• EP Stream: Paper Man – After Effects

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    Showing huge potential, young Ballyclare-based alt-rock four-piece Paper Man have unveiled their debut EP, After Effects. Produced by Michael McCluskey, the five-track release (including a live track, ‘Hieroglyphics’) the EP “demonstrates,” in the band’s own words, “the roots from which the band have been influenced to write and play their alternative style of indie rock music.” Paper Man count the likes of local band A Plastic Rose, The Beatles and Smashing Pumpkins as three of their main influences. Stream After Effects via Bandcamp below.

  • Watch: Con Vos – Central Park

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    Earlier this month we featured the enchanting new EP by New York-based singer-songwriter and vocalist Sorcha Richardson. Nine days on we introduce the Dubliner’s new project CON VOS via the Matt Baron-directed video to the sublime ‘Central Park’. Taken from the upcoming five-track EP Cocoon Bloom, the track clings to summer whilst accommodating for Autumnal psychic ruminations, its stomping, shimmering bass-led march – and Richardson’s vocal in particular – suggestive of a very promising extended play on the horizon. CON VOS are comprised of Richardson and Fortunate Ones, a production/hip-hop duo from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Watch the video to ‘Central Park’ below.

  • Watch: Foy Vance – Closed Hand, Full of Friends

    October 10, 2013 - By 

    County Down singer-songwriter Foy Vance has unveiled the video to his new single, ‘Closed Hand, Full of Friends’. The song is the lead track taken from Vance’s second full-length album Joy Of Nothing, released in August via Glassnote Records. Following on from ‘Joy Of Nothing’ and ‘Janey’, it is the third track to be taken from the album, the follow-up to Vance’s 2007 debut full-length, Hope. The piano featured in the video was the focus of a police investigation after police attempted to discover how it was found in the River Tay in Perthshire. Watch the video below.

  • Emma Sweeney & Friends @ The Mac, Belfast

    October 9, 2013 - By 

    Fast-rising musician Emma Sweeney and guests will perform a night of cutting edge Irish traditional music at Belfast’s MAC on Thursday, October 10. A finalist at the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award in 2003, Sweeney will perform music from her album Pangea, which was released early this year to critical acclaim. Despite her age, Sweeney she accumulated an impressive amount of live experience performing alongside a host of respected traditional musicians including Dick Gaughan, Cara Dillon, Mike McGoldrick and Dezi Donnelly. The performance is part of Not So Trad, a new series of MAC music events offering traditional music with a fresh, modern approach…

  • EP Stream: Skymas – Primer

    October 8, 2013 - By 

    Belfast-based electronic rock band Skymas have unveiled their two-track debut EP, Primer. Led by former Skint recording artist Martin Corrigan with Nick Todd on bass and Andrew Dunbar as operator, the trio “aim to build tracks that will affect both the body and brain”. The EP – featuring the tracks ‘This River’ and ‘Hey Porter’ – is the band’s first release on their own label, OBR. Live dates are soon to be announced. Stream the tracks via Soundcloud below.

  • Rhinoceros

    October 8, 2013 - By 

    Romanian Theatre of the Absurd dramatist Eugène Ionesco’s classic play Rhinoceros will be be staged at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre as part of this year’s Belfast Festival at Queens. Directed by Joanne Allen – an alumni of Queens University – the play centers on the inhabitants of an entire town, in which ‘Rhinoceritis’ has gradually transformed them all into rhinoceroses. All except one, that is, for Berenger remains untouched. In a world in which everyone becomes a rhinoceros and no-one speaks the same language, the question is asked: what is there to understand? The staging takes place from October 25-October 27. Tickets – priced at £12 – are available…

  • Watch: Pixies – Andro Queen

    October 7, 2013 - By 

    Alt-rock demigods Pixies have unveiled the Ondi Timoner-directed video to the latest single, ‘Andro Queen’. Taken from the band’s recent EP-1, the single is the follow-up to ‘Indie Cindy’ – the band’s first single without Kim Deal – released last month. Pixies play Dublin’s Olympia theatre on November 18 and 19. Watch the video for ‘Andro Queen’ below.

  • Stream: Hurdles – Control

    October 8, 2013 - By 

    Belfast indie-rock band Hurdles have released a stream of ‘Control’, the lead single to be taken from their forthcoming debut EP, Where To Start. With the four-piece set to launch the aforementioned four-track EP at Belfast’s Radar on Thursday night, it marks the band’s first single release since ‘Kaleidoscope’ six months ago. Check out our recent interview the band here and stream ‘Control’ via Bandcamp below!

  • Revisted: Our Krypton Son – Our Krypton Son

    October 5, 2013 - By 

    In the second installment of Revisited – a feature looking back at some of the finest Irish album and EP releases of the last few years – we return to the spectacular self-titled debut album by Derry singer-songwriter Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son. Released via Smalltown America Records in 2012, the album is an eleven-track masterstroke of supremely wistful songwriting veering between internalised romantic afterthoughts, extroverted folk-rock forays and some of the finest lyricism and compositional work from a songwriter to ever hail from these parts. A self-proclaimed album about “memory, time, love, death, work, jealousy – the usual shit…

  • Go Wolf to feature on Kitsuné compilation

    October 4, 2013 - By 

    Belfast band Go Wolf have announced that their forthcoming new single ‘Voices’ will feature on the fifteenth compilation by Kitsuné on October 21. According to a blog post on the label’s website, the track “expresses a freshening juvenile pop touch, which effortlessly hits the target. California’s dreaming without overdoing it.” Sounds about right to us, actually. Formed in 2002 by Gildas Loaëc, Masaya Kuroki and the London-based company Åbäke, Kitsuné is a French electronic music record label and fashion label. Go Wolf’s music-making peers in Two Door Cinema Club released their debut, Gold-selling album Tourist History via the label in 2010.…