• Premiere: Robocobra Quartet – Mizaru

    August 13, 2015 - By 

    Set for their first touring traipse to the UK next month, Belfast-based jazz-punk quartet Robocobra Quartet will also make their debut Electric Picnic appearance in Co. Laois at the start of next month. Do your very best not to miss them if you’re bound there this year. “Lyrically exploring two of the three proverbial ‘wise monkeys'”, the latest self-produced release from the Chris Ryan-fronted band, ‘Iwazaru/Mizaru’, “finds the personal tangled with the social. This comes in the form of Mizaru’s melancholic re-appropriation of an MP’s 1932 speech and Iwazaru’s self-deprecating look at “speaking no evil” that brashly pairs a lyrical call-back…

  • Dublin Zine Fair 2015

    August 13, 2015 - By 

    Supporting, promoting and celebrating all things zines, this year’s Dublin Zine Fair takes place at Dublin’s Chocolate Factory on Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16. Featuring stall holders from across the country and further afield plying their homespun wares, the fair will also include zine readings, live music and craft workshops throughout both days from 12-5pm. See below for the daily schedule and go here for the Facebook event page. 1pm: Workshop (Saturday: Weaving €10 | Sunday: book binding €5) 2pm: Comics Lab (Sunday only €3) 3pm: Zine Readings 3.30pm: Workshop (Saturday: Make a Dreamcatcher €10 | Sunday: Needle Felting €15)…

  • Sun Kil Moon @ Open House Festival, Bangor

    August 12, 2015 - By 

    “People love me. Some people hate me. A lot of people love me, but some people hate me. Some people anonymously go on to the internet and say cruel, hateful things about me. But that’s ok. That’s ok. That’s ok because it means you’re somebody when that happens to you. It means that you’ve arrived. It means that you can lie in bed at night with a warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach. Some people hate me and some people love me. Some people come to my shows and write big, long essays about how much they love my music…

  • Watch: Bouts – Missteps

    August 12, 2015 - By 

    We’ve a lot of time for Dublin indie-rock band Bouts. For us, they personify the best things of the genre: simultaneously perfectly loose and very tight, they tip their collective hat in the general direction of their (largely Nineties, U.S.) influences whilst continuing to carve out their own sound; one that allows seems to place joyousness slap bang in the middle. Taken from their a forthcoming, five-track EP, set for release in January, the band have returned after a nigh on two year break away with ‘Missteps’, a track bursting with the band’s instantly likeable sound. If you’re yet to…

  • Premiere: Linebacker Dirge – Livia/Motion Parallax

    August 11, 2015 - By 

    Co. Down singer-songwriter Jason Gibson is an artist who thrives on collaboration. Formed back in 2005, his project Linebacker Dirge has seen him write and record with the likes of A Plastic Rose’s Ian McHugh, A Northern Light’s Colm Laverty and James Bruce of Kasper Rosa/Matua Trap. Ten years on from the release of his debut, Postcards, Distance and Sleep (written and recorded with Harry Ffitch of Hello Newman over MSN Messenger, no less), Gibson’s new EP, The Worried Well, is a real re-affirmation of those early stirrings, going that bit further in driving the point (the unspoken and profound…

  • The Twisted Pepper Confirm Closure

    August 11, 2015 - By 

    With rumours circulating far and wide yesterday afternoon, Dublin venue The Twisted Pepper have confirmed that it is set to close after seven years – but not without moving on in a guise. Posting in the Facebook event page for its Closing Weekender (this weekend coming, August 14-16), they wrote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… we’re sad, but happily reminiscent to say that this weekend will be the last ever weekend of The Twisted Pepper as a music venue. We are blown away by the messages of support we have received over the last…

  • TTA Session #009: Silences

    August 11, 2015 - By 

    Set to play the likes of Hard Working Class Heroes and Electric Picnic this Summer, Armagh’s Silences have had a steady yet extremely strong rise over the last couple of years. Having first caught our attention back in 2013 with ‘Ghosts’, the Conchúr White-fronted five-piece have evolved from being low-key contenders to one of the country’s most promising acts of their kind (they call themselves an alt-indie outfit, and we’re not inclined to disagree). Filmed in Belfast City Centre, our latest Live Session session features the band – stripped back as a two-piece – performing two tracks (‘The Sea’ and ‘Santa Cruz’) and in conversation.…

  • HWCH 2015 Line-Up Announced

    August 11, 2015 - By 

    The country’s leading bastion and celebration of homegrown, independent music, Hard Working Class Heroes has announced the line-up for the October festival. Taking across several different venues in Dublin throughout the weekend of 1-3, it looks like one of the strongest, most diverse HWCH bills yet. Check out the full line-up below and buy tickets here. 13, Acrobat, AikJ, Ailbhe Reddy, Anderson, Arborist, Atlas Moon, Bad Sea, Bagels, Basciville, Benihana, Bitch Falcon, Buffalo Sun, Buffalo Woman, Callum Orr, Carriages, Cfit, Color//Sound, Comrade Hat, Corner Boy, Darling, Dear Desert, discopunks, DVO Marvell, Elastic Sleep, Electro Sensitive Behaviour Feat. Perry Blake, Elephant, Elm, Everything Shook (below), EXPLODING EYES, Fergal O’Connor, Florence Olivier, Frankenstein Bolts, Half Of Me, Hare Squead, HAWK, Heroes in Hiding, Hot Cops, I Have A Tribe, Inni-K, Jennifer Evans, Johnny Stewart, Joni, Katie Laffan, Kobina, Lie Ins, Lilla Vargen, LORIS, Maija Sofia, Maud in Cahoots, Me Auld Flower, Mere…

  • Classic Album: Gene Clark – No Other (1974)

    August 10, 2015 - By 

    Gene Clark was the Byrd who couldn’t fly. If that sounds trite (and let’s face it, it is) consider the facts. Clark was one of the original members of America’s answer to The Beatles, and whilst Roger McGuinn was the frontman of The Byrds on hit singles like ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ and ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, it was Clark who provided the majority of their self-penned material during his tenure with the band. But, in an irony that would be delicious if it wasn’t something that happened to a living, breathing person, Gene Clark was afraid of flying. In 1965, with…

  • Watch: Strength – I Like Compressions (Live)

    August 10, 2015 - By 

    Comprised of the likes of ex-Red Organ Serpent Sound member Rory Moore and Donegal producer Conor McNamee AKA Nyt Bloomer, Derry “pop” band Strength offer up a curious manifesto of sorts on their Facebook page: “I wanted to use pieces of dead machinery: an old drum machine: a broken bass: a vhs recorder. I wanted to use things that people had disregarded or forgotten about, I needed to find the light that was still flickering within these machines. My whole purpose was to create something that would sound good in a crap hi-fi.” An admirable approach for sure, the fruits of…