• Dan Hegarty: Trans-Eurosonic Express

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    You always know that the end of the year is never far away when the announcement for the annual Eurosonic festival is made. It was officially announced this week that The Strypes will represent Ireland at the Eurosonic Festival in Groningen, The Netherlands next January. The Cavan band were named alongside 27 other acts from around Europe to perform at the festival. Eurosonic is Europe’s most influential new music festival; having previously introduced acts like Franz Ferdinand, Marina & The Diamonds, Villagers, and countless others to a larger European audience.   While we’re on the subject of The Netherlands, those…

  • Blue Jasmine

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    “This song was playing when we first met, do you know it?” On the surface Blue Jasmine is a portrait of a woman trying to climb back up the social and economic ladder into a life that she had the express elevator to beforehand. But beneath this and beneath the surface of every character in the film there is so much more to find. Woody Allen provides a view into a world that, for most us, is alien in almost every way. Yet through the strength of the writing and brilliant structure of the film, we immediately feel comfortable there,…

  • EP Stream: Paper Man – After Effects

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    Showing huge potential, young Ballyclare-based alt-rock four-piece Paper Man have unveiled their debut EP, After Effects. Produced by Michael McCluskey, the five-track release (including a live track, ‘Hieroglyphics’) the EP “demonstrates,” in the band’s own words, “the roots from which the band have been influenced to write and play their alternative style of indie rock music.” Paper Man count the likes of local band A Plastic Rose, The Beatles and Smashing Pumpkins as three of their main influences. Stream After Effects via Bandcamp below.

  • Watch: Con Vos – Central Park

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    Earlier this month we featured the enchanting new EP by New York-based singer-songwriter and vocalist Sorcha Richardson. Nine days on we introduce the Dubliner’s new project CON VOS via the Matt Baron-directed video to the sublime ‘Central Park’. Taken from the upcoming five-track EP Cocoon Bloom, the track clings to summer whilst accommodating for Autumnal psychic ruminations, its stomping, shimmering bass-led march – and Richardson’s vocal in particular – suggestive of a very promising extended play on the horizon. CON VOS are comprised of Richardson and Fortunate Ones, a production/hip-hop duo from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Watch the video to ‘Central Park’ below.

  • Glasvegas, Little Bear @ Whelans, Dublin

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    Dublin freelance photographer Ruth Medjber happily toddled along to see fast-rising Derry band Little Bear support Glasgow-based indie rock four-piece Glasvegas at Dublin’s Whelans last night, Wednesday, October 9. Check out here photos from the night below.

  • Watch: Foy Vance – Closed Hand, Full of Friends

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    County Down singer-songwriter Foy Vance has unveiled the video to his new single, ‘Closed Hand, Full of Friends’. The song is the lead track taken from Vance’s second full-length album Joy Of Nothing, released in August via Glassnote Records. Following on from ‘Joy Of Nothing’ and ‘Janey’, it is the third track to be taken from the album, the follow-up to Vance’s 2007 debut full-length, Hope. The piano featured in the video was the focus of a police investigation after police attempted to discover how it was found in the River Tay in Perthshire. Watch the video below.

  • Chequerboard – The Unfolding

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    Back in 1993, Damon Albarn coined the phrase Modern Life Is Rubbish for the title of his band’s second album. Damon, mate, you didn’t know the half of it. 20 years later and modern life is rubbisher than ever. There’s just so much noise: constantly connected to our ubiquitous bleeping smartphones, we’re hit with a non-stop barrage of tweets, texts and emails, while social media sites urge us to ‘like’ and ‘follow’ every two-bit product and adverts blare at us from every conceivable space. Honestly, it’s enough to make you wish they’d just drop the bomb and bring an end…