• EP Premiere: Shrug Life – The Grand Stretch

    July 23, 2015 - By 

    Having all but soiled ourselves listening to and shouting about its second track, ‘Funderland’, yesterday, we’re rather happy to present an exclusive first listen to The Grand Stretch, the debut EP by Popical Island’s latest – and perhaps some day greatest – outfit, Shrug Life. Life sucks and we all know it, but not all of us (in fact, very few of us) have the creative or whimsical tools at our disposal to express said utter despair and pointlessness via inescapably deadly, stupidly catchy, lo-fi indie rock. God knows we’d all love to, but who’s got the time to give…

  • Ant-Man

    July 23, 2015 - By 

    Ant-Man is a small guy but he comes with a lot of baggage. With the high-profile mid-production replacement of Edgar Wright, a stylistically idiosyncratic film-maker with cult buzz, with Yes Man director Peyton Redd, much of the nerdtariat has already pegged Ant-Man as a test case for the limits of auteurism in the Marvel factory. And the pint-sized adventures of Scott Lang, Paul Rudd’s incredible shrinking superhero and the latest addition to the Avengers fringes, definitely invites this perspective. The film is immediately readable as a kind of Rorschach test, with tone, story and character work that stretches from inspired to…

  • Rave New World (24/7)

    July 24, 2015 - By 

    The weekend, hurrah! But before that: Aidan Hanratty and Antoin Lindsay deliver their weekly look at all the very best electronic gigs, tracks, mixes and releases. GIGS White Noise 500 with Dave Clarke, Marcel Fengler & Sunil Sharpe at The Academy Friday, July 24  A hefty line-up this. In celebration of Dave Clarke’s 500th show, he’s broadcasting live from Dublin alongside Berghain resident Marcel Fengler and Dublin’s own Sunil Sharpe. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the up-and-coming Dublin talent is in abundance in Opium Rooms, with Daire Carolan playing all night alongside DJ Isleo’man (Morgan Buckley) and DJ Muscles…

  • Beat Root Weekender @ Crescent Arts

    July 23, 2015 - By 

    Presented by Moving on Music, the inaugural Beat Root will see a weekend of alternative roots music at Belfast’s Crescent Arts Centre across Thursday, September 4 to Sunday, September 6. A brew of “old-folk”, “new-folk”, world, balladry and electronics, the weekender will see three downright unmissable shows: acclaimed collective The Furrow Collective on the Thursday night, LA born, Barcelona-based audiovisual artist Grey Filastine and Javanese indie vocalist and rapper Nova AKA Filastine and Nova on the Friday night and, on Saturday evening, our very own Robyn G Shiels and Newcastle’s Richard Dawson. Tickets are priced at £10 per night with a…

  • Metropolis Festival

    July 24, 2015 - By 

    Taking place over the 7 & 8 November at Dublin’s RDS, the Metropolis Festival boasts an incredible lineup spread across 6 rooms, taking in live music, performance, discussions & talks from selected creatives, and installations geared towards transforming the RDS into an audio-visual playground. Chic, featuring Nile Rodgers – about whom nothing further needs to be said – headline the Metropolis stage, so expect one of the richest and tightest sets in the world. Performing during the weekend are hit machine Mark Ronson, Jamie XX – fresh off the back of his excellent new In Colour LP –  The Roots, Giorgio Moroder, Finnish maestro Todd Terje, Kaytranada, Matthew Herbert, Dorian Concept, Kerri…

  • Shot Glass: The Affectionate Punch

    July 22, 2015 - By 

    As Shot Glass Theatre enjoys its fifteen month anniversary co-founder Joseph Nawaz and I sit back and toast our success with supermarket own-brand prosecco. The acid reflux is fiery! Our sleeping partner, Infinite Jest’s Graeme Watson, cannot make it. Graeme is one of the soundest people I know and certainly the soundest sleeper. We chuckle indulgently to each other, Joe and I, marvelling at the long strange trip it’s been and what an odd thing it is to do: we invent people, make them say things and other people, pretending to be the people we’ve invented, say the things we’ve…

  • Download: An Taobh Tuathail Vol 7

    July 22, 2015 - By 

    Not merely the finest Irish radio programme, An Taobh Tuathail on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta is nothing short of a consistently impeccable underground music institution. Presented by Cian Ó Cíobháin, the show has proven an indispensable go-to criterion for fresh, unusual and glorious sounds for innumerable listeners both across the country and throughout the world since starting way back in 1999. Eight years on from the release of its first collection, the seventh volume of ATT’s free, all-but annual compilation – featuring tracks by the likes of Orcas, Loner Deluxe, Kode9, Colleen, Rival Consoles, Nils Frahm, Sufjan Stevens and Mica Levi – is a perfect place to…

  • Watch: Shrug Life – Funderland

    July 22, 2015 - By 

    Dublin-based bastion of jangle and virulent lo-fidelity, Popical Island’s latest “ingenues” Shrug Life have gotten off to a ridiculously catchy start with the release of tracks ‘Chewing Gum Breakfast’ and ‘Funderland’. Set to feature on the band’s debut EP, The Grand Stretch (which we’ll be streaming next week), the latter song was released earlier today and is for our money the finest (our at least our favourite) Popical Island track ever. Stick that on our tombstone; we shall forever stand by it. Not terrified of mimes? Watch the video for ‘Funderland’ below. Go here for the Facebook page event page…