• Forbidden Fruit Add More Acts

    With the likes of Underworld, Tame Impala and Jungle already announced, Forbidden Fruit have revealed Dizzee Rascal, Katy B, Young Fathers, Katy B and DJ Deece are amongst the acts to perform on the Friday of the June bank holiday festival. Elsewhere, MMOTHS, Beta Band’s Steve Mason, French deep house project Klingande and The Field have also been added to the bill for this year’s festival, which is set to return to Dublin’s Royal Hospital Kilmainham from June 3-5. Check out the current day-to-day line-up below. Tickets for the Friday of Forbidden Fruit go on sale at this Friday (April 8)…

  • Reverberation Psych Fest 2016

    With the psych scene in Ireland growing stronger by the day, the likes of Letterkenney’s Distorted Perspectives, Belfast’s Strange Victory and Sunglasses After Dark and Dublin’s Retro Revival Club play a sizeable role in putting up-and-coming homegrown talent and established acts from further afield a platform in every corner of the country. Presented by the latter, this year’s Reverberation Psych Fest will return to Dublin’s Grand Social across the weekend of April 8-10 with its strongest line-up to date. Featuring The Cosmic Dead, Twinkranes, The Cult of Dom Keller, The Black Tambourines, Woven Skull, Wild Rocket, Beach, I Heart Monster Hero, Sun Mashene and Fabric full details including…

  • Firewatch (Camp Santo, Mac / PC / PS4)

    Today, The Guardian ran a fascinating review of the hotly anticipated strategy shooter The Division, in which the journalist highlights the lack of compassion in modern videogames. He argues that most of the latest releases are oddly detached affairs that treat violence and cruelty as little more than vehicles of guilty pleasure. They do not explore any of the thorny moral ramifications of repeatedly shooting digital people in their digital faces. Regardless of how real this action is, the thought process remains the same: you are still shooting someone in the face. The idea behind that, when you stop to…

  • Line-Up Revealed For Dublin’s Out To Lunch Weekender

    A completely separate event from Belfast’s festival of the same name, the line-up for this year’s Out To Lunch Weekender at Dublin’s Yamamori Tengu on August 13 and 14 has been announced. Cologne based DJ and Producer Lena Willikens, snooker legend Steve Davis (read our interview with him here), Traxx, Ben UFO, DJ Sprinkles, Mr. Ties and Mark Ernestus have been confirmed to play four-hour sets. Elsewhere, Berlin-based Korean artist Peggy Gou, Compassion Crew, Lerosa, Lumigraph, Barry Redsettaz, Kenny Hanlon, Wino Wagon, Cait Dip and Damien Lynch will also perform. Tickets are available to buy now here.

  • The 39 Steps @ Lyric Theatre, Belfast

    Whilst not in the more exalted echelons of his esteemed filmography, The 39 Steps was, of course, fully – and, to date, most famously – realised via Alfred Hitchcock’s big screen adaptation of 1935, twenty years after its initial publication as an adventure novel by Scottish author John Buchan. Re-imagining the prototypical chase movie as a decidedly more idiosyncratic and entertaining proposition over 100 years from Buchan’s original, Bruiser and Lyric Theatre’s production promises much in the way of the former’s increasingly world-renown reputation for wonderfully innovative and wilfully unconventional theatre. Directed by Lisa May – artistic director and founder of Bruiser – one can’t help immediately admire the…

  • Monday Mixtape: Cian Ó Cíobháin (An Taobh Tuathail/Ceol ar an Imeall)

    Easily the country’s very best radio programme, Cian Ó Cíobháin’s An Taobh Tuathail has proved impossibly formative for so many musicians, music writers and music lovers throughout the length and breadth of the country. A nightly, midweek traipse through the very best underground sounds, the show (which translates “the Other Side” in English) is a veritable trove of electronica, experimental, ambient and more. You can tune in here. Co-presented with Eithne Shortall, Ó Ciobhain returns with the seventh season of TG4’s alternative music programme Ceol ar an Imeall on Thursday, April 7 at 10.30pm. This first episode features Mark Ronson and performances Ham Sandwich…

  • Michael Kiwanuka Set For Ireland

    With his highly-anticipated second album, Love & Hate, set for release via Polydor on May 27, Michael Kiwanuka has announced that he will return to Ireland this Autumn to play shows at Belfast’s Limelight 2 on Friday, October 14 and Dublin’s Academy on Saturday, October 15. Tickets for both shows on sale this Friday, April 8 at 9am priced £15 + BF and €22.00+ respectively. Check out new Kiwanuka single, Black Man In A White World, below.

  • Distorted Perspectives 2016

    Nothing pleases us more than seeing homegrown, independent festivals get it just right. With their altogether (inter)stellar celebration of modern experimental psych music, art and film slotting very comfortably under that bracket, Distorted Perspectives will return to Letterkenny’s Regional Culture Centre from Friday, April 29 to Monday, May 1. Following on from the likes of Ulrich Schnauss and Moon Duo at last year’s festival, this year’s outing will feature psych pop king BC Camplight, Jeffrey Lewis & LOS BOLTS and Captain A & The Commercial Monsters on Friday night, Leeds maestros Hookworms and Dublin’s Twinkranes, who will pair up on the Saturday night, as well as live experimental film scores…

  • Belfast Photo Festival Youth Edition

    Proudly calling itself Europe’s only photography festival for young people, Belfast Photo Festival’s Youth Edition will take place across the city from April 3 to May 30. With exhibitions focusing on the likes of skate and BMX culture, boxing and the physical and emotional experiences of elite gymnasts, tours and screenings looking at the likes of the Titanic and workshops focusing on gig photography, freestyle and how sports can promote social cohesion and acceptance, this year’s programme bounds with diversity from start to finish. Go here to check out the full programme and to buy tickets.

  • Watch: Laura Sheeran – Light A Fire

    Set to headline the second installment of Psykick Dancehall – our new Dublin night with Medium Presents at Bello Bar – tonight, Laura Sheeran has unveiled the video for her first single in four years, ‘Light a Fire’. Very aptly accompanied by its DIY, decidedly spectral video, the track wields space and texture in extraordinary fashion, with sparse beats and cloistered, portentous vocals dancing subtle shamanistic patterns across four minutes confronting fervid recollection and the workings of memory in the death and dying of love. Sheeran plays alongside BAD BONES and Katharine Philippa tonight. Event page here.