• Le Galaxie w/ Go Wolf @ Aether & Echo, Belfast

    May 11, 2015 - By 

    The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is a Belfast institution, but it’s probably easy for many people to forget about the events that happen away from the festival marquee in Custom House Square, hence a slightly underwhelming turnout at Aether & Echo tonight for the Belfast leg of Le Galaxie’s Le Club tour (or maybe everyone is too glued to tonight’s election coverage). Although the room has filled up quite nicely by the time the headliners take to the stage, tonight’s openers, Belfast’s own Go Wolf play to a sparser audience. Their set is impressively tight and polished, though the music…

  • Not Squares – Bolts

    April 24, 2015 - By 

    For fans of Belfast trio Not Squares it’s been a long wait for a follow up to 2010’s Yeah OK, one of the finest Irish debuts of recent years. With drummer/primary vocalist Keith Winter moving to London in 2012, new material has largely had to be crafted long distance, and so we’ve only been treated to a handful of singles to tide us over in the intervening period. These singles make up almost half of the new album, and other tracks like ‘Can Opener’ will be well familiar to anyone who has caught their sporadic live shows over the last…

  • Ciaran Lavery & Ryan Vail – Sea Legs

    April 22, 2015 - By 

    While people will continue to argue tirelessly about whether the internet has been a good or a bad thing for music, here comes another argument for ‘good’. Derry minimal electronic musician Ryan Vail and Aghagallon alt-folkster Ciaran Lavery first became friends online before finally meeting up at a festival they were both appearing at and decided to collaborate on this mini-album. Regardless of whether or not you think streaming music is as bad as killing elephants like Tom DeLonge claims, the sense of community that the internet affords to bring together musicians from different musical backgrounds to try out collaborations…

  • Cruising @ Menagerie, Belfast

    March 17, 2015 - By 

    So far, Cruising have been taking things fairly slowly. Though the Belfast/Dublin quartet officially operate under pseudonyms (Benzedrine Black, Sex Grimes, Dan Handle and Dick Vortex), they’re easily recognisable to anyone who has even a passing interest in Irish music at the moment, made up as they are of members of Girls Names, Sea Pinks, September Girls and the now defunct Logikparty. Another one of Sunglasses After Dark’s top notch events, without a support act The Menagerie slowly fills up to the sounds of The Stooges and other assorted proto-punk bands, which sets the tone for what’s to come. It’s…

  • Two Gallants – We Are Undone

    March 16, 2015 - By 

    Despite the fact that they’ve been playing music together since they were both twelve years old, and have performed under the Two Gallants name since 2002, not too long ago it seemed like we might never hear another album from folk rock duo Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel. Following their 2004 debut and an incredibly productive period between 2006 and 2007 where they released two fine follow up albums an EP in between, it took a whole five years for them to return with The Bloom & The Blight in 2012. While they may not have regained their earlier rate…

  • Label Mixtape: Touch & Go

    March 18, 2015 - By 

    Originally founded as a fanzine in 1979 by Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson before becoming a record label in 1981, Touch & Go was originally a platform for the Chicago hardcore punk scene, before Vee handed the reins over to Corey and Lisa Rusk in 1983, with Corey Rusk still being at the helm today. The label would go on to become synonymous with the 1980s noise rock scene, as well as 1990s math-rock, before expanding into all things alternative in later years. The label is also well known for its DIY ethic, offering artists 50-50 deals after production and…

  • Jape @ The Woodworkers, Belfast

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    Going to see Jape for the first time in a while is always an interesting proposition, seeing as the lineup can often be entirely different from the previous occasion. Such is the case tonight – they’re still a trio, albeit with a different drummer from the Ocean Of Frequency tour, and Richie Egan is still front and centre of course, with Glenn Keating still his right hand man but things have still been rejigged, with Egan now on bass and sampler rather than guitar and keys, and Keating on electronic percussion and sequencer. It’s an interesting adjustment and seems to…

  • Jape – This Chemical Sea

    January 29, 2015 - By 

    How do you follow up not one, but two Choice Music Prize winning albums? This is a dilemma that so far no one has ever had to face other than Jape’s Richie Egan. He’s Ireland’s answer to PJ Harvey in that respect, although even she didn’t win her two Mercury Prizes with two consecutive albums.  First properly establishing himself with 2008’s Ritual, still a bona fide Irish classic and arguably Egan’s first solidly consistent piece of work, having benefitted from the success of minor hit single ‘Floating’ to show him which direction to settle on, 2011’s Ocean Of Frequency was…

  • The Dodos – Individ

    January 20, 2015 - By 

    Some bands have one album in their discography that will simply never be bettered and will always slightly overshadow all subsequent releases. The Dodos are one of those bands. After debuting with the pretty solid Beware Of The Maniacs, the duo came to most people’s attention with second album Visiter, an hour long indie folk odyssey, characterised by Meric Long’s intricate yet sometimes ramshackle finger picking and honey-like voice accompanied by Logan Kroeber’s frantic percussion, performed as if by a man with at least 3 arms. Wonderfully melodic, occasionally chaotic, it was the overlooked gem of 2008. They followed it…

  • Mogwai – Music Industry 3. Fitness Industry 1.

    December 15, 2014 - By 

    Another Mogwai release, another excellent title. Following on from solid yet divisive 8th studio album Rave Tapes, released earlier this year, Music Industry 3. Fashion Industry 1. is a short collection of remixes and unreleased tracks recorded in the same sessions, and if Rave Tapes‘ surprisingly restrained nature was main the reason for such divided opinion, then that shouldn’t be an issue here. Lead track ‘Teenage Exorcists’ includes vocals, a secret weapon Mogwai tend to unleash sparingly but effectively, and in fact it instantly establishes itself as one of the finest vocal tracks in their catalogue. While their vocals often…