• Venom

    October 11, 2018 - By 

    Isn’t the point of anti-heroes that they’re not dull? Great power, great responsibility? That’s Peter Parker’s deal. He’s gotta defeat Doc Ock in time for date night for MJ, and pick up Aunt May’s prescription on the way. But Eddie Brock gets to be a shithead. In the tradition of superhero doppelgangers, Venom gets the super-abilities without the baggage, indulging in the petty, violent delights off-bounds for your friendly neighbourhood Spidey. But in Venom, Sony Pictures’ still-can’t-believe-it’s-real foray into the fringes of their Spiderverse IP, which doesn’t mention the wise-cracking web-slinger at all, Eddie Brock gets to save the world.…

  • Phosphorescent – C’est La Vie

    October 10, 2018 - By 

    Matthew Houck’s brand of roaming, questing country rock veers firmly into The War on Drugs’ crossover territory with Phosphorescent’s seventh record. Stark, bruised hymns of desolation such as ‘Wolves’ from Pride, or teary travelogues like ‘Mermaid Parade’ found on Here’s To Taking It Easy are not in supply here. After the short instrumental ‘Black Moon/Silver Waves,’ the opening lines of ‘C’est La Vie No. 2’ say as much: “I wrote all night/Like the fire of my words could burn a hole up to heaven/I don’t write all night burning holes up to heaven no more.” Unsurprisingly, the all-conquering ‘Song for Zula’…

  • Secret Song @ Levis Corner Bar, Cork

    October 10, 2018 - By 

    The fourth outing for Secret Song at Levis Corner Bar in Ballydehob, Co. Cork, featuring Maiden Radio, Landless, Joan Shelly, Pete Coe, Xabi, SON/Susan O’Neill, Aindrias De Staic, Brendan Ring & Bean Dolan Niamh Regan, Kevin Ryan with Aindrais de Staic, poets Cormac Lally, David Jackson & Lewis, Old Time Rags, Bridget Kearney, Pete Coe, Bean, Irene and Bridget, Aindrias de Staic, Joey Wright & Band Diarmuid Brooke, Sharkey and Rozi Plain.  

  • Watch: Glass Wings – Believe

    October 10, 2018 - By 

    Belfast artist Stephen Jones AKA Glass Wings has unveiled the video for his new single, ‘Believe’. The latest track to be taken from his forthcoming debut album, Everything and Nothing, it’s a slick and urgent blast of the fast-rising songwriter’s alt-pop craft. Hosted by Bird & Bramble, Glass Wings’ debut is officially launched at Belfast’s Black Box on October 19. You can buy and stream the single here. Have a first look at the visuals below.

  • Sea Pinks – Rockpool Blue

    October 9, 2018 - By 

    With the difficulty of making a proper living from music these days, it’s not uncommon to see the release schedules of bands on the more DIY end of the spectrum slow right down as they’re increasingly forced to balance music with work commitments and other general life admin. And yet, with the release of their seventh album a mere eight years on from their debut, Belfast’s Sea Pinks may surely by now have overtaken even Dublin’s No Monster Club for the title of Ireland’s most prolific band, and while one could be forgiven for assuming a case of quantity over…

  • EP Premiere: Porphyry – Wounded, White Light

    October 26, 2018 - By 

    The term folktronica is just a touch reductionist for what the Derry-born, now Berlin-based Porphyry is doing. While in a more superficial sense, he could be described as an outsider Villagers, nothing in Ireland is attempting to achieve what Daryl Martin has with new EP, Wounded, White Light.  We loved his previous, self-described ‘maximalist’ Ursa Minor/Coming Home EP, not least for managing “the unenviable job of being boldly unpigeonholeable as art, and deeply personal, without approaching any level of bloated grandiosity”. Through minimalistic methods, however, the same result has been reached once more, with effortless finesse. Its cleansing, organic, seemingly breathing compositions weave unexpected synth textures into alternately piano & guitar-led freak-folk-meets-Robbie Basho-ian primitivism. Across its four tracks,…

  • The Thin Air Podcast: David Gedge (The Wedding Present)

    October 8, 2018 - By 

    The Thin Air podcast returns with a distinguished elder statesman of indie rock – David Gedge of The Wedding Present.  John Peel favourites and jangle-pop pioneers The Wedding Present emerged from Leeds in the late 1980s with their scrappy and lyrical debut album ‘George Best’.  A unique blend of bitter melodrama and everyday mundanity, it’s an urgent record that revels in the melancholy of small town life. From their C86 roots the band went to be bona fide indie-popstars, charting no less than 12 singles in the UK top 40 in 1992, and becoming a regular anomaly in the shiny…

  • Sleaford Mods – Sleaford Mods EP

    October 8, 2018 - By 

    When it comes to Sleaford Mods, there are two very distinct types of people in the world. Those of us who find ourselves instinctively drawn to the visceral fury and elusive musicality of the band’s butt ugly beats and those who struggle to separate the band’s sound from that of a Dragon Soup fuelled brawl out the back of an east Midlands lock-in. The duo’s excellent new EP is unlikely to challenge either camp’s perception… But this seething carnival of misplaced rage, artful profanity and darkly comic tales of divey bars and twitter feuds combines to create a vibrant rebuttal…

  • It Takes A Village Announces 2019 Return

    October 8, 2018 - By 

    Hands down one of the Irish festivals of the summer, It Takes a Village have announced details of their return in 2019. The East Cork festival will return to Trabolgan in East Cork across Friday to Sunday, May 10-12th 2019. This year’s inaugural outing took place in April, with Young Fathers, Andrew Weatherall and Fujiya and Miyagi topping a bill that also featured some of the country’s best acts including Talos, The Altered Hours, Ryan Vail, Le Boon and Anna Mieke. Early bird tickets for 2019 are on sale now, and prices start at €259.65. We’re expecting great things again…