• Bookmark: Kevin Curran

    February 23, 2016 - By 

    In this installment of Bookmark, Dublin author Kevin Curran selects and talks about some of his favourite novels, featuring the likes of Saul Bellow, Don DeLillo and F Scott Fitzgerald. Curran has just recently published his second novel Citizens. Photos by Pedro Giaquinto. James Kelman  – A Disaffection A brilliant, if under-appreciated writer brings us a ground-breaking use of vernacular language that would later be made famous by Irvine Welsh. Not as brash as Welsh, but more gritty and stylistically accomplished, A Disaffection is a powerful book about twenty-something despair and isolation in a world that doesn’t care. Saul Bellow –…

  • Stream: My Tribe Your Tribe – Garden Song

    February 23, 2016 - By 

    Having released one of the best Irish tracks of 2015 in ‘Will To Survive‘, Kildare trio My Tribe Your Tribe have returned with the daydreaming indie-pop of ‘Garden Song’. Once again tapping into some wonderfully subtle melodic glory, it’s a curiously abstracted, typically infectious effort from the fast-rising George Mercer-fronted threesome. MTYT play the following Irish dates in February and March: February 26: Sin É, Dublin March 3: Monroes, Galway March 12: The Village Pump, Rathangan, Kildare March 13: Crane Lane Theatre, Cork ‘Garden Song’ is the first track to be taken from My Tribe Your Tribe’s forthcoming four-track debut EP, which is set for release in…

  • First Acts Revealed for Live at Leopardstown

    February 22, 2016 - By 

    Set to return from June to August this summer, the first acts for this year’s Bulmer’s Live at Leopardstown series have been revealed. With several more acts to be confirmed, Bob Geldof’s Boomtown Rats will perform on August 11, The Strypes (frontman Ross Farrelly, pictured) will play August 4 and Booka Brass Band will make an appearance on July 21. Tickets – priced at a very reasonable €18 – and are on sale now.

  • EP Premiere: The Natural History Museum – Manmade

    February 22, 2016 - By 

    Following quick on the heels of their well-received debut LP, Attenborough, Dublin duo The Natural History Museum are all about momentum on their stellar new five-track EP, Manmade. Comprised of vocalist/writer Carol Keogh of The Tycho Brahe/The Plague Monkeys and producer/composter Dunk Murphy of Sunken Foal and Planet-Mu’s Ambulance, the duo’s pastoral compositions brood and placate in brilliantly musing unison. From lo-fi, funk-inflected opener ‘Jeweller’ to Kate Bush-esque closer ‘Little March Girl’, it’s an all-killer, immersive release that doubles up as a clear statement of intent. Stream our premiere of Manmade below and purchase your copy (out not on Countersunk) here. Manmade…

  • Video Premiere: Left With Pictures – Terra Firma

    February 22, 2016 - By 

    Having made fans out of BBC 6 Music’s Gideon Coe and Lauren Laverne amongst others, the music of London orchestral pop ensemble Left With Pictures is an exquisite proposition. Belying the classically-trained trio’s command of contemplative, layered textures, upon which vocals dance and harmonies entwine, their new single ‘Terra Firma’ summons a wall of gently swelling strings, ghostly church-pew background vocals and a gorgeous looped keyboard motif, evoking the quiet sanctity of Wild Beasts at their most ruminating. Taken from the band’s forthcoming album Afterlife – set for release on April 29 – have yourself an exclusive first peek at the video for the track, made by Jonathan…

  • Premiere: Orchid Collective – Lay As Stone

    February 22, 2016 - By 

    Set to be launched at Whelan’s on March 11, ‘Lay As Stone’ by Dublin quartet Orchid Collective is an unwinding alt-folk meditation on weariness and reprieve that sees wonderfully-woven harmonies come to the fore across the track’s nigh on four minutes. Recorded by Mojo Fury’s Mike Mormecha at Lisburn’s Millbank Studios, it’s a similarly rousing, radio-seeking effort to previous singles including ‘Figure It Out’. Orchid Collective also play Belfast’s Eglantine this Thursday night (February 25). Have an exclusive first listen to ‘Lay As Stone’ below.

  • Women of Notes @ Thirty Four, Dublin

    February 21, 2016 - By 

    Set to launch at new Dublin cafe Thirty Four on Saturday, March 5, Women of Notes/Mná na Notaí is a new photography and narrative series that aims to celebrate some of the country’s most prominent and successful female musicians. A year-long project that coincides with International Women’s Day 2016, it is the latest collaboration between music photographer Ruth Medjber and journalist Louise Bruton, and features the likes of Mary Black, Lisa Hannigan, Fight Like Apes’ MayKay, SOAK, Heathers, sisters Loah and Feather, Sleep Thieves‘ Sorcha Brennan, Wyvern Lingo, Saint Sister, Joni, Sinead White and more. According to the organisers, “each…

  • Stream: Slow Skies – Winter Night

    February 22, 2016 - By 

    The latest release on Dublin imprint Paper Trail Records, ‘Winter Night’ by singer-songwriter Karen Sheridan AKA Slow Skies wouldn’t sound entirely out of place on a high-budget, prime-time ad about a young couple, each battling their way through rush hour traffic, only to eventually – finally – fall into each other’s arms on a balmily-lit doorstep, before setting down a half a dozen John Lewis bags and petting an obedient little terrier called Alex that greets them upon arrival. Or something along those lines, anyway. According to Sheridan, the song – very deftly stripped back to her vocals and sparse piano work courtesy of Patrick O’Laoghaire of I…

  • Watch: Everything Shook – Bed Stain

    February 21, 2016 - By 

    Almost a year on from the release of their debut EP, Argento Nights, Dublin experimental electronic trio Everything Shook have returned with new single ‘Bed Stain’. Propelled by warping, skittering synth lines and chopping rhythms, the track – recorded and mixed at 6611 Studios in Brooklyn, New York -finds Robyn Bromfield, Jessica Kennedy and Áine Stapleton in dauntless spirits, both audibly and visually. A song about “mistakes, regret and the morning after the night before”, the video for the track – directed by the band – “unfolds between two locations, juxtaposing sombre scenes of the morning with flashbacks of disenchantment, discord…

  • Watch: Wake America – Silly Boy

    February 21, 2016 - By 

    Whilst perhaps currently more recognisable under the guise of Best Boy Grip, Derry singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Eoin O’Callaghan also makes music as part of Wake America. Seemingly born with the knack of a million burrowing melodies at his disposal, O’Callaghan’s latest single under the Wake America moniker, ‘Silly Boy’ (or “City Boy” as we occasionally/wrongly hear) makes for a synth-soaked, deceptively simple four-minutes. Written, produced, mixed and mastered by O’Callaghan, ‘Silly Boy’ will be available on Limited Edition 7″ vinyl from March 4 via Amelia Records. Pre-order your copy here.