• Outburst Queer Arts Festival 2015

    October 29, 2015 - By 

    Set to be another ten day celebration of LGBT creative culture, the equal parts bold and brilliant  Outburst Queer Arts Festival will return to Belfast from November 12 to 21. Spanning film screenings, theatre performance, visual art and various special events, the festival this year’s outing features everything from a LGBTQ pop-up book club with Patrick Gale, Genderama – a creative project about gender – OUTBURST: OUTLOUD and HOUSE at the Mac, an unmissable night celebration the New York House Ballroom Community. We’ll be previewing our “must-see” events soon. In the meantime go right here to check out the full listings and check out the…

  • TEMPERED Contemporary Music Weekend

    October 29, 2015 - By 

    Hosted by the indomitable, ridiculously informed Moving On Music, TEMPERED is a celebration of homegrown contemporary music talent that will take place in three Belfast venues – Black Box, St. George’s Church and Crescent Arts Centre – from November 5-8. All very reasonably priced shows, The ‘JamJar’ finale, Ian Wilson’s The Last Siren, Ed Bennett’s Decible Ensemble, Crash Ensemble’s Born In the 80s and Chamber Choir Ireland’s Arvo Pärt at 80 make up the weekender’s superb five-show programme. Go here to pre-book tickets now.

  • Watch: All Tvvins – Darkest Ocean

    October 23, 2015 - By 

    Set to feature as one of the tracks on FIFA ’16 – a huge coup by anyone’s standards – ‘Darkest Ocean’ by Dublin duo All Tvvins is arguably their strongest single effort to date. Urgent and hooky in all the right places, the track’s release has been rounded off in style with yet another exquisite video courtesy of Feel Good Lost’s Brendan Canty & co. Speaking to us about the video, Canty said, “It’s was such a privilege to make a music video to one of my favourite songs of the year. ‘Darkest Ocean’ is one of the best indie songs I’ve heard in…

  • Stream: Joseph Panama – Saturn Howl

    October 23, 2015 - By 

    Channelling the more masterfully protracted – and occasionally quite dark – ambient drone expanses of the likes of vanguards Harold Budd, Tim Hecker, Stars of the Lid and William Basinski, Saturn Howl by Overhead the Albatross bassist Joseph Panama comprises two varyingly enveloping, twenty-two minute soundscapes that induce several shades of cosmic levity, cavernous glory and barren madness. Stream or download it via Bandcamp below. Saturn Howl by Joseph Panama

  • Cork Film Festival 2015

    October 29, 2015 - By 

    Bursting with genre-spanning documentaries, features, short film and special events, Cork Film Festival will transform Cork Opera House, Gate Cinema, Triskel Christchurch and Farmgate Cafe into a bustling, heady cinematic fête from November 6 to November 15. Officially Ireland’s oldest film festival and Cork’s flagship cultural happening, the festival will celebrate its grand 60th outing by playing hosting to a wonderfully rich and diverse selection of documentaries, contemporary world cinema, animated films, a talent development campus and categories focusing on music, mental health and food. Check out the official Cork Film Festival 2015 trailer and brochure below.  

  • Watch: Therapy? – Deathstimate

    October 22, 2015 - By 

    From the halcyon days of ‘Perversonality’, ‘Screamager’, ‘Femtex’ and ‘Brainsaw’, Therapy? have always been good for a lurid titular portmanteau. The latest in that hallowed tradition is their new single, ‘Deathstimate’, which serves as a triumphant, seven-minute closer to their fourteenth studio album, Disquiet. Set for official release on October 30, an abridged version of the single has been released with a suitably heavy video by Sitcom Soldiers. Therapy? play Infernal Love anniversary shows at Dublin’s The Button Factory on December 10/11 and Belfast’s Limelight on December 12. Watch the video for the ‘Deathstimate’ below (and go here to stream the full, seven-minute, Sabbath…

  • Speedy Ortiz w/ Oh Boland & Trust Fund @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    October 20, 2015 - By 

    It is a mild enough night for October and the already-sweltering Whelan’s is slow to fill as garage-maestros Oh Boland take the stage but this doesn’t stop the three Tuam lads from throwing everything at the gathered few. This is never clearer than in the sweat dripping from the floppy hair of bassist Eanna MacDonnacha or the spit clinging to the mic from Niall Murphy’s rapid-fire vocals. Oh Boland own the stage with their diminutive frontman clattering about the stage as though he is about to collapse but always keeps it together – nearly a metaphor for their entire set.…

  • The End of an Era: Radar 2005-2015

    October 20, 2015 - By 

    “Institution” is a word that seems to be all too wantonly applied to every other gig night across the country nowadays. After ten years positively both capturing and shaping local live music in the North of the country, Radar at Belfast’s Queens Student Union is most definitely an exception to that rule. Ahead of its final (inevitably somewhat emotional) outing on Thursday night, Brian Coney chats with Radar founder and main man Damien McAdams about the decade-long highs and highlights of a soon to be much-missed Belfast institution. Hi Damien. It should go without saying but Radar is and was a…

  • The Thin Air Tuesday Throwdown: Rory Nellis @ Lavery’s, Belfast

    October 19, 2015 - By 

    The first of three forthcoming Tuesday Throwdown live shows in as many weeks in November, we’re delighted to host a free show with Belfast singer-songwriter Rory Nellis at Lavery’s Belfast Back Bar on Tuesday, November 10. One of the highlights of this year’s Sounds of Belfast festival, this full band show is an unmissable opportunity to catch easily one of the country’s most naturally gifted songsmiths of a generation in such an intimate, limited capacity space. Also frontman of Seven Summits, Nellis’ music betrays an increasingly tangible sense of conviction and candor. Where no lyric or phrase feels throwaway, no…

  • Stream: Daithi – Mary Keanes Introduction

    October 19, 2015 - By 

    For as long as we can recall, Galway’s Daithi has always operated on an inimitable sonic plain, forging electronica with classical in a squall of fearlessness and vision. The latest manifestation of that experimental quest, ‘Mary Keanes Introduction’ features his 90 year old grandmother reminiscing about romance in her youth in the West coast of Ireland. Primed as a perfectly-paced and framed introduction to his forthcoming Tribes EP, the track fuses two distinct worlds – that of the old and that of the new – to spawn something so innately joyous that you would struggle to find it anything but wonderfully accomplished. Speaking of the track, Daithi said, “A…