A return that was as surprising as it was exhilarating for what was, during its first existence, the most celebrated power duo around. Formed by Guilherme Canhão on guitar and Ricardo Martins on drums, they have left vivid memories of legendary concerts, where the high volume and furious assault on the senses had a sense of collective communion, never hostile. In the symbiosis between Canhão’s electrified riffs and melodies and Martins’ spasmodic drums, the roar of hardcore, rock and noise was continually celebrated in music that was as expansive as it was memorable, from mosh-pit to dance, leaving anthemic petards like “Farewell Chewbacca” or “Hot Flamingos” in its wake. But rather than merely revisiting the material given, Lobster return with an eye to the future, at a time when they are preparing a new album, and in an act that will be, in Martins’ words, to “sweat and laugh together”. As before, as always. Keep it Brutal! BS

Nave by Mira Billotte, an artist currently based in Los Angeles and whose craft of magic is intimately and spiritually linked to the programming work carried out by Nélson and Pedro Gomes at ZDB circa 2006. Not having been present in the space at the time, White Magic was part of a kind of community free of geographical points or genre taxonomies where music made on the margins, in exploration, capable of harbouring the folk and blues tradition, improvisation, psychedelia, bastard forms of rock or trance music under the same liberating spirit: NNCK, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Gang Gang Dance or Fursaxa were some of the names brought to the Aquarium. So there’s a spiritual alignment between that past and this always pertinent materialisation of White Magic on this stage: hypnotic songs, as indebted to West Coast rock as to the more rural folk songbook, hovering on a welcoming threshold of strangeness, and which has in ‘Dat Rosa Mel Apibus’, released in 2006 by Drag City, a classic still to be duly rescued. BS

Owner and mistress of the songs in the lives of many people in this country, Maria Reis returns to ZDB as a solo artist while the fascination and emotion for ‘Suspiro…’ is still far from exhausted. Without wishing to enter the tired discourse of maturity, but recognising some non-fatalist inevitability in it – and it’s true that we’re all getting older with Maria – ‘Suspiro…’ brought a certain calm and thoughtfulness to the way she does things that in no way betrayed the urgency that always pulses through her songs. And these, like ‘T-Shirt’ or ‘Stagnation’, are already sung in unison wherever she performs. BS

Inaugurating the Príncipe catalogue in 2011 with the manifesto ‘Eu Sei Quem Sou’, Marfox is closely linked to Filho Único, if only because of the latter’s association with the Lisbon label. A leading figure in the beat scene born in the capital’s suburbs, Marfox is today an absolute reference for countless souls who have seen in his spirit of discovery, vision and resistance in the face of possible adversity an example of perseverance and benign ambition. An absolute master of the dancefloor, he appears here for a DJ set eight years after the release of ‘Chapa Quente’. Too long. But all in good time. Let’s see if we spot any new beasts in the stream. BS

Nélson Gomes, the mastermind of this night of celebration. He will also have his space here to reveal all his knowledge and enthusiasm for discovery and sharing on the decks. BS