• Premiere: Queen Bonobo – The Lord Does What He Wants

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    Currently studying music and living in Derry, Maya Goldblum aka Queen Bonobo is a singer-songwriter hailing from the tightly-knit community of Sagle, Idaho. On May 10, Goldblum will launch her debut album, Light Shadow Boom Boom, at Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin in Derry. Ahead of that, we’re pleased to present a first listen of its latest single, ‘The Lord Does What He Wants’. Engineered by Niall Doran, mixed by Ben McAuley and mastered by Stephen Quinn, it’s an unraveling alt-folk gem also featuring Daryl Coyle on co-production and drums, Jack Kelly on double bass and James Anderson on percussion. “I started writing ‘The Lord Does…

  • Watch: Paddy Hanna – Frankly, I Mutate

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    When it was released early last year, Frankly, I Mutate doubly underscored Paddy Hanna’s status as one of Ireland’s greatest ever songwriters. Brimming with incision, melody, pathos and heart, the album’s title track confined all of that, and more, across its four minutes. Something of a live favourite at Hanna’s full-band shows since the album’s release – not least an especially memorable rendition at Primavera in Barcelona last summer – the song now comes accompanied with one of the Irish videos of the year. Directed by Niall McCann, it features Hanna and a boom mic navigating skylights, back gardens, leafy streets, front rooms, promenades and shallow seashores. Confused?…

  • Premiere: tribal dance – You Can’t Swim

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    It stands to reason that, among their wide range of influences, Dublin three-piece tribal dance tip their hat to fellow Irish experimental rock bands including Adebisi Shank, Meltybrains? BATS, And So I Watch You From Afar and the Redneck Manifesto. This is music propelled by the same deft, imaginative spirit that has made the aforementioned acts known and well-regarded far beyond these shores. Marrying DFA-leaning energy with J-pop-like frenzy, the band’s new single ‘You Can’t Swim’ reveals a band pursuing their own rapturous niche. Produced by Ben Bix of Meltybrains? and Sim Simma Soundsystem, it’s a song rooted in pop sensibility and a very patent desire to get…

  • Hard Working Class Heroes To Rebrand as Ireland Music Week

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    The country’s leading music showcase and conference, Hard Working Class Heroes has announced that it will rebrand as Ireland Music Week from this year onwards. Set to return to various venues in Dublin as an expanded five-day event across October 1st-5th, Ireland Music Week will, according to organisers First Music Contact, “build on [the] ever-growing importance of its strong independent uncompromising identity and continue to project a confident and inclusive sense of responsibility for Irish music in an international context.” Remaining central to its strategic mission is showcasing “50 of the most export-ready emerging Irish acts to the best of…

  • Premiere: Ordnance Survey – Chrome feat. Sean Mac Erlaine & Kate Ellis

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    Next month, Dublin’s Neil O’Connor aka Somadrone will re-emerge with a new collaboration album titled Relative Phase. Recorded at the National Concert Hall Studios in Dublin throughout 2017 and 2018, the album – which is released under the collaborative moniker Ordnance Survey – features O’Connor on various instruments (see the full impressive list below), Kate Ellis on cello, John McEntire (of Tortoise, The Sea & Cake et al.) on drums, Sean Mac Erlaine on alto sax, bass clarinet and electrics, and Linda Buckley with vocal processing. Across eight tracks, it’s a fully-realised, synth-worshipping triumph of dense textures and widescreen extemporization that attempts…

  • Final Acts Announced for Vantastival 2019

    April 24, 2019 - By 

    Vantastival have announced the final acts to play this year’s festival. Beauty Sleep (pictured), Tanjier, TAU, The Bonny Men, Rebel Phoenix, Amy Montgomery, Ghost Accuser, Coscán, Little Dove, Bajjna, The Roomkeepers, Kelso, Music Generation Louth and The Samba Mamas will play the Drogheda festival’s tenth-anniversary outing across May 31-June 2. The festival has also announced that Repak ELT is the official support of the Glass House Stage, which will showcase singer-songwriters including Australia’s Tailor Birds, The Midnight Union Band’s Shane Joyce, Gemma Bradley, Rachel Grace, Ojo, The Finns, Bayonets, Bawn, Little Oak, Niamh Rebekah, Rosco Flanagan, Kloé and more. Revisit our recent…

  • Edwyn Collins Set For Dublin and Belfast Shows

    April 24, 2019 - By 

    They don’t come much more legendary than Edwyn Collins. The Scottish musician, producer, record label owner and former Orange Juice frontman will play Dublin’s Liberty Hall Theatre on September 14 and Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on September 15. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 9am, priced €30.00 and £24.00 respectively.

  • Aldous Harding – Designer

    April 24, 2019 - By 

    Aldous Harding embodies many selves. Often flickering between different characters in a single song, she weaves between evocations of the tragic, world-weary chanteuse and the elfin and spirited jester seamlessly. She’s not afraid to unsettle, and it’s this fluidity that is the crux of Harding’s appeal – the adamant refusal to be contained by any static identity for too long. At the heart of her work is a lavish commitment to the theatrical. Designer is Harding’s third album, reuniting her with esteemed producer John Parish for a second time, after 2017’s exquisite Party. This time however, we find Harding departing from…

  • Samuel Beckett’s Watt @ Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire

    April 23, 2019 - By 

    “Nothing. But was that not something?” A stage adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s novel Watt is a fairly mad endeavour. Dense, absurd and peppered with extraordinarily long lists of the possible permutations of ordinary events – comings and goings, goings and comings – Watt is perhaps Beckett’s least celebrated novel. Yet this bleak tale of a non-descript man in domestic service for an indeterminate number of years to Mr. Knott, whom Watt learns nothing about, is laced with wonderfully absurdist humour. It is this comic seam, essentially, that Barry McGovern mines in this one-hour, one-man tour de force, on Dun Laoghaire’s…

  • LAMB – The Secret Of Letting Go

    April 22, 2019 - By 

    Five years since their last effort, LAMB have returned with their seventh full-length album: The Secret Of Letting Go. Having revisited their acclaimed self titled debut for its 21st anniversary in 2017, LAMB have now attempted to strike new ground with their latest release, a goal, which at times, and despite a decent effort, seems just out of reach. Sonically speaking, The Secret Of Letting Go is a delight. The production throughout is consistently shiny and full, all the while retaining enough sparseness to allow Lou Rhodes’ vocals to shine through. Standout moments come in the form of tracks such…