Top 10 music festivals for winter breaks

Trans Musicales, Rennes, France

Brittany, land of terrifying coastlines, proto-brutalist second world war defensive bunkers and an impenetrable regional dialect. During Transmusicales you can expect to be bussed past a rusting Sud Aviation Caravelle plane parked at the end of Rennes airport’s runway and left at a warehouse full of cider-swigging, chain-smoking locals losing their minds to, among others, local indie heroes Gandi Lake from up the road in Caen. And A-WA, an intriguing tropical trio of femmes fatales who sing rousing protest folk in Yemeni to a backing track of bass ‘n’ bongos.
• 3-7 December, three-day ticket £54, weekend ticket £40, day tickets from £13.50, lestrans.com

Rise, Les Deux Alpes, France

Ibiza Rocks has hitched a ride for this snow and dance music festival in Les Deux Alpes, whose premise is to challenge the idea that Alpine après-ski has to involve terrible karaoke and bad British theme pubs. Instead, alongside Ibiza Rocks hot-tub parties, Rise offers proto-house from Toyboy & Robin, garage and drum’n’bass from Brianna Price – aka Vancouver production princess B.Traits and even a live performance from Clean Bandit. Naturally, the nocturnal shindigs can be fuelled by Pernod and absinthe, and may ruin each of your following mornings on the piste.
• 13-20 December, ticket packages start from £299 (including festival pass, six nights self-catering accommodation and lift pass), risefestival.co.uk

Sydney festival, Australia

The musical highlight of January’ss Sydney festival was Cat Power; her voice even more brittle than usual, wowing a circus tent full of just a few dozen lucky fans in the middle of Hyde Park. The highlight of the upcoming lineup will probably be Atomic Bomb! Band: Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, The Rapture’s Luke Jenner, Pat Mahoney from LCD Soundsystem, Money Mark, and many of their mates, bashing out the synth songs of Nigerian funk star William Onyeabor. Or perhaps it will be Tex Perkins playing Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison inside Parramatta Gaol – one of the places where transported convicts were incarcerated.
• 8-26 January 2015, individually ticketed events, multi-tickets discounts available, Tex Perkins tickets from £26, Atomic Bomb! Band £43, sydneyfestival.org.au

Eurosonic Noordeslag, Groningen, the Netherlands

Imagine the dreaming spires, brooding canals, intriguing galleries, and hair-raising nightlife of Amsterdam – but without any of the stag parties. Groningen is one of Holland’s hidden treasures, tucked up in the north of the flatlands. It’s a university town with the sensibility of Cambridge, yet once a year it comes alive with music during Eurosonic Noordeslag. If you want to know who’ll be playing in the new band tent at Glastonbury, you can always find out here. Perhaps it’ll be Latvian indie boys Carnival Youth, or Spain’s all-girl surf-garage group Deers?
• 14-17 January 2015, tickets currently not on sale, check eurosonic-noorderslag.nl for details

Mona Foma, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Mona – the Museum of Old and New Art – is one of the world’s weirdest art galleries. Opened by gambling millionaire David Walsh, its collection is as eccentric as they come and it loses “millions of dollars per year” according to Walsh. It’s also put Hobart on the cultural map, as has Foma (the Festival of music and art), this offshoot festival at the site. Attend in 2015 and your ears can hammered by anvil-heavy avant-metallers Swans, and then be caressed by Amanda Palmer backed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, or Swedish singer Anna Von Hausswolff.
• 15-18 January 2015, festival pass £77, mofo.net.au

St Jerome’s Laneway, various locations in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore

St Jerome’s Laneway is the inadvertent answer to the question, what would it be like to live inside a fashion blog? Named for the snickets of downtown Melbourne where it began, this travelling fair – filled with slightly supercilious music fans wearing denim of some variety – stops off in Singapore and New Zealand before skipping across Australia; showcasing the kind of artists who debut their videos on Noisey. People such as Banks, with her creamy soul, Future Islands, with their silly dancing, and St Vincent, with her astonishing bird’s-nest haircut.
• Singapore (24 January 2015), Auckland (26 January), Brisbane (31 January), Sydney (1 February), Adelaide (6 February), Melbourne (7 February), Fremantle (8 February), ticket prices vary, check lanewayfestival.com for more information

Where’s The Music, Norrköping, Sweden

The sleepy east Swedish city of Norrköping, not far from Stockholm, has decided it wants to get itself on the international rock’n’roll map, and to that end has launched its own festival of new Scandinavian music – the first one kicks off in February. On the menu of this sonic smorgasbord will be Swedish singer Jennie Abrahamson, Gothenburg garage troupe Spiders, and Kitok, who has been known to rap about his Sami heritage.
• 12-14 February 2015, one-day pass £25, festival pass £59, wheresthemusic.se

Tallinn Music Week, Estonia

Tallinn is known for its art-nouveau architecture, free public transport – and its ability to attract stag and hen parties. It’s also becoming increasingly relevant for the music it serves up, especially at this developing annual event. Tallinn Music Week is always opened by Estonia’s rock-digging president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who has been known to quote PJ Harvey and Jello Biafra in his annual festival speech. The bands are hardly big name acts, but if you’re in the mood to discover some new Baltic beats, this is the place to do it.
• 25-28 March 2015, tickets currently not on sale, check tmw.ee for more information

Wonderfruit, Chonburi, Thailand

It sounds like the name of an indie band from baggy-era Manchester but Wonderfruit is actually a recent Thai entry on the music festival scene. And the weather in Chonburi in December should be a cut above that in Chorlton. Festival favourites Hercules and Love Affair will be bringing some disco to the party, while The Gaslamp Killer will be slicking back their rock’n’roll hair for the occasion. There’s also an interesting art and architecture tent, featuring the likes of Bangkok’s self-styled “politically incorrect architect” Duangrit Bunnag.
• 19-21 December 2014, early bird tickets from £99.50, wonderfruitfestival.com

By:Larm, Oslo, Norway

By:Larm, which combines a music festival and a conference, is a celebration, primarily, of Nordic musical talent. Last year’s event involved 120 acts playing across 12 venues in what may be an expensive city … but also a fascinating one. This year the highlights are set to include Finland’s Long-Sam and Denmark’s Communions. The gigs take place in a diverse array of locations, such as city bars, converted former factories and even on top of skyscrapers.
• 4-7 March 2015, one-day pass £28, festival pass £84, bylarm.no