One of the city's great hidden treasures, the Brussels music scene hosts some of the biggest and best up-and-coming artists and bands in the international, European and Belgian scene.
Every month, Europe's capital has no shortage of thrilling concerts – and picking out the best gigs can be tough. This is why we have put together a monthly guide to discover the best live acts in the city, perfect for new and old Brussels folk alike.
Carefully selected by music journalist Simon Taylor, here are The Brussels Times' choices for the concerts that you should not miss this November.
Best gigs this month
2 November
Kelela
La Madeleine
Kelela Mizanekristos is a US singer-songwriter and musician who makes a glitchy R&B that mixes in elements of dark electronica and, on her latest album “New Avatar”, guitar sounds from shoegaze and grunge. You might think that sounds like a mess, but it doesn't. Check out the first release from the album, “idea 1” which was written and produced with UK alt-pop and neo-garage/drum-and-bass queen Pink Pantheress. The track is a sublime piece of R&B infused pop.
Kelela, who is half Ethiopian, has been releasing great music since her “Cut 4 Me” mixtape in 2013, followed by a single “OICU” in 2014 and her first solo album, “Take Me Apart” in 2015. The latter established her reputation and she followed up with the classic “Raven” in 2023. Along with the classic title track, check out “Happy Ending”.
Credit: La Madeleine/Kelela
She started out singing jazz standards before developing her distinctive alt R&B sound. Last year, she revisited her origins by recording and releasing “In the Blue Light”, a live album of tracks backed by mainly acoustic instruments at New York’s legendary Blue Note jazz-music club. The album includes a stripped-down version of “Raven” as well as a stunning cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Furry Sings the Blues” from the Canadian’s singer’s seminal “Hejira” album.
As Omar said in “The Wire”: “If you’re going to come at the king, you’d better not miss.” Kelela doesn’t miss.
Grouper
Bozar
Grouper is the stage name of US musician and singer Liz Harris. Her music is eclectic, ranging from the delicate guitar and breathy vocals of tracks such as “Pale Interior” from her 2021 album “Shade” to the psychedelic folk of her 2008 album “Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill”.
Liz Harris. Credit: Grouper/Bozar
When she cranks up the reverb on her vocals as she does on “Heavy Weather” from that record, her music can sound like dream pop gods The Cocteau Twins while “Poison Tree” sounds like Kristin Hersh and Throwing Muses. If that wasn’t enough diversity, she has also guested on tracks of other artists including Californian art-rockers Xiu Xiu (in 2006) and UK industrial hip hop musician The Bug (in 2014).
12 November
Ambrose Akinmusire
Flagey
Akinmusire is, for my money, one of the best and most exciting trumpet players on the current scene. As a sign of recognition of what jazz fans call "chops," or his technical ability, he was recently invited to play at the Royal Albert Hall in London in a tribute to the legendary Miles Davis to mark the 100th anniversary of the trumpeter’s birth.
A native of Oakland, California, Akimusire was discovered by saxophonist Steve Coleman when he visited Berkeley High School to play with their jazz ensemble. Coleman invited the young trumpeter to join his band, Five Elements, on tour. Akimusire’s playing ranges from supreme mastery of his instrument needed to play jazz to a fearless desire to experiment and push the instrument’s boundaries.
Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet live at Brussels Jazz Festival - Flagey, 16 January 2019. Credit: Flickr
With his compositions, particularly on his solo albums such as “Origami Harvest” from 2018, he incorporates hip hop (something he has in common with Steve Coleman) with an appearance by San Franscisco rapper, Kool A.D. from rap group Das Racist. Akimusire’s last album as leader was 2025’s “Honey from a Winter Stone”.
For the Flagey show, the trumpeter will be accompanied by pianist Sam Harris (a regular sideman). The presence in the group of guitarist Charles Altura makes me hope that the trumpeter will play some tracks from the recent stunning album he made with US guitarist Mary Halvorson, “Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings." Fingers crossed.
November 16
Horse Lords
Ancienne Belgique
I was listening to the latest album from this Baltimore, Maryland-based quartet in the car when my partner asked what sort of music was playing, commenting: “It’s not unpleasant." I found answering the question quite a challenge, but here goes: the group plays music that combines the minimalist approach of composer Steve Reich (repeated rhythmic and melodic patterns with small changes) with the motorik (mechanical and precise while yet strangely funky) of German bands such as Can and Neu!
Horse Lords.
Maybe it helps to mention other bands making similar music such as Chicago post-rock titans Tortoise (who played at Flagey in January) and Los Angeleños SML (who are playing Flagey a day later). Anyway, their music is played with a sense of enjoyment and playfulness that I expect will come across strongly live.
17 November
Au Pairs
Ancienne Belgique
The Au Pairs started out in Birmingham in 1978. I was 13 that year but I remember posters for the band’s gigs in Moseley, most of which were at the legendary Fighting Cox pub where the decidedly “alternative” audience were as unlikely to watch birds ripping each other to death for money as the band was to fill the National Exhibition Centre (Birmingham’s biggest venue at the time).
I mention that I saw the posters because, to my great shame, I never saw what was without a doubt one of the best bands to come out of the UK’s second city (yes Manchester, you read that correctly). The competition hasn’t been great, to be honest (to be best band, I mean). Duran Duran, UB40, ELO, The Beat. The Au Pairs were Birmingham’s answer to Leeds’ Gang of Four, another post-punk band that took scratchy funk guitar parts and rock-solid bass and drums as the backdrop for intense, angry observations and condemnations of British society’s ills at the tail end of the 1970s and into the early ‘80s under Thatcher’s first term as Prime Minister.
Credit: AB
Lesley Woods, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, barked out the words to their feminist anthem (and post-punk classic) “It’s Obvious”: “You’re equal/But different”. The band split up in 1983. In 2025, Woods decided to reform the group to play live. But she did so without even talking to, let alone getting agreement from, the three other original members of the band. Since then, Woods and her former band mates have been engaged in a bitter war of words. What seems to be clear is that Woods is making money from the band’s catalogue.
For a band who espoused collectivist values in the later ‘70s and early ‘80s, the fact that they have ended up in all-too-typical dispute over who wrote and owns the songs is either depressing or exquisitely ironic, depending on your view of the values of that generation of post-punk bands. Anyway, I’m sure they will be great live. The current line-up includes Estella Adeyeri from Brixton band Big Joanie on bass.
23 November
Muna
La Madeleine
Muna are a three-piece woman group from LA and I’m going to get straight to the point: they are pure, unadulterated fun! Now, as a cis male, I recognise (with a certain wistfulness) that I am not their target audience but I want in! I read an interview with lead singer Katie Gavin in which she said that the band’s aim was to express the joy of being lesbian. They certainly achieve their goal.
Muna. Credit: La Madeleine
“Silk Chiffon”, their most successful single, is a celebration of teenage infatuation and the feel of a lover’s skin (the silk chiffon of the title). It contains references to wearing cherry lipstick, a miniskirt and roller skates and has a punch-the-air chorus that is expertly set up by a one-beat pause before the band delivers the two-word refrain.
And if I haven’t yet convinced you, you need to know that the band signed to Phoebe Bridger’s “Saddest Factory” label. Bridgers sings on “Silk Chiffon” and appears in the song’s video which seems to be inspired by films of John Waters and the video for Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”. I suspect I will be screaming out the lyrics to “Silk Chiffon” at La Madeleine on the 25th. But fear not for my dignity. I am sure that I will not be the only one.
25 November
José González
Ancienne Belgique
Despite his name, González is actually from Sweden. His parents fled their native Argentina in the 1970s after the military coup there. The singer-songwriter has been making exquisite folk-pop since for over two decades, starting with his first solo album, “Veneer”, in 2003. The album showcased his unerring ability to take a song, remake it with his own gentle vocals and delicate finger-picked nylon-stringed guitar and make it forever his own.
Credit: AB
On “Veneer”, the track was “Heartbeats” by fellow Swedes, The Knife. The original is a piece of weirdo synth pop. González pulled off a similar feat with his cover of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”. At the Ancienne Belgique show, the Swedish singer-songwriter will no doubt be playing songs from “Against the Dying of the Light” album, which came out earlier this year.
