• Sunflowerfest Announce First Wave of Acts

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    Perhaps more than most small Irish festivals of its ilk, the evolution of Sunflowerfest has been notable over the last couple of years. Set to return to Tubby’s Farm at Hillsborough from July 28-30, the first acts revealed to play this year’s outing only serves to confirm that fact. With the theme of A Parallel Universe, Rubberbandits (pictured), Farah Elle, Damola, Le Galaxie, Malojian, R51, OR:LA, Ryan Vail, King Kong Company, Electric Swing Circus, Too Many T’s, JIKA! JIKA!, Ponyhawke, Beans on Toast and Mr B. The Gentleman Rhymer are amongst the first names to be confirmed, with yet more to be…

  • Watch: ‘Document: A Film About Malojian’

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    If there’s one thing we could all take from Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s 2004 Metallica film Some Kind of Monster it’s that fly-on-the-wall, “in-the-studio” documentaries can – given the wrong variables – capture a very unique kind of tension and uncomfortable atmosphere. Something of the polar opposite of that (in more ways that one) Colm Laverty’s exceptional Document: A Film About Malojian captures a band whose chemistry and compatibility as a unit is, in itself, endearing, entertaining and hugely watchable. Featuring the Stevie Scullion-fronted band recording their exquisite third studio album This Is Nowhere with the towering Steve Albini at his Chicago studio…

  • Sorority Noise – You’re Not As ___ As You Think

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    Like it or not, emo music has been revived. Acts like Julien Baker, American Football and Modern Baseball have gained enough scope to evolve and define what emo music is and what it aims to achieve, and while defining what is classed as emo music is an entirely different kettle of fish, it’s fair to say that associating it with long black fringes and pubescent frustrations is something of the past. On You’re not as ____as you think, their third album , Sorority Noise dive into the depths of depression and death and the ways of coping with them, firmly planting…

  • Watch: This Ain’t No Disco Episode II featuring Villagers’ Conor O’Brien, Nico Muhly & More

    March 19, 2017 - By 

    This Ain’t No Disco is an Irish music program for the times. The work of the equally tireless Donal Dineen and Myles O’Reilly, the first installment – which landed at the tail-end of 2016 – married music, visuals, discussion and collaboration in wonderfully-woven, beautifully intimate fashion. Featuring Brian Mac Gloinn of Ye Vagabonds, a collaboration between Villagers’ Conor O’Brien and Nico Muhly, Cormac Begley, Landless and more, episode two continues the trend, getting to the heart of what defines modern Irish music and its potent links to the past in filmic, typically evocative fashion.

  • Julien Baker – Sprained Ankle

    March 17, 2017 - By 

    Julien Baker’s debut album Sprained Ankle lures us in with a curiously intimate complexion; it almost feels too intimate to be listened to casually, as if we’re flicking through the most private parts of Baker’s life, gazing in empathetic awe without even introducing ourselves. It’s a one way conversation with stark, personal subject matters such as relationship anxiety, depression, religion and death, and all we can do is listen. Sprained Ankle was originally released in 2015, but is now being reissued on Matador. It’s hard to comprehend that the album is a year and a half old given that nothing…

  • Europe. Endless? 40 Years of Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    “At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” -TS Eliot  Nothing gave life to the potential of a common European consciousness, if you let me away with that word, quite like the neurons of railway lines that lie across its…

  • Stream: Bad Sea – Over My Head

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    The B-side to their latest single, ‘Tell Me (What I Mean)‘, ‘Over My Head’ by fast-rising, and TTA-approved Dublin duo Ciara Thompson and Alan Pharrell AKA Bad Sea is a slow-burning ballad that, stripped back to its core subtle piano and Thompson’s exquisite vocal delivery, reveals the band’s prowess in the realm of taking a step or two back. Ahead of the band’s show with Beauty Sleep and Shrug Life in Dublin on Friday, stream the track below now.

  • Air, Mark Ronson and More Set for The Beatyard

    March 16, 2017 - By 

    Taking place across the weekend of August 5 & 6 is this year’s Beatyard Festival at The Beatyard of Dun Laoghaire Harbour with huge headliners Mark Ronson, in what will be an excellent DJ set from the tastemaker, as well as atmospheric French trip-hop channelling outfit Air. Continuing on from last year’s funk & soul-oriented lineup, the bill confirmed so far includes: Toots & The Maytals Bananarama Candi Staton Larry Heard aka Mr Fingers [in his first ever Irish performance] Mood II Swing Romare Rusangano Family [Well-deserved Choice Music Prize-winners 2017] Katie Kim Romare [with a full live band] Horse Meat Disco Fish Go Deep Kíla…

  • CIRCA Art Magazine: This Matters Now

    March 16, 2017 - By 

    Tadhg O’Sullivan, still from The Great Wall, 2014, HD film, 74 min. Courtesy of the artist. The new issue of CIRCA Art Magazine’s This Matters Now series is now online. The edition features responses to recent show’s in VISUAL Carlow, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery and Butler Gallery. As well as these five texts, you can also read the previous three issues from this series, and the issues from last year’s series as well. As a repository of texts on Irish art this continues to grow and forward a vital discourse. This Matters Now can be read online here.