• Ed Zealous Announce Split, Final Show

    December 11, 2014 - By 

    Having released their long-awaited (not to mention, altogether stellar) debut album, Wired, back in February, Belfast-based electro-rock band Ed Zealous have announced they’re to split. With a final farewell gig – hosted by yours truly – set for Belfast’s Voodoo on February 7, the band said in a statement: “To our Fans, Friends & Family as Ed Zealous, we have made the incredibly difficult decision to call it a day as a band. What an unbelievable adventure it has been. What started life as a little drunken banter has taken us to playing the Odyssey with Snow Patrol, to Glastonbury,…

  • Stream: R.S.A.G: Don’t Move So Fast

    December 4, 2014 - By 

    Jeremy Hickey AKA R.S.A.G. has returned with yet another wonderfully propulsive solo effort, ‘Don’t Move So Fast’. Driven by an urgent House beat and featuring Hickey’s ever Alan Vega-esque vocals, the track was produced by Hickey, Darkin and The Kilo 1977. R.S.A.G. plays Waterford’s Central Hall on Friday, December 5 and Dublin’s Grand Social with Plutonic Dust, Dear Desert and White Collar Boy on Friday, December 12. Stream ‘Don’t Move So Fast’ via Soundcloud below.

  • Watch: Christmas Hearts – Christmas Is In Your Heart

    December 4, 2014 - By 

    Let’s be honest: the vast majority of Christmas charity singles – no matter how worthy the charity – suck. Either overly earnest or compositionally benign (and often both), they leave the tendency to leave the listener feeling a little crippled inside, stripped of any latent festive cheer. Fortunately, there are exceptions – exceptions like ‘Christmas In Your Heart’ by the utterly-enviably talented troupe of tale-telling troubadours that is Christmas Hearts. Comprised of Niall Jackson from Bouts, Conor O’Brien of Villagers, MayKay of Fight Like Apes and many more, the guys have concocted a real gem with the single, imagined and released with the aim to…

  • Premiere: Boss Sound Manifesto – Full Moon Crazy Dog

    December 4, 2014 - By 

    Self-proclaimed “four old punks and a soul boy from Belfast”, Boss Sound Manifesto will launch their debut vinyl and digital EP, In It For The Good Times, at Belfast’s Voodoo on December 20. Ahead of that, we’re pleased to premiere the wonderfully tripped out video to the release’s lead single, ‘Full Moon Crazy Dog’. Created by Belfast-based visual maestros DSNT, the promo – very much in accordance with the music – distils the band’s brilliantly left-of-centre, decidedly no-fucks-given approach. “In it for the good times” indeed. Watch the video below and go the Facebook event page for the EP launch here.

  • Gigs of the Week: Gifted, Bob Log III, Girls Names, Yule, Cian Nugent, Sissy

    December 3, 2014 - By 

    Ho, ho, ho-w are you? Sorry, that was terrible. Let’s try that again. How are you? Good? Good. Here’s five gigs happening over the next few days that we were really think you should make a concerted effort to attend. Happy Hanukkah. Gifted: Ciaran Lavery & more @ The Empire, Belfast – Thursday, December 4 Yet another first-rate bill by the acoustically-inclined folks at Gifted, Aghagallon songwriting extraordinare Ciaran Lavery will headline the latest installment of the night at Belfast’s Empire on Thursday, December 4. Also on the bill is John Blek, Travis is a Tourist and Orchid Collective.   Sissy,…

  • Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    November 26, 2014 - By 

    The man on stage would like you to call him Yasiin Bey. “Ali, not Clay,” he says. That doesn’t stop the gig’s posters and tickets from bearing the name Mos Def in larger lettering than that of his name of choice, however. Coming on stage around 10pm in an oversized scarf and baggy tee, he opens with ‘Cream of the Planet’, an unreleased track from 2010. Though billed as a fifteenth anniversary celebration of 1999’s breakthrough release Black On Both Sides, the night sees Bey jump from era to era, appropriately enough as 1982’s seminal hip-hop flick Wild Style plays…

  • Premiere: Callum Stewart – Gold

    November 20, 2014 - By 

    We’re pleased to premiere the latest video by hands down one of the most promising pop singer-songwriters in the country at the minute,  Callum Stewart. Released via OLD FANG, ‘Gold’ is a stripped-back, piano-led distillation of the hotly-tipped songsmith’s craft. Where strings and percussion very nicely lend to the song’s allure – name its impassioned climax – Stewart’s vocals are, without a shadow of a doubt, the focal point here. Familiar without sounding commonplace, earnest without veering soppiness, it sets the young artist apart from many of his peers – and several of his contemporaries. Supported by Jamie Neish, Stewart places the latest OLD FANG…

  • Watch: Talos – Bloom

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    One of our must-see acts at the Cork Music Trail next week, Eoin French AKA Talos has unveiled the video for his latest single, ‘Bloom’. Created by the ridiculously-talented Feel Good Lost, the video is quite an intense affair, centering on the attempted (physical and psychic/spiritual) release of its hyper-distressed female protagonist. The track is released with ‘Tethered Bones’ on 12″. Watch the video below.

  • Album stream: Seán Mac Erlaine – A Slender Song

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    Released via Ergodos on lovely orange vinyl on Friday coming, Dublin-based experimental multi-instrumentalist, composer and music producer Seán Mac Erlaine is streaming A Slender Song, an oft-hypnotic ten-track release comprised of entirely improvised live noise. Speaking of the recording and improvisational impetus behind the release, Mac Erlaine told us, “All these tracks were recorded in performance. And all the performances were entirely improvised, so I guess it’s an album of improvisations from gigs around Ireland over the last four years. I did spend a good bit of time editing, mixing and producing these into something which hopefully sounds like an album – I…

  • Stream: Robocobra Quartet – ‘Knotweed/Witch Hunt’

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    We were going to post this yesterday but seeing as we featured the band in question in our latest live session – which you can and most certainly should watch here – this evening seems a little more opportune. A rather ingenuous hybrid of spoken-world punk, jazz and hip-hop, Belfast four-piece Robocobra Quartet have just let loose into the world their latest Double A-side: ‘Knotweed/Witch Hunt’. The former – featuring probably second most brilliantly abrupt intro in jazz-centric history – demonstrates the band’s more bold leanings, melting  shifting, shuddering rhythms, expertly atonal bass shapes and braying sax squeals with drummer/vocalist Chris…