U.S. indie rock hero (Sandy) Alex G will play Dublin early next year. The singer, songwriter and musician will play at The Button Factory on February 8th, 2020. On September 13th, he will release his ninth album, House of Sugar, via Domino. Tickets for the Dublin show are priced at €16.50 and go on sale this Friday at 10am.
One of the programmes at the beating heart of Belfast music hub Oh Yeah Music Centre is their rolling Scratch My Progress scheme. A fully-funded career development accelerator programme designed to help new musicians break through in music industry, the initiative has seen the likes of Kitt Philippa, Sister Ghost, Wynona Bleach, Strange New Places and countless other acts pass through its ranks over the years. Once again, the programme – which we can only highly recommend for up-and-coming Northern Irish bands and artists – is now recruiting selected acts for the intensive talent development programme. Full details, guidelines and application…
On Thursday (July 11) Galway independent label Citóg Records will launch its highly-anticipatd fourth annual compilation at the Róisín Dubh. Once again, it’s a prime opportunity to hone in on just how far the label has come. Across eleven tracks, this new installment (which is titled Too Much Can Kill You) offers a remarkably varied and totally inspired snapshot of Citóg as a collective of artists, collaborators and friends. From the woozy sci-fi surf of Eoin Dolan’s ‘Superior Fiction’ and Tracy Bruen’s shapeshifting ‘Mirror’ to the inward-peering indie-folk of ‘Amsterdam’ by David Boland aka New Pope and beyond, it’s full, genre-spanning testament to the importance…
Never one to balk at a remix, Herb Magee aka Arvo Party’s latest re-imagining is arguably one of his most inspired to date. The Belfast producer and musician (who also features in our round-up of the best Irish tracks of last month) has taken the slick, slow-burning alt-pop of HEX HUE’s ‘Numbers’ and reworked it as a widescreen electro gem in his own image. Stream it below.
With six weeks left to go, Stendhal have announced the third wave of acts set to play this year’s festival. Returning to Ballymully Cottage farm in Limavady across 15th-17th August, the festival have revealed that SOAK (pictured), General Fiasco, Arvo Party, Rachael Boyd and Gender Chores are among the new acts to play. See the new additions in full below. Go here to check out the current full line-up and to buy tickets to this year’s festival.
Over the last while, musician, TTA favourite and Galway institution David Boland aka New Pope has drip-fed a series of sublime videos to accompany tracks from his recently-released (and downright exceptional) 2015 album, Youth. Including the one for the masterfully wistful ‘Not Forgotten’ – which we’re very pleased to premiere below – four of them the handiwork of Ray Ingram, a septuagenarian whose homespun movies from 1964 bound from the past to sync majestically with Boland’s imagined worlds. Revisit Youth in full here.
Not least since embarking on his solo career as VerseChorusVerse, North Coast musician and singer-songwriter Tony Wright has been an increasingly vocal exponent of challenging stigma associated with mental health in the music industry and beyond. Through his art, candour and activism, he’s become a vital champion here for living authentically and openly in a burdensome world. New double-single ‘Hold On (A Subtle Act of Rebellion)’ and ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ taps right into this advocacy. Equal parts spirited and defiant, they have been released as charity singles, in support of Help Musicians Northern Ireland. “HMNI helped me out…
Explosions in the Sky will play Dublin early next year. The Texan post-rock quartet – who last played the city in 2016 – will return to Vicar Street on February 13, 2010. Priced at €36.15, tickets go on sale on July 10th at 10am.
On the slinky, interstellar ‘Lithobreakin”, Alpha Chrome Yayo confirms our suspicions that he’s a jack of all trades and a master of many. Having emerged as a maestro of stellar synthwave retromancy over the last few months, the Belfast producer’s new single is a first-rate foray into interstellar electro-funk. Inspired, he tells us, “in almost equal parts by the interstellar grooves of Zapp and Roger, vintage Sega Mega Drive title Toejam and Earl, and the surprisingly sexy world of astrophysics”, it’s a bombastic, wonderfully curveballing new effort from the remarkably productive artist. Better yet, the single’s masterfully downtempo, Jean-Michel Jarre-influenced b-side ‘Escape Atrocity’ melds a…
Liam Gallagher will play Dublin later in the year. The solo artist and Oasis frontman will play 3Arena on Sunday, November 24th. He last played the city last year, at Malahide Castle as part of his As You Were tour. Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday, July 12th. The 3Arena show takes place as part of a European arena tour that will follow the release of his forthcoming second album, Why Me? Why Not.