• NI Music Prize Line-Up Announced

    September 20, 2018 - By 

    The nominated artists set to play this year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize have been announced. Previous winner Ciaran Lavery, Brand New Friend, The Wood Burning Savages, Hannah Peel, Ryan Vail (featuring the Arco String Quartet) and Roe will perform at the event, which takes place at Belfast’s Ulster Hall on Thursday, November 11. The event host is Rigsy (BBC Radio Ulster), with the winners of all four categories to be announced by special guests on the night. The evening will end with an after party at Limelight 2. Charlotte Dryden of Oh Yeah said: “After five fantastic years at the…

  • The Thin Air Podcast: Malojian

    September 21, 2018 - By 

    The Thin Air podcast returns with another delightful in-depth song dissection. This week Danny Carroll meets Antrim singer-songwriter Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian. Having recorded his last album with Steve Albini (this documentary is worth a watch when you have a spare hour), Stevie wound up home-recording his most recent LP ‘Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home’. Featuring contributions from Joey Waronker (Beck, REM), and Gerry Love (Teenage Fanclub), the album has recently been nominated for the Northern Irish Music Prize. From his home studio, Stevie talks about the album’s title track ‘Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home’.  Clocking in at nearly six…

  • A Series of Unexpected Surprises: An Interview With Julien Baker

    September 20, 2018 - By 

    Speaking to Julien Baker feels like talking to your friend in a bar. Her unassuming nature and down to earth discussion can almost make you forget what a successful, accomplished person you’re dealing with. Despite being only 22 years old, Baker has managed to forge an illustrious career with her emotive, gentle indie rock. Having shared stages with the likes of Death Cab For Cutie and Paramore, with two critically-acclaimed albums already under her belt, she is humble about her success. “I try to be personally aware that any response to the record at all has exceeded what I expected,”…

  • Premiere: Galants – Follow

    September 20, 2018 - By 

    Of the countless Irish acts we’ve featured over the years, Dublin’s Galants remain one of the most assured. Striking a midpoint between swirling indie rock and blissed-out shoegaze worship, the David Kennedy-fronted quartet re-emerged back in June with ‘In Vain‘. Now, the band with another track from their forthcoming second EP – and one of their most emphatic efforts to date – ‘Follow’. Successfully capturing the band’s aim to meld the power pop of Hüsker Dü with the fuzzy miasma of Swervedriver and Catherine Wheel, the single “reflects on the psyche of the crowd and pressure to use the decisions of others as a…

  • Stream: Arvo Party – D a N S E’

    September 19, 2018 - By 

    Having bridged the gap with the equally masterful ‘Liberté’ and ‘D U S T’ (a track Resident Advisor called “surging but melancholy synth pop”) Belfast-based producer and musician Herb Magee AKA Arvo Party is back with ‘D a N S E’. The second single from his forthcoming second album, which is set for release next month, it finds the fast-rising multi-instrumentalist marry spectral electronica with a host of backwashed beats. Listen to the track – and watch its DIY visuals – below. Magee plays our co-hosted Culture Night Belfast bill at Oh Yeah Music Centre on Friday night (September 21).

  • Metropolis Announce New Saturday Acts

    September 19, 2018 - By 

    With just over five weeks to go to this year’s outing, Metropolis have announced new additions for its Saturday line-up. Off the back of Villagers recently being announced to headline and curate the Saturday at the festival, Friendly Fires, Booka Brass, David Keenan and Master of Ceremonies David O’Doherty have all been added. The fourth edition of Metropolis takes place at Dublin’s RDS across on Saturday, October 27th and Sunday, October 28th. Ranging in price, tickets are available to buy here now.

  • Wooden Shjips + Cian Nugent @ Empire Music Hall, Belfast

    September 19, 2018 - By 

    It takes a very special kind of band to, at least in the right setting, meddle with one’s most basic understanding of time. Wooden Shjips are one such band. Tonight at Belfast’s Empire Music Hall, the San Francisco psych rock alchemists’ reiterative, lysergic-dappled craft induces a trip that all but stretches the parameters of chronological perception. Laying the groundwork is one of the country’s most singular solo talents, Cian Nugent (below). Despite almost being consumed by the frankly shameful hubbub of tonight’s growing crowd, he casts a subtle, yet potent spell as tonight’s sole support. Stripped-back and drawn-out is the order of the day for a set…

  • Hozier Set For Irish Tour

    September 17, 2018 - By 

    As part of a wider European tour, Hozier will play five Irish dates in December. As well as a three-night run at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin across December 15-17, the songwriter and his band will play Belfast’s Ulster Hall on December 19 and Killarney’s INEC on December 20. Tickets for all shows go on sale this Friday, September 21 at 9am.

  • Death Cab for Cutie – Thank You For Today

    September 15, 2018 - By 

    In the midst of a tumultuous period in the revered band’s development, Death Cab for Cutie have stripped back to basics for ninth album, their most accomplished of the past eight years, Thank you For Today. Thank you for Today is without a doubt Death Cab’s most retrospective album in over a decade, and is in many ways a celebration of the past. As the past four albums have been burdened by darker and more personal tones, Thank you for Today comes as a welcome relief in many ways but never risking flipancy. The buoyant and Beck-reminiscent single, ‘Gold Rush’…

  • Hozier – Nina Cried Power

    September 13, 2018 - By 

    There was a while where the world wasn’t sure if it had seen the last of Hozier. Quiet bar the odd tweet, after the thunderous success of his debut album in 2014, the Wicklow native retreated back to the studio, appearing only to tease his return or offer social commentary, aware of the gnawing fans clambering for more tracks as devastating and ethereal as that of his self-titled debut. With Nina Cried Power, his first release since that album, it feels as though Hozier is testing the waters of reaction and criticism to see what listeners want and expect from…