• Exclusive: Meb Jon Sol – Leave All Your Troubles With Me

    September 3, 2014 - By 

    Having reared his head at the start of the year with his debut single, ‘Captain of This Ship’, Belfast-based singer-songwriter Michael McCullagh AKA Meb Jon Sol has released the touching trad-folk of ‘Leave All Your Troubles With Me’ – and we have a first look at the video. Filmed and edited by Colm Laverty, the video, giving the effect of an old 8mm film, features McCullagh performing the track in the Titanic quarter of Belfast, spliced with footage of various people across the world. ‘Leave All Your Troubles With Me’ is available to buy via Bandcamp for £1 or the option to donate…

  • Gigs of the week: No Tomorrow, Marissa Nadler, David C Clements, Elastic Sleep

    September 2, 2014 - By 

    With Electric Picnic been and gone in a flash, the habitual final chapter of the (occasionally) great Irish summer begins. Things are still a bit quiet on the gig front but, as ever, here’s our pick of shows well worth checking out over the next days. No Tomorrow: SlowPlaceLikeHome, Somadrone, Documenta DJs – Voodoo, Belfast; Saturday, September 6 The next installment of our monthly gig/club night at Belfast’s Voodoo, No Tomorrow returns on Saturday night with a tremendous triad of cosmically-inclined acts from across the country. Just back from playing the Body & Soul stage at Electric Picnic at the…

  • Jim Jarmusch: The Essential Independent @ QFT

    August 28, 2014 - By 

    From September 19-25, Belfast’s Queen’s Film Theatre will showcase a slice of the nigh on incomparable oeuvre of a truly singular and independent figure in cinema, Jim Jarmusch. Marking the 30th anniversary of his cult breakthrough film, Stranger Than Paradise, the mini-season will see six of Jarmusch’s finest films screening across six days. They are: Dead Man, a majestic revisionist Western featuring Johnny Depp, considered by many as Jarmusch’s masterpiece. Down By Law, an exceptional and eccentric prison movie featuring Tom Waits, John Lurie and Roberto Benigni. Mystery Train, a film “following a small group of strangers in a strange land…

  • Culture Night Belfast 2014 programme launched

    August 28, 2014 - By 

    With the heady success of last year still lingering fondly in the memory, the programme for this year’s Culture Night Belfast has been launched. Set to transform Belfast city centre into bustling and kaleidoscopic cultural celebration of arts, music, craft, theatre, spoken word, poetry, dance and much more, this year’s showcase will take place on Friday, September 19. Next week we will present our Must-See events at this year’s Culture Night but at a first look, Rhinos (pictured), Cruising and Go Wolf at the Oh Yeah Centre, Culture Night Radio IMPRINT at Sort Design and live theatre shorts at the Sunflower Public…

  • Album stream: Interpol – El Pintor

    August 26, 2014 - By 

    Set for release on September 9, Interpol are streaming their highly-anticipated fifth studio album, El Pintor. You can stream the album in full over at NPR and buy tickets to see the band play Dublin on February 10 and 11 via Ticketmaster here. Missed it? Watch the band’s recent video for ‘All The Rage Back Home’ below.

  • Electric Picnic reveal Main Stage times

    August 26, 2014 - By 

    With only three days left until this year’s (comprehensively sold-out) installment of the annual Stradbally Estate, Co. Laois festival, Main Stage times have been announced for Electric Picnic. Times have also been announced for the Red Bull Music Academy and Casa Bacardi stages. Check them out them out below. Main Stage Friday 10.45pm-12am: Pet Shop Boys 9pm-10.15pm: Foals 7.15pm-8.15pm: Blondie 6pm-6.45pm: The Strypes 5pm-5.30pm: Tvvins Saturday 12.30am-1.45am: Chic 10.35pm-11.50pm: Portishead 8.45pm-9.55pm: Paolo Nutini 7pm-8.05pm: Bombay Bicycle Club 5.30pm-6.25pm: Hozier 3.45pm-4.45pm: Wild Beasts 2pm-3pm: The Stranglers 12.30pm-1.30pm: Trinity Orchestra Sunday 10.15pm-12am: Outkast 8.30pm-9.45pm: Beck 7pm-8pm: Lily Allen 5.25pm-6.25pm: SimpleMinds 3.50pm-4.50pm: Sinead…

  • First acts announced for Samhain Festival 2014

    August 25, 2014 - By 

    Having sold out last year, Samhain Festival has announced the first few acts set to play its next outing in a couple of months. Taking the stunning Loughcrew Gardens in Co. Meath on Sunday, October 26, the annual showcase will see the final Irish date on Jon Hopkins’ (pictured) Immunity tour, as well as appearances from John Talabot, the fast-rising Maya Jane Coles, Booka Shade (Live) and Detroit veteran Jimmy Edgar. More acts are to be announced. According to the festival, the new location is “shadowed by Sliabh na Caillíagh, the “Witch’s Mountain”, bordered by 300 year old Yew trees, grown to…

  • Jeremy Thomas: The Auteur Producer @ QFT

    August 20, 2014 - By 

    Belfast’s Queens Film Theatre will host a special, one-off talk with groundbreaking English film producer Jeremy Thomas on Thursday, August 21. For four decades, Thomas (pictured, right, with Bernardo Bertolucci on the set of the Oscar-winning The Last Emperor) has been behind some of British cinema’s most ambitious and exciting films, working with a host of legendary directors including Nicolas Roeg, David Cronenberg and the aforementioned Italian auteur. The QFT talk is set to be a look back at highlights from a career packed with films of artistic merit, ambition and originality. Things kick off at 7.30pm and you can buy…

  • Watch: UNKNWN – BBY

    August 20, 2014 - By 

    Bound for Electric Picnic at the end of the month, Champion Sound-signed electronic duo UNKNWN have unveiled their debut music video, for the track ‘BBY’. Directed by Daniel Holmes, it is a nicely edited, suitably phantasmal affair, wonderfully accompanying the track’s hazy, drifting air. ‘BBY’ is taken from the duo’s DEVIL/BBY EP, which you purchase right here. UNKNWN – comprised of producer Chris Hanna and vocalist Gemma Dunleavy – have steadily grown in stature and acclaim over the last few months, something that will come into sharp focus when they play alongside labelmates Ryan Vail, Contour, Ghosts, Talkboy and Replete at the Body & Soul tent at…

  • Video premiere: The North Sea – In Love

    August 14, 2014 - By 

    The first track to be taken from their as-of-yet unnamed debut album, Dublin alt-rock five-piece The North Sea will release ‘In Love’ on September 26 – and we’ve the first look of the single’s video. Shot by Second Frame and directed by Niall Conroy and Daniel Kennedy, it’s a nicely-lit, monochrome affair, perfectly capture the song’s slick, darkly tangents, reminiscent of the likes of Interpol and Editors. The follow-up to their promising, 2012 self-titled EP, the band’s forthcoming album was recorded live to tape in order to capture their live sound, and was produced by Grammy Award-winning Irish producer David Odlum…