• Culture Night Belfast 2015

    September 9, 2015 - By 

    Far and away Belfast’s biggest annual celebration of music, art, theatre and everything in between, Culture Night Belfast will make its most happening seventh outing on Friday, September 18. With over 250 free events planned ranging from gigs, trails and tours to talks, demonstrations and screenings, the city’s historic Cathedral Quarter and beyond will be thoroughly transformed into a kaleidoscopic festival from early in the afternoon to late into the night. Keen as we are to be involved once again this year, we’re teaming up with Oh Yeah Music Centre to put on a free, genre-spanning showcase featuring The Wood Burning Savages, Hot Cops,…

  • Watch: PORTS – Gameplay

    September 8, 2015 - By 

    It feels like a lifetime ago that Derry band PORTS went under the moniker Little Bear. Having very much underlined that interim period in the sublime evolution of their rousing indie rock sound, the quartet’s latest single ‘Gameplay’ is a wistful and cunningly layered mini masterstroke, with a perfectly balanced ratio of sleep and release. Check out the band’s forthcoming tour dates and video for the aforementioned single below. September 25: Whelan’s, Dublin September 26: EchoEcho, Derry September 27:  Monroe’s, Galway October 2: Black Box, Belfast October 3: HWCH, Dublin October 4: Cyprus Avenue, Cork

  • Watch: Aaron Shanley – My Mind Ain’t Pretty (At The Minute)

    September 8, 2015 - By 

    Lisburn singer-songwriter Aaron Shanley has always operated on the periphery of his music-making peers. With a sound traversing perfectly subtle balladry to abrasive anti-folk forays, he will release a new, eight-track album, Metal Alligator, on September 22. A track falling very much and rather brilliantly under the latter descriptor, ‘My Mind Ain’t Pretty (At The Minute)’ marries scuzzy lo-fi indie rock in the vein of Ty Segall and Sparklehorse with a wall of drone evoking Bardo Pond and early Flying Saucer Attack. In short: a really tidy, very promising taste of things to come from the wanderlust-smitten artist. Check out the suitably…

  • Watch: Malojian – No Alibis

    September 8, 2015 - By 

    One of our favourite Irish singer-songwriters, Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian knocked us for six with his second stdio album, Southlands, back in May. The latest single to be lifted from that, ‘No Alibis’ is a typically Americana-inflected effort from the Lurgan songsmith, conjuring the likes of Elliott Smith, Wilco and – in its more swaggering passages – Tame Impala and T-Rex. Featuring another sublime animated accompaniment by Richard Davis, the track – assumingly named after the Belfast-based bookstore of the same name – was produced by Malojian drummer and Mojo Fury frontman Michael Mormecha. Malojian plays Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on…

  • Playlist: 30 Unmissable Acts at Electric Picnic 2015

    September 3, 2015 - By 

    Befitting tradition, this year’s Electric Picnic is set to be another weekend-long congregation of some of the very best sights and sounds. From the Little Big Tent and Rankins Wood to Electric Arena and the Body & Soul stages, every corner will reveal a cornucopia of the beautiful and brash, restrained and rapturous, up-and-coming and positively established. Having ran our eye over this year’s line-up a few times, we reckon the following thirty acts are worthy of the collective title “unmissable”.  Have a listen and make sure to check them all out if you’re lucky enough to be gracing Stradbally Estate this…

  • Watch: Girl Band – Pears For Lunch

    September 3, 2015 - By 

    To say Dublin’s Girl Band are on a bit of a roll would be a towering understatement. Set to play a Thin Air show at Belfast’s Bar Sub on Friday, September 25 as part of a forthcoming new UK tour (full dates below), the Dara Kiely-fronted four-piece have just unleashed ‘Pears For Lunch’, the latest single from their hugely-anticipated debut album, Holding Hands With Jamie. A suffocating, masterfully maniacal three and a half minutes culminating in the the immortal adage “I look crap with my top off…”, the track feels like an epilogue of sorts to last January’s ‘Lawman’. If the…

  • Watch: Abandcalledboy – LA Dick (Keian Remix)

    September 3, 2015 - By 

    Back in May we introduced Lia, the debut EP by Dublin-based Irish-Iranian songwriter and producer Keian Roohipour AKA Keian. Four months on, the Co. Down man has worked his shuffling, unravelling wizardry on ‘LA Dick’, the latest single by Abandcalledboy. Warping the original to a barely recognisable state, it makes for five odd minutes of wonderfully tangential electronic nocturnalism, hinting at some great things in the pipeline. Watch the video for the original track here and check out Keian’s remix below.

  • Stream: Little Xs For Eyes – Funk Island

    September 2, 2015 - By 

    Funk Island: not only where James Brown desperately (possibly) wanted to see in his retirement, but also the tropical-tinged new single by Dublin indie-pop band Little Xs For Eyes. While they’re just a little late in capturing the sound of the great (cough) Irish summer, they’ve certainly fused a whole plethora of sun-kissed sounds on the new release, which is accompanied a remix of ‘Logical Love’ by Rory Grubb. It’s not quite as radiant but we’re fans. Funk Island by little xs for eyes