• Premiere: Brand New Friend – Seatbelts For Aeroplanes

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    Few Northern Irish acts are on the up quite like Castlerock quartet Brand New Friend. From their release of almost dangerously-earworming debut EP, American Wives, back in 2016, the band’s brand of starry-eyed indie-pop will be on full display on their forthcoming debut album, Seatbelts For Airplanes. A sub-three minute burst marrying starry-eyed, harmony-driven sounds with confessional lyrics touching on the unspoken things in relationships, the album’s title track distils the Brand New Friend sound (essentially – once you hear it, you know it) perfectly. Shot by Gregory Nolan and edited by OneThirtyEight, have a first look at the video for the single below. Seatbelts For Airplanes is…

  • Le Galaxie – Pleasure

    April 21, 2018 - By 

    Any conversation about hard-working bands in Ireland is going to have to include Le Galaxie in some way, shape or form. The Dublin outfit have been making their own brand of slinky 80s electro-pop for nigh on a decade now with a live show that consistently beggars belief. Unfortunately, like many great live acts, the band has struggled to fully distill the manic, magical energy of their stage show to record. While the songs are always fundamentally good, something is often lost in translation; The edges aren’t as spiky and the energy is more muted. Having scored at decent chart…

  • Belfast Film Fest: The Rider

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    Lame horses get shot and broken cowboys get put out to pasture in Chloé Zhao’s The Rider, a soulful, touching look at ranchers and riders in the modern American heartland, based on the real-life experiences of its lead, former rodeo performer Brady Jandreau. Zhao, who previously looked at vulnerabilities on the open plain in 2015’s Songs My Brother Taught Me, casts unknowns and keeps the film light and loose, its wide open landscapes of sky and rock the backdrop to the pain of a talented rodeo cowboy forced to hang up his stirrups and face the existentialist wilderness after suffering a…

  • Belfast Film Fest: Golden Dawn Girls

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    Ourania Michaloliakou, a dumpy Greek twenty-something, loves Disney movies. She has a bookcase full of them. She loves board games with her friends and cute cats and doggies, using her position on the Athens city council to support stray animal causes. She also wants to liquidate her political rivals. Ourania is the daughter and only child of Nikolaos Michaloliakos, founder and leader of the far-right, ultra-nationalist political party Golden Dawn, a previously obscure movement rocketed into national prominence in the fallout of the financial and European refugee crises. In the chilling but limited Golden Dawn Girls, Norwegian director Håvard Bustnes probes…

  • Brian Wilson Set For Dublin Return

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    The legendary Brian Wilson will return to Dublin to play his and the Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits live later this year. Performing alongside Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin and his band, Wilson will plays tracks spanning his 54-year career at Vicar Street on August 21 and 22. Wilson last played the city last year at Bord Gais Energy Theatre as part of the Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour. Tickets for the show are €92.50 (Steep, for sure, but come on… Brian Wilson) and go on sale on Thursday, April 26 at 10am.

  • Video Premiere: The Wood Burning Savages – I Don’t Know Why I Do It To Myself

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    Just over a week from the release of a debut album that’s long been one of NI’s most anticipated, The Wood Burning Savages have just dropped a surprise video for single ‘I Don’t Know Why I Do It To Myself’. The video accompanies another rock anthem from an act seemingly set to posit themselves as spiritual and sonic successors to the proudly socialist, alternative punk torch long-carried by the Manic Street Preachers. Minimal, but effective, we see frontman Paul Connolly stroll from inauspicious, disenfranchised beginnings through to the coke-fuelled neoliberal dream – think Ken Loach taking a shortcut through Jordan Belfort. Debut LP Stability was produced by Start Together’s Rocky O’Reilly and…

  • Another Love Story Announce First Acts

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    Hands down our favourite small Irish summer music festival, Another Love Story have announced the first acts set to play this year’s outing. Returning to Killyon Manor, Co. Meath across August 17-19, the festival – which is co-presented by Homebeat and Happenings – the following acts make up the first announcement: Mammal Hands, Cloud Castle Lake, The Lost Brothers, Ships, O Emperor, Mount Alaska, Somadrone, Davy Kehoe, R Kitt, Pillow Queens, Solkatt, Dowry, Joshua Burnside, Anna Mieke, Sorcha Ricahrdson, Deaf Joe, Robert John Ardiff, Nava, Roe, Inni K, The Silken Same, Sun Collective, Attention Bébé, Interskalatic, Graham Mc Sweeny, Simon O Reilly,…

  • Kissing Candice

    June 20, 2018 - By 

    This review was originally published as part of the Belfast Film Festival ’18 coverage. The Omagh-born Aoife McArdle showcased her feature debut, Kissing Candice, at the Belfast Film Festival, but she’s a director and screenwriter with plenty of experience and a well-developed eye, a confidence that shines through in the film, a mad, bad, thrilling vision of libidinal teenage energy. Billed by McArdle at a post-show Q&A as a look at ‘Irish youth in crisis’, Candice, from Venom Films and the Irish Film Board, is so much more interesting and vivid than the description, with its suggestion of bleeding-heart melancholic…

  • Celtronic 2018

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    Ireland’s leading electronic music festival returns for its eighteenth year across Derry. Celtronic runs from June 27-July 1, featuring concerts, film screenings, workshops, seminars, recording projects and more. Headlining musical proceedings is the iconic veteran Roman Flügel, Steve Bug, Gerd Janson closes events, techno artist DVS1, noisician Paula Temple, Avalon Emerson. Local names include OR:LA, The Cyclist, Ryan Vail and Darren Allen. One of the highlights is sure to be the premiere of new music from Phil Kieran and three local musicians, recorded at Celtronic Studios and performed by the Ulster Orchestra. Priced £59.88 including booking fee, tickets are available to buy…