• Stendhal Festival Make Annual Call For Artist Submissions

    February 14, 2017 - By 

    Right up there with our very favourite Irish festivals, Stendhal Festival of Art in Limavady have announced that they’re on the look-out for artist submissions for their 2017 installment across August 11-12. Set to return for its seventh outing, artists interested in taking part in the multi-award winning event can complete an application form via the festival’s website here. Organiser Ross Parkhill says that the submission process is one of the team’s favourite times of the year: “We really love when submission time comes around. We try our best to keep on top of all the amazing new music that…

  • First Acts Revealed for Castlepalooza 2017

    February 14, 2017 - By 

    With many more acts yet to be announced, Girl Band (an Irish festival exclusive, we’re told), Wild Beasts, David Kitt and Waze & Odyssey are amongst the first names set to play this year’s Castlepalooza when it returns to Charleville Castle in Tullamore across August 4-6, Shit Robot, I Have a Tribe, Heroes in Hiding, King Bones and Lumo Club are also amongst the first names. Elsewhere, Colm O’Regan, Kevin McGahern, PJ Gallagher and Deirdre O’Kane are the first comedy acts confirmed for the Laughter Lab. Tickets are now available to buy, ranging from €59 to €119.

  • William Basinksi – A Shadow In Time

    February 14, 2017 - By 

    It is with great trepidation that I approach A Shadow In Time, the new album from William Basinski, that titan of ambient music. An artist with a staggering work rate and whose most well-known work, 2002’s Disintegration Loops, is one of the most important pieces of sound art created in the 21st century given its context in proximity to the attacks on New York City on September 11th 2001. A Shadow In Time is his twentieth album under his own name, along with many collaborative works in various other mediums. It is yet another daunting work, comprised of two tracks…

  • Moon Duo – Occult Architecture, Vol. 1

    February 14, 2017 - By 

    Sometimes a side project starts to outgrow its parent band. Such appears to have happened recently with Portland’s Moon Duo, formed by Wooden Shjips’ vocalist/guitarist Ripley Johnson with his partner Sanea Yamada, with the latter band’s lack of activity since 2013’s Back to Land allowing Moon Duo’s more recent releases to fill the gap. Despite plenty of similarities in sound, swapping the Shjips’ looser psych for an increasingly mechanical krautrock sound has seen them gradually become the more essential of the two, and fourth album Occult Architecture, Vol. 1 has done nothing but cement that. Part one of a “two…

  • Stream: Lighght – Superstar (unmix)

    February 14, 2017 - By 

    Cork based electronic producer and promoter with the Diffract club night, Lighght, has released a new track. And yes, before you ask, it is of course swirling, atmospheric edit of Jamelia’s 2003 R&B classic ‘Superstar’. Duh. Having put out a variety of glitching, industrial tracks reminiscent of Nicolas Jaar and Dorian Concept in the past year or so, the producer will be releasing more singles and audiovisual projects in the coming months as well as continuing to host the regular Diffract events.

  • The Sad & Beautiful World of Sparklehorse at The MAC

    February 13, 2017 - By 

    On April 8 we will co-host a special, two-part event The MAC as part of Belfast Film Festival celebrating the life and music of the sadly-missed Mark Linkous, aka Sparklehorse. Following a screening of Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass’ new documentary ‘The Sad & Beautiful World of Sparklehorse’, the evening will also feature a Q+A with the filmmakers, as well as a live, one-hour performance, ‘A Night of Sparklehorse’ with Belfast-based singer-songwriters Tom McShane, The Mad Dalton, Heliopause, Pixie Saytar and more. Tickets are available from The MAC, priced at £10.50 & £12.50. Things kick off at 8pm.

  • Video Premiere: Tayne – Heartbeat

    February 14, 2017 - By 

    It being Valentines Day and all, Tayne, the brand new project from Matthew Sutton, guitarist from It Was All A Bit Black And White, has unveiled the spick and span video for his debut single ‘Heartbeat’. The Galway native, London based musician first debuted his new musical endeavour back in December with a suitably glistening cover of Fleetwood Mac‘s ‘Dreams’. Stepping further into the light then, Tayne’s debut original track is a dazzling synth pop romp that will satisfy fans of All Tvvins and The Naked and Famous. With more to come from the artist in the coming months, enjoy the flashy video for ‘Heartbeat’…

  • Watch: No Monster Club – Sion

    February 13, 2017 - By 

    Not exactly an outfit to needlessly sit on or tease out new material, Dublin’s No Monster Club are a band whose prolific output has never been cause to wonder about quality or consistency. Released as a single back in February last year, the slinking art-pop of ‘Sion’ is a perfect case in point, something we’ve been happy to re-visit in the form of its brand new video, an accompaniment featuring what main man Bobby Aherne calls words “vaguely meta” video footage featuring the very parade the song is written about. Sure enough, it syncs up wonderfully well.

  • Prevenge

    February 13, 2017 - By 

    You have to admire Alice Lowe’s (Sightseers) directorial debut for the logistical nightmare of filming it alone. As writer, director and star of Prevenge, she had the insane idea to make a low budget, satirical slasher while 8 months pregnant, making it a labour of love of the most darkly comic and macabre kind. As a pregnant woman named Ruth (Lowe) ruthlessly slices the throat of the obnoxious man who owns a reptile shop, the viewer is left wondering what her motives are – besides him being a complete sleaze. As the story moves along and the deaths pile up,…

  • Irish Tour: Frightened Rabbit

    February 15, 2017 - By 

    Frightened Rabbit live at Belfast’s Limelight 1, Kilkenny’s Set Theatre and Galway’s Roisin Dubh. Photos by Colm Laverty, Ian McDonnell and Sean McCormark. Limelight 1, Belfast As strange as it may sound, Frightened Rabbit are at their best when they are on the verge of falling apart. Watching the band rip through selections from their back catalogue this evening, it is striking just how often they are precariously balanced on the edge of chaos. It is this very quality that makes their music so beguiling. The remarkable tension in any given Frightened Rabbit song stems from a finely wrought balance…