• 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…

  • Arcade Fire Set for Belfast and Dublin

    February 13, 2017 - By 

    To say the 2017 Irish Summer festival calendar is already bursting at the seams with unmissable shows would be underselling it a bit. Adding to the is the highly-anticipated return of Arcade Fire, who play Belfast’s Belsonic at Ormeau Park on Tuesday, June 13 and Dublin’s Malahide Castle on Wednesday, June 14. With special guests to be confirmed, tickets for the shows go on sale at 9am this Friday priced £45 including booking fee for Belfast and €69.50 (inc. booking fee) for Dublin.

  • Critical Bastards Submission

    February 13, 2017 - By 

    Independent Irish publication Critical Bastards have announced details of an open submission for their 14th issue – the theme for the forthcoming issue is ‘Hope‘. Critical Bastards is a vital and engaging publication that seeks to open dialogues surrounding art in Ireland. Their last issue was an audio version to do with ‘Work‘ with the issue previous to that a print version with the theme of ‘Resourcefulness‘. We’re big supporters and fans of the work CB do and encourage all to submit! The closing date is March 14th with more info on submission requirements here.

  • Artist Talk: Cliona Harmey @ Sirius

    February 21, 2017 - By 

    This Friday sees artist Cliona Harmey in Cobh’s Sirius Arts Centre for a discussion around her practice. Harmey made a series of visits to Cobh and Sirius Arts Centre in both 2015 and 2016 as she continues to work on new projects. This new work will be discussed alongside a pair of short films made last year at Hawlbowline Naval base with members of the Irish Defence forces. Harmey’s practice has often taken on naval themes which was most notably executed in 2015’s wonderful Dublin Ships installation – see photo above. The talk kicks off at 1pm on Friday with more information…

  • Interactions @ Belfast Exposed

    February 18, 2017 - By 

    Today is that last to see Belfast Exposed’s Interactions exhibition. The show sees photographic artists who have taken part in the gallery’s Futures Programme over the last two years who have come together to explore human presence in both real and imaginary landscapes. Some of the most exciting photographers in Ireland are featured in the exhibition, including Ciaran Og Arnold (2015 First Book Award winner), Yvette Monahan (2016 Solas Prize shortlist) and Jan McCullough (2015 Kassel Fotobookfestival Dummy Award). The work on show is a combination of past projects displayed alongside new pieces of work, and represents a fantastic opportunity to catch some…

  • TULCA Arts Festival

    February 20, 2017 - By 

    TULCA Arts Festival returns for it’s 15th edition this November and key details about the festival have been released. Matt Packer, Director of CCA Derry~Londonderry, has been announced as this year’s curator, with the festival itself being titled They Call us the Screamers. The title is drawn from the Jenny James novel of the same name, which details the establishment of the therapy commune (Atalantis) by James in the West of Ireland in the 1970s. With this in mind this year’s festival narrative is a look at “anti-modernism, cultural withdrawal, primal voice, self-enlightenment, and an attempt to establish new forms of social relations in…

  • The Lego Batman Movie

    February 10, 2017 - By 

    Like a naughty teenager banished to his room, Master Bruce has been sulking in his man cave for some time now. A scowling cowling in SEAL Team 6 body armour, wrapped up in martyrdom angst, terrorising Gotham’s criminal class with the try-hard rasp of man who had too many whiskeys the night before, modern cinema’s vision of The World’s Greatest Detective seems a long distance from that introduced by Bob Kane and Bill Finger nearly 80 years ago. Still, the caped crusader’s infinite wardrobe is nothing if not versatile: Bruce Wayne is tailor-made for transformation. And boy is he due…