• Just Mustard – Wednesday

    April 24, 2018 - By 

    We’ve already said it, but it bears repeating – Dundalk’s Just Mustard are becoming one of our favourite bands in Ireland, and on May 2, they release their debut LP, Wednesday. Moulding swooning, soaring psych-gaze from elements of post-punk, lo-fi electronic & trip-hop, their space-conscious guitar abrasions and delicately haunting aquatic vocals, as we’ve described, “taps right into that exact feeling that creeps in at great small Irish festivals around the early evening. You know the one we’re talking about.” The band have “made a conscious effort to provide the listener with the experience of hearing the band in a room, in their natural state, with little to…

  • Watch: Hilary Woods – Black Rainbow

    April 24, 2018 - By 

    Some artists are just destined to wind up on certain rosters. One such act is Dublin’s Hilary Woods, an artist whose solo craft we’ve followed with a certain glee over the last couple of years. On June 8, the musician, ex-JJ72 member and multi-instrumentalist will release her debut full-length album, Colt, via Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones, an indie imprint whose discerning (and, so far, pretty impeccable) penchant for repping acts such as Zola Jesus, Jenny Hval, David Lynch, John Carpenter, Blanck Mass and Marissa Nadler runs directly parallel with Woods’ very own crepuscular craft. Conjuring a woozed-out netherworld that wouldn’t feel in any way out…

  • Pragmatic Endeavour: An Interview with Ben Folds

    April 24, 2018 - By 

    Ahead of his sold-out Belfast show at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and Dublin’s Vicar Street – musician, photographer, talent-show judge, music therapy advocate, and soon-to-be author Ben Folds speaks to Jonny Currie about managing song requests, making the case for arts funding, and balancing artistic instincts without becoming a snob. You’ve performed in Dublin a number of times, but this is your first visit to Belfast. Is there anywhere else in the world you’d still like to play? That’s a big one. I just recently played New Zealand. I’ve played Australia over and over again but just never got to…

  • Brand New Friend – Seatbelts For Aeroplanes

    April 24, 2018 - By 

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock up north, you might have heard about the crest of a wave atop which Brand New Friend have been surfing for the past couple of years. Hype was high based on their live shows even ahead of the release of their almost dangerously-earworming debut EP, American Wives, back in 2016. Fronted by the impossibly charming sibling duo of Castlerock-born Taylor & Lauren Johnson, the band’s brand of starry-eyed, harmony-driven indie-pop is on full display on their forthcoming debut album, Seatbelts For Airplanes.  Johnson’s confessional lyrics allude to the unspoken things in relationships, the nature of overthinking and self-doubt – shaped by the purity of a youthful mind and the Brand New Friend…

  • Natalia Beylis w/ AR~DS, Branwen Kavanagh, Little Movies @ A4 Sounds, Dublin

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    Hunters Moon presents An Evening of Experimental Performance + Sound took place in the gallery room of A4 Sounds, an art space off Dorset Street in Dublin’s north inner city. The night began in relaxed fashion, as Little Movies, the duo of Ben Donohue and Morgan Buckley, sat on stage facing each other across their modular synths. It looked like a game of Battleship and sounded like an alternate-universe take on ‘Dueling Banjos’. Two opposing banks of sound played out throughout the performance: one, a series of rippling waves, floating bubbles that shifted and grew to different shapes and sizes;…

  • Kurt Vile & The Violators Set For Dublin

    April 24, 2018 - By 

    Having last played the venue back in 2015, Kurt Vile will return to Dublin’s Vicar Street later this year. Taking place on November 14, the show will mark the end of a run of UK and Irish shows by the Philadelphia indie-rock musician. Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday.

  • The Wood Burning Savages – Stability

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    This Friday, April 27, a debut album that’s long been one of NI’s most anticipated, The Wood Burning Savages finally sees its release. Between its effervescent indie rock and vitriol-turned-punk-anthem, the quartet are seemingly set to posit themselves as spiritual and sonic successors to the proudly socialist, alternative punk torch long-carried by the Manic Street Preachers. Debut LP Stability was produced by Start Together’s Rocky O’Reilly and mastered by Robin Schmidt. Derry-born frontman Paul Connolly has the following to say on the release of the album: “A collection of songs about a working class furious at years of empty promises from billionaire Tory MPs who have no…

  • Ry Cooder, Action Bronson, Doug Stanhope, Dweezil Zappa & Incubus Set For Irish Shows

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    Shake off those Monday blues, because there’s almost certainly a show for you amongst today’s announcements: One of the all-time foremost purveyors of roots music, American musician, songwriter, composer & producer Ry Cooder makes a rare appearance at Dublin’s National Stadium on October 15. Tickets are priced €76 from Ticketmaster, and go on sale this Friday April 27th at 9am. Pushing misanthropy to the limit, one of the world’s most gifted & natural comedians’ comedians’ comedians, Doug Stanhope makes his first trip to Ireland in several years, playing the Olympia Theatre on June 14. Tickets are priced €40 from Ticketmaster, and go on sale this Friday April 27th at 9am. Fancy revisiting those halcyon days of turntablist alt. rock? Incubus return…