With more acts to be announced (deep breath) Squarehead, Skelocrats, Lie Ins, Ginnels, No Monster Club, Walpurgis Family, The Number 1s and Me and My Dog will congregate for the common good AKA celebrating Dublin collective and label Popical Island’s grand fifth All-Dayer upstairs in Whelans on Saturday, December 19. And true to title, things will kick off at the sprightly hour of 3pm and wrap up around 11pm. Entry is a measly €10. Go here for the show’s Facebook event page.
East Belfast contemporary art gallery Framewerk will launch its annual winter exhibition on Saturday, November 28 at its premises on 16 Upper Newtonards Road. An eclectic mix of artists that the gallery (also a respected framing business) has encountered over the last six months, the exhibition presents ceramics, jewellery, sculpture, prints and paintings from the following established and emerging artists: Judith Logan, Joe Lindsay, FXD, Kat St Angelou, SevVen, Robin Cordiner, Shauna Magowan, John Macormac, Esther O Donaghue, Siobhan Conyngham, Patrick Conyngham, Merlin, Fergal Donnelly, Neal Hughes, Johanna Leech, Benny Sweeney, Sam Fleming, Trudy Creen, Christopher Martin, Clodagh Lavelle and Patrick Colhoun. Go here for the exhibition’s Facebook event page and keep up with all things Framewerk related at their website here.
On Friday, December 11, the ever tasteful Homebeat and the Goethe Institut will present KLUBNACHT, a night that aims to celebrate the finest Irish and German electronic music held in and throughout the sublime Georgian surrounds of the soon-to-be-refurbished office buildings of The Goethe Institut on Merrion Square, Dublin. As can only be expected from the Homebeat crew by now, the line-up for this inaugural showcase is pretty special. As well as a DJ set from Waterford born, Berlin-residing Neill Flynn of resident German imprint Lossless, KLUBNACHT will also feature producer Martin Enke AKA Lake People (Live), Dublin duo Harry Bookless and Aaron Page AKA…
Bona fine Irish music institution Other Voices returns to Dingle in Kerry across the weekend of December 4-6 for another stellar, genre-spanning showcase of international and homegrown music. Split between the main event in St. Jame’s Church and the iconic – free – Music Trail (full line-up below), the likes of Low, Gaz Coombes and Richard Hawley will grace the former, whilst some of the very best Irish acts take over the former. Go here to check out full information via the Other Voices website, here to stream our Other Voices Live 2015 Festival Mixtape and here for its Facebook…
Other Voices‘ December residency in Dingle has well and truly confirmed itself to be an Irish music institution over the last few years, bringing together some of the country’s finest artists with the very best, genre-spanning international acts. Returning to the scenic Kerry town across December 4-6, this year’s line-up – from the likes of Richard Hawley, OTHERKIN, Low to the ever magnificent (and totally free) Music Trail – is a perfectly balanced proposition to behold. With just over a week to this year’s outing, we’ve compiled a selection of tracks from acts playing this year’s Other Voices in a handy little Spotify playlist.
Some bands – and some considerably better than others of their ilk – are well and truly compelled by the riff. Having recently melted the face of your writer supporting Japanese psych gurus Acid Mother’s Temple at Belfast’s Voodoo recently, Dublin rockers Wizards of Firetop Mountain are one such act. Set to launch their self-titled debut album at Dublin’s Bello Bar tomorrow (Friday, November 27) night, the band are comprised of members of some of the city’s finest pioneering underground bands including Zom, No Spill Blood, Dread Soverign and others. At the epicentre of seismic, hat-tipping craft is a combined worship of the…
Four years and a string of short releases in, Belfast-based duo Dave Jackson and Fiona O’Kane AKA Runaway[GO] have cultivated a carefully considered, wonderfully delivered pop sound that has grown so innately distinctive that the release of their debut album, Alive, feels every week worth the wait. As much about poise and restraint as it is unabashed, nigh on ridiculously infectious melodic bombast, it’s a consistent and solid release (in both senses of the word) for the hotly-tipped twosome. Stream the album via Soundcloud now below.
Invariably trotting the globe wielding guitar and gusto as part of North Coast post-rock machine And So I Watch You From Afar, Rory Friers can also be found as found making electronic music as Thrash Hat. Having set beats to kill on debut track ‘Pandaface‘ back in August – thereby setting the ball in motion for a hugely disparate yet no less enthralling sonic path in the making – we’re pleased to premiere two new tracks from Friers, ‘Owkwerd’ and a remix of his band’s very ‘Mend and Make Safe’. Where the former effort’s glitchy, darkly unravelling majesty stirs with some wonderfully discriminating shapes…
Currently based in Newcastle, North Coast alt-punk three-piece Good Friend have grown in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. Having spent 2015 recording their forthcoming debut album, Ride The Storm, the Adam Carroll-fronted band have just re-emerged with ‘The Return of Fionn & The Fianna’, an equally urgent and anthemic new track that features on compilation Paper + Plastick; Welcome to the UK. Re-adapting stories from Irish Mythology to a contemporary context, it’s a strong and purposeful cut hinting at promising things for Ride The Storm. Check out the video for the track below.
First shared last month – just over a year on from the release of the stellar Dreaming Tracks – we reckoned ‘Depth of Field’ by Belfast three-piece Sea Pinks was “yet another masterfully sanguine slice of melancholia from the Neil Brogan-fronted band, relating ambivalence and doubt in ways they mastered many moons ago.” Now the track – one of our favourite Sea Pinks’ tracks to date – has a video, which you can check out below. Sea Pinks’ new album, Soft Days, will be released via CF Records on January 8.