The mixtape: Sydney festival special

Sydney festival has stepped things up with its 2015 musical lineup – from Brazilian superstar Seu Jorge serving up this year’s free concert in the Domain to homegrown hero Tex Perkins performing Johnny Cash covers in old Parramatta Gaol. Here are five tasters of international acts gigging at the Hyde Park North hub.

Jibunngainai「じぶんがいない」– salyu × salyu

Salyu × salyu is a collaboration between the Japanese singer Salyu and the famed experimental rock artist Cornelius. On their album S(o)un(d)beams, Salyu’s voice is used much like any other instrumental part, forming a layer of sound and rhythm that blends the industrial and organic in an act of musical alchemy. Songs like Jibunngainai see Salyu’s vocal loops and Cornelius’s mechanical beats click together like perfectly aligned moving parts. Catch the pair at Hyde Park North on 23 January.

Psarandonis Syrto – Xylouris White

Here are two men of impressive musical pedigree: lute player George Xylouris (son of famed Greek musician Antonis Xylouris) and drummer Jim White, formerly of the Australian post-rock group Dirty Three. The pair met in Australia (Xylouris lived in Melbourne for eight years) and became Xylouris White, a musical collaboration producing impossible-to-define music, with hints of jazz and traditional folk tempered by erratic post-rock rhythms. Turn up at Hyde Park North on 15 January for soulful songs such as Psarandonis Syrto that softly pace and ponder, then stick around for more challenging tracks such as Redfern.

Crop Circles – Frikstailers

DJ/producer duo Frikstailers (aka Rafa Caivano and Lisandro Sona) are the musical mad hatters of Argentina’s ZZK Records, and play Hyde Park North on 17 January. In between remixing the likes of El Guincho and Major Lazer, they’ve taken their record label’s electro-cumbia sound to danceable new heights, splicing tropical, kuduro, dancehall, baile funk, dub, house and techno into the percussive mix. Crop Circles’ synth-centric sound, however, owes more to Kraftwerk than cumbia. Its cheeky video features Caivano and Sona surfing the galaxy on men’s shavers, before landing on a hairy-bodied male whom they proceed to adorn with Latin American-inspired crop circles. (Keep your eyes peeled for Che Guevara and the hummingbird from the Nazca lines). Refrain from viewing if you suffer from chaetophobia.

Listwar – Christine Salem

La Réunion’s Christine Salem sings a genre of music called maloya – formerly banned on the island by the Catholic church for its use in ceremonies in which participants enter a trance-like state and come face to face with their own ancestors, and its links to slave culture. Guardian writer Robin Denselow calls maloya “the Indian ocean answer to the blues” and a “mixture of thunderous percussion and improvised call-and-response vocals”. Salem’s performance of maloya – traditionally sung by men – is powerful and soul-stirring, with the repetition and rhythms of songs like Listwar feeling like a direct channel to the underworld. Catch the deep-voiced singer at Hyde Park North on 8 January.

Words I Don’t Remember – How to Dress Well

The American singer-songwriter Tom Krell is best known by his unusual stage name How to Dress Well, and appears at Hyde Park North on 23 January. His newest album, What is this Heart, is an adult version of berceuse; think cantata meets hipster R&B. There aren’t too many showbiz men who can reach the pitch heights of Krell, although Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson spring to mind as reference points. In his single Words I Don’t Remember, Krell whispers of quixotic affairs of the heart and sighs his way through the paradox of love. Those vocals have a light touch and, with that bare-as-bones backing track, make for a hazy delight of a song.