As part of their 2018 comeback run of shows that includes Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens on July 7, London post-punk/synth-pop legends The The have announced a show at Belfast’s Mandela Hall on Friday, July 6. October will mark the 35th anniversary of the band’s debut album, Soul Mining. The band last performed live as part of David Bowie’s Meltdown at London’s South Bank in 2002. Tickets for the Belfast show are £39 (including booking fee) and are on sale now.
Showcasing of the best of new Irish and international contemporary electronic music, Dublin’s Music Current will return for its third outing across April 12-14. Billed as the city’s annual contemporary music festival, the festival – presented by Dublin Sound Lab – will host concerts, panel discussions and a music commission at Smock Alley Theatre on Exchange Street Lower over three days. At the top of the agenda this year is a “distinct celebration” of piano and keyboard music, with several international artist performing in Ireland for the first time at the festival. On the bill this year is Belgium composer Stefan Prins,…
One of our must-watch Irish acts for 2018, Cork five-piece The Sunshine Factory have been on a major roll recently. Having released Cruelest Animal, their four-track EP of first-rate slow-burning neo-psych, back in November, the band are back with a killer double-single, ‘Exploding Head’ and ‘Negative Light’. Recorded by Chris Somers live in Cork’s Crane Lane on October 30 last year, the new tracks – released via their DIY label Sunshine Cult and produced by Mark Waldron-Hyden from the band – present a masterfully claustrophobic brace of urgent, hazed-out sounds from the fast-rising Cork quintet. Negative Light/Exploding head by The Sunshine Factory
The follow-up to 2016’s gem-laced Do You Think You’re Clever?, Cork alt/psych-pop five-piece The Shaker Hymn will release one of the most anticipated Irish albums of 2018, Colour Of The Holy Sun, later this year Singer Caoilian Sherlock said of the album: “We don’t often write new songs out of an improv “jam” type of thing – but this started as a little two chords warm up at rehearsal a few months back. I went away and wrote a melody, and lyrically I was aiming for a joyous apocalypse kind of thing. A song to celebrate The Rapture heading our way.…
A new, non-profit arts and music event set to take place across March 23-March 24, Cork Sound Fair aims to give local and international artists a platform to showcase experimental sound through installations and live performances. Over two days, the event will take over 12th century church St. Peter’s and Cork City Gaol with over 20 homegrown and international acts: African Fiction, Static, Robert Curgenven, Autumns, Isochronal, Kevin Callaghan and Thomas Penc, Davy Kehoe, Dream Cycles, Ellenberger Trio, Nadir, Soft Stone, Beatrice Dillon, Belacqua, Gadget and the Cloud (pictured), Little Movies, Kyteler, Warrior, Signal, OutOut and Baby, Red & Wolf.…
J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote that the compound noun cellar door was one of the most beautiful words in the English language. I’m not a linguist or etymologist by any stretch, but I’d like put forth a phrase which I think captures the same awe as Tolkien’s… Kim Deal has a new album. Those six little words when drawn together represent a powerful sentiment in the English language. This is the woman who made the Pixies what they were. One of our great songwriters, a person who can captivate, exhilarate and intoxicate with the most impossibly simple chord progressions, has returned.…
Superorganism are to music what memes are to art. In the space of just one year they’ve managed to capture a sound that is both easily digestible and instantly recognisable. One which is synonymous with the online age that we live in as they curate the sound of endless YouTube holes and trips to “the weird part of the Internet”. Their self titled debut comes in at just over 30 minutes, and is laden with short songs that cut straight to the point. High Definition synth and guitar hooks are grounded by the lo-fi voice of singer Orono Noguchi. Her lyrics…
As we see it, the release of Frankly, I Mutate by Dublin’s Paddy Hanna today is something every single person with the slightest interest in Irish music should stop and pay attention to. Hanna is no flash-in-the-pan sycophant. He hasn’t came up the Liffey in a dingy sponsored by Smirnoff. He hasn’t got by on the coat-tails of more talented music-making peers. He is the coat-tails. Paddy Hanna understands the craft, and the hidden trials that later manifest as a single turn of phrase in a single song. His brand of confessionalism has never opted for the easy way out, either. It takes the scenic…
Counting Foals, Biffy Clyro and the North Coast’s finest And So I Watch You From Afar as their main influences, Belfast-based quartet Ferals are an act that is spurred on by – and openly nods to – the scene for inspiration. “Watching all our favourite local bands take themselves to heights we didn’t know were reachable in this country has totally inspired us,” the band said. “It gave us a beacon of hope that we could be successful.” Out on Zool Records, debut single ‘Brendan Rodgers’ introduces the band as an act filtering the imprint of the aforementioned influences, while pushing towards a modern,…
Artificial intelligence, drones and self-driving cars have moved from science fiction stories into the real world. In The Minority Report, Philip K. Dick imagined a cop who used the pre-cognitive abilities of mutant siblings to solve serious crimes before they happened. Real cops predict crime too, except they turn to big data for help. Showing at the Dublin International Film Festival, Pre-Crime examines how police departments and private businesses use public and private information to work out who is likely to carry out illegal acts. The idea of proactive policing to stop crime isn’t new, but it has been transformed…