• Stream: Daithí – Lavender/Orange (feat. Tandem Felix/Sinead White)

    October 18, 2018 - By 

    Daithí has returned with not one, but two sublime new singles. It’s a collaborative one-two from the Galway-based electronic producer : featuring Dublin’s Tandem Felix, the wistful ‘Lavender’ is a stark affair marrying stoic beats, skeletal piano phrases and vocals bearing the imprint of hidden pangs. ‘Orange’, meanwhile, is an open letter penned to another about the end of a relationship. Tussling with a romantic cul-de-sac, head-on yet with subtlety, is no mean feat. For Daithí and Sinead White – whose vocals carry the single – it’s delivered with nuanced grace and earworming aplomb. Out tomorrow, stream both singles below.  

  • Premiere: Trick Mist – Abroad In The Yard

    October 18, 2018 - By 

    We’re pleased to present a first peek at the video for ‘Abroad in the Yard’ by Dundalk songwriter, electronic musician and multi-instrumentalist Gavin Murray AKA Trick Mist. The follow-up to ‘Two Doors Down’ – a stellar acapella effort released back in August – the single is a self-proclaimed song about letting go of cynicism, comprising samples Murray picked up while in India. Featuring archive footage of simpler times, when kicking a ball with the lads in the sun was responsibility enough, Graham Patterson’s video for the release makes for an inspired accompaniment. Murray said of the single: “Abroad in the yard…

  • Irish Tour: Editors

    October 18, 2018 - By 

    Editors kicked off their Irish tour with support from Talos in the Ulster Hall in Belfast and travelled down to Vicar Street in Dublin the following night. Photos by Niall Fegan and Sarah Ryan

  • Sharon Van Etten Set for Dublin

    October 16, 2018 - By 

    Sharon Van Etten will play Dublin’s Vicar Street on March 23, 2019. The New Jersey singer-songwriter and actress – who last play the Dublin venue in 2015 – will release her new album, Remind Me Tomorrow, tomorrow. Van Etten’s Dublin show takes place as part of a 33-date world tour. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am. Ticket price including booking fee is €25.00. Photo by Ryan Pfluger

  • John Grant – Love Is Magic

    October 14, 2018 - By 

    Upon first listen to an album that flits between seemingly whimsical matters of broccoli and cheese sauce to diet gum and hot Brazilian boys, one would be forgiven for merely scratching its surface. It’s only on the second and third (and fourth and fifth) listen to Love Is Magic, John Grant’s fourth studio album as a solo artist, that true appreciation can be found. After the sheer wackiness loses its immediacy, the authenticity of Grant’s latest body of work becomes more apparent and the world is given a whole new way of experiencing the American musician. It’s his most electronic…

  • Let Them Eat Vowels: A Conversation with Stephen Malkmus

    October 15, 2018 - By 

    For over a quarter of a century, Stephen Malkmus has inspired countless aspiring musicians to pick up a guitar, form a band and write loud, dissonant melodies and playful, witty lyrics. Pavement and the Silver Jews are amongst two of the most influential bands of the 90s and 2000s. For the last seventeen years, however, Malkmus has been performing with The Jicks. Earlier this year, Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks released Sparkle Hard, their tremendous seventh album. Ahead of their gig in Dublin’s Vicar Street, Malkmus spoke to Zara Hedderman about artists making music in their fifties, the process of…

  • Saint Sister – Shape of Silence

    October 12, 2018 - By 

    It’s hard to believe that we’re only now hearing Saint Sister’s debut album given how quickly the duo have grown since their 2014 debut single, both at home and abroad. Shape of Silence is a cohesive and carefully put together album, and awe inspiring as a debut release. Drenched in traditional celtic and folk influence, but with a hint of electronic indie-pop, Saint Sister have etched out a niche in today’s Irish music, and they’re an act that we should treasure. Many of the tracks here are previous releases, including the song that first brought attention to the pair, ‘Madrid’,…

  • Rigoletto @ Grand Opera House, Belfast

    October 11, 2018 - By 

    “I’m denied that common human right – to weep” It’s entirely apt that Northern Ireland Opera’s staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto should be set in modern times. Apt because its salient themes – celebrity and vanity; the objectification of women and the presumed privileges of patriarchal society; the dangers of herd mentality; and, in an age of #MeToo and on-line trolling, the consequences of bullying and mockery – all resonate loudly today. A cast of international opera stars grace the Grand Opera House stage for this powerful NI Opera production, but the other protagonist is the set (Kaspar Glarner) –…

  • EP Premiere: Sweat Threats – Sweet Treats

    October 12, 2018 - By 

    We’ve been fans of the righteous post-punk party music of Sweat Threats since they reared their heads at the start of 2018 – and most recently last month’s ‘Suffocate‘ – and today, we’re delighted to lay down on a platter assorted Sweet Treats, the debut EP from the London-based Irish pairing of Niall Jackson (Bouts/Swimmers Jackson) and Matthew Sutton (It was All a Bit Black and White/Tayne) – recently joined by drummer Lucy Brown. Very much in line with their modus operandi, Sweet Treats is a six track earworm infestation, filled with that Death From Above, Idles & Fucked Up strain of insurgent punk that links hips to brains. Written around themes…

  • Bad Times at the El Royale

    October 11, 2018 - By 

    Drew Goddard has an attraction to high-concept ideas. The former Lost and Buffy The Vampire Slayer writer made his feature directorial debut with 2012’s Cabin in The Woods, a slasher meta-horror about a group of teens tormented by secret scientists and their army of canonical monsters and horror tropes. Cabin’s wall-breaking endeared it to genre die-hards, but it’s hard to recall much else the movie did that was scary or interesting. This problem is present, to much greater effect, in Bad Times at the El Royale. Goddard’s second film as writer-director isn’t quite as novel as Cabin, falling more comfortably…