• Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever w/ MELTS @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    August 22, 2018 - By 

    On what was an already humid evening, it wasn’t much of a surprise that this sold-out crowd led to a rapid rise in temperature inside the venue. The reason for the sweat-box effect was down to the debut Irish appearance of Melbourne’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Formed five years ago, the band have picked up quite a few column inches since the release of their debut Talk Tight EP in 2016, which led to Sub Pop releasing the highly acclaimed French Press EP last year and their full-length debut Hope Downs in June. Strolling on stage just after 9:30, the…

  • The Thin Air Podcast: Paddy Hanna + Daniel Fox and Frankie Cosmos

    August 22, 2018 - By 

    Hosted by Danny Carroll, the newly revamped Thin Air podcast will feature insightful interviews with Irish and international songwriters. For Irish artists there’s a focus on the recording process, going in-depth on the arrangement and mixing process for specific tracks. Future interviewees include Lankum, Malojian and Squarehead to name but a few. Meanwhile international artists speak candidly about their careers to date, including Yoni Wolf (Why?), David Gedge (The Wedding Present) and Zola Jesus among others. Our opening double bill features the effervescent Paddy Hanna joined by his producer Daniel Fox in discussing the baroque pop delight ‘Bad Boys’. The…

  • Premiere: Ciara O’Neill – Equal and Opposite

    August 22, 2018 - By 

    A self-proclaimed play on words and emotions, ‘Equal and Opposite by Portadown folk singer-songwriter Ciara O’Neill was written during a trip to Nashville back in 2015. Revolving around the idea that “one man’s trash is another mans gold”, O’Neill said of the track: “I was feeling a little unsettled within myself and unsure of what direction I was going in both personally and musically. For every one thing, need or emotion there’s an opposite. It’s a reminder that we are all different and unique and that’s ok.” A reflective, carefully-crafted effort, ‘Equal and Opposite’ is a highlight from O’Neill’s newly-released album, Arrow, which was…

  • Another Love Story 2018

    August 22, 2018 - By 

    An intimate festival of approximately two hundred attendees, Another Love Story is based in a family home set in quaint country surrounds of Killyon Manor. A mixture of live music, art installations and talks were enjoyed across various makeshift venues on the lawn as well as inside the house, namely in both cosy front rooms and the spacious ballroom. Now in its fourth year, Another Love Story affirmed its position as Ireland’s finest festival. The interplay between bands from Dublin and Cork, namely, of musicians spotted multiple times performing with different acts over the three days, demonstrated both the connectivity of…

  • Premiere: Extravision – Repeat It

    August 22, 2018 - By 

    Comprising members of Dublin bands Sissy, Surge and No Spill Blood, Extravision offer up something special via the sum of their parts. As the city’s finest forward-moving post-punk proposition, the threesome recorded their debut demo with ex-drummer Legs – who, we learn, was lost to the Vancouver punk scene – at the start of the year. With No Spill Blood sticksman, the mercurial Ror Conaty on board, the band are leading the charge, with the aforesaid demo set for release via Sligo imprint Art For Blind imminently. Ahead of that, we have for you an exclusive first listen of ‘Repeat It’ from the demo. Stick…

  • Watch: Tristan Da Cunha – Opa

    August 22, 2018 - By 

    You know what’s lovely and accomplished to nth degree? The debut single from Co. Wicklow’s Tristan Howard AKA Tristan Da Cunha. A woozy, snug-as-hell swell of homespun bedroom-pop, it marries sleepyheaded hip-hop instrumentalism via intent-drenched, longing lo-fidelity. Long story short: it’s one of our Irish songs of the year so far. Directed by Howard and Leslie Sharpe, and edited by Sam Zarrin, check out its video below.

  • Inbound: ABQ

    August 21, 2018 - By 

    Off the back of their debut single ‘Takes So Long’, Paul Shevlin of London-based Belfast quartet ABQ (AKA Albuquerque) talks process, pressure, the power of the right producer and keeping up with the scene back home. Hello ABQ. You have been playing together in different guises over the last few years, but the band still feels very new. For those of us not in the know, what’s the backstory to ABQ and what’s changed? It was a fairly natural transition from previous projects to ABQ. We’ve all played in and around the NI music scene for years and when an…

  • Watch: Villagers – Fool

    August 20, 2018 - By 

    Ahead of the release of his fourth album, The Art of Pretending How To Swim, Conor O’Brien’s Villagers have unveiled the video for new single ‘Fool’. A self-proclaimed “romantic battle-cry from the centre of a technological dystopia”, the video – which was directed by Bob Gallagher, the whiz behind the video for Villagers’ previous single ‘A Trick of the Light’ – takes the lyrics (“So here is my bleeding heart. Will you take the pain away?”) as a starting point for the narrative. “The video is a surreal take on a marriage proposal, which is the ultimate gambit in love,” says Gallagher. The scenario pushes how…

  • Premiere: Larry – WAH

    August 17, 2018 - By 

    Made up of Joey Edwards, Aoife Ward and David Noonan, Dundalk three-piece Larry knocked our hungover, quietly contemplative socks off at Arcadian Field festival earlier this month. Filtering the imprint of the likes of Ryan Adams, Pixies and Wilco, the threesome’s brand of lo-fi alt-rock brims with burrowing pop sensibility and wonderfully-wielded lyrical pathos courtesy of frontman Edwards. Ahead of recording their debut album in Electrical Audio, Chicago with our Lord and Saviour, Steve Albini this September (keep your eyes peeled for a 12″ vinyl via Pizza Pizza Records) we’re pleased to present a first look at the video for the band’s new single ‘WAH’. Like the song – and…

  • Richard Thompson w/ David Keenan @ Empire Music Hall, Belfast

    August 17, 2018 - By 

    There’s been a recurring narrative in most critical discussion around Richard Thompson over the years, that he exists as this undiscovered national treasure. In terms of the comparable reverence commanded by former peers like Nick Drake & John Martyn, that might be true – it’s not a trendy sell, not quite fitting perfectly into folk or rock pigeonholes in a business that operates most efficiently under binary conditions. Couple that with themes that veer wildly between mordant meditations on humanity, and congenial, quintessentially British kitchen sink themes without the ‘benefit’ of A) dying young, or B) self-mythologising as a romantically-inclined…