Following in the footsteps of the likes of Ciaran Lavery and Claire Miskimmin from Girls Names, Ciaran Smith (pictured, left) from Dublin band Crayonsmith selects his all-time favourite tracks – Fog, Rhye, Viet Cong etc. – for this week’s Monday Mixtape. Crayonsmith are currently recording an EP and playThe Horse and Stables, London, on March 17
…in which the good ship Infanta sails into Dublin on a sea of whimsy and English tea, bearing forth a band of bohemian minstrels, sweating absinthe, smoking shisha pipes, brandishing muskets, sextants and satchels overflowing with sonnets scrawled on rolls of teletype paper. Right from the outset, it is clear that the audience, squeezed into a venue fittingly bedecked in wooden friezes, will be treated to something truly rare in modern music: originality. Firstly, there’s frontman and songwriter in chief Colin Meloy’s lyrics, which are uniquely literate, ribald and at times just a tad sinister in the best possible way.…
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…
In our fifth installment of Front of House, we chat to Cork native Ber Quinn about his life as a sound engineer in Dublin and his current work with Villagers. Photos by Brid O’Donovan. Hey Ber! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Hi! I’m a Cork man living in Dublin on and off for the last 7 or so years. As a live engineer, I mix front of house sound for Villagers, The Magic Numbers, Cathy Davey, Wallis Bird, Duke Special and a German classical ensemble called Stargaze. I’m also a studio engineer fighting the tide of click tracks and…
Sure, every second song is about love or lack thereof, but that hasn’t stopped us from compiling a Spotify playlist summing up the sometimes transformative, other times twisted world and ways of love pretty flippin’ succinctly. Featuring Mojave 3, James Blake, Pavement, Grizzly Bear, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Magnetic Fields and more, you can and subscribe to it below.
In the latest installment of Rave New World, the ridiculously informed, boundlessly savvy 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 Rødhåd at District 8, Dublin Friday February, 1 Everyone’s favourite techno DJ with a name they’re not really sure how to pronounce is in Dublin tonight. Is it Rod-had, Red-head, Rod-head, who actually knows? Does anyone actually care? Expect relentless techno from Rødhåd (pictured) who seems to have quietly catapulted himselfinto the higher ranks of techno royalty in the last 18 months. His ever-burgeoning reputation is…
Over a decade ago now, I discovered the music of Elliott Smith on a Nirvana messageboard. Looking back, it was most definitely a potent catalyst for everything I have looked for in music – and elsewhere – ever since. Someone recommended I check out ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow’ from XO as a starting point, so I did. I was immediately infatuated; like a giddy moth to a burning flame, instantly seduced by the mournful turns and phrases of Elliott’s words and chords. Without hesitation, I threw myself into his varyingly exceptional discography, listening to nothing else for days on end in the depths…
The 2015 Kerrang Tour steamrolled into Dublin on Wednesday night with a line up consisting of Beartooth, Bury Tomorrow, We Are In The Crowd and Don Broco. Photos by Sara Marsden.
Amid preparations for a three-month tour of the US and Europe, A Place to Bury Strangers‘ front man Oliver Ackermann chats to Joe Madsen about the release of their fourth album, Transfixiation, and their years as a changing act in a niche genre. APTBS to come to Dublin on March 31 and Belfast the following night. APTBS has gone through quite a few changes over the past decade, shifting band members, management, and labels through its stages. How do you feel the band has changed or grown through all these developments? I think it’s allowed us to become more focused on exactly…
Macabre, provocative, sexually-charged, unrelentingly intense; Northern Ireland Opera’s visceral interpretation of Richard Strauss’s opera Salomewas all these things and more. And few who were present are ever likely to forget the sight of soprano Giselle Allen’s Salome, drenched in John the Baptist’s blood and pleasuring herself, in paroxysms of ecstasy, with his decapitated head. This matinee performance was undoubtedly a stimulating alternative to church and Sunday lunch. As one well-heeled septuagenarian lady commented at the end of this very rock ‘n’ roll show: “I’ve never spent a Sunday afternoon quite like that before.” Nor Allen, as like as not. In…