• Line-Up Announced For Output Showcase

    January 9, 2018 - By 

    Returning to Belfast on February 8, the Output music conference and showcase will host a day of seminars, panels and keynote speeches at Belfast’s MAC featuring some of the national music industry’s most highly-noted speakers and practitioners. In the evening, several of the city’s venues will host another series of free showcases featuring a selection of Irish bands and solo artists, curated by the likes of The Thin Air, PRS For Music, Help Musicians NI, The Live Room, Nialler9 and more. We’ll be teaming up with Rally for a show at Babel, located at the Rooftop of Bullitt. Performing will be New…

  • 18 for ’18: LAOISE

    January 9, 2018 - By 

    Having already featured JYellowL and Dowry, we continue 18 for ’18, our feature of showcasing eighteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going places in 2018. Throughout January we’re going to be previewing each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph from one of our photographers. Next up is LAOISE. Photo by Aaron Corr Galway electronic pop artist Laoise Ní Nualláin (or simply LAOISE) took 2017 by storm with the release of her debut EP, Halfway. This four-track release received critical acclaim across the board for both its originality and honest insight into broader themes of anxiety and despair. Leading single, ‘You’…

  • Applications Open for Stendhal Festival 2018

    January 8, 2018 - By 

    Hands down one of our favourite Irish summer festivals, Stendhal have made their annual call for applications for acts, artists and traders. Set to return to Ballymully Cottage Farm in Limavady across August 10-11, you can apply for this year’s outing by going here and filling an online form. Festival director Ross Parkhill said, “The Submission process always throws up some amazing finds, Ryan McMullan who has sold out the Mandela Hall and the Limelight in the past 12 months first came to our attention via our submissions, likewise with acts such as SOAK and several other notable names from the…

  • Premiere: Sweat Threats – Hermit

    January 4, 2018 - By 

    With their pure and perfect aim to make “post-punk party music for a public too often deprived of a good time”, Sweat Threats is the new project from Tayne’s Matt Sutton and Niall Jackson (AKA Swimmers and Bouts). Kickstarting their year as they mean to go on, debut single ‘Hermit’ is a blistering opening gambit melding the duo’s respective command of tight, fist-clenched punk and burrowing pop moments channelling two of Vancouver’s finest: Death From Above and Japandroids. A nice tie-in? Recorded and produced by Sutton and Jackson in various bedrooms and rehearsal spaces around London throughout 2017, the single was mixed by…

  • Win Tickets to O Emperor @ Quarter Block Party 2018

    January 8, 2018 - By 

    Waterford psych-pop five-piece O Emperor will mark their long-awaited return as part of this year’s frankly unmissable Quarter Block Party on Friday, February 2. Better still, we have a pair of tickets to give away to the show. Quarter Block Party will take over Cork city’s historic spine across February 2-4, with venues in Peter’s Church, Triskel Christchurch, Spailpín Fánach, and AMP set to play host to a stellar range of pop-up and public music, theatre and dance events. Co-presented by Makeshift Ensemble and Southern Hospitality Board, the Old Quarter will, for the fourth year running, put the focus on all that Cork…

  • Sanctuary

    January 4, 2018 - By 

    Cinema has a soft spot for the disabled, or at least those with worthy and theatrically resonant types of disabilities, ones that can be overcome in three acts, and leave able-bodied audiences feeling good about abstractions like “the human spirit”. Actors are lauded as “brave” for embracing physical and verbal contortions: Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man; Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar for The Theory of Everything; and, last year, Andrew Garfield’s polio quadriplegic in Andy Serkis’ Breathe. Meanwhile, television is opening itself up to richer representations of those on the Asperger’s spectrum. But a feature film with an ensemble cast, all of…

  • 18 for ’18: JYellowL

    January 4, 2018 - By 

    JyellowL, aka Jean-Luc Uddoh, has his foundations in old-school hip-hop but his head firmly in the now. His 2016 single ‘Life Right Now’ turned heads by taking on the Syrian refugee crisis whilst simultaneously dressing down the financial crash of 2008. This may be surprising coming from a 19-year-old, but for Uddoh, this is all he’s known. The Dublin rapper represents a generation of artists who’ve grown up in recession and seen only stagnation and roadblocks ahead. The idea of opportunity is alien to them. JyellowL’s music feels like a reaction to this. His stylings are very much in the…

  • General Fiasco Set For One-Off Reunion Show

    January 4, 2018 - By 

    Formerly the indie kings of Belfast, General Fiasco return for a one-off reunion show at Voodoo on Wednesday, January 31. The band, formed of Mid-Ulster natives Stephen Leacock and brothers Owen & Enda Strathern, gained notable popularity in the UK indie circuit in their stint together, before the trio’s last show together as General Fiasco took place in June 2013. Their early EPs & 2010 debut album Buildings, led to their featuring in the likes of The Inbetweeners, and in the years since their dissolution, they’ve performed together and apart in various guises, including with Oh Volcano and Franklyn. Tickets cost £10, and in the spirit of independent venue support, will only…

  • 18 For ’18: Dowry

    January 2, 2018 - By 

    Happy new year! We’re pleased to present 18 for ’18, a handpicked selection of Irish acts we’re absolutely convinced are going places in 2018. Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be previewing each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph by our wonderful team of photographers. First up is Dublin composer and artist Éna Brennan AKA Dowry. Photo by Aaron Corr ___ “Surround yourself with kind and sincere people and all will be well.” (Dowry proverb) Éna Brennan has made sure to do just that over the past year. Having played with…

  • Stream: Dandy’s Loft – Shadows In Motion

    January 2, 2018 - By 

    Set to release their debut album in the first quarter of 2018, Lurgan indie quintet Dandy’s Loft well and truly grabbed our attention last June with their four-track debut EP, Introspector. Seven months on, the band are back with the ‘Shadows In Motion’. The lead single from their upcoming LP, it picks up where Introspector left off, proving a carefully crafted and masterfully mournful effort conjuring the likes of Grizzly Bear, Department of Eagles and The Black Heart Procession. As first gambits for upcoming debut albums go, this is right up there with the most promising we’ve heard from an Irish act in quite…