• Half Japanese – Hear The Lions Roar

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    You know when you’re at a party, enjoying a group conversation and a member of your gaggle makes a private joke, the meaning behind you’re not privy to? It creates this terribly awkward and uncomfortable feeling as you’re left wondering what is so funny. From context and reaction, you can infer that something enjoyable, or at the very least interesting has occurred, but you’re completely at a loss as to what that is or what it even could be. Half Japanese is the musical equivalent of that sensation. Within their repertoire, you can hear the stylistic hints from the likes…

  • Premiere: Feather Beds – ‘Headache Dreams’

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    Back in August of 2015, we premiered Ah Stop, a stellar, four-track EP from Dublin producer Michael Orange AKA Feather Beds. Seventeen months on, Orange has resurfaced with the news that he will release a new album, Blooming, later this year. To tide us over in the meantime, we’re very pleased to premiere its first single, ‘Headache Dreams’, a whirling, tripped-out surge of electronica summoning Porcelain Raft, Jape and Panda Bear. We’re big fans. Feather Beds should and hopefully will be massive. Have a first listen below.

  • Video Premiere: Saramai – Heavenly

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    Having popped up on the likes of Hard Working Class Heroes and Other Voices last year, Co. Meath duo Samarai straddle a wonderfully inviting line between longing chamber pop and straight-up balladry. The third track on their sublime Magnetic North EP, the ‘Heavenly’ distils the duo’s essence to a song conjuring the subtle, gossamer-like emotive power of This Mortal Coil’s ‘Song to the Siren’ and ‘Mysteries of Love’ by Julee Cruise. Currently working on a new single which they will release in the coming weeks with their eyes on a full-length album, Saramai play Dublin’s Workman’s Club on Tuesday for Syrias…

  • The XX – I See You

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    The XX are a band that harness negative space within music to create an atmosphere so chillingly retrospective that in most cases it need only be listened to underneath moonlight. The trio slid anxiously into the industry with their debut, XX, an album that, unbeknownst to them, would become an international success. The suave blend of spacious indie-electronic beats provided by Jamie (xx) Smith and the minimal vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim proved them to be the perfect vessel for conveying the vernacular of heartbreak and loss. Following this was 2012’s Coexist, an even more stripped back, sparsely…

  • Album Premiere: Nomadic Rituals – Marking The Day

    January 12, 2017 - By 

    We’re over the moon – and indeed, the universe and its eventual demise – to premiere the gargantuan second album from one of the heaviest bands on this rock, Belfast-based heavy primal doom trio Nomadic Rituals. In the band’s own words: “‘Marking the Day’ was created as a concept album envisioning the birth and death of the cosmos, and ultimately focusing upon our subsequent place within it. From the formation of physical matter and structure of the universe; to the division of the first single cells and the evolution of the dominant species; to the final and inevitable heat death of the entire…

  • Brilliant Corners Announce 2017 Programme

    January 11, 2017 - By 

    One of the country’s most reliably consistent and forward-thinking jazz festivals, the line-up has been revealed for the fifth outing of Moving on Music’s Brilliant Corners. Set return to various venues in Belfast from March 7-11, the festival pays homage to the inimitable Charles Mingus with I Am Three, get experimental with Sirene 1009 and FAINT+, showcase some stellar local talent with Hands, Organ Failure, and Joseph Leighton, delve into full prog-rock mode with Belgian guitar trio Dans Dans and Norwegian guitar-bass-drum blasters Hedvig Mollestad Trio, before bowing out with Robocobra Quartet and Strobes. Elsewhere, Belfast Film Festival will once again be screening some…

  • David Bowie – No Plan

    January 11, 2017 - By 

    She held out her trembling hand to K. and had him sit down beside her, she spoke with great difficulty, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said Final Sentence of Franz Kafka’s The Castle History is littered with the infinite possibilities teased at within the unfinished work of great artists who died before their time. Think of Elliott Smith’s From A Basement On A Hill, David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King or George Sluizer’s Dark Blood; all released in an awkwardly assembled form, stitched together from whatever fragments the artist had left behind. While they vary wildly…

  • 12 Irish Acts Set for SXSW ’17

    January 10, 2017 - By 

    Ahh, South By Southwest. Fully indispensable festival and conference or overly hectic annual industry circus? The jury still seems to be out on that one but, as far we’re concerned at least, it’s firmly slotted in the former camp. Set to return to Austin from March 10-19, this year’s outing will see 12 of its 500 acts – including several TTA favourites – flying in from the Emerald Isle. With the likes of Enemies, Rusangano Family and Saint Sister featuring last year, SXSW ’17 will see Robocobra Quartet, Ryan Vail, LOAH (pictured), Silences, Birds of Olympus, Jealous of the Birds, A.S Fanning, The Academic, Picture…

  • RTÉ Choice Music Prize Shortlist Revealed

    January 11, 2017 - By 

    With a new primary sponsor in RTÉ in tow, the shortlist for this year’s Choice Music Prize has been revealed on 2FM’s Tracy Clifford Show by Tony Clayton-Lea. Set to take place at its home at Dublin’s Vicar Street on March 9 (tickets here) the 12th annual award will once again celebrate and acknowledge the best in Irish recorded music, with one winning act walking away with €10,000 on the night. Set to be chosen by a panel of twelve Irish music media professionals and industry experts, the following ten releases will vie for the prize: All Tvvins – IIVV (Warner Music) Bantum…

  • Hyperbolex with Ray Wingnut: Rough Trade

    January 10, 2017 - By 

    To INSPIRE: to fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do something, especially to do something creative. At the beginning of a new year, we probably all need a bit of inspiration. To feel inspired, to have the energy and the will to begin or to continue. For me personally, to be inspired is something that I’m always chasing. It’s not always easy to find or hold on to. But it is an energy or life source. To inspire also means to breathe in. Or in the recent first episode of This Ain’t No Disco, Dónal Dineen used a…