• Stream: Documenta – TV (Girl On Fire)

    February 11, 2014 - By 

    Taken from the forthcoming three-track Valentines covers mini-EP, the ingenuously titled Latvian Batman, Belfast-based drone band Documenta have released a stream of their take on ‘TV (Girl On Fire)’ by London band The Perfect Disaster. Originally written by the latter band’s frontman Phil Parfitt and released in 1988 via Fire Records, it featured on the band’s second album, Asylum Road. Retaining the two-chorded infatuation of the original, Documenta’s masterfully understated cover features strings and a hypnotic, droning ambience reminiscent of their original material. Stream the track (released CF Records) via Soundcloud below.

  • Stream: We Cut Corners – Best Friend

    February 11, 2014 - By 

    Taken from their forthcoming second album, Think Nothing, Dublin indie rock duo We Cut Corners have released their latest single, the brilliantly bobbing ‘Best Friend’ The follow-up to the equally impressive ‘Every Thief’ and ‘YKK’ by Conall Ó Breacháin and John Duignan, the track is a stripped-back affair, vehement vocals melding with abrasive guitar textures and a rhythm that emerges from a strut to a crashing conclusion. Think Nothing is released via Delphi in April. Check out the artwork for the album and stream ‘Best Friend’ via Soundcloud below.

  • Gig of the Week: Young Aviators, Hurdles, Foreign Affairs @ Voodoo

    February 11, 2014 - By 

    Our Gig of the Week will see Warrenpoint-derived, Glasgow-based new-wave surf three-piece Young Aviators head a bill featuring the jointly promising Hurdles and Foreign Affairs at Belfast’s Voodoo on Saturday, February 15. With choruses recently compared to fellow Irish émigrés Snow Patrol by The Skinny, the show will be Young Aviators first performance in Belfast since the release of their debut album, Self Help. Go here for the show’s Facebook event page. Watch the video for ‘Forward Thinking’ by Young Aviators below.

  • EP Stream: FAWS – Free Samples

    February 11, 2014 - By 

    The long-awaited follow-up to his 2012 EP, Blues Notes, Dublin electronic producer Faws has unveiled a new three-track EP, Free Samples. Featuring samples from the likes of Bobby McFerrin and Buena Vista Social Club, the EP is a typically shadowy and somnambulist effort from the Irish artist, peaking on the beautifully fragmentary melancholia of its closer ‘Ghetto Lover’. Stream the EP via Bandcamp below.

  • Frame By Frame #002: September Girls – Green Eyed

    February 10, 2014 - By 

    Following on from a feature on the making of Cliff Richard by Abandcalledboy, Belfast-based photographer and filmmaker and Colm Laverty chats to Jessie from Dublin noise pop band September Girls about her brilliant and thoroughly DIY video for the band’s recent single, ‘Green Eyed’. First off, tell us a little bit about each of your roles on this music video. I’m Jessie and I play the red guitar in the band… and I also directed this video! In a sentence, what sets ‘Green Eyed’ apart from other Irish music videos? It was a very DIY affair, made by the band,…

  • Watch: Villagers – Occupy Your Mind

    February 7, 2014 - By 

    “In the advent of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, please find attached a song written for you, your mother, your father and your gay brothers and sisters in Russia.” So reads a Facebook post by Dublin band Villagers, words that accompany the video to their Muse-esque new single, ‘Occupy Your Mind.’ Directed by Alden Volney, the video features the band’s main man Conor O’Brien sat on a theatre stage as luminous, scattered lights beamed onto his face, a faceless captor of sorts overseeing proceedings in the distance. Debuted on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show last night, the single follows on from…

  • Twenty Years of Troublegum

    February 7, 2014 - By 

    Set for an expansive three-disc deluxe reissue in March, the gamechanging Troublegum by Northern Irish alt-rock heroes Therapy? was unleashed twenty years ago today, back in the thoroughly transitional musical milieu of early 1994. An impassioned and inexorable fourteen-track masterstroke borne from social disillusion and the laws of unspoken smalltown psychosis, it saw frontman Andy Cairns, bassist Michael “The Evil Priest” McKeegan and drummer Fyfe Ewing propelled from emerging contenders to bona fide alternative rock demigods. From the gloriously demented ‘Knives’ to closing rampage ‘Brainsaw’, Troublegum forged Cairns’ deeply intelligent and masterfully sardonic lyrics, Ewing’s mighty rhythmic élan and a breathless deluge of earworming, generation-defining pop-punk hooks coloured…

  • Album Stream: Alana Henderson – Windfall

    February 6, 2014 - By 

    Having had an extraordinary breakthrough year in 2013, Belfast-based singer-songwriter Alana Henderson has released a new album, Windfall. Ahead of entering the studio again soon to record some material of her own, the eight-track album is, in Henderson’s own words, “a side-project, separate from my own contemporary writing, in which I recorded an album of re-worked, contemporary arrangements of traditional songs from the North of Ireland.” Featuring the likes of Shauna Tohill AKA Silhouette and Mike Mormecha from Mojo Fury amongst a cast of musicians, the album is available as a limited edition cardboard release with enclosed sleeve-notes. Stream and/or download…

  • Mojo Fury announce tenth anniversary show

    February 6, 2014 - By 

    A whole decade and two thoroughly exceptional full-length albums in, Lisburn alt-rock band Mojo Fury have announced plans for a special 10th anniversary show at Belfast’s Limelight 2 on Thursday, March 6. The Mike Mormecha-fronted band – who headlined our launch party at Voodoo, Belfast last year –  will be supported on the night by fast-rising folk band The Emerald Armada and alt-rock trio Two Glass Eyes. Tickets for the show go on sale tomorrow morning (Friday, February 7) at 9am. Check out our 5/5 review of Mojo Fury’s second album, The Difference Between, here and watch the video for the…

  • Watch: Feet For Wings – Cathedral St.

    February 6, 2014 - By 

    For one reason or another, the sea seems to occupy a special place in the hearts of many acts trying to visually capture the essence of their sound or  lyrical content. Take, for example, ‘Holy‘ by Scottish band Frightened Rabbit or ‘Can’t Make You Come Back‘ by Derry’s Our Krypton Son – just two songs that are not only complimented by their accompanying, nautically-inclined videos, but wonderfully transformed by the simple poetic majesty of the ocean. Adding themselves to such esteemable company is Belfast-based alt-acoustic four-piece Feet For Wings, a band whose short film-like video for their new single, ‘Cathedral St’,…