• Girls Names – Stains on Silence

    March 26, 2018 - By 

    It stands to reason that many vital albums come critically close to never being made. The eight-track upshot of doubt, upheaval and financial strain, Stains on Silence by Girls Names is one such release. Following 2015’s Arms Around a Vision, and the parting of drummer Gib Cassidy just over a year later, the Belfast band suddenly found themselves facing down a looming void. “There was a finished – and then aborted – mix of the album, which was shelved for six months,” reveals Girls Names frontman Cathal Cully. “We then took a break from all music and went back to full-time work. We chilled…

  • Girls Names Announce New Album, Belfast & Dublin Shows

    March 26, 2018 - By 

    Marking the release of their forthcoming, Tough Love-released fourth album album, Stains on Silence, Belfast three-piece Girls Names have announced new dates in Belfast and Dublin. The Cathal Cully-fronted threesome will play Belfast’s Black Box on Friday, June 15 and Whelan’s in Dublin on Saturday, June 23. Tickets for the former are £14.50 (Black Box Members £12); Dublin is €16. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, March 28 at 10am and 9am respectively. Following 2015’s blitzing Arms Around a Vision, and the parting of drummer Gib Cassidy just over a year later, Girls Names suddenly found themselves facing down a looming void. Frontman Cathal…

  • Track Record: Zoë Gough (Dreaming of Jupiter)

    March 23, 2018 - By 

    Guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Zoë Gough from Dublin alternative pop/soul trio Dreaming of Jupiter chats about the work of ten female artists who have inspired her over the years. Photos by Kristina Hajdu. Kate Bush – The Kick Inside My Dad introduced me to this album when I was very young. I think it may well have been the first music I ever heard! I knew every word to every song by the age of 6 or 7 and remember sitting in the back of the car on the way to school and miming along. I love all of Kate’s…

  • Stream: Dandy’s Loft – Human Dust

    March 23, 2018 - By 

    We have sang the praises of Belfast-based five-piece Dandy’s Loft for some time now. The band, who call Lurgan home, are set to release their highly-anticipated debut album in the coming months. New single and follow-up to January’s ‘Shadows In Motion‘ is the ‘Human Dust’, a self-proclaimed glimpse into the band’s less guitar-orientated material on the album and a real spectral feat. Via a mélange of strings, submerged vocals, synthesiser and some stellar production work, it single-handedly reveals Dandy’s Loft to be much more than any safe or straightforward genre attributed to them thus far. In short: this is vital, inspired and majestic stuff. Stream below.

  • Unsane

    March 23, 2018 - By 

    Before last year’s criminally ignored The Florida Project, Sean Baker made headlines by shooting 2015 feature Tangerine on iPhone gear (the director used 3 different iPhone 5s). Indie authenticity suited the low-key story of pair of transgendered prostitutes on the Sunset Strip, capturing the forced street intimacy and, when tilted skywards, the expansive, beautifully festive colouring of one-crazy-night Los Angeles. Now Steven Soderbergh, no stranger to doing things his own way, has shot his new film Unsane with an iPhone rig (iPhone 7 Plus in 4K, with the app FiLMiC Pro). No doubt it helped keep some costs down — again, Soderbergh…

  • Video Premiere: Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies – Mass Deception

    March 23, 2018 - By 

    As we’ve said plenty of times already, Limerick’s DIY scene is currently riding on the crest of a creative wave, and today, we’re delighted to deliver the latest evidence, with Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies. As they crow flies, you could call them Munster’s Sleaford Mods – seriously, check them out live – as Podge spits post-Tiger quotidian frustration of both systematic and internal. It’s probably their Biggest Tune to date – a genuine call-to-arms with some elements of the Fall’s brief dalliances with mainstream success – produced by Cruiser’s Chris Quigley, with a fully-formed video directed & edited by Richard Holland. “Mass deception and corruption have become endemic in…

  • Premiere: tethers – Television Dreams of Human Beings

    March 22, 2018 - By 

    Formed by friends, guitarist/vocalist Zach Trouton and bassist Dane Kemp, and later joined by drummer Alistair Brattle, tethers are a Northern Irish three-piece whose rock-pop sound bears the imprint of jazz and contemporary classical influence, as well as the lyrical influence of science fiction and folklore. Next month, the band will release their debut EP, Skinwalker, via their own imprint, Swallow Song records. According to the Lisburn-based threesome, they’re re-envisioning the term – which, in Navajo folklore, denotes a shape-shifting with that possesses the forms of animals – “as a future slang for artificially-enhanced humanoids”. Doubling up as both the release’s lead track and tethers’…