• Massive Attack @ 3Arena, Dublin

    February 25, 2019 - By 

    When Massive Attack announced their current Mezzanine XXI tour last October, no one could have reasonably expected a safe or linear presentation of the band’s seminal – and arguably career-cresting – 1998 album. With founding member Robert Del Naja aka 3D promising a “one-off piece of work; our own personalised nostalgia nightmare head trip”, at Dublin’s 3Arena tonight, the Bristol luminaries deliver on that pledge and then some. Unless you’ve been keeping a close eye on recent setlists, the big curveball of tonight’s set isn’t the top-drawer guest vocalists (in this case, Horace Andy and the ever extraordinary Elizabeth Frazer).…

  • Stream: Swimmers Jackson – Believe

    February 28, 2019 - By 

    A jack of all trades and master of many, London-based Dubliner Niall Jackson is right up there as one of the hardest-working Irish musicians you’re ever likely to come across. Beyond being a member of indie-rock quartet Bouts (who have just released quite possibly the Irish album of the year thus far) and post-punk duo Sweat Threats, he’s also been drip-feeding the world some stellar sounds in his solo guise, Swimmers Jackson, since 2013. New single ‘Believe’ is one of his most emphatic efforts to date. A candid and carefully-crafted tale, it doubles up as something of an extension of last year’s ‘Pain In the Heart’.…

  • Premiere: Joshua Burnside – The Good Word (Live at the Elmwood Hall)

    February 25, 2019 - By 

    Northern Irish alt-folk trailblazer Joshua Burnside has announced the release of a new album, Live at the Elmwood Hall. Recorded at Belfast’s historic Elmwood Hall, as part of Quiet Arch’s fourth birthday in December 2018, it’s release that reveals the full spectrum of Burnside’s emphatic craft. Featuring reworked, full-band arrangements of tracks handpicked from his Northern Irish Music Prize-winning album, EPHRATA, as well as EPs Hollllogram and All Round the Light Said, it captures a set that leaps between intimate and raw, to full-blown and celebratory. Speaking about the album, Burnside said, “It’s quite strange listening to it back in way, like…

  • Stereolab Set For Irish Shows

    February 20, 2019 - By 

    Re-emerging English-French avant-pop heroes Stereolab have announce two Irish shows. Having went on hiatus in 2009, the band will return to play a series of dates in 2019, including Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on June 24 and Vicar Street in Dublin on June 25. Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday.

  • Stream: Slouch – Day Half

    February 20, 2019 - By 

    We’ve been singing the praises of Slouch to anyone who will listen for an age now. Comprising guitarist and vocalist Conor Wilson, bassist Kev Shannon and drummer Malachy Burke, the Dublin trio’s shapeshifting, scuzzed-out sounds defy easy categorisation more than the vast majority of Irish bands all-too-swiftly referred to “alt-rock”. In truth, Slouch have also felt like a genuine alternative – a riff-wielding, face-searing, psychogroove-pedalling flipside – in a scene heavily saturated with FM-flirting, Award-Winning-Music-Blogger-appeasing guitar rock. The lead single from their forthcoming “very nearly finished” debut album, ‘Day Half’ sublimates the very best aspects of Slouch’s craft to five masterfully unpredictable minutes. Marrying dizzying riff…

  • 19 for ’19: Strange New Places

    February 18, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with fast-rising Belfast queerpunk five-piece Strange New Places. Photo by Niall Fegan One of several fast-rising Northern Irish acts that have been propelled by the Scratch My Progress initiative at Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre, Strange New Places spent 2018 steadily emerging as one of the country’s most promising bands. On full display at Outburst’s Youth Take Over Day, Atlantic Sessions, Women’s Work festival and elsewhere throughout the year was the band’s equal parts forward-pushing and ear-worming brand of queerpunk. Striking strong…

  • Watch: Rachael Boyd – Blind Spot

    February 18, 2019 - By 

    Having released a string of shorter releases over the years – as well as been the violinist with Irish artists including Joshua Burnside, Ciaran Lavery, Malojian and Overhead the Albatross – Rachael Boyd’s eclectic and intricately-woven craft is laid bare on her debut, Weave. Across twelve tracks, the album (which is set for release this Wednesday) is the pure-cut distillation of the Dublin-based Belfast artist’s singular craft. Having already received support from BBC Radio 1, Clash, TheLineOfBestFit and elsewhere, lead single ‘Blind Spot’ is a masterfully bewitching case in point. Check out its lyric video below.

  • First Acts Announced for Knockanstockan

    February 18, 2019 - By 

    Knockanstockan have revealed the first acts set to play this year’s festival. With many more yet to be announced, TTA favourites Just Mustard, Bicurious, Punk Podge & The Technohippies, Hot Cops, Lemoncello, Joshua Burnside, Cherym, Bouts, The Pale, Kitt Philippa, Powpig, Shookrah, Luka Palm, THUMPER, Silverbacks, Farah Elle, Junior Brother and The Scratch are among those announced. Check out the (very nice) line-up announcement below. Returning to Blessington Lake in Co. Wicklow across July 19-21, tickets for the festival can be bought here.

  • EP Premiere: May Rosa – Waxwork Sweetheart

    February 14, 2019 - By 

    Having confidently marked her arrival with debut single ‘Dancing in the Debris’ back in 2017, Belfast artist May Rosa establishes her as a fully-formed alt-pop contender on Waxwork Sweetheart. Across four tracks – from slow-burning lead single ‘All The Ways’ to the release’s Julee Cruise-summoning title track, it sees the London-based chanteuse’s finely-woven and phantasmal craft refined to seventeen all-too-fleeting minutes. Have a first listen to the EP – and a first look at the video for ‘All The Ways’ – below.