• The Pirates Don’t Eat The Tourists: Jurassic Park, 25 Years On

    June 14, 2018 - By 

    John Hammond is Steven Spielberg. Yes, it’s an obvious analogy: Richard Attenborough’s bio-engineering CEO and the maestro who directed him are both bearded childlike innocents, starry-eyed dreamers, alchemists who conjure stunning spectacles for an adoring public and make serious bank in the process. And both have seen their legacy squandered. In the twenty-five years since Jurassic Park’s release, across four sequels, the parks and their improbable animal attractions have been misused and mistreated, spiralling, in an inevitable logic Dr. Ian Malcolm would appreciate, towards chaos. In this month’s underwhelming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom a burst of volcanic violence snuffs out…

  • Giant Sand @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    June 13, 2018 - By 

    No word in the English language sums up Howe Gelb’s ever-mutating life’s work Giant Sand more than idiosyncratic. Threaded through by just one man and his broad-ranging – oft. cowpunk – plays on the idioms of Americana and the topics he’s always held dear: love, death, humour & wanderlust, never straying too far from wryly homespun existentialism. Despite a few of indefinite hiatuses in the last few years, Giant Sand’s original lineup were reconvened for a complete rerecording of their debut LP, a scattershot snapshot of 35 years ago accompanied by members of Gelb’s LA & Tuscon circles at the…

  • Interpol Announce Dublin Show

    June 12, 2018 - By 

    With their new album, Marauder set for release via Matador Records on August 24, it’s been announced that Interpol will play Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on November 18. Alongside a date at Manchester’s O2 Apollo two night before, the show has been added as part of the band’s 2018 world tour. Ranging from €46-56, tickets for the Dublin show are on sale now. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult aged 18+. Check out ‘The Rover’, the lead single from Marauder, below. Photo by Jamie-James Medina

  • The Boy Downstairs

    June 13, 2018 - By 

    HBO’s Girls has become a shorthand for certain kinds of New Yorkian slice of life dramedies and romances, shaped by the ‘hipster’ spaces and attitudes of articulate inner-city millenials. Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behaviour (2014), for example, which presented a same-sex relationship and breakup in rom-com retrospective, got labelled by some outlets as a lesbian version of Lena Dunham’s show (on which Akhavan later made an appearance). New rom-com The Boy Downstairs, the first feature from writer-director Sophie Brooks, an NYU film school grad, invites the same comparisons. Its details suggest the aesthetic geography of the urban creatives — a craft beer store, a twinkly roof party, a…

  • Low Set For Vicar Street Show

    June 12, 2018 - By 

    Duluth indie rock legends Low will return to Dublin to play Vicar Street on October 17. The news comes off the back of the announcement of their forthcoming album – a release coinciding with their 25th year together – Double Negative. Watch three videos for the opening three tracks from the album below. Tickets for the Dublin show cost €30 and go on sale on Friday at 9am.    

  • Stream: Silverbacks – Dunkirk

    June 12, 2018 - By 

    Six months on from featuring them as one of our 18 for ’18 acts, Dublin five-piece Silverbacks are back with their strongest single effort to date, ‘Dunkirk’. Released on Friday (June 15) via their own PK Miami Records, the track – which was produced by Girl Band’s Daniel Fox – is a swiftly sprawling three-minute raid melding art-punk tangentialism with purified indie rock sensibility (the latter of which is something we’ve happily banged on about for some time now.) Speaking about the track, the band said: “It is about a character who is questioning the life they have been dealt. They find…

  • Watch: Villagers – A Trick of the Light

    June 12, 2018 - By 

    Coinciding with the announcement of his forthcoming fourth album, The Art of Pretending To Swim, Conor O’Brien’s Villagers are back with a new single, ‘A Trick of the Light’. Blurring the lines between full-bodied folk-pop splendour and late-1990s R&B groove, it’s a four-minute curveball that hits in all the right places. Sealing the deal for the single is a typically first-rate video from Bob “Midas Touch” Gallagher. Featuring O’Brien in the guise of a rather lovely lady, it’s a wonderfully surrealist accompaniment capturing the pleasures and heart-pangs of love, belonging and loss. The Art of Pretending to Swim is out via Domino…

  • David Byrne Set For Dublin Show

    June 12, 2018 - By 

    As part of his American Utopia tour, David Byrne will play Dublin’s 3Arena on October 24. Supporting the legendary Talking Heads frontman and solo artist is Benjamin Clementine. Tickets for the show are priced at €49.50 and go on sale this Friday, June 15 at 10am.

  • Kanye West – ye

    June 11, 2018 - By 

    Kanye West’s ye is as harrowing, repulsive and morbidly fascinating as it’s creator. 2018 has been West’s most controversial year to date, almost impressive for a man who’s career has been characterised by outlandish and often toxic behaviour: for many fans who stood by him through bizarre interviews and turned a blind eye to his leering misogyny, his recent endorsement of Donald Trump and widely-reported ‘slavery is a choice’ comments have represented a bridge too far for many. How much his very public battle with bi-polar, and subsequent hospitalisation and struggle with opioid addiction has had to bear on his…

  • Just Mustard – Wednesday

    June 11, 2018 - By 

    Dundalk Co. Louth is becoming more and more of a creative hub, breeding a new wave of young acts paving their way through Ireland’s current music scene. From artists like Elephant and the now UK-based natives Video Blue and Trick Mist to staple venue The Spirit Store and local record shop Classified Records, the town is gradually becoming one of the country’s most vital hotbeds of talent. Testament to that, is the newly label Pizza Pizza Records, and with it – it’s first release, Just Mustard’s debut album Wednesday. Previous to this release, Just Mustard could have been considered a…