• Inbound: James Joys

    November 20, 2018 - By 

    Not merely one-half of Belfast duo Ex Isles, James Joys is the music-making moniker of Belfast experimental composer James Thompson. Influenced by the likes of Ben Frost, Holly Herndon and Tim Hecker and more, his recently-released debut EP, Super_Tidal, melds electronic, ambient, noise, electoacoustic and rave across five tracks. Ahead of a busy 2019, Joys talks to us about conceptual distinction, confidence, collaboration, and crafting a release that translates the feeling of “being in a massive club with lots of different rooms, with all sorts of music blasting away”. Your recently-released EP, Super_Tidal, is a work of “electroacoustic rave entropy”. Very intriguing.…

  • Watch: That Snaake – Scofflaw // Sisyphus

    November 20, 2018 - By 

    Remember that time we premiered the mighty ‘Scofflaw // Sisyphus’ by Dublin noise rock meddlers That Snaake? Two years on, the Paul O’Connor-fronted band are back with its suitably singular video. According to the band, the video is: a) About the budget-nightmare world of the Irish music scene b) Designed to be viewed on mobile devices as is the way of the future c) Taken from the release In The Court of the Baby Kyng out now on Little L records That’s the lowdown and you’re all the better for knowing it.

  • Life Trainee: An Interview With SOAK

    November 19, 2018 - By 

    It’s been three years since Derry born singer-songwriter SOAK broke into public consciousness with her emotionally raw and beautifully-crafted debut album Before We Forget How To Dream. After heaps of critical praise, a Mercury prize nomination, an Irish Choice Music Prize Album of The Year victory and a little time away from the limelight, the 22 year old is back with a new song ‘Everybody Loves You’, the promise of a second album coming soon and a tour at the end of November. Ahead of her show at Belfast’s Oh Yeah Centre on November 26 (tickets here), Kelly Doherty spoke…

  • Foo Fighters Set For Irish Return

    November 19, 2018 - By 

    Foo Fighters will play two Irish shows next year. Six years on from making their debut at the same festival as part of their 2012 Wasting Light tour, the band will return to play Belfast’s Tennent’s Vital on August 19th. They will also play Dublin’s RDS Arena on August 21st. Tickets for both shows go on sale on Friday (November 23) at 10am. Go here to register for pre-sale.

  • Kurt Vile – Bottle It In

    November 17, 2018 - By 

    The sixth track on Kurt Vile’s latest opus is titled ‘Rollin’ With the Flow’ helpfully encapsulating the ambling, shambling rhythms and can kicking nonchalance the Philadelphia songwriter has long been celebrated for.  As always with Vile’s work though, clouds are never too far from spoiling his sunny skies and Bottle It In sees the darker depths of his artistry grow ever murkier. Typically preoccupied with Vile’s dazed yet disarmingly astute ponderings and observations, Bottle It In succeeds in creating an intensely personal connection with the listener, often lending the impression that we have a direct link to Vile’s inner monologue.…

  • Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

    November 16, 2018 - By 

    Not since The Hobbit has a studio franchise spin-off so thoroughly dropped the ball. The similarities between Peter Jackson’s 9-hour pilgrimage to the Lonely Mountain and the Fantastic Beasts trilogy, two in with The Crimes of Grindelwald, are immediate and obvious. Both series take a charming little throwaway book, J. K. Rowling’s 2001 Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, the real-life rendition of Hogwarts’ zoological textbook, and mount them on the rack, stretching them out until the joints give out. It’s gruesome textual torture. Close your eyes and whisper along with me: disapparate, disapparate, disapparate. Like An Unexpected Journey, Fantastic Beasts started…

  • London Korean Film Festival Comes To QFT This Weekend

    November 15, 2018 - By 

    The London Korean Film Festival 2018 is coming to Belfast this week from the 16th till the 18th of November, taking highlights from its programme to Queens Film Theatre, with a selection that focuses on female directors from South Korea. Micro Habitat (dir. Jeon Go-Woon; 16th, 6.30pm) Mi-so (Lee Som), like many thirty-somethings, finds herself unprepared for the harsh economic realities of adulthood. Working as a housekeeper with low wages and zero job security, she struggles to pay the exorbitant rent on her cramped apartment. Mi-so’s spirited youth playing in a band seems a distant memory. The only modest pleasures…

  • Thom Yorke – Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film)

    November 15, 2018 - By 

    With the increasingly long gaps between Radiohead albums in their latter years, three of the band’s members so far have managed to put this downtime to good use exploring their own projects on the side. And for a band so heavily focused on sounds and texture, it’s no surprise that all three of them have found themselves drawn to soundtrack work in one way or another – most notably Jonny Greenwood, whose string of collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson this year earned him an Oscar nomination for Phantom Thread. Drummer Philip Selway too, having reinvented himself as a hushed folk…