• Billie Eilish – When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

    April 22, 2019 - By 

    On a recent episode of Vox music podcast ‘Switched On Pop,’ songwriter Charlie Harding explains the theory he has about superheroes and pop music. Superheros have to have a narrative that speaks to their time and to their generation. Eventually, they age out and are rebooted or a new superhero comes along. Harding suggests pop music follows a similar template, and there’s no one more equipped to be the next Generation’s superhero than seventeen year old Billie Eilish. Eilish has grown up in an America defined by mass shootings, rising suicide rates, poverty, and the opioid epidemic. Her home state…

  • Q&A With Andy & Ryan Tohill, Directors of The Dig

    April 23, 2019 - By 

    Digging up the past is dirty business. Northern Irish indie The Dig, the first feature from brothers Andy and Ryan Tohill, brings viewers out to the bog, for a grubby, mucky, effective drama of guilt and redemption. Written by Stuart Drennan and assisted by NI Screen, the film stars Moe Dunford as Ronan Callahan, a convicted murderer with a memory problem who returns to his small Irish village and finds the father of his apparent victim (Lorcan Cranitch) on an obsessive quest to unearth his daughter’s body. Flagged by Emily Taafe as the victim’s sister, and Francis Magee as a menacing Sergeant, the repentant Ronan picks…

  • BFF 19: Beats

    April 22, 2019 - By 

    Wrapping up this year’s Belfast Film Festival, Michele Devlin and Mark Cousins took to the podium and paid tribute, in brittle delivery, to the spirit of the festival and its organisers — generous, curious, international — and to the legacy of murdered journalist Lyra McKee, who had been involved with Doc Fest, the Festival’s documentary spin-off. Some of the best and worst of Northern Ireland running in tandem. We need some catharsis, and closing film Beats, directed by Brian Welsh and adapted by Kieran Hurley from his own play, is just the ticket, an affectionate celebration of friendship, connection and the delight of being…

  • Junior Brother and PowPig @ The Grand Social, Dublin

    April 19, 2019 - By 

    The outside of Dublin’s Grand Social is littered with both local and foreign football fans, the downstairs bar is a flood of jerseys and half-spilled pints, but upstairs in the smoking area of the bar, a semi-orderly queue is forming. A few strays weasel their way to the front and mutter something about spare tickets, but to no avail. The rest, stand patiently, smoking, drinking and chatting, waiting to enter the venue. One guy bursts in red as a baboon’s hole and takes three maybe four puffs from an inhaler before joining the line. All of these people are here…

  • BFF 19: Eighth Grade

    April 18, 2019 - By 

    If you are someone who finds the multi-pronged genius of Bo Burnham gallingly unjust, then brace yourself. The comedian has turned to film-making, and nailed it on his first go. Burnham has spoken about his own anxiety issues, and Eighth Grade beams us directly into the headspace of maybe the most anxious species on the planet: an introverted 13 year old girl who doesn’t know how to be cool. Kayla (the unforgettable Elsie Fisher) is a sweet, awkward kid about to finish the titular class year and head into the dizzying young adulthood of high school. At school she has…

  • Inbound: The Claque

    April 18, 2019 - By 

    Girl Band’s incendiary LP Holding Hands With Jamie found itself landing on Albums of the Year lists far and wide in 2015, but health issues have seen the band lie dormant for the last two years. Cue the excitement then that guitarist Alan Duggan has convened a new group, The Claque, alongside Paddy Ormond of jangle-pop maestros Postcard Versions and vocalist Kate Brady. Debut single ‘Hush’ sees the trio pool their talents, combining Duggan’s brutal mechanical noise with Ormond’s distinct sense of melody and Brady’s pop sensibilities. With a debut Dublin show pencilled in for 27th April and summer dates…

  • Final Acts Announced for Knockanstockan

    April 18, 2019 - By 

    Knockanstockan have announced the final names to play this year’s festival. Joining the previously announced Just Mustard, Bicurious, Punk Podge & The Technohippies, Hot Cops, Kitt Philippa, BATS, Slouch, Myles Manley, Rachael Boyd, Tebi Rex and Dowry, amongst many others, are the likes of The Bonk, Arvo Party (pictured), Naive Ted, Zaska, Eve Belle, Chancer, Jinx Lennon and many more. Check out the full line-up below. Returning to Blessington Lake in Co. Wicklow across July 19-21, tickets for the festival can be bought here.

  • Video Premiere: Fears – Fabric

    April 19, 2019 - By 

    A few weeks back, we described ‘Fabric’, the latest single from minimalist electronic pop artist Fears, as “an unfurling, self-produced tale of entanglement and escape that finds the Belfast/Dublin musician and producer at her most emphatic to date”. It’s the first collaboration of the year for Constance Keane, who continues down the audio-visual path with the same complete level of authorship that led to support vision justifiably supported by Moving On Music’s – NI’s foremost exponents of culturally vital music – Emerging Artist Programme. The visual component to ‘Fabric’ was directed by Daniel Butler, who had this to say of their partnership on the short film: “The idea came from a…