• Playlist For Kanye: Beck’s 20 Best Songs

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    Kanye, we’re gon’ let you finish but Beck is easily one of the most innovative, exciting and singular artists of our generation. We love you, Kanye, we really do, but Mr. Hansen has consistently churned out some of the most downright exceptional sounds – party-starting jams, neo-psychedelic throwdowns and brooding odes –  over twelve studio albums, three EPs, forty singles, fourteen soundtracks and thirty-nine genre-spanning  collaborations. He’s good, Kanye – he’s very good – and to prove it, if you’ve got the time in your very busy schedule, here’s a playlist comprised of Beck’s 20 best songs. It took us ages…

  • No Monster Club – People Are Weird

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    No Monster Club is a cacophonous creature that can’t be categorized. Styled by Dublin’s own Bobby Aherne, this musical act is a creation born of many genres, many trials, many errors, and many years in production, with latest release People Are Weird proving no exception to this theme. In fact, this eighth album represents a lot of Aherne’s transformation as an artist these past eight years. Dipping his hands and his listeners’ ears into various pots of sound across the set, Aherne flees from being pinned to one classification, weaving an opus which draws on the influence of past artists…

  • Making Monsters w/ Support @ The Bar With No Name, Belfast

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    Redbeard’s latest showcase took place at Belfast’s The Bar With No Name (AKA Auntie Annie’s – RIP, etc.) at the weekend. Headlined by fast-rising Derry band Making Monsters, the show also featured blinding sets from Molar Bear, Axecatcher and MAW. A connoisseur of all things heavy and local, our photographer Liam Kielt was down to capture the action.

  • Viet Cong – Viet Cong

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    Viet Cong really know how to make an entrance. The first moments of their self titled debut LP contain those drums; they’re almost tribal with intensity but they’ve been distorted and muffled to the stage where they achieve this kind of industrial vibe, evoking the likes of the Manic Street Preachers’ ‘Intense Humming of Evil’ and Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Mr. Self Destruct’. It’s this kind of deeply unsettling atmosphere that the likes of Einstürzende Neubauten just revelled in and gives the band a clear mission statement: for these Canadians, it’s still the mid 80s, and Joy Division, Echo and The…

  • AAA Tour Edition: Bear’s Den

    February 11, 2015 - By 

    In this special installment of AAA (Access All Areas) we hop on tour with London alt-folk trio Bear’s Den as they took in the Workman’s Club in Dublin and Voodoo in Belfast with support from Rukhsana Merrise last weekend. View both full galleries of their tour below,  filled to the brim with photos by Shaun Neary and Sara Marsden. The Workman’s Club in Dublin by Shaun Neary Voodoo in Belfast by Sara Marsden

  • Cork Heads: Cathy O’Donoghue

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Cork Heads, Brid O’Donovan chats to Cathy O’ Donoghue, owner of Turquoise Flamingo, a vintage clothing and accessories online store and blog. She also co-runs Oh Me, Oh My DIY creative workshops in secret locations. The Things you do as a Child. Arts and crafts with my mum I suppose. We lived out in the country and we had no neighbours. I have one sister who didn’t come along until I was five so she wasn’t fun until I was eight or nine. I was a bit of a tomboy but I was girly too.…

  • Villagers announce European tour

    February 9, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of the release of the highly anticipated third album, Darling Arithmetic, Villagers have announced a run of dates across Ireland this May. Starting in Rotterdam on Saturday, April 11, the tour will conclude at Belfast’s Mandela Hall on Monday, May 25. Check out the full dates below. Sat 11 Apr ROTTERDAM Motel Mozaique Tue 14 Apr BRISTOL St Georges Wed 15 Apr FALMOUTH Pavilions Thu 16 Apr EXETER Phoenix Fri 17 Apr BRIGHTON The Old Market Sun 19 Apr LIVERPOOL Epstein Theatre Mon 20 Apr MANCHESTER Concert Hall Tue 21 Apr LEEDS City Varieties Thu 23 Apr PORTSMOUTH Wedgewood…

  • Track Record: Tim O’Donovan (Buffalo Woman)

    February 13, 2015 - By 

    Tim O’Donovan – one half of synth pop duo Buffalo Woman and a long time DJ based in Dublin – shares his favourite records from Prince to Jean Michel Jarre. Photos by Aaron Corr. Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain I never saw the movie the first time round. But the music was just too powerful to ignore. All the songs are so different and have such a personality of their own, but they still all sound like Prince. I love the fact that ‘When Doves Cry’ has no bass in it. I love the fact that Purple Rain was…

  • Screen/Play #1: Tortured Artists in Whiplash and Frank

    February 12, 2015 - By 

    Damien Chazelle’s testosterone-pumping Whiplash, released last month, is a musical coming-of-age story with the form of a boxing movie; never more so than in a pivotal ‘training montage’ in which the young hero, the talented but arrogant jazz drummer Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), works to regain his lost first-stringer position. In a move obviously designed to provoke the music student, band conductor Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), who rules his classroom with equal parts terror and humiliation, has replaced the ambitious Andrew with a drummer of lesser ability. Andrew channels his frustration and rage into a gruelling, cymbal-smashing practice session, applying…

  • Deep Down South: Like Light to a Fuse

    February 9, 2015 - By 

    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…