• Watch: Patrick Gardiner – I’m Your Creation

    March 18, 2015 - By 

    Cornwall-based, Northern Irish singer-songwriter Patrick Gardiner is a methodical songsmith that thrives on the intricacies of his craft. From the poise and refrain of his carefully-considered words to specific chord changes and structures, he has really made an impression on us, live, on more than one occasion. Three years on from his self-released debut EP, Save Myself, the Co. Down musician will release its five-track follow-up, Carcassonne, on April 1. On first listen, it’s a subtly eclectic mix of acoustic tale-telling, Gardiner’s earnest delivery on each track hovering confidently over full-band tracks underpinned with some instantly memorable melodic threads and pop nuances. Ahead…

  • The Thin Air’s Second Birthday @ Twisted Pepper, Dublin

    March 18, 2015 - By 

    We’ll be celebrating our grand second birthday at Dublin’s The Twisted Pepper on Saturday, May 2. Kicking off at 6pm in the Twisted Pepper cafe with an exhibition of our magazine covers to date and selected work from our fantastic team of photographers. Following that we have Robocobra Quartet and Night Trap live in the Stage room with our headliners who will be announced on April 2nd. Rusangano Family (pictured) will be playing a special midnight gig for us in the cafe too along with DJ sets from BATS and Andy Walsh from Little Gem. More info to be announced…

  • Bee Mick See – The Belfast Yank

    March 18, 2015 - By 

    Does belonging to a location make an album better? Is Springsteen as interesting if you remove New Jersey or Nebraska? What about NWAand Compton? If this is the case, then rapper Bee Mick See’s debut Belfast Yank deserves some serious credit. The album is entirely engulfed in Belfast. Its language, culture and people are the subjects of various tracks ranging from loving portraits (‘Belfast Slang’) to lacerating polemics (‘Natural Scents’). Even his flow, which owes an obvious debt to Slug from Atmosphere, is heavily accented; it could only belong to this city. In spite of its overproduced beats, which bares a welcome resemblance to Malibu Shark Attack, it’s a strangely emotionally honest album. BeeMickSee is surprisingly…

  • The Road to Recovery with Slint’s David Pajo

    March 17, 2015 - By 

    Slint guitarist David Pajo has had an extraordinarily colourful career. Aside from spearheading the aforementioned Louisville post rock band’s genre-defining sound on the likes of their landmark 1991 album Spiderland, he has also released several albums under his own name, Papa M, Aerial and M, as well as playing with the likes of Zwan, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, Tortoise, Royal Trux and innumerable other acts. This week last month, Pajo attempted to take his own life, having posted a long, detailed suicide note on his blog. Against all the odds, he was saved just in time. The reaction from his many…

  • Stream: Arborist – Twisted Arrow (feat. Kim Deal)

    March 16, 2015 - By 

    In one of the more curious, unlikely – and, let’s face, envy-inducing – collaborations headed by a Irish singer-songwriter in quite some time, Belfast-based folk songsmith Mark McCambridge AKA Arborist has unveiled his latest effort, featuring backing vocals from none other than Kim Deal. Speaking about the collaboration, McCambridge said: “The harmony part was always there, from the moment the song was written and recorded here in Belfast.  But it needed a unique voice.  Fancifully, we drew-up a shortlist of desirable candidates with Kim far and away top of the list.  So, we contacted her – as you do – and after a…

  • Monday Mixtape: Ricki O’Rawe (Not Squares)

    March 16, 2015 - By 

    With their forthcoming second album, Bolts, set for release next month, Belfast-based trio Not Squares are steadily re-affirming their reputation as one of the country’s very best live acts. Ahead of launching the album at Galway’s Róisín Dubh on April 9, Ricki O’Rawe (pictured in the bold white-rimmed shades, above) from the band shares his favourite songs as of late – including Tyondai Braxton, Luke Abbott, Arca and Polmo Polpo – in a playlist aptly-titled Pissed and Passed Out. Take it away, Ricki. “This mix is made up of sounds that I have been digging recently. The music spans time and space but coheres…

  • Watch: Meltybrains? – Donegal

    March 13, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of jetting off to SXSW next week – and our Belfast show with them and Blue Whale at QUBSU’s Bar Sub on Friday, April 10 – Dublin experimental band Meltybrains? have unveiled the video for the stupendous ‘Donegal’. When the track first reared its heard at the start of February we called it a “spirited, expansive ode to escapism – reverb-laced lingering vocal lines and shuffling rhythms marry in a mighty mesh of fist-clenched, impassioned abandon.” Donegal will be released as part of the band’s debut vinyl release, ‘Donegal/IV’, on February 16. Buy it here. Watch the video for ‘Donegal’…

  • Cities Breathing @ O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin

    March 15, 2015 - By 

    “Cities are living. Cities breathe.” Videographers and visual artists Peter Martin, Albert Hooi with Al Kennington and Kevin A Freeney of CLU Music, were commissioned to visually explore contemporary Dublin, collecting beautiful, moving imagery of our unique capital. Musical artists CLU Music, New Jackson and I Am The Cosmos, have composed an eclectic array of scores to accompany the three short films. In the impressive O Reilly Theatre on Monday, March 16, the two creative strands will come together for a one-off, live, audio visual vignette of Dublin city today, created, curated and produced by Dylan Higgins and Al Kennington…

  • Festival Mixtape: Body & Soul 2015

    March 12, 2015 - By 

    Set to return to Ballinlough Castle, Clonmellon in Co. Meath during the Summer solstice weekend of June 19-21, Body & Soul 2015 is set to be one of the highlights of the Irish summer festival calender yet again. Just yesterday, the festival announced its first wave of confirm acts – and what a tidy list it was. Ahead of further line-up announcements, stream our sixteen-track playlist featuring some of the very best acts already confirmed to play the festival – including Goat (pictured), Dan Deacon, Natalie Press, Clark, Meltybrains?, SOHN, Nightmares on Wax, Savages and Austra – below.

  • Watch: Skelocrats – Zirconium Heart

    March 11, 2015 - By 

    Not that you need reminding, but those notoriously sonically incestuous Popical Island lads are a quare bunch of busybodies this weather. Having unveiled the video for his very own ‘The Loneliest Master’ just yesterday, Bobby Aherne AKA No Monster Club is the directorial maestro behind the cosmic-romance themed video for Skelocrats‘ effortlessly earworming ‘Zirconium Heart’. The song will feature on the Dublin band’s forthcoming album, Bella Bella, which is launched at Dublin’s Bello Bar with Ginnels and Switzerland on Friday, April 17.  The band will also play Sweeney’s, Dublin on May 9 and  Galway’s Roisin Dubh with Paddy Hanna on May 14.…