• Premiere: Dugout – Ride

    July 13, 2018 - By 

    One of several acts set to play the first ever Coaster in Portrush next Friday (July 20), Dugout are a new-fangled Belfast-based quartet whose debut single is a statement of intent. An earworming three-minute blast of Cuomo-conjuring indie-rock, the Ryan McGroarty-mixed, Rocky O’Reilly-engineered ‘Ride’ was, in the band’s own words, written about “that terrible job that we’ve all had.” Sealing the deal on the single is its video. Shot by Ciara McMullan and edited by Brendan Seamus aka BeeMickSee, it was filmed on location at Belfast venue Voodoo and features Dugout giving us a little preview of what to expect from their…

  • Track Record: A Ritual Sea

    July 17, 2018 - By 

    Donna McCabe from Dublin-based French/Irish band A Ritual Sea reveals some of her all-time records, including Benoît Pioulard, Cate Le Bon, Vangelis, Circuit des Yeux and Angel Olsen. Photos by Moira Reilly. Benoît Pioulard – Précis Benoît Pioulard is the moniker used by the American visual and music artist Thomas Meluch. Précis is an album that myself and Flo bonded over while living in two different countries and is one of the records we fell in love to. It got us through two year’s long distance, before Flo moved to Ireland. It’s full of layers of beautifully hazy music, produced with the lightest touch. It is intricate, delicate, dreamy…

  • Nazi Town, USA: Welcome to Leith’s Desperate, Unending Relevance

    July 13, 2018 - By 

    What would you do if Hitler moved in next door? Two years ago the Foyle Film Festival screened Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker’s documentary Welcome to Leith, a harrowing, stranger-than-fiction tale of Neo-Nazis trying to take over a tiny North Dakota town. I used to think about it about once a month. Now I think about it every day. Leith, Grant County is three square miles in size. You can fit the whole population in one train carriage. Its mayor is also the school bus driver. In 2012 it gets a new resident: a quiet, scraggy-haired older man…

  • Everything Goes: An interview with Aidan Moffat

    July 12, 2018 - By 

    Still best known as one half of Arab Strab with Malcolm Middleton, Aidan Moffat’s later career has been a multifaceted one, and his latest album, Here Lies the Body, a collaboration with RM Hubbert, is one of our favourites of 2018 so far. Ahead of July dates at Galway’s Róisín Dubh (23rd), Dublin’s Grand Social (24th) and Belfast’s Black Box (25th), Cathal McBride speaks to Aidan (pictured right, with Hubbert) about this latest project and other recent work.  Hi Aidan, how has the tour for Here Lies the Body been going so far? They’ve all been pretty great so far,…

  • Quiet Lights Festival Announced

    July 12, 2018 - By 

    Aiming to shine “a light on the new wave of Irish folk and traditional talent that are quietly forging new paths, recollecting old tales and making new stories” Quiet Lights is a new festival celebrating the new wave of Irish folk and traditional talent. With more to be announced, Katie Kim and Radie Peat, Lisa O’Neill, Ye Vagabonds, Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh, Slow Moving Clouds, Landless, Inni-K, Cormac Begley, Saint Caoilian, Dowry, Claudia Schwab and Elaine Malone are the first names announced to be play its inaugural outing in various Cork venues including Coughlan’s Live, Sirius Arts Centre Cobh, The Roundy, St. Peter’s…

  • Groove Festival 2018

    July 11, 2018 - By 

    Including HamsandwicH, Kíla, the Wood Burning Savages and – wait for it – the one, the only, Heather Small of M People, Moira Reilly captures some of the acts at this year’s Groove Festival in Bray, Co. Wicklow.

  • Stream: Psank – Ataxia

    July 11, 2018 - By 

    We’re big fans of Feather Beds here at TTA. Now, the project’s Michael Orange has started something completely different in the form of Psank. Teaming up with Adam Browne AKA Plaice, the Dublin based duo delve further into the electronic landscape than either of them have before in this new project. Have played together previously in Autumn Owls, the pair are well used to working together and it shows in their debut EP Fabric which finds them branching into explorative ambience and melancholic dancefloor territory. While Orange has ventured into this kind of territory before with his superb Feather Beds releases, with Psank he and Browne explore even…

  • At The Drive-In w/ Brand New Friend @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    July 11, 2018 - By 

    When Brand New Friend take to the stage of Vicar Street, the four fresh-faced Northerners unleash a wall of noise on the reasonably-sized audience that has congregated to cheer them on. The Castlerock four-piece have been causing a stir in the Irish music scene over the past year, playing a hugely successful set at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend and releasing their debut album, Seatbelts For Aeroplanes. Onstage, they have a definite sense of self-assurance, and it’s well deserved. Kicking off with their song ‘Cold’, the groups influences are immediately evident. Think Weezer featuring Hayley Williams and some questionable (but forgivable) synth lines. They’re…