• Lineup Announced For Dublin Quays Festival

    July 19, 2017 - By 

    With its aim of “providing a programme of events that catches the imagination of the public, while also giving artists and emerging talent a platform to engage with along the river” Dublin Quays Festival has announced its lineup for its inaugural outing across August 17-20. Taking place in The Workmans Club, The Sound House, The Liquor Rooms, The Grand Social, The Wiley Fox, Sin E and Bagots Hutton, the free, four-day music, art and spoken word festival will host the following in the aforementioned Liffey-bordering venues: Old Hannah, Cat Dowling, Birds Of Olympus, Maria Kelly, Fiction Peaks, Kelly-Anne Byrne, Super…

  • Sunn O))) @ Limelight 1, Belfast

    July 18, 2017 - By 

    If comedian Martin Mull’s much-misappropriated saying “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” holds any weight, attempting to sum up the equally ecstatic and obliterating experience of witnessing Sunn O))) at their most potent feels a bit breakdancing about brutalism or trying to riverdance about Mycenaean revivalism. Trickier still, trying to make anything resembling a few vaguely coherent mental notes for the purpose of this review (which, for this writer, proves an experiential trek veering between total oblivion and wildly fluctuating interior monologue) is a laughable prospect – the tripped-out, coeliac plexus-crushing equivalent of the tail trying to wag the dog.…

  • Keeping It Old School: An Interview with Paul Kane of Over The Hill Collective

    July 18, 2017 - By 

    Having grown in leaps and bounds over the last seven years, Over The Hill is a music collective based at Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre aimed at mature musicians but open to everyone. Brian Coney chats to founder Paul Kane about its foundations and development, as well as why it’s a crucial link in bridging music, community and the older generation. Hi, Paul. First thing’s first: how did the Over The Hill collective first come about? It started about seven years ago. When I first walked in the doors here at Oh Yeah Music Centre I had just changed careers and…

  • Watch: Pillow Queens – Rats

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    Having self-released the debut EP, Calm Girls, back in December, Dublin pop-punk band Pillow Queens have been growing in momentum over the last few months. Coinciding with their first UK tour, the four-piece have unveiled the DIY video to their new single, ‘Rats’. According to the band, the video “takes place on the set of a radical left queer educational programme for children. Despite being severely underfunded and under-rehearsed the show goes on, their aim being to enlighten the youth of Ireland to the wonderful world of leftist politics. Hosted by Snotsey-May Darcy and co-hosted by resident artist Síle O’Surelook…

  • Video Premiere: CATALAN! – OKA

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    His debut solo release outside of his work with alt-punk three-piece Axis Of, ‘OKA’ by Ewen Friers AKA CATALAN! is a track that, whilst certainly redolent of the subtly anthemic and nicely bombastic alt-punk of the aforementioned North Coast outfit, explores new, socially-conscious territory. Set for release this Friday (July 21), the opening gambit is a strong, bobbing effort that tussles with indigenous history and social media, hoping to “highlight the value of living in a reality where the human mind can be invigorated and bring positive change”. Inspired by Big Country, Why?, Crass, Les Savy Fav and The Knife, it’s a first release stemming…

  • EP Stream: Jon Dots – Impossibly

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    Jon Dots is the solo music-making moniker of Dublin-based writer and musician Darragh McCabe. Also drummer with one of the city’s most compelling alt-punk bands, three-piece Alien She, McCabe has honed brilliantly imaginative, texture-warping brand of indie-pop in the form of his debut EP Impossibly. A four-track release, it marries exquisite, harmony-laden instrumentation and occasional bursts of orchestration with delicately-worded tales that hit home via McCabe’s clear knack for composition in the vein of the likes of Ed Harcourt, Rufus Wainright, Dirty Projectors, Tune-Yards and early Of Montreal. Impossibly EP by Jon Dots

  • Townlands Carnival 2017

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    Following a stellar outing last year, one of Cork’s very finest summer festival propositions, Townlands Carnival, returns across to Leades House in Macroom across the weekend of July 21-23. Amongst the nicely varied bill of acts playing this year are Rubberbandits (pictured), bona fide Irish festival heroes King Kong Company, Cork’s Ellen King ELLLL, Dublin electronic indie act Le Boom, Om Unit, Hermitage Green, Stomptown Brass, Hvmmingbird, Shookrah and My Fellow Sponges. And taking in a whole host of cross-genre artistry and performance over the three days, this year’s line-up is brilliantly bolstered by spoken word, art trail and installations, a craft village, a children’s play ahead,…

  • EP Premiere: KILNN – KILNN

    July 12, 2017 - By 

    A release “stitched together from several late night experiments”, the self-titled debut EP from KILNN presents three bursts of darkly ambient techno that evokes the likes of Surgeon, Paula Temple and LFO at their most tenacious. Here, the pair – comprised of Rían Trench of Solar Bears and Chris Con of BUDU – have blurred the lines between dank warehouse all-nighters and back-alley futurism via a slew of atomizing beats and some brilliantly foggy ambience. With the promise of some “wild improvised hardware sets in the near future – have a first listen to the EP (which is self-released and will be…

  • Two Door Cinema Club @ Trinity College, Dublin

    July 12, 2017 - By 

    Making their last Irish appearance under the alias “Tudor Cinema club” in 2016, Northern Irish Two Door Cinema Club make their way to Trinity College in Dublin brandishing new material in the form of their latest album Gameshow, an eccentric stab at both new and old audiences that didn’t quite hit the mark for either. As such, it comes as no surprise that there is a definite expectation in the air for the group to rely on their debut Tourist History rather than force feed the crowd their latest venture. Starting off the night are support act Circa Waves, an…

  • Video Premiere: Bodies – I’m Waiting

    July 11, 2017 - By 

    The solo project of Dublin’s David Anthony McGeown AKA Bodies was last on our radar back in November with his debut single ‘Nightmoves’ – an opening gambit we premiered and thought was “right up there with the most curious and captivating debut singles from an Irish artist this year”. New single ‘I’m Waiting’ is taken from a forthcoming EP and finds navigate ambitious and rather spirited alt-pop territory. Better still, the track – recorded at Clique in Straffan, Co. Kildare – is very nicely brought to life via a video written by McGeown and created by Shaun Ryan and Jeff Doyle of…