• Deep Down South: Mag Launch, Busy Town, Streaming Sounds

    After last week’s column promising more music and such didn’t materialise, this week’s is a wee bit of a catch-up. However – plug, plug, plug! – we’ll kick off by putting in a shout for our Cork launch on Saturday at the Crane Lane for the mag. Issue 5 of the mag (the cover pictured) features a full-length piece on the Altered Hours, from their beginnings and debut release ‘Downstream’, to their upcoming album and time in Berlin. We’ll also have an Inbound on Leeside multi-piece groove ensemble Shookrah, among so, so much more, and it’ll be available exclusively at…

  • Deep Down South: A Word on TTA Magazine

    Howdy.  Before we kick off, this week, Deep Down South will be delivered in two instalments. The usual news, views and general Cork nerdery will be along this Wednesday/Thursday, including overviews of everything coming up over the next few weeks as usual. But this, we’ve a column of two halves. If this half runs a bit short, it’s because your writer is a little tired from the last few weeks, but more so (and with apologies to the Print Shop lads for missing the fundraisers over the weekend), it’s because the finishing touches on the featured content of issue 5 of…

  • Rave New World (20/2)

    In the latest installment of Rave New World, the mind-expandingly tasteful Antoin Lindsay & Aidan Hanratty delve into best new electronic tracks and mixes of the week, as well as various unmissable upcoming nights and releases. GIGS Misfit present: KiNK at Thompsons, Belfast Friday, February 20 Is it worth braving Thompsons on a Friday night to see someone play I hear you ask? Yes, actually, when it’s KiNK playing. The Bulgarian producer has garnered a serious reputation for his live shows over the last few years. His sets are a lovely mix of raw and clean sounds which are seriously banging. Should sound…

  • The Hefty Fog: The Aussie Triumvirate

    The latter half of the 00’s were, as far as underground Metal music was concerned, focused almost entirely on the advent and subsequent decline of ‘Slamming Brutal Death Metal’, or however many variants on that title had been adopted during the time. The grooves of the early to mid 90’s had resurfaced on a Death Metal scene that desperately needed some kind of facelift, lest the hardcore fans be doomed to relive the 80’s over and over again like some kind of Scott Burns-produced Groundhog Day. What we got in the end was a newly popularized strain of Death Metal…

  • Deep Down South: Creative Spaces, Familiar Faces, More Festivals

    In the aftermath of the events of the Block Party and Noisefest, as mentioned/fawned over in this column, a hugely busy early 2015 awaits Cork City and the people that populate its creative community. As mentioned in last week’s column, last week’s Structures and Strategies meeting brought artists together to discuss goals and offer mutual support, and from it has emerged Cork Creatives, a new group dedicated to similar meetups monthly. Such a step forward can only be hugely positive for everyone involved, and if the last few weeks have been any indication, working together is the way forward. Email…

  • TV Eye: The Booth At The End

    Fan of Black Mirror? The Twilight Zone? In the very first of a new series, TV Eye, Stevie Lennox looks at one of Netflix’s more engrossing darkly propositions, The Booth At The End. I’m a junkie for a show that blurs the lines of morality and asks the big questions  – think The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, Utopia. If any of those names stand out to you, The Booth At The End is your new jam – for about five hours, at least. At this point, there are only two five-episode seasons available with promises of a more ambitious third…

  • Deep Down South: Like Light to a Fuse

    Cork City has been a fuse waiting to be lit. All this time, exciting, inimitable, indomitable people, have been creating, and facilitating, providing space, trying, and failing, learning, and improving, and resolving to do better. Coming together, helping each other. This weekend was a light to that fuse. The Quarter Block Party didn’t just meet or even exceed expectations, it utterly transcended them. A huge and varied multimedia programme, spanning music, art, theatre, discussion and good vibes, it delivered on all fronts. There’ll be a review with all the details and critique either tomorrow or Wednesday, and your writer will…

  • Rave New World (6/2)

    In the latest installment of Rave New World, the impossibly heedful, ineffably excellent Antoin Lindsay & Aidan Hanratty delve into best new electronic tracks and mixes of the week, as well as various unmissable upcoming nights and releases. Gigs Ken & Ryu – EP Launch Party at The Menagerie, Belfast Friday, February 6 James McConville AKA Ken & Ryu is launching his Fantasy Ink EP at The Menagerie tonight alongside Defcon, Jamie Nelson and Paul McCarthy. I reviewed the EP on these very pages and the party should be equally as enjoyable. AL Twitch Present Ben UFO, Pearson Sound and Pangaea at The Mandela…

  • Dead and Buried: The Black Metal/Punk Crossover.

    It’s no secret that Black Metal, at least that which constitutes as both ‘trve’ and ‘kvlt’, has always been a very insular music with a positively colossal stick up its arse, writes Liam Doyle.With a certain percentage of its fan base snatching up cassette tape demos limited to exactly four copies, snarling at and baying for the blood of bands they deem ‘false’, and generally revelling in their own elite status, it’s a wonder the Black Metal sound ever began to expand and socialize as it has these past few years. With the new millennium seemed to come a new Black…

  • Deep Down South: Farewells, Returns and Festivals

    Some news that sadly flew under a lot of radars locally in the excitement running up to this week’s absurd amount of good stuff (which we’ll get to!) was the announcement of the impending passing of sludge/doom lords FIVEWILLDIE on the 20th of February, after their final show/tenth-anniversary show at Mr. Bradley’s. We’ll have a farewell feature in the coming weeks in this space, but suffice to say, a band around which a lot of live activity revolved over the years, such as Pyre Pro, Limerick’s Bad Reputation and the Siege of Limerick are going to be sadly, sadly missed,…