• Track Record: Gugai

    Booker, promoter, DJ and all-round good guy Gugai – formally known as Eoghan MacNamara (or ‘Google’ if you’re drunk enough) is somewhat of a legend around Galway and if you’ve ever graced the Roisin Dubh venue you’ll know of his overwhelming love and support of the music scene here first hand. We’ve asked him to kindly flip through his entire record collection and select some of his favourite releases, with special guest appearances from Pope John Paul II and his dotey son Osgur. Photos by Sean McCormack. Pope John Paul II – In Ireland I think It’s really hard to choose your favourite record…

  • Inbound: His New Atlas

    In this latest installment of Inbound – which looks at some of the more promising acts from across the country – we talk to fast-rising Armagh singer-songwriter Eoghan O’Hagan AKA His New Atlas about the power of cathartic release, his very specific approach to songwriting and his big plans for the next few months. Firstly, can you shed a bit of light on how you came to be a singer-songwriter? I started off in a metal band, oddly enough. I left this as I never felt like it was moving at a pace that fast enough for me. So I got a…

  • Cork Music Trail: Ones to Watch

    It would seem that MTV have remembered what their (previously-orphaned) acronym stands for, turning their attention away from mouth-breathing reality-show nonsense, and on to music, of all things. With the announcement of the Shepard Fairey-directed Rebel Music calling attention to youth subcultures around the world and the transcendent tunes that soundtrack their lives, the idea hits that the floundering music-channel grandfather has either finally realised the error of its ways and is earnestly trying for relevance, or has just been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Either way, the cable & satellite success story of the 1980s wobbles its way to Cork…

  • Video Premiere: Zaska – Different Light

    We’re pleased to present the premiere of the new video by eight-piece Dublin supergroup Zaska. Fronted by Max Zaska, the band granted our photographer Tara Thomas behind the scenes access to capture during the shoot. Check out her gallery for more images and watch the video – produced by Stoneface films and directed by Jon Hozier-Byrne – below.

  • Smolder and Scully: The Fall Review

    Your mum’s favourite serial killer is back. At the end of last year’s five-episode run of BBC2’s The Fall, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) packed in his moonlighting strangling escapades and carted his family onto the next Stenna Line to the Highlands. But you can’t keep a good stalker down, especially when he’s one half of the BBC’s most locally successful and internationally exportable drama for years. In last week’s sophomore opener, he’s back to eyeing up brunettes on the Larne line. In the meantime, creator Allan Cubbit has had to defend the show against claims that it glamourizes female violence,…

  • AAA: Therapy? @ Mandela Hall, Belfast

    In an AAA (Access All Areas) set Shaun Neary shoots Northern Irish alt-rock legends Therapy? before, during and after their spectacular Troublegum set at Belfast’s Mandela Hall on Saturday night as part of this year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize.

  • Interview: Paul Smith

    Maximo Park frontman Paul Smith talks to Shannon Delores O’Neill about his new, forward-thinking collaboration with Peter Brewis (Field Music) for their Frozen by Sight album, released today. Frozen by Sight has been described as a “playful departure from [both Peter’s and your] previous groups”. Do you agree? Peter and I have known each other for over a decade but we never got to formally work with each other; we’d watched each other’s bands, shared the same musical ideas and always just thought, “Will we ever get to do something?” We were then lucky enough to get commissioned work by the Festival…