• Household Festival

    August 20, 2013 - By 

    Taking place on and around the Ormeau Park area of South Belfast across the weekend of August 23-25 Household festival returns after last year’s hugely successful outing for the annual event. A festival that “encourages audiences to re-negotiate the way in which they view and interact with art in the city” it offers a wonderfully unrestrictive platform for live music, screenings, dinners, talks, discussions, contemporary dance in artists’ homes and non-art spaces. Over 100 artists and creative professionals from across the city will be involved in over 40 hours in the area. Events at this year’s festival include letter writing…

  • Album stream: Linebacker Dirge – Take Shelter

    August 20, 2013 - By 

    Belfast-based alt-rock four-piece Linebacker Dirge have released their thirteen-track debut album, Take Shelter. Comprised of members of bands such as Kasper Rosa, A Northern Light and Affleck, the album –  the long-awaited full-length follow-up to the band’s 2011 EP, There Are No Clean Getaways – was recorded by Jason Gibson (guitars/vocals), James Bruce (drums) and Ian McHugh (guitar, additional vocals). Artwork comes from John Quinn. Stream (or purchase) the album via Bandcamp below. Take Shelter by Linebacker Dirge

  • Watch: No Age – An Impression

    August 19, 2013 - By 

    L.A. experimental punk two-piece No Age have unveiled a video for new track, ‘An Impression’. Taken from the band’s fourth studio album entitled An Object – released today in the UK and tomorrow in the US via Sub Pop – the video for the track the brief, decidedly abstract clip was directed by the duo, Randy Randall (guitar) and Dean Spunt (drums/vocals). Watch the video below.  

  • Gateways To Paradise – How REM Gave Me A Music Collection

    August 19, 2013 - By 

    I was 13, living in Antrim, and it felt like the entire world was very, very far away. But then I would pick up my Walkman, slot in a copy of Fables of the Reconstruction or Out of Time, and find myself in an exotic world, a place of mystery and magic, a place where the kudzu vine spread over everything, and nights were spent by the railway line, watching the trains. To that 13 year old boy, REM were more than a lifeline; they were a life. As the years went by, my love of REM would fluctuate, their 21st century missteps leading…

  • Belsonic: Basement Jaxx, Leftfield, Le Carousel

    August 19, 2013 - By 

    Our photographer Alan Maguire captures Basement Jaxx headlining Day One of this year’s Belsonic at Custom House Square, Belfast. Supporting the British electronic duo on the night was London two-piece Leftfield and Phil Kieran’s band project Le Carousel. View Alan’s photos from the night below! at Custom House Square, Belfast. Supporting the British electronic duo on the night were London electronic two-piece Leftfield and Phil Kieran’s band project Le Carousel. View his photos from the show on Friday, August, 16 below.

  • Mogwai – Les Revenants EP

    August 19, 2013 - By 

    Zombies. Fucking zombies. There are few things that have assimilated as many cultural touchstones as the zombie phenomenon. They’ve taken movies, classic novels, video games, music and now they’ve taken beloved Scottish instrumentalists Mogwai with the group’s Les Revenants EP (As an aside, if anyone wishes to create a Gremlins zombie mash-up, I won’t complain). The EP, the group’s first release since 2009’s fantastic Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, probably won’t win any new fans for the group but is a neat little treat for longtime fans. For a bit of context,  Les Revenants is a collection of…

  • Dan Hegarty: Obsessive Compulsions

    August 19, 2013 - By 

    He sports one of the most splendid moustaches that you’re likely to see, and he’s proven that he can pen a tune or two over the years. Jerry Fish has brought us one of the catchiest tunes of 2013 in ‘Barefoot & Free’. He’s enlisted the services of R.S.A.G on drums, and put together a pretty funky video to go with it! If you’re going to the Electric Picnic, make sure to pay a visit to his ‘The Jerry Fish Electric Sideshow’ stage at Electric Picnic’s Trailer Park.   We all have the potential to become slightly obsessive about things;…

  • CFCF – Music For Objects EP

    August 15, 2013 - By 

    There is often a stigma attached to the term ‘concept album’ that can generally be found rooted in the lank-haired, progressive rock of the 1970’s and 80’s, and as such, it can be difficult to dissolve any predispositions of the description without looking both further back than this era of musical history, as well as further forward. Davis and Coltrane produced some outstanding examples of conceptually driven jazz back in the 1940’s and 50’s; Philip Glass has explored minimalist and modern classical music beyond the boundaries of the ordinary for half a century or more and in the past 20…

  • David Bowie: The Night Before

    August 15, 2013 - By 

    So, David Bowie came back this year with his finest album in about two decades. There is a pretty solid consensus as to when Bowie went awful, but the jury is still out on exactly when he recovered. Some would say it was the overbearing misery and darkness that rekindled Bowie’s fire on Heathen, others think it was Outside and Earthling‘s manic dance energy that threw Bowie back into shape and a lot of people believe that it wasn’t until The Next Day that he managed to overcome the slump. Your writer fall into the Heathen camp but, looking at his…

  • Spiritualized @ National Concert Hall, Dublin

    August 15, 2013 - By 

    There was no small sense of anticipation in the run-up to this one. Not only did Spiritualized announce that they were playing their Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space album in its entirety, they were doing so in Dublin’s National Concert Hall with an orchestra, and it would be the only such performance of 2013. So, tickets were duly snapped up for what was a pretty low-key announcement, all things considered. As the more NCH-savvy members of the audience file in for the eight o’clock sharp start time, there is a palpable air of excitement in the ornate…