• Interview: Rory Nellis

    March 12, 2015 - By 

    Just over a year since the release of his wonderfully beguiling four track EP, The Moon, Belfast-based singer-songwriter Rory Nellis is currently crowdfunding for his forthcoming debut album, Ready For You Now, via Pledgemusic. Ahead of its release in June, Nellis – also frontman with the indie rock quartet Seven Summits – talks to us about the crowdfunding process, the host of local musician friends who feature on the album and how focusing on the positives of his hometown pays creative dividends. Hi Rory. Your forthcoming debut solo album, Ready For You Now, is being released via PledgeMusic – an increasingly…

  • First acts announced for Body & Soul 2015

    March 11, 2015 - By 

    Delivering one seriously impressive opening line-up announcement, Body & Soul have unveiled the first acts set to play this Summer’s Festival. Taking place, as per usual, during the Summer solstice weekend of June 19-21 at Ballinlough Castle, Dan Deacon, Goat, Savages (pictured), Clark and Matthew E White and more are amongst the first wave of acts set to play the annual festival at Clonmellon, Co. Meath. With many more acts yet to be announced, check out the full line-up below and go here to buy tickets. Savages photo by Misha Vladimirskiy.  

  • Watch: Cloud Castle Lake – Glacier

    March 11, 2015 - By 

    Last month, we called ‘Glacier’ by Dublin trio Cloud Castle Lake “a wonderfully-layered effort, beautifully disentangling over five-and-a-half minutes, that sees Daniel McAuley’s high falsetto vocals take centre-stage yet again – and how.” Now the Rian Trench-produced song – set for release via Happy Valley Records on March 16 – has a suitably intense video to accompany it. Directed by Cáit Fahey, the video is a shadowy, contorted affair, nicely interspersed with bursts of light and colour. Cloud Castle Lake will play Galway’s Roisin Dubh on March 26, Dublin’s Workman’s Club on March 27 and Limerick’s Kasbah Social Club on March 28.

  • Watch: Villagers – Hot Scary Summer

    March 10, 2015 - By 

    The second single to be released from his forthcoming third studio album, Darling Arithmetic, Conor O’Brien AKA Villagers is streaming the exquisite ‘Hot Scary Summer’. An outright highlight from the album – released via Domino on April 13 – the track is one features instrumentation written and recorded exclusively by O’Brien in the loft of a converted farmhouse that he lives in in Malahide. Pre-order the album here. Go here to check out Villagers’ forthcoming tour dates and watch the video for ‘Hot Scary Summer’ below.

  • First acts announced for Indiependence 2015

    March 10, 2015 - By 

    Ash, Mark Lanegan Band, The Dandy Warhols and Jape are amongst the first ten acts announced to play this year’s Indiependence Festival. Set to return to Deer Farm in Mitchelstown, Cork, across the weekend of July 31 to August 2, the festival will also see performances from Gavin James, Admiral Fellow, Little Hours, The North Sea, Wyvern Lingo and The Flaws. Go here to buy tickets to the festival.

  • Watch: No Monster Club – The Loneliest Master

    March 10, 2015 - By 

    Featuring Bobby Aherne from the band tackling the most fearsome of extreme sports – thumb wrestling – Dublin’s No Monster Club have unveiled the video for ‘The Loneliest Master’. Featuring a support cast comprised of Owen Colgan (Buzz from Hardy Bucks) and a host of local comedians and musicians on Popical Island, the video was created by Giles Brody and Conor O’Toole. ‘The Loneliest Master’ is taken from People Are Weird, which is launched at Dublin’s Bello Bar this Saturday evening. Stream/buy it here and read our review of it here.

  • Helen Keen: It Is Rocket Science! @ Black Box, Belfast

    March 10, 2015 - By 

    The next installment of Friday Salons at Belfast’s Black Box on Friday, March 20 will see Helen Keen present It’s Rocket Science!, a low budget, highly original look at the history and future of space travel. Featuring Space Nazis, Satanists and Aeronautical Engineers, the factually accurate and funny show – “featuring all the enormity of the universe, without any of the boring bits” – will take you on a whistlestop tour around the Great Brains who put monkeys, ladies, dogs and gentlemen into orbit. This live show has so far launched three award-winning, critically acclaimed series for BBC Radio 4. The…

  • Watch: Princess – Black Window

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    One of our main 15 For ’15 acts, Dublin dream-pop Princess have unveiled the video for their new single, ‘Black Window’, an accompaniment that more than tips its visual hat to the disembodied female mouth in Samuel Beckett’s ‘Not I‘. In our post of the track last month, we called it “one of their shining moments to date, covering more ground in their perpetually evolving blend of shoegaze, krautrock and noise, as heard on the pair of singles and EP they’ve so-far released.” Princess play the following Irish dates in March and April: March 20: Whelan’s, Dublin March 28: TDC/Triskel, Cork April 11:…

  • Brilliant Corners Festival 2015

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    Presented by Moving On Music, Belfast’s Brilliant Corners jazz festival returns with an eclectic and comprehensively impressive bill from March 25 to March 28. Now in its third outing, the four-day festival will see local talent and international contemporaries including Dublin City Jazz Orchestra, Get The Blessing, Fred Firth and experimental guitar circle Sixes play in various Belfast venues such as The Mac, Crescent Arts Centre and the Black Box. Check out the poster and trailer for this year’s festival below and go here to buy tickets. You can also watch our very recent interview with Moving on Music founder Brian…

  • Belfast Film Festival 2015

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    Although the majority of the programme is yet to be revealed, the first few announcements for the forthcoming fifteenth Belfast Film Festival hints at yet another extremely promising festival in the making. Following a handful of great line-up events and screenings including Metropolis – Live at the Ulster Hall on Saturday, March 21 and Yann Demange’s ‘71 at the Movie House on Thursday, March 5, a live soundtracked screening of David Lynch’s landmark Eraserhead at The Mac on Wednesday, April 22 and a Blazing Saddles Night on Saturday on Saturday, April 18 stand out amongst the first few announcements. Check back for more screening announcements. In the…