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

    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)

    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…

  • Inbound: Peter McVeigh

    In the latest installment of Inbound, we chat to Belfast-based singer-songwriter Peter McVeigh, touching on the recording and release of his new album, PM, collaborating with an array of musicians on the release and the current state of the Irish music industry. Hi Peter. First thing’s first: for those not acquainted with your backstory, how did you first get into writing and making music? I’ve always played music of some sort. I played flute at primary school, got kicked out of it for not doing my homework in high school and decided to teach myself piano, guitar and sing. Then…

  • The Record: Stonemasons

    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

    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,…

  • Interview: Foals

    Foals have this aura of being an incredibly intense act. There’s an image portrayed of this bunch of manic but brooding individuals from Oxford who have gone from creating live dance punk to trash a house party to, to crafting some of the most lucid and crushingly expansive indie-rock of the past decade. Speaking to Foals’ drummer Jack Bevan on the phone about their upcoming release What Went Down then, it felt both refreshing and jarring to be met with a relaxed yet chirpy voice on the other side. On the subject of change, writing, dynamic and everything that was…

  • Visual Arts Outlook (18/8)

    We are at that midpoint in the month where things tend to quiet down a bit. However, don’t panic, I do have some recommendations to whet your artistic appetite for the week. If you’re feeling like a party on Friday night head out to Public Indecency a Fundraiser for Household Collective at the Hudson Bar Belfast on Friday Night. This is sure to be a good party hosted by the wonderful Venus Dupree. Household is a curatorial collective based in Belfast who are currently planning for an exciting  three day programme of screenings and events at the beginning of September…

  • Rave New World (14/8)

    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

    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

    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…