• Stream: Robocobra Quartet – ‘Knotweed/Witch Hunt’

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    We were going to post this yesterday but seeing as we featured the band in question in our latest live session – which you can and most certainly should watch here – this evening seems a little more opportune. A rather ingenuous hybrid of spoken-world punk, jazz and hip-hop, Belfast four-piece Robocobra Quartet have just let loose into the world their latest Double A-side: ‘Knotweed/Witch Hunt’. The former – featuring probably second most brilliantly abrupt intro in jazz-centric history – demonstrates the band’s more bold leanings, melting  shifting, shuddering rhythms, expertly atonal bass shapes and braying sax squeals with drummer/vocalist Chris…

  • Download: Sunburnt Jets – Stare and Pretend/Out of Luck

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    When he’s not busy making music and playing shows as part of Dublin quartet Bouts, Colin Boylan is concocting his own wonderfully earworming brand of lo-fi indie rock as Sunburnt Jets. Having spent “18 months working on them here and there”, he has just released a very impressive double A-side release: ‘Stare and Pretend’/’Out of Luck’. With self-proclaimed nods to shoegaze and dream-pop, the tracks were recorded and mixed in Boylan’s Stoneybatter home-studio, with mastering by Stephen Quinn (Patrick Kelleher, Subplots). According to Boylan, “some of the posters on the studio wall influencing the sounds included Dinosaur Jr, Warpaint and Casiotone…

  • Gigs of the Week: Tim Hecker, Conan, Mos Def, Boxcutter, Callum Stewart

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    Pigs of the bleak? Nope. Figs of the streak? Not a chance. Swigs of the geek? That doesn’t even make sense. What you were looking for – searching for, all these years – was this week’s installment of the ever-ingenuously titled Gigs of the Week. Inclined towards leaving the house and watching people perform music over the next few days? Read on and right on. Tim Hecker, Ellll @ Button Factory, Dublin – Thursday, November 20 Supported by Cork electronic noise artist Ellll (read about her in the November issue of our physical magazine here), Canadian ambient artist Tim Hecker (pictured)…

  • EP Stream: September Girls – Veneer

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    Ahead of its official release next week, September Girls are streaming their new four-track EP, Veneer. Wearing its influences very much on its proverbial sleeve, the release – conjuring the likes of Jesus and Mary Chain and The Cure – shows marked progression and experimentation with production and effects from the five-piece September Girls launch Veneer at Dublin’s Bello Bar on November 28, supported by Squarehead and Sissy. Go here to win a pair of tickets to the show. Stream Veneer via Vice right here.

  • Watch: Hozier – From Eden

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    Hands the Irish musical success story of the year, Hozier has just unveiled the video for his latest single, ‘From Eden’. Keep an eye out for Joe Laverty’s photo feature with the globetrotting Irish singer-songwriter in the December issue of our magazine and check out the new video – doubling up as something of a short film – below.

  • Inbound: His New Atlas

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    In this latest installment of Inbound – which looks at some of the more promising acts from across the country – we talk to fast-rising Armagh singer-songwriter Eoghan O’Hagan AKA His New Atlas about the power of cathartic release, his very specific approach to songwriting and his big plans for the next few months. Firstly, can you shed a bit of light on how you came to be a singer-songwriter? I started off in a metal band, oddly enough. I left this as I never felt like it was moving at a pace that fast enough for me. So I got a…

  • TTA Session #004: Robocobra Quartet

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    Undoubtedly one of the more ambitious and inimitable acts to emerge from Belfast this year, jazz-rap-punk four-piece Robocobra Quartet are a guitarless, sax -and-bass led, cymbal-spattered, improv-leaning, off-kilter time and rhyme-melding, Zorn-summoning, Mingus-hinting, Isotope 217 and Soul Coughing-echoing, decidedly forward-thinking force to be reckoned with. In the fourth of many more live sessions in the making, our resident videographer Colm Laverty captures the band perform two of their best tracks, as well as in conversation about their approach to songwriting, their “place” within local music, what the future holds in store and more. Keep an eye out for these guys…

  • Second Chance Cinema Weekender

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    The all-but cinematically-omniscient folks of Second Chance Cinema will host another Weekender at Belfast’s South Bank Playhouse from Friday, November 28 to Sunday, November 30. Fans of pop-up cinema take note: the schedule very nicely traverses cosy matinees, weird romance and the work of local filmmakers across the three days and nights. See below for the full schedule: Friday November 28 Northern Irish Shorts – 8pm Alternative Energies. Produced by DU Dance, 2014 (20 mins) Bombin’, Beats and B Boys, Dir. Chris Eva, 2013 (30 mins) Following the Iron Compass, Dir. Paul McParland, 2013 (15 mins) Same Again, Dir. Aidan…

  • Watch: Jape – The Heart’s Desire

    November 17, 2014 - By 

    What a feast for the senses ‘The Hearts Desire’ by Jape is. Aside from being an incredibly enjoyable slice of fidgety, cosmically-inclined electro-pop, its video – created by Conor Finnegan  – is the most visually satisfying, boundlessly colourful thing we’ve set our eyes on in quite some time. Dig the track? It will feature on Jape’s forthcoming fifth album, The Chemical Sea, which is set for release in January. Watch the video for ‘The Heart’s Desire’ below.

  • Watch: Squarehead – 2025

    November 16, 2014 - By 

    Equal parts wistful and wonderful, Dublin indie-rock trio Squarehead have unveiled the video for their latest single ‘2025’. Created by Domhnall and Brian Gleeson, the video very nicely captures perhaps the biggest of all the big questions: “Where does the time go?” It confronts it and turns it something of rare beauty – the faint sense of melancholy pales into a return to the “good old days”, and a very fun reminder of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr’s age-old adage of “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”. It also kind of reminded us of this. ‘2025’ is taken from Squarehead’s exceptional Respect, released last…