you want another kind of love / I’ll wear a mask for you” — as a semi-nude woman whose head was covered by an extraterrestrial-like headpiece serenaded Amy on key-tar.

”I’m sorry about the nightmares you’re going to have tonight,” Misty said.

FKA Twigs performs on the second day of the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California, on April 11, 2015. (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)

FKA twigs

Other key performers Saturday included chillwave star Toro y Moi, veteran Scottish storytellers Belle and Sebastian and indie rockers Alt-J, who produced a giant light show.

One eagerly anticipated act was FKA twigs, the trip-hop artist whose career has taken off in her native Britain since the release of her debut album “LP1” last year.

For her Coachella set, FKA twigs recreated her airy vocals but emphasized her longstanding vocation as a dancer, striking graceful body poses as she sported a white-and-golden gown and short top.

The packed audience included “Twilight” actor Robert Pattinson, reported by tabloids to be engaged to FKA twigs, as well as his friend, pop superstar Katy Perry.

Even without the celebrity connection, the performance marked a massive rise for FKA twigs who last year played at a Coachella side party.

”I tried to come here and they said I wasn’t allowed in,” she said.

Agence France-Presse

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Azealia Banks performs on the first day of the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California on April 10, 2015. (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)

Indio,  United States. Azealia Banks, the hip-hop singer who rarely shies from controversy, kept to the music and won a triumphant reception with a genre-crossing set at the Coachella festival.

The 23-year-old New Yorker emerged as a crowd favorite on the first day of the influential music festival in the California desert, where prominent performers Friday included sexagenarian hard rockers AC/DC and the sleek post-punk band Interpol.

Banks has been persistently in the news after spearheading charges that Australian rapper Iggy Azalea was exploiting African American culture and, more recently, telling Playboy magazine that she hates “fat white Americans.”

But at Coachella, Banks steered clear of provocation and showed why she is one of the most dynamic, versatile and challenging artists to emerge recently on the pop radar.

Banks seamlessly switched from rapping to singing to, on the enraged breakup song “Yung Rapunxel,” shouting into a megaphone.

She built energy on stage with her duo of synchronized hip-hop dancers, backed up both by the house influence of Montreal-based DJ Cosmo and rock guitar riffs from her band.

In perhaps a veiled reference to her Playboy comments on Middle America, Banks’ only statement of sorts at Coachella was to fly a digitized US flag on the screen behind her.

Yet Banks’ lyricism consistently shows an intensity that, much like her off-stage persona, she feels no need to self-censor.

She closed her performance to a burgeoning crowd with a riveting “212,” her sexually and racially charged song in which Banks snatches a woman from a man whose sexuality she proceeds to mock.

Action Bronson

While Banks tried to steer clear of trouble at Coachella, another rising hip-hop artist from New York — Action Bronson — seemed to court it, if playfully.

Bronson, a former chef who frequently references his own obesity, thrust himself into the crowd and raced back and forth in the pit as if on a mission to make his presence felt physically.

”Every time I do something athletic, I want a round of applause,” the red-bearded, tattooed rapper said.

Action Bronson performs on the first day of the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California, April 10, 2015. (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)

Bronson, who recently released his third album which is his first on a major label, enjoyed a giant turnout despite being placed at an early 2:30 pm slot, with numerous fans saying he was their main draw to Coachella.

He eagerly signed a fan’s sports banner from Albania, the rapper’s ancestral country. Not wanting anyone to feel left out, he promptly did the same for another fan who brought a flag from Colombia.

Bronson’s rap style owes a debt to the Wu-Tang Clan — whose members Raekwon and Ghostface Killah performed separately Friday at Coachella. But his performance also had traces of the in-your-face attitude of the early Beastie Boys as Bronson took the stage to hardcore rock and, summing up his motto, invited the crowd to a collective raising of middle fingers.

Bronson has little pretension in his subject matter, often rapping about food. His new album, “Mr. Wonderful,” features Bronson and Chance the Rapper taking to task jealous women on “Baby Blue.”

Yet Bronson’s revving up of the crowd came to anti-climax as several cap-wearing fans grabbed him over the barricade with a forcefulness he clearly disliked. Bronson — who had just sung the verse, “Ride the Harley into the sunset” — left without saying goodbye.

Alabama Shakes  

Alabama Shakes is driven by the sheer force of frontwoman Brittany Howard who possesses a steely yet raspy voice that brings to mind the power of male blues singers yet with a greater range.

With Howard also an impressive rock guitarist, Alabama Shakes defies easy musical characterization as the band glides between the blues, garage rock and gentler Americana, and was backed up at Coachella by Gospel-influenced singers.

The mix of genres made it somewhat less disconcerting to see the modest Howard and her band from the small town of Athens, Alabama, performing before a fashionable and often scantily clothed California crowd as the setting sun glistened on the surrounding desert and palm trees.

Alabama Shakes performs on the first day of the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California on April 10, 2015. (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)

With Alabama Shakes releasing a highly anticipated second album later this month, they commanded a strong following at Coachella despite the misfortune of performing at the same time as two crowd-pullers — Interpol and Swedish pop singer Lykke Li.

Interpol, whose album “El Pintor” last year marked a return to the energetic but gloomy rock that made them a key force in the New York scene of the early 2000s, performed with a new light show whose urban landscapes and black and white portraits reinforced the music’s mood.

AC/DC    

Other highlights on Coachella’s first day included DJ Snake, the French producer known for his work with Lady Gaga, whose dance set coupled with a swirling light show turned out a dangerously overflowing crowd.

AC/DC, who will start a global tour next month in the Netherlands, turned the volume noticeably loud as they performed classics including “Back in Black,” “Hell’s Bells” and “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

Brian Johnson, left, and Angus Young of the Australian band AC/DC play at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California April 10, 2015. (Reuters Photo/Lucy Nicholson)

AC/DC, who released an album in November, are playing without original rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young, who is suffering dementia, and drummer Phil Rudd who is accused in New Zealand of making death threats.

But lead guitarist Angus Young, Malcolm’s brother, still came out in his trademark schoolboy outfit — this time red — at age 60.

”I hope you guys like rock ‘n’ roll, because that’s all we do,” singer Brian Johnson said.

Agence France-Presse

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French singer Soko attends the Chanel fashion show during the Paris Fashion Week, March 5, 2013. (EPA Photo/Etienne Laurent(

New York. Soko wakes up every couple of hours each night. Recently it’s because she has friends staying over, and she’s a self-conscious sleeper. But for much longer Soko has been consumed by dark, vivid visions.

The French musician and actress explains that the songs on her new album “My Dreams Dictate My Reality” — an emotionally searing work full of intense personal pain but with flashes of exuberance — became almost a compulsion to write.

”Whatever is clouding my mind, pretty much if I don’t write a song about it, it will continue completely haunting me until I write it out,” she told AFP.

”I was having super crazy dreams, and feeling not really suited for the real world,” she said. “The whole album was about me trying to feel better and not be as depressed.”

Raised in Bordeaux, the moment that has defined much of Soko’s life came at age five when she watched her father suddenly die of an aneurysm. She developed a precocious sensitivity, becoming vegan and taking to the arts, as well as suffering social anxieties.

The childhood trauma lies at the heart of one of the most powerful tracks on the new album, “Ocean of Tears,” in which she sings: “Every day I wake up from a crazy dream / Where I’m looking for my daddy, and I know he’s here / And I don’t want to wake; I can control my dreams / I feel safer this way, ‘cause I can disappear.”

The bleak introspection is consistent with her 2012 album, “I Thought I Was an Alien.” But while the debut work had a low-fi feel, her second full-length album is marked by a heavier edge, with touches of post-punk icon Siouxsie Sioux in her voice and a forceful guitar that at times evokes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

”My Dreams Dictate My Reality,” which comes out Monday in continental Europe and a day later in the United States and Britain, was produced by Ross Robinson, who has worked with metal bands such as Korn and later with The Cure, whose bass-heavy noir is the most obvious influence on Soko.

Unease at home

While pursuing music, Soko has also had a successful career in French cinema. She has performed in movies including “Augustine” and “In the Beginning,” for which she was nominated for a Cesar Award.

Soko last year saw her music go viral online with “First Kiss,” a short film for fashion brand Wren that featured Soko and others awkwardly kissing strangers. The video, which has generated nearly 100 million views on YouTube, was set to Soko’s song “We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow.”

Soko also was widely heard, but not seen, as the voice of the sex surrogate in “Her,” the dark Hollywood film on virtual reality romance.

Soko has kept up an active French cinema career — she said, without detail, that she is working on four separate films — but her music is entirely in English and she has been based primarily in Los Angeles for seven years after stints in New York and London.

Soko says that she feels comfortable in the English-speaking world — and sometimes uneasy in France. She voiced dismay at recent criticism she noticed on social media for her lack of poise during a French radio interview, during which she said she was “completely paralyzed” by fright.

”I get such, like, mostly good and positive reactions in the US — and people are really kind. I find people in France being a lot more harsh and judgmental. They love hating everything,” she said.

‘A Will to Get Better’ 

Soko closes her album with the quiet, intimate “Keaton’s Song,” in which she sings, “You wonder why I hate myself / I’m trying to kill the worst of me / To be the best of you.”

The song is an unambiguous reference to the British singer and poet Keaton Henson who had written a song for Soko, “10 am, Gare du Nord,” in which he pleads not to be hurt.

Soko, without divulging anything more private, said that “Keaton’s Song” offered her take on relationships in an increasingly fast-paced world.

”Before, love was such a sacred thing and people would just stick together because they said so. But now there are so many distractions and people just go through so many lovers and never get settled and never get satisfied,” she said.

Despite the darkness, Soko opened the album with the song, “I Come in Peace,” a message that was not my accident.

”It’s like a will to want to get better,” she said. “I really wanted to put it out there.”

Agence France-Presse

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