• Stream New Irish Grassroots Compilation: Live @ Fennor Lane

    April 10, 2019 - By 

    Tucked away amongst castle ruins and relics of history on the outskirts of Slane town, Mark Carolan runs the intimate Fennor Lane Studios. Like the encouraging number of grassroots Irish compilations and splits that have graced our Bandcamp accounts in recent times to act as connective tissue between previously-disparate scenes, Live at Fennor Lane was made with the same philosophy of shared elevation in mind, as Mark tells us: “The idea behind this album was simply to create a record worth listening to, and the live method of recording gives a characterful and natural feel to it. I hope we can bring new music to all the followers of each band involved in this project and help everyone to expand their audience. Aaaand it was great craic making it!” Featuring several of our favourite bands in the land, each more idiosyncratic than the last, contributions range from Slouch‘s submerged psychogroove, to the…

  • Happy as Lazzaro

    April 9, 2019 - By 

      Reality slips and slides in Happy as Lazzaro (“Lazzaro Felice”), the third feature from Italian film-maker Alice Rohrwacher, a curious, engrossing magic realist drama animated by cycles of power, class and history. The film seems to hang continuously in the air, suspended and provisional. On an Italian country estate named Inviolata (“unviolated”: a virginal space, a fake Paradise of simple toil), generations of sharecroppers work pitiless schedules, harvesting tobacco for the owner, the cartoonishly imperious Marchesa Alfonsina De Luna (Nicoletta Braschi), receiving no wages and chipping away at a perma-debt that holds them captive. The crisp visual textures and cramped…

  • Naoise Roo Set To Return With Night of Music, Art, Theatre & Spoken Word

    April 12, 2019 - By 

    Long one of our favourite songwriters & artists on the island, Naoise Roo has been on an extended hiatus for the last couple of years. Thankfully, she’s just announced her return EP, Sick Girlfriend, and is set to hold her first show in a number of years at Dublin’s Project Arts Centre on May 4. The show will serve as a preview of the EP, with Sick Girlfriend‘s four tracks centred around themes of depression, the negative aspects of the music industry, and the stereotypes that burden women experiencing mental illness. Roo will be joined by producer/bassist Daniel Fox of Girl Band, as well as drummer Rian Trench, guitarist Karl Tobin and…

  • Going the Distance: 10 Years of Vantastival

    April 9, 2019 - By 

    Ten years is a long time in the summer festival business. Both in terms of challenges faced and having reason to celebrate, it’s a much longer time if your summer festival adheres to a fiercely homegrown and independently-minded manifesto. Returning for its tenth anniversary across May 31-June 2, Drogheda’s Vantastival is proof that, with the right marriage of ambition, hard work, knowledge and passion, success is possible. Placing community, curation, sustainability and affordability at the heart of their approach, the organisers are currently busy putting the final touches to this year’s outing. Ahead of that, we speak to festival co-director Louise Tangney about the…

  • Teeth Bared and Tongues in Cheek: An Interview With BATS

    April 9, 2019 - By 

    BATS are easily one of Irish musical landscapes’ greatest oddities. A five piece playing a fusion of post-punk, prog and metal with lyrics devoted to topics such as the Higgs Boson Particle, New Earth Creationist Kent Hovind and the Cthulhu mythos. Proudly outspoken with teeth bared and tongues firmly in cheek, there has been silence in the BATS camp since 2012’s superb Sleep of Reason. Now having just completed a Kickstarter campaign for their forthcoming album, Alter Nature the group are back to pick up where they left off. Words by Will Murphy Photos by Moira Reilly Let’s start with the…

  • Shazam!

    April 9, 2019 - By 

    Bam! A flash of lightning hits and, just like that, D.C.’s moviescape jolts into life, pumped up on the wisecrack adrenaline of hot red and yellow. Losing faith in its core Clark and Bruce brand, Warner Bros. and D.C. Studios are finding returns pivoting towards the weird and the unexpected. After all, their most entertaining round of post-Nolan superheroics was the one hardly anybody actually saw: last year’s Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, a self-aware, colourful, sing-songy adventure aimed squarely at kids that succeeds by hitting jokes and delivering a believable character arc. Echoing Titans’ story impetus of a…

  • Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising

    April 8, 2019 - By 

    Escapism has never been more vital, or available. We turn to art, film, and music for distraction, transportation, and if we’re lucky, a temporary sense of freedom. It’s more difficult than ever to switch off the effect of the 24-hour news cycle, but Titanic Rising, the fourth studio album from Weyes Blood, reminds us that there is always solace to be found on the big screen and beyond. Natalie Mering offers an unprecedented defence of escapism, at the core of which lives a propensity for romance. Named for the 1997 blockbuster – not the 1912 voyage – Titanic Rising is…

  • New Belfast Record Store Strange Victory Records To Open on Record Store Day

    April 8, 2019 - By 

    Over the last couple of years, Belfast has suffered the loss of two much-loved record shops, Sick Records and Head Records. It was looking a bit grim for a minute there but fear not: on Saturday, April 13th – Record Store Day 2019 – a new independent record store will launch. The brainchild of Darren Smyth of local promoters par excellence Strange Victory, Jeff Doherty of Belfast’s Dragon Records and Sinead Green, Strange Victory Records will be Belfast’s only indie store stocking new releases alongside, in their words, “a plethora of curiosities and classic used vinyl.” Situated at 22 Berry Street, the store…

  • Tame Impala Set For Dublin Show

    April 8, 2019 - By 

    Tame Impala will play Dublin in June. The Kevin Parker-fronted psych-pop trailblazers will play 3Arena on June 26. Tickets cost €59.70 and go on sale this Friday at 9am. The band last played the city back in 2016, headlining Forbidden Fruit as part of their Currents tour.