• Other Voices Ballina 2020

    February 10, 2020 - By 

    With just over three weeks to go, the final acts for this year’s Other Voices Ballina have been announced. Returning to the Co. Mayo town across February 28-29, the festival will welcome David Gray, Kildare’s JYellowl, Soda Blonde, JC Stewart and The Howl & The Hum. Joining the likes of previously announced acts including Elbow and Jesca Hoop, the acts will perform within the 225-year-old walls of St. Michael’s Church over the two days and nights. Beyond the church is the Other Voices Ballina music trail, featuring Irish acts including Joel Harkin, Murli, Shookrah, The Mary Wallopers and Squarehead. Check out…

  • Aoife Nessa Frances – Land of No Junction

    February 10, 2020 - By 

    In certain strands of philosophy, opposing forces are just another cog in the machine that keeps the world working. Full resolutions to a problem are unobtainable, a pipe dream, given that the universe is in a constant flux. Instead, contradiction is to be embraced in order to achieve balance, rather than trying to reach a final resolution. For many, this is a sweat-inducing prospect. For Dublin’s Aoife Nessa Frances, however, this theory binds together her sensational debut album, Land Of No Junction. Frances’ solo debut is a far cry from the raw shoegaze of former band Princess, and instead is…

  • Track-by-Track: Arborist – A Northern View

    February 10, 2020 - By 

    Released last week, A Northern View cements Mark McCambridge aka Arborist’s rep as one of the country’s most distinctive songwriting voices. Whether you look to opener ‘A Stranger Heart’, the sublime ‘Here Comes The Devil’ or, in fact, any one of the album’s eleven carefully-crafted tales, it’s a filler-free feat of mottled, forward-pushing folk-pop from the Belfast-based artist. Let’s go one further: for our money, it’s the Irish album of the year so far. Ahead of its official launch at the Menagerie in Belfast on February 28th, McCambridge gives us generous track-by-track breakdown of the release below. A Northern View by arborist A…

  • Monday Mixtape: Cherym

    February 10, 2020 - By 

    From Pixies to Lana Del Rey, Hannah Richardson, Nyree Porter and Alannagh Doherty aka Derry pop-rock trailblazers Cherym take us on a guided tour of their all-time favourite songs. Photo by Ciara McMullan Hannah Charly Bliss – Black Hole Charly Bliss are ultimately my favourite band. This was the first song I heard of theirs. I love how Evas sugary sweet vocals are complimented by the fuzziness of the guitars. The music video for this is everything you expect it to be, full of colour and glitter. Literally everything I have ever loved in a band. Tancred – Sell My Head…

  • Knockanstockan Says “Goodbye for now, but not for good”

    February 9, 2020 - By 

    More than simply a highlight of the summer festival over the last 13 years, Knockanstockan has become synonymous with celebrating first-rate independent Irish music. Which is why news of the festival’s decision to go on hiatus this year, at the very least, will come as sad news for many. In a statement titled “goodbye for now, but not for good”, organisers of the Co. Wicklow festival said, “The Christmas of the Summer, the AGM of the craic, Electric Picnic on the dole, call it what you like there’s no denying that there is magic in those hills and there’s a decade-plus of…

  • Parasite

    February 7, 2020 - By 

    In the dystopic locomotion of 2013’s Snowpiercer, Bong Joon Ho charted social hierarchy along the X axis. His new film, the Palme d’Or-netting Parasite, swaps horizontal for vertical, delivering a nasty update of the upstairs/downstairs formula for the South Korean service economy. It starts, quite literally, underground. A teenage brother and sister sprinting through the Kim family’s basement flat in a panic, trailing phones along the ceiling to snag a stray thread of WiFi. Their ground-level window offers a view of shoes and trouser bottoms, the alley’s pissed and pissing. The smog of city fumigators seeps in, fogging the domicile like…

  • Stream: DJ Limewire x Post Punk Podge – Stuck In The System

    February 7, 2020 - By 

    Photo by Eilis Walsh Talismanic Limerick rapper Post Punk Podge has a knack for cutting through to Ireland’s most uncomfortable truths, and one day ahead of the next Irish general election, the Direct Provision system – swept under the carpet by most leading politicians – is in his scope. ‘Stuck In The System’ is a collaboration with DJ Limewire – aka Cathal of Bleeding Heart Pigeons – whose beats accompany Podge with apt clautrophobia and dissonance. As many of you know, Direct Provision is essentially this generation’s Magdalene Laundries. A system in place for over two decades, asylum seekers become institutionalised, having been given just…

  • 10 for ’20: Son Zept

    February 7, 2020 - By 

    In the second installment of 10 for ’20 – our new series previewing ten Irish acts we’re convinced are set for great things in 2020 and beyond – Stevie Lennox introduces one of the most forward-thinking, fast-rising electronic artists, Belfast polymath Son Zept. Photo by Niall Fegan We last chatted to Liam McCartan, aka Son Zept, in 2018 when his debut Q2B EP was released in the early days of his PhD at Belfast’s Sonic Arts Research Centre. A maximalist series of curveballing deconstructed club pieces that landed in the ears of Objekt – who has been closing sets with its cuts – and Avalon…

  • Andy Shauf – The Neon Skyline

    February 6, 2020 - By 

    Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf invites listeners into a whimsical narrative with his latest album The Neon Skyline. This is Shauf’s sixth album, following his hugely successful 2016 outing, The Party. In similar style, The Neon Skyline incorporates casual conversation with friends into the lyrics, and with many of the songs we find him as a quiet observer in deep contemplation. The stories that are told throughout the tracklist all take place over the course one evening in the Skyline restaurant, after which the album is named, and loosely mirror the events in Shauf’s life in the aftermath a breakup. The title…

  • Final Acts Announced for Other Voices Ballina

    February 6, 2020 - By 

    With just over three weeks to go, the final acts for this year’s Other Voices Ballina have been announced. Returning to the Co. Mayo town across February 28-29, the festival will welcome David Gray, Kildare’s JYellowl, Soda Blonde, JC Stewart and The Howl & The Hum. Joining the likes of previously announced acts including Elbow and Jesca Hoop, the acts will perform within the 225-year-old walls of St. Michael’s Church over the two days and nights. Beyond the church is the Other Voices Ballina music trail, featuring Irish acts including Joel Harkin, Murli, Shookrah, The Mary Wallopers and Squarehead. Check out…