Live music: Asgeir

Sugar Club, Dublin

The success of Bon Iver has unleashed a flood of starry-eyed young men, furnished with soaring falsettos and generous beards. It’s a club that includes Ireland’s James Vincent McMorrow and Hozier, both tipped for various degrees of stardom. But, in the long run, you suspect they will be eclipsed by Iceland’s Asgeir Trausti, a 21-year-old who looks set to carry the ‘alt folk’ genre straight to the mainstream.

Raised on a tiny village in northern Iceland, Asgeir’s music cheerfully embraces edge-of-the-world cliché. With lyrics by his poet father, his songs are populated with impenetrable woods, brooding nature gods, and references to stormy fjords and mountains. Back home, the formula has created a sensation — his debut, In The Silence, is Iceland’s bestselling album ever (one if 10 citizens is estimated to own a copy).