Frankie Cosmos with support from Squarehead and Music City at Dublin’s Button Factory. Photos by Zoe Holman.
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Across September 28-29th, the hallowed halls of St. Michael’s Church in Ballina, Co. Mayo will play host to the next live installment of Other Voices. With more to be announced, Villagers, Tamino, Julien Baker, Little Green Cars, Seamus Fogarty, Maria Kelly, Elaine Mai, Malojian, Robert John Ardiff, Roe, Paddy Hanna, Montauk Hotel and EHCO will perform across the two days and nights. Tickets for the St. Michael’s Church TV recordings will be split into four ‘concerts’ – Part 1 and Part 2 on Friday September 28th and Part 1 and Part 2 on Saturday September 29th and will only be…
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Best known as bassist in Spacemen 3, Spectrum, Spiritualized, the Brian Jonestown Masssacre and Dead Skeletons, amongst many others, Will Carruthers is also a memoirist, poet, book-binder and artist. Ahead of the launch of a new exhibition of his art at Belfast’s Framewerk, he talks to us about the challenges and victories of creation, how living in Belfast has influenced his art, identifying as a transpositional vibration analyst and more. Hi Will. What are your earliest memories – foggy, clear-cut or otherwise – of creating visual art? When I was five my Mum put a big piece of paper on the…
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Dublin’s annual October Bank Holiday fest Metropolis always deliver with the line-ups, and it seems that this year is going to be no exception. Ahead of many more acts to be announced, Mac DeMarco, Blood Orange, Villagers, Roisin Murphy, The Black Madonna, Young Fathers, Grandbrothers and Gwenno are amongst the first names confirmed to play the RDS across October 27-28. Promising, once more, music, performance, conversation and installation for its fourth edition, tickets go on sale at Friday, August 24 at 9am, ranging from €49.50 to €115.00. Installment plans are available.
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A self-proclaimed play on words and emotions, ‘Equal and Opposite by Portadown folk singer-songwriter Ciara O’Neill was written during a trip to Nashville back in 2015. Revolving around the idea that “one man’s trash is another mans gold”, O’Neill said of the track: “I was feeling a little unsettled within myself and unsure of what direction I was going in both personally and musically. For every one thing, need or emotion there’s an opposite. It’s a reminder that we are all different and unique and that’s ok.” A reflective, carefully-crafted effort, ‘Equal and Opposite’ is a highlight from O’Neill’s newly-released album, Arrow, which was…
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Comprising members of Dublin bands Sissy, Surge and No Spill Blood, Extravision offer up something special via the sum of their parts. As the city’s finest forward-moving post-punk proposition, the threesome recorded their debut demo with ex-drummer Legs – who, we learn, was lost to the Vancouver punk scene – at the start of the year. With No Spill Blood sticksman, the mercurial Ror Conaty on board, the band are leading the charge, with the aforesaid demo set for release via Sligo imprint Art For Blind imminently. Ahead of that, we have for you an exclusive first listen of ‘Repeat It’ from the demo. Stick…
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You know what’s lovely and accomplished to nth degree? The debut single from Co. Wicklow’s Tristan Howard AKA Tristan Da Cunha. A woozy, snug-as-hell swell of homespun bedroom-pop, it marries sleepyheaded hip-hop instrumentalism via intent-drenched, longing lo-fidelity. Long story short: it’s one of our Irish songs of the year so far. Directed by Howard and Leslie Sharpe, and edited by Sam Zarrin, check out its video below.
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Off the back of their debut single ‘Takes So Long’, Paul Shevlin of London-based Belfast quartet ABQ (AKA Albuquerque) talks process, pressure, the power of the right producer and keeping up with the scene back home. Hello ABQ. You have been playing together in different guises over the last few years, but the band still feels very new. For those of us not in the know, what’s the backstory to ABQ and what’s changed? It was a fairly natural transition from previous projects to ABQ. We’ve all played in and around the NI music scene for years and when an…
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Ahead of the release of his fourth album, The Art of Pretending How To Swim, Conor O’Brien’s Villagers have unveiled the video for new single ‘Fool’. A self-proclaimed “romantic battle-cry from the centre of a technological dystopia”, the video – which was directed by Bob Gallagher, the whiz behind the video for Villagers’ previous single ‘A Trick of the Light’ – takes the lyrics (“So here is my bleeding heart. Will you take the pain away?”) as a starting point for the narrative. “The video is a surreal take on a marriage proposal, which is the ultimate gambit in love,” says Gallagher. The scenario pushes how…
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Made up of Joey Edwards, Aoife Ward and David Noonan, Dundalk three-piece Larry knocked our hungover, quietly contemplative socks off at Arcadian Field festival earlier this month. Filtering the imprint of the likes of Ryan Adams, Pixies and Wilco, the threesome’s brand of lo-fi alt-rock brims with burrowing pop sensibility and wonderfully-wielded lyrical pathos courtesy of frontman Edwards. Ahead of recording their debut album in Electrical Audio, Chicago with our Lord and Saviour, Steve Albini this September (keep your eyes peeled for a 12″ vinyl via Pizza Pizza Records) we’re pleased to present a first look at the video for the band’s new single ‘WAH’. Like the song – and…