• Rave New World (28/8)

    August 28, 2015 - By 

    Antoin Lindsay and Aidan Hanratty deliver their their weekly look at the very best electronic gigs, tracks, releases and mixes. GIGS Twitch Present: Anthony Naples and Pariah at The Bunatee, Belfast Saturday 29 August Two brilliant producers and DJs in their own right, Twitch bring together Pariah and Anthony Naples for what should be a cracker. Last time I seen either of them in Belfast they went down absolute treats with the crowd, so expect this one to be no different.  AL Beat BBQ present: Lil Louis at Aether & Echo, Belfast Sunday 30 August A bank holiday means only…

  • Premiere: Music For Dead Birds – English Weed/What a Waste

    August 24, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of the unveiled of an EP for September, we’re pleased to premiere a pre-release double-single of sorts from Galway/Mayo duo Music For Dead Birds. Brimming with the band’s distinctive brand of lo-fi indie “anti-folk”, ‘English Weed/What a Waste’ clocks in at just under seven minutes but still manages to pack an emphatic punch. Seemingly operating outside of any strong semblance of a scene in Connacht, Jimmy Monaghan and Dónal Walsh continue to embody the outsider spirit that they drove home on the likes of 2009’s And Then It Rained For Seven Days, the sublime The Pope’s Sister and their album, Vitamins,…

  • Rave New World (21/8)

    August 21, 2015 - By 

    Aidan Hanratty and Antoin Lindsay return for this week’s Rave New World, your indispensable, Friday-afternoon guide to all the very best electronic gigs, tracks, releases and mixes. GIGS Scavenger €5 Party Feat. ‘Looking for the Perfect Beat’ Screening at The Wiley Fox Saturday, 22 August New night Scavenger has had some impressive guests lately, but this weekend they’re throwing a wallet-friendly €5 party in The Wiley Fox, where you can get to grips with the night’s MO. They’re also screening LA beat scene documentary Looking for the Perfect Beat, which focuses on one 24-hour period in LA and follows the likes…

  • The Record: Stonemasons

    August 20, 2015 - By 

    Featuring in studio photos by Liam Kielt, we chat to Belfast-based alt-rock trio Stonemasons about the writing, recording and release of their vehement new five-track EP, Lost Layers.  Hey guys. For complete newcomers, how did the Stonemasons come about and get off the ground? Pod (Kerr, bass/vocals): We all grew up around the same area of North Antrim. Blaney was playing guitar in a pop-punk called Breaking Even and McCann and myself were playing covers with a different drummer. We initially met through from beating lumps out of each other on a hurling pitch until a hazy 18th birthday party where we got chatting about…

  • This Morning is a Dream to Me: The Return of Giveamanakick

    August 19, 2015 - By 

    Rare are the musical reunions that can fill a person’s heart up. Evoke feelings of nostalgia? Yes. The warm and fuzzies are the basis of the major labels’ bottom line these days. Tie in with a time and place in a person’s life? Yes. Absolutely. But to truly unwrap those layers of cynicism and break a smile across the face from within? Deep within? Now, there’s a feat. Limerick two-piece Giveamanakick emerged in 2002 and immediately set about wrecking heads with debut long-player is it ok to be loud, jesus?, the maiden label voyage of the city’s flagship independent label,…

  • Rave New World (14/8)

    August 14, 2015 - By 

    Very much the man with the plan, Antoin Lindsay takes a look at the very best electronic gigs, tracks, releases and mixes of the week. GIGS Head Front Panel, Sunil Sharpe and Defekt at The Button Factory, Dublin Friday 14 August John Heckle has been releasing some brilliant techno as Head Front Panel recently, and you can catch him doing a live set down at The Button Factory tonight. He’ll be accompanied by the ever-present Sunil Sharpe (pictured) and another live set from Defekt. T’will be a heavy one. Twisted Pepper Closing Weekender, Dublin Friday 14 & Saturday 15 August In…

  • Classic Album: Can – Future Days

    August 13, 2015 - By 

    This may seem a pretentious review. It probably is.  I may well be using words like “oneiric”*, a word that spell-check tells me doesn’t exist. This is to be expected: this is a Can record I’m talking about, the band I‘m most likely to wax lyrical about, especially when they’re at their least lyrical. This is Future Days, Can at their most impressionistic, most painterly, least literal. Moving on from the pop certainties of Ege Bamyasi, (‘Spoon’, adopted as the theme tune for a detective series, had been an actual chart hit in Germany!) the band decided to break free…

  • Midweek Mixtape: Short Songs

    August 12, 2015 - By 

    Despite being the accepted standard for radio play etc., sometimes there’s something unsatisfactory about the three-to-four minute pop song. It can, on occasion, feel like one idea has been dragged out a bit longer than it should have been, with superfluous guitar solos, incongruous bridges and unnecessary third verses, simply because it’s deemed that anything below this length is unacceptable. The best musicians, though, have the confidence and self awareness to keep things brief if they can say all they need to say in one or two minutes (or even less). Such tracks can easily be mistaken for throwaways, but…

  • Premiere: Linebacker Dirge – Livia/Motion Parallax

    August 11, 2015 - By 

    Co. Down singer-songwriter Jason Gibson is an artist who thrives on collaboration. Formed back in 2005, his project Linebacker Dirge has seen him write and record with the likes of A Plastic Rose’s Ian McHugh, A Northern Light’s Colm Laverty and James Bruce of Kasper Rosa/Matua Trap. Ten years on from the release of his debut, Postcards, Distance and Sleep (written and recorded with Harry Ffitch of Hello Newman over MSN Messenger, no less), Gibson’s new EP, The Worried Well, is a real re-affirmation of those early stirrings, going that bit further in driving the point (the unspoken and profound…

  • Classic Album: Gene Clark – No Other (1974)

    August 10, 2015 - By 

    Gene Clark was the Byrd who couldn’t fly. If that sounds trite (and let’s face it, it is) consider the facts. Clark was one of the original members of America’s answer to The Beatles, and whilst Roger McGuinn was the frontman of The Byrds on hit singles like ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ and ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, it was Clark who provided the majority of their self-penned material during his tenure with the band. But, in an irony that would be delicious if it wasn’t something that happened to a living, breathing person, Gene Clark was afraid of flying. In 1965, with…