• The Wood Burning Savages – Stability

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    This Friday, April 27, a debut album that’s long been one of NI’s most anticipated, The Wood Burning Savages finally sees its release. Between its effervescent indie rock and vitriol-turned-punk-anthem, the quartet are seemingly set to posit themselves as spiritual and sonic successors to the proudly socialist, alternative punk torch long-carried by the Manic Street Preachers. Debut LP Stability was produced by Start Together’s Rocky O’Reilly and mastered by Robin Schmidt. Derry-born frontman Paul Connolly has the following to say on the release of the album: “A collection of songs about a working class furious at years of empty promises from billionaire Tory MPs who have no…

  • Ry Cooder, Action Bronson, Doug Stanhope, Dweezil Zappa & Incubus Set For Irish Shows

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    Shake off those Monday blues, because there’s almost certainly a show for you amongst today’s announcements: One of the all-time foremost purveyors of roots music, American musician, songwriter, composer & producer Ry Cooder makes a rare appearance at Dublin’s National Stadium on October 15. Tickets are priced €76 from Ticketmaster, and go on sale this Friday April 27th at 9am. Pushing misanthropy to the limit, one of the world’s most gifted & natural comedians’ comedians’ comedians, Doug Stanhope makes his first trip to Ireland in several years, playing the Olympia Theatre on June 14. Tickets are priced €40 from Ticketmaster, and go on sale this Friday April 27th at 9am. Fancy revisiting those halcyon days of turntablist alt. rock? Incubus return…

  • Video Premiere: The Wood Burning Savages – I Don’t Know Why I Do It To Myself

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    Just over a week from the release of a debut album that’s long been one of NI’s most anticipated, The Wood Burning Savages have just dropped a surprise video for single ‘I Don’t Know Why I Do It To Myself’. The video accompanies another rock anthem from an act seemingly set to posit themselves as spiritual and sonic successors to the proudly socialist, alternative punk torch long-carried by the Manic Street Preachers. Minimal, but effective, we see frontman Paul Connolly stroll from inauspicious, disenfranchised beginnings through to the coke-fuelled neoliberal dream – think Ken Loach taking a shortcut through Jordan Belfort. Debut LP Stability was produced by Start Together’s Rocky O’Reilly and…

  • Celtronic 2018

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    Ireland’s leading electronic music festival returns for its eighteenth year across Derry. Celtronic runs from June 27-July 1, featuring concerts, film screenings, workshops, seminars, recording projects and more. Headlining musical proceedings is the iconic veteran Roman Flügel, Steve Bug, Gerd Janson closes events, techno artist DVS1, noisician Paula Temple, Avalon Emerson. Local names include OR:LA, The Cyclist, Ryan Vail and Darren Allen. One of the highlights is sure to be the premiere of new music from Phil Kieran and three local musicians, recorded at Celtronic Studios and performed by the Ulster Orchestra. Priced £59.88 including booking fee, tickets are available to buy…

  • Record Store Day Set To Take Over Bangor High Street

    April 17, 2018 - By 

    As we well know, Record Store Day takes place this Saturday, April 21st, and in celebration, Bangor’s leading the annual day of wax in the North with a series of events on High Street.  Unfortunately for Belfasters, the closure of Belfast mainstays, Head & Sick Records has left them with no local outlets. Thankfully, Bangor’s Bending Sound Records is just a quick train ride away, and will open from 9am-5pm to help. Across the road, the MG car showroom hosts another record fair from 9am-3pm, from which point Flea Market Soul takes over just two doors down, offering up that rare treat: vinyl-only DJs, through the evening on…

  • Watch: Eraser TV – (1-800 COAST 2 COAST)

    April 13, 2018 - By 

    Modern Classic is the logically-titled sequel to last year’s Buzzfeed Depression Quiz from self-aware Limerick indie rockers Eraser TV, one of the exciting DIY acts to emerge from the city in the past year. Their second EP once more plays upon the tense, gently experimental discordance underlying in their breezy, occasionally loungy lo-fi indie rock as frontman Cian McGuirk pines throughout, channeling some Pavement circa Crooked Rain wistful reflection on the wonderful ‘Season 2’. Drawing from the everything-is-commercial-bliss vaporwave aesthetic, they’ve just released a video for for ‘(1-800) COAST 2 COAST’. Seeping the liquescent chorus of decades gone by, it’s a hepped-up, psych-tinged take on what Sonic Youth were doing around Evol.…

  • Fears: h_always

    April 6, 2018 - By 

    Content note: Suicide & self harm.  Under the Fears moniker, Constance Keane hasn’t ever shied from making music that challenges pervasive feelings of anxiety, just as her previous outlet, the sonically-opposing M(h)aol, used primal, abrasive noise-punk as its own vehicle to address greater issues. And, as with anyone who holds complete autonomy over their creativity, it’s often assumed that it’s just one aspect of someone in tune with themselves. By her own admission, Constance has worked hard to accept, utilise, and channel that into a busy and fulfilling professional & artistic life. However, following a traumatic event in Autumn 2017, Constance fell into a suicidal state, and following several trips to A&E, she was admitted to a psychiatric…

  • EP Premiere: Ghost Office – Desire Lines

    April 6, 2018 - By 

    Almost certainly Belfast’s most promising post-punk prospect, Ghost Office, have just made available their second EP, Desire Lines. With new bassist Carl Small in tow and new material to be unveiled in coming months showing further songwriting spark, Desire Lines is just the beginning of what will be Ghost Office’s defining year so far. With each cut an under 3 minute short burst of undistilled creative flourish, throbbing bass & jagged Fender attack the band – both live and on record – bursts with vitality, while the confluence of musical & literary influences conjure acts like Parquet Courts and Protomartr‘s knowing self-loathing, lent broader purview with vocals from former-bassist MK Maguire, and…

  • Tethers – Skinwalker

    April 4, 2018 - By 

    Lisburn-based post-hardcore outfit Tethers are set to release their debut EP Skinwalker via Swallow Song Records. While retaining the kind of pop inclination that made Biffy Clyro household names, the trio channel Derry’s Jetplane Landing, and mathier elements of the post-hardcore sound – the likes of which made Faraquet such an incredibly instinctive, yet compositionally complex outfit. Recorded by Chris Ryan, the EP gets its title from a term in Navajo folklore that denotes a shape-shifting witch, which they’re re-envisioning as ‘a future slang for artificially-enhanced humanoids’, an aspect of the band’s outlook, which – in a way that would please Philip K Dick, Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis…

  • Lunch Machine – Alt Facts

    April 3, 2018 - By 

    Letterkenny garage indie rock trio Lunch Machine have just released their debut EP, the five track Alt Facts, produced by Fugue State & Tuath. The band is led by Jude Barriscale, whose laconic delivery recalls earlier (and best) Courtney Barnett, Barriscale’s knack for injecting personal, universal truths with a detached sincerity elevates what could be slack meanderings into idiosyncratically-woven pieces, that veer from frustration at rural isolation, political outrage and, in the evocatively smoky, poignant-in-the-AM closer ‘Obi Wan for the Road’, love and loss. Take, for example, the 7> minute highlight ‘Yellow Door’, which is, in her own words “about me being humbled by my past mistakes and about how…