The Messthetics, the Washington DC three-piece comprising ex-Fugazi members Brendan Canty and Joe Lally, alongside guitarist Anthony Pirog, will play two Irish shows next year. As part of a string of UK dates, the band will play Belfast’s Voodoo (alongside Robocobra Quartet) on Saturday, February 2 and Dublin’s Grand Social on February 3. Tickets are on sale now. The band released their self-titled debut album via Dischord Records in March. Read an interview with Canty here.
Irish independent festival par excellence, KnockanStockan have announced ticket info for next year’s festival. Returning to Blessington Lake in Co. Wicklow across July 19-21, a limited amount of early bird tickets priced at €99 will go on sale this Friday, November 23 at 9am. Standard tickets will be priced as the following: 3 Day Ticket – €155 2 Day Ticket (Sat & Sun) – €135 1 Day Ticket (Sun Only) – €65 Here was our top 8 sets at this year’s festival.
Details about next year’s RTÉ Choice Music Prize have been announced. With the Album of the Year shortlist being announced on January 9, and the Irish Song of the Year shortlist being revealed on January 30, the live event will take place at Dublin’s Vicar Street on Thursday, March 7. The latter will be broadcast live on RTÉ 2FM in a special four-hour extended programme from 7-11pm, with a highlights programme going out on RTÉ2 television the following week. This year’s prize was won by Ships for Precession, which beat off stiff competition from the likes of Lankum, Talos and Fionn Regan. Alan…
Not merely one-half of Belfast duo Ex Isles, James Joys is the music-making moniker of Belfast experimental composer James Thompson. Influenced by the likes of Ben Frost, Holly Herndon and Tim Hecker and more, his recently-released debut EP, Super_Tidal, melds electronic, ambient, noise, electoacoustic and rave across five tracks. Ahead of a busy 2019, Joys talks to us about conceptual distinction, confidence, collaboration, and crafting a release that translates the feeling of “being in a massive club with lots of different rooms, with all sorts of music blasting away”. Your recently-released EP, Super_Tidal, is a work of “electroacoustic rave entropy”. Very intriguing.…
Remember that time we premiered the mighty ‘Scofflaw // Sisyphus’ by Dublin noise rock meddlers That Snaake? Two years on, the Paul O’Connor-fronted band are back with its suitably singular video. According to the band, the video is: a) About the budget-nightmare world of the Irish music scene b) Designed to be viewed on mobile devices as is the way of the future c) Taken from the release In The Court of the Baby Kyng out now on Little L records That’s the lowdown and you’re all the better for knowing it.
Foo Fighters will play two Irish shows next year. Six years on from making their debut at the same festival as part of their 2012 Wasting Light tour, the band will return to play Belfast’s Tennent’s Vital on August 19th. They will also play Dublin’s RDS Arena on August 21st. Tickets for both shows go on sale on Friday (November 23) at 10am. Go here to register for pre-sale.
From Black Bones’ remix of ‘Pursuit by Group Zero and David Holmes’ Mosaic OST to Documenta’s stellar Lady With The Ring EP, Belfast imprint Touch Sensitive have delivered another all killer year in releases. Their fourth and final release of the year, Sentience & Sapience by Belfast producer Ai Messiah offers up something yet more compelling. A self-proclaimed “soundtrack for gutted metropolises, virtual sanctuaries and utopian enclaves”, the album – which was inspired by the outlandish prophecies of tech guru Ray Kurzwell – confidently veers between fourth world-leaning tapestries, balmy kosmische and panoramic new-age across seventeen tracks. Officially out on Friday, the album will be launched…
And now for something completely different. On Tuesday, November 20, we’re once again teaming up with Belfast’s premiere promoters of forward-thinking sonic events, Moving On Music, for a very special performance. Doubling up as the latest event in the consistently rewarding Tempered contemporary music series, Manchester Collective will present a brand new English interpretation of Arnold Schoenberg’s free atonal melodrama, Pierrot Lunaire, at the Sonic Arts Research Centre. Having formed in 2016 order to, in their words, “create radical human experience through live music for everyone”, this is an unmissable opportunity to experience Manchester Collective’s vision and thrilling approach first-hand. Featuring a…
L.A. jazz giant Kamasi Washington will return to play Dublin next year. Off the back of playing this year’s Beatyard – as well as the National Concert Hall last June – the trailblazing saxophonist, composer, producer, and bandleader will play Olympia Theatre on March 3, 2019. Tickets for the show are priced at €40 and go on sale this Friday at 9am.
Delorentos with support from True Tides at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre. Photos by Moira Reilly.