• Metropolis Announce Arcadia Spectacular

    October 15, 2015 - By 

    Already an essential proposition across November 7 and 8, the inaugural Metropolis festival in Dublin will boast another, self-proclaimed “unrivalled” element: Arcadia Spectacular. The first in what’s set to be a series of art installation announcements for the festival at the grounds of the RDS, the Arcadia experience unifies every element of art into a vivid sensory matrix taking in sculpture, architecture, theatre, circus, robotics, engineerings, lightning, music and cutting edge technology. Their interactive stage, titled The Afterburner is one of eight stages and spaces to be explored at Metropolis. Check out the current line-up for the music side of things…

  • Stream: Paddy Hanna – Underprotected

    October 15, 2015 - By 

    A prophetic tale-teller and uncannily perceptive pop talisman, Dublin’s Paddy Hanna is, for us, something of a sub-genre unto himself. A key exponent of Paddyhannaism, week by week, his talents become yet more apparent, not least during a string of dates across the country recently that have coalesced as some kind of Good Word of Irish music and testament to a burgeoning appreciation of an artist who emanates an air of resolution. Taken from the forthcoming two-track EP of the same name – set for release on December 4 – ‘Underprotected’ is another superb statement of intent, coursing and balanced with feverish fragility and…

  • Watch: Cloud Castle Lake – Genuflect (Live)

    October 15, 2015 - By 

    Currently over in the States playing some shows for CMJ, Dublin quartet Cloud Castle Lake have long been one of the country’s more idiosyncratic and consistently innovatory acts. Having teamed up with Dublin-based collective This Greedy Pig, the band have unveiled the video for ‘Genuflect’, a seven-minute capturing the latest – nigh on beatific – stage of the band’s forever forward-thinking evolution. Tapping into something profound across its sleep and release, the track fuses Mingus-esque brass with totemic percussion, effects-soaked guitar, lead-like bass work and Daniel McAuley’s ever impressive, range-defying vocal acrobatics. If you’re in NYC, don’t miss them at Routh Trade on Saturday…

  • Interview: Jacco Gardner

    October 13, 2015 - By 

    Having played Dublin’s Workman’s Club last month, baroque pop prince and Dutch producer/multi-instrumentalist Jacco Gardner chats to Brian Coney about his new album, Hypnophobia, the imprint of cinema on his music and the luxury of recording completely on his own terms. Hi Jacco. You released the wonderful Hypnophobia (the “excessive fear of deep sleep” I’ve just learned) back in May. Before touching on the recording and songwriting, what’s the significance being the title of the release? When I saw the word for the first time I immediately felt some connection. For me it’s a way of describing the unknown territory…

  • Lingo Festival 2015

    October 15, 2015 - By 

    Ireland’s first and only spoken world festival, Lingo returns to Dublin from Friday, October 16 to Sunday, October 18 to for another week of exceptional performances from fresh voices and spoken word masters from Ireland and much further afield. Organised by some of the Dublin’s most attuned independent promoters, arts curators and spoken word artists, this year’s outing boasts everyone from headliner extraordinaire Saul Williams and experimental poet and playwright Dylan Coburn Gray to UK poet and spoken word artist Hollie McNish and Derry-based performance poet Abby Oliveira. Go here to read our new interview with Saul Williams and here to check…

  • Download: Paper Trail Records – Thanks For Listening

    October 12, 2015 - By 

    Compiled and released by Paper Trail Records for World Mental Health Day 2015 on Friday, Thanks For Listening is already one of our favourite Irish compilations in… well, ever. Featuring everyone from Katie Kim, Paddy Hanna and Shrug Life to Eskimeaux, Cloud Castle Lake and Simon Bird, the sixteen-track release – featuring both Irish and international acts – was put together to help raise awareness for World Mental Health Day, founded in 1992. All proceeds from this compilation will go directly to Console, so please help by donating what you can. Artwork by Holly Tratnor and Brian FitzPatrick. Stream (and…

  • Stream: Saint Sister – Blood Moon

    October 12, 2015 - By 

    Having made a big impression at Hard Working Class Heroes last weekend, Irish duo Gemma Doherty and Morgan MacIntyre AKA Saint Sister have hit the ground sprinting with their new single, ‘Blood Moon’. Taken from the band’s forthcoming Madrid EP – set for released via Trout Records on October 30 – the track is a brilliantly earworming three minutes of drifting and empyrean folk-pop. Madrid was recorded in a short, “intense” session at County Kerry’s Noise studio by Alex Ryan of Hozier. Stream ‘Blood Moon’ below. Photos by Deborah Sheedy.

  • Irish Tour: 100 Onces & Stonemasons

    October 12, 2015 - By 

    “It feels like an attic in here.” This is the first thing a friend says to me when we walk into the upstairs room of the Roisín Dubh on a Saturday to catch one of the last shows of Los Angeles duo 100 Onces’ extensive tour which saw them travelling around the UK, Eastern Europe, Russia and back to Ireland. The feeling that we’re in an attic is largely owing to the lack of much light of any sort and the cluttering of three band’s worth of equipment in the corner. It’s not a bad feeling at all, and it…

  • Monday Mixtape: James McNew (Yo La Tengo)

    October 12, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of their highly-anticipated return to Dublin at the National Concert Hall on Thursday night (October 15), Yo La Tengo’s James McNew reveals eight tracks “that roll through my head almost every single day of my life”, including Cornelius, Grateful Dead & El-P. EL-P – Deep Space 9mm  Every detail, and there are ones I’m still discovering, has gotten me to the end of every day since 2002. This guy somehow finds the exact humor/ humanity in the scariest of shit, just when you need it. Grateful Dead – Live on Beat Club   Like a dream where you discover new…

  • EP Premiere: Grassfight – Please Don’t Tell

    October 8, 2015 - By 

    With influences as downright venerable as Spacemen 3, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Spoon, New York quartet Grassfight meld cosmically-inclined indie-pop with a subtly anthemic moxie that’s positively strewn across their new EP, Please Don’t Tell – a release which we’re delighted to premiere in full ahead of its release tomorrow (Friday, October 9) Tempting the semi-inevitable Fleetwood Mac comparison (no bad thing in itself, surely), their new five-track EP documents the break-up between two of the band members. Naturally, then, a certain weight of import permeates the length and breadth of the release – the latter word faring pretty operative in the EP feeling not…