• A Grave With No Name – Passover

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    Death has always been and always will be a rich and necessary well for songwriters. Think back to the likes of Neil Young on Tonight’s The Night, Warren Zevon’s The Wind or, recently, Mount Eerie’s sublime A Crow Looked At Me. The finality of shuffling off the mortal coil can really bring out the best work from an artist. They’ve got a single shot to say goodbye correctly and if they’re slightly off then a well-intentioned farewell can become as unbearable as Puff Daddy’s ‘I’ll Be Missing You’. Writing about the passing of a life offers such a vast treasure…

  • 18 for ’18: Molly Sterling

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    We continue 18 for ’18, our feature of showcasing eighteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going places in 2018. Throughout January we’re going to be previewing each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph from one of our photographers. Next up is Tipperary’s Molly Sterling. Photo by Ciara Brennan Try as one might, it’s usually nigh on impossible to clearly pinpoint what demarcates a great artist from a good one. Often, the real difference can only be traced in the smallest moments – music that has a way with itself, the space between the…

  • David Kitt – Still Don’t Know EP

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    Preceding the March release of his eighth studio album, Dublin indie craftsman David Kitt has just released four-track EP, Still Don’t Know. An extension of the lead single from new album, Yous – out in March – the EP is out via All City Records on 10″, available to buy here in a limited run. Described by Kitt as “a travelogue within a dream, a jump-cut journey that crosses the globe. It’s one of those dreams you don’t want to wake from, where you want to go back under to piece the finer details together” it’s a soothing, typically stellar effort from the chameleonic Dubliner, who, since…

  • The Final Year

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    ‘I keep saying we should get a countdown clock, with the weeks and days left’, suggests Samantha Power, the Obama administration’s representative to the United Nations, in Greg Barker’s up-close HBO documentary The Final Year. The appropriately named Power, an Irish child immigrant and former law professor bewitched by the promise of Senator Obama, is talking about instilling urgency in the President’s foreign policy team, who have twelve months left in his second term to wrap up their agendas and make them watertight for whoever comes next. The ticking clock — 10 months left, now 4, now 1 — is meant to cast their…

  • Album Premiere: Laurie Shaw – Weird Weekends

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    Based in Cork, 23-year-old Wirral artist Laurie Shaw has self-released approximately 75 albums – as well as one record each on UK imprint Sunstone Records and Dublin’s Little L – over the last few years, steadily establishing himself as a prodigious artist with a strong DIY ethic. Tomorrow he releases his latest full-length, Weird Weekends. A self-proclaimed “nostalgic trip back to teenage-hood, a love letter to the small town of Kenmare where all these narratives originate from”, it’s a brilliantly-realised effort that veers between Bill Ryder Jones-conjuring indie (‘Shatterproof’), inward-looking ballads and laments (‘Skipped Period Blues’, ‘Pink Lightbulb’), as well as straight-up riff-slinging guitar rock. Conjuring…

  • Stream: Paddy Hanna – Toulouse The Kisser

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    Though we’re not short of a first-rate alt-pop troubadour on these shores, Paddy Hanna has tread his very own increasingly compelling path in that realm for some time now. The Dublin songwriter – who is also a member of Autre Monde – will release his new album, Frankly, I Mutate, on March 2. Lifted from that that, new single ‘Toulouse The Kisser’ is a real gem that Hanna has called “a travelogue of drunken misadventure, watching your future waste away and accepting you will become the person to whom people say, “at least I’m not that poor fool”. But what a poor fool. Produced…

  • Keynote Speakers Announced for Output Belfast

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    Following on from the likes of Steve Albini and Bob Lefsetz, the keynote speakers set to close this year’s Output Belfast at the MAC on Thursday, February 8 have been announced. Marking a change of format from previous years, Ireland’s largest one-day music conference will end with a panel discussion around scoring for horror/thriller films and television shows. On the panel will be LA composer Rich Vreeland AKA Disasterpiece, Mogwai founder and guitarist Stuart Braithwaite (pictured), composer Carly Paradis and And So I Watch You From Afar guitarist and composer Rory Friers. The panel will be moderated by director and Belfast…

  • BØRNS – Blue Madonna

    January 18, 2018 - By 

    Returning with his highly anticipated sophomore effort Blue Madonna, Michigan born Garrett Børns captures the momentum from his debut Dopamine and transforms it into a catalyst for experimentation. Gone is the typical homogeneous album setup, replaced instead with kicks and flares from a medley of instruments that spring up from the spaces that break up the noise.  Where Dopamine reclined into a suave sofa of plush electro-pop beats, Blue Madonna erratically paces across a floor of glossy, facet tiles. Opening with the relatively reserved ’God Save Our Young Blood’, BØRNS‘ pace and tone matches that of his collaborator, one Lana Del…