Day Two of Electric Picnic 2019, featuring The Strokes, Years & Years, The 1975, Christine and the Queens and more
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Day One of Electric Picnic 2019, featuring Billie Eilish, Hozier and more. Photos by Kevin Hennessy
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From September 14th, Joshua Burnside will set off on his biggest tour to date. Including an unmissable show alongside Junior Brother at Empire Music Hall on November 1st as part of this year’s Belfast International Arts Festival, the Belfast folk maestro will play shows in cities including New York, Los Angeles, London and Berlin. Ahead of that, we talk to Burnside about travel, success, his forthcoming second album and more. Go here to buy tickets to Joshua Burnside at Empire Music Hall Hi Joshua. You’re about to head off on a world tour, which includes dates in New York, Los Angeles, London and…
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It’s official: Dublin folk miscreants Lankum will release their new album The Livelong Day via Rough Trade on October 25. Coinciding with the announcement is the unveiling of the band’s masterful take on ‘The Wild Rover’. The band said of the single, which is accompanied by a video by Ellius Grace: “There are countless renditions of this tune, it is a song very much rooted within the dirt and peat of Ireland, but the revelation of a little known final verse takes it from a jovial pub tale to one of sadness and destitution. The actual crux of the song becomes…
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Depending on how you want to count them, Anak Ko (released on Polyvinyl) is either Jay Som’s second album, or her third. The Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer gained some traction in 2015 when she released a series of un-named bedroom demos online. These were eventually re-released as an official debut, Turn Into – citing influences including Tame Impala, The Pixies and Yo La Tengo. Another influence Som – real name Melina Mae Duterte – has cited is her heritage. She is the daughter of Filipino immigrants and Anak Ko is Tagalog for “my child”. Her latest outing, Anak Ko marks an opening up for the artist – it’s more…
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Lighght is no stranger to chaos. The Cork producer’s first tape, The Skin Falls Off The Body, was, as its title suggests, an exercise in nasty, bile-dripping body horror. Recorded a full three years prior to its release last December, it represented a direct response to a very specific personal trauma in the artist’s life. It’s vulgar sound design specialised in unrelenting syncopated drums, unseemly quicksilver whirring, and serrated, industrial buzzing, a pool of emotional sludge. Though impressively visceral and absorbingly unsettling, it ultimately lacked a sense of completeness. It also provided no indication of what his future full-length debut…
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Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet, live at The Telegraph Building, Belfast. Photos by Niall Fegan
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Flood co-founder Doubt will release his new EP, Steam Cycle, via the label on 4th October. The Cork hard drum collective, run alongside fellow DJ/producers Syn and Tension, has become somewhat of a bastion for the niche genre since launching in 2017. With a sound defined by heavy, syncopated percussion and minimal (but very effective) electronic flourishes, the Flood crew have played alongside scene originators such as NKC. They have also become key reference points for the genre’s development thanks to a slew of digital releases on the label, their tracks becoming a trademark in many a DJ set and…
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If we truly are living the end of days, at least there are those who can observe and comment on the doom, with a bit of dark humour and use of rhythmic beats to remind us there is a glimmer of hope in humanity. One such person is the man behind Belfast’s avant-garde electronic outfit Gross Net. Philip Quinn started the project back in the, comparatively tranquil, year 2014. His first release was the Cassette EP, when Christian Donaghey of Autumns was part of the Gross Net set up. Next came the second mini-record of Outstanding Debt, followed by the…
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Belfast-based musician Myles McCormack occupies a very special place within the Northern Irish music community. Beyond his work as a founding member of forward-pushing trad-folk outfit Lonesome George, the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist crafts considered, reflective tales under his own name. It’s something that comes into sharp focus on McCormack’s forthcoming twelve-track debut album, Real Talk. Set for release on September 13th, it’s a gossamer and quietly emphatic first gambit from an artist who continues to set himself apart. From ‘Lifeline’ and the wonderfully-woven melancholia of opening track ‘When’ to the throwback folk phantasm of new single ‘Merry Go Round’ and beyond,…