• Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 3

    January 10, 2017 - By 

    By releasing their fiercely political – and wickedly funny –  sophomore record Run The Jewels 2 at the end of 2014, MCs Killer Mike and El-P couldn’t have picked a better time to explode into the mainstream. Having kicked around just outside the rap mainstream for as well-respected solo artists during the 2000s, their 2012 joint tour lead to Run The Jewel’s self-titled debut the following year, although it’s party vibe gave little warning for it’s hard-nosed successor: El-P’s production rattled with the same intensity of The Bomb Squad, while Killer Mike spat angry truths about racism and social equality…

  • First Acts Announced For Beatyard 2017

    January 9, 2017 - By 

    Set to return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour in Dublin on August 5 and 6, the first acts set to play this year’s The Beatyard have been announced. With many more acts, happenings and details set to be announced over the coming while, Bananarama, Candi Staton and Horse Meat Disco are the first artists revealed to play. Also confirmed is the Eatyard (see what they did there?), which will feature 100+ stalls and vendors. You can pick up 2 for 1 tickets right now for just €45 right here.

  • Album Stream: New Pope – LOVE

    January 9, 2017 - By 

    Back in October, we premiered ‘The Claddagh’, a highlight from Galway musician David Boland AKA New Pope’s brand new album, LOVE. Having said “via wonderfully wearied reflections and crushing guitar shapes, Boland sieves gold from the quite literal stoney shore in subtle, masterfully soul-lifting fashion” our verdict of the single could also double up as a summation of LOVE as a whole. Recorded at College Road in Galway, the seven tracks that comprise the release – featuring Colm Bohan, Stephen Connolly, G Tobin and Mosey Byrne here and there – coalesce to re-affirm, once again, that Boland is not merely one of…

  • Stream: Comrade Hat – Go To Waste

    January 9, 2017 - By 

    Having premiered its title track and lead single via The Thin Air in May last year, Old Amsterdam is a forthcoming EP from Derry’s Neil Burns AKA Comrade Hat set for release on January 17. Previously a member of arguably the city’s finest offbeat pop-makers Strength, Burns has released the EP’s second single, ‘Go To Waste’. A wholehearted, deceptively layered slice of experimental pop that knowingly indulges an “adult contemporary” angle, the track puts living in the moment and cutting oneself some slack centre-stage. Old Amsterdam by Comrade Hat

  • Album Stream: Invaderband – Invaderband

    January 9, 2017 - By 

    Bolstered by a band of musicians including Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son, Gavin McCartney and Rion McCartney, Derry’s Adam Leonard AKA Invaderband first caught our attention back in March of 2015 with his single ‘The Implausible Man’. Now, almost two years on, Leonard has just unveiled his self-titled debut album, a record that – according to the main man – “covers a number of disparate bases: the invasion of Iraq, ectoplasm, alien attack and Alan Rickman, and that’s just for starters. Sonically it’s consistent though – a non-stop stream of dynamic post-punk, brushing Krautrock confetti from its shoulders…” With hints…

  • God’s Waiting Room Valentine’s Special

    January 8, 2017 - By 

    Following on from a very memorable festive feast for senses in the company of Andrew Weatherall back in December, David Holmes‘ God’s Waiting Room will return to Belfast’s Maple Leaf Club on Saturday, February 11 for Valentine’s Day special. Headed by Montréal artist, producer and “detached crooner deep within a dystopian discotheque” Bernardino Femminielli, the night will also feature a 4 hour DJ set from Holmes and DIE HEXEN live, as well as Jeff Doherty and Mark Gilliland in Room 2 and films/visuals courtesy of Stephen Hackett and Jason Deadman. Set to be compered by Joe Lindsay, the first 200 through the…

  • Stream: The Thin Air’s Death Culture Blues #6

    January 6, 2017 - By 

    In the first installment of the show this year, we returned to Dublin Digital Radio last night for our weekly two-hour slot of experimental, cosmic and ambient sounds, Death Culture Blues. From Jack Rose to Windy & Carl, it was – as we might well be likely to say on several of these posts down the line – easily our favourite show thus far. Check out the full playlist and listen back via the DDR Mixcloud page below. 1. Jack Rose – Sun Dogs 2. The Makers – Don’t Challenge Me 3. Kariem Riggins – Bahia Dreamin 4. Temples –…

  • Gone Is Gone – Echolocation

    January 6, 2017 - By 

    There are three Ts at the heart of Gone Is Gone: Tony Hajjar, Troy Van Leeuwen, and Troy Sanders. For the uninitiated, that roughly translates to At The Drive-In, Queens Of The Stone Age and Mastodon occupying the same aural space. That’s the kind of lineup that makes a certain type of music fan’s eyes bulge out like a Looney Toons Character. It’s the stuff that dark, metal-inflected dreams are made of. Add to this trio multi-instrumentalist Mike Zarin and you’ve got the recipe for dark magic. Unfortunately, while their debut LP, Echolocation, has this threads and whispered hints of…

  • Premiere: Owen Denvir – Siren Song

    January 6, 2017 - By 

    Taken from an upcoming live EP, Motion Picture Soundtrack, ‘Siren Song’ is the first of five videos being released by fast-rising Belfast singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Owen Denvir on each Friday in the month of January. Featuring a five-piece choir, this first cut from the EP – recorded by Mike Mormecha and filmed by Dog Kennel Productions at Queen’s University – puts Denvir’s vocals centre-stage, making for a masterfully meditative tale of pain, solace and redemption. Have a first look at the video below.

  • Dead Rising 4 (Capcom, PC / Xbox One)

    January 5, 2017 - By 

    Nothing says knockabout fun like a zombie apocalypse! As unlikely as it might seem, this wilfully silly premise informs Capcom’s sequel, in which the hapless hero Frank West is once again drawn back to the fictional city of Williamette, which, for reasons too perfunctory to repeat here, has once again been overrun by the undead. Only one man, it seems, is capable of rerouting zombiegeddon, and that man is a jobbing photojournalist with more pithy quips than Ash Williams. There are several things that Dead Rising 4 gets right. Firstly, the sheer number of the slobbering, groaning, shambling onscreen at…