Blanck Mass is set for a couple of Irish shows next year. The scintillating noise project of Benjamin John Power of Fuck Buttons, Blanck Mass will stop off at Belfast’s Ulster Sports Club on Friday, March 13th and Dublin’s Workman’s Club on March 14th. Tickets for Belfast go on sale Thursday at 10am (price TBC). Dublin tickets are priced €16 and go on sale on Friday at 10am.
Other Voices have revealed the full timetable for its return to Dingle this weekend. Taking place across various venues in the Co. Kerry coastal town across Friday, November 29th to Sunday, December 1st, this year’s outing will feature the Music Trail, the Other Voices Hub and more. Check out the schedule – featuring Junior Brother, Aoife Nessa Frances, Fehdah, Porphyry, God Knows, Shrug Life and more – below.
The Flaming Lips will make their return to Galway next year. The Wayne Coyne-fronted psych-pop maestros – who last played the festival last year – will play the Big Top at Galway Arts Festival on Saturday, July 18th. Tickets cost €49.50 and go on sale at 9am on Friday, November 29th. Back in July, the band released their fifteenth studio album, King’s Mouth. Revisit an older classic below.
On his third full-length LP, Commander of Sapiens, Galway musician Eoin Dolan underscores his status as one of the country’s finest songwriters. Conjuring everyone from Animal Collective to the Beach Boys, songs like ‘Microship Visions’ and ‘Sheena’ meld starry-eyed harmonies and cosmic wanderlust with masterfully woozy refrains and sublime melancholia to deliver nine tracks of first-rate, surf-influenced sci-fi pop. Released in proud association with Galway-based collective Citóg and featuring long term collaborators Conor Deasy (guitar), James Casserly (drums) and Adam Sheeran (bass), the album wonderfully veers between themes including environmental destruction, mass consumerism and human cybernetics. Surely you’re sold by now? Stream it…
Having just announced its return to Sherkin Island in 2021, Ireland’s very best festival Open Ear is throwing a Christmas party at the Soundhouse in Dublin on December 30th. And it’s almost certain to be the best line-up in the city that night. Bringing together Rising Damp (pictured), Rian Ryan, DJ Egg, Robert Curgenven & Kat McDowall (presenting AGENESIS), Natalia Beylis, Ngoni Egan, DJ Capricorn, Glenn O’Brien, tickets for the event are just €12. Want to risk it? It’s €15 on the door. 10pm-3am. Tell your friends.
King Krule will play Dublin next year. Taking place as part of his 2020 Northern American and EU tour, the English artist and multi-instrumentalist, born Archy Ivan Marshall, will play the Olympia Theatre on Thursday, March 19. Tickets cost €30 and go on sale this Friday at 10am. Check out the video for new single ‘Hey World!’ below.
Commemorating the tenth annual outing for Young Hearts Run Free’s annual Xmas fundraising drive for the Simon Community, Yule! (11) will unite some of the country’s finest acts this year on Saturday, December 7th. Running from 7pm to 2am at Dallymount Park in Phibsborough, the event will feature sets from Dónal Lunny, Aoife Nessa Frances, a Scott Walker tribute supergroup, Badhands, Rachael Lavelle, Mother Tongues, Cian Ó’Cíobháin, Natalya O’Flaherty, Tandem Felix, and Paddy Hanna, with more to be confirmed, as well as special surprise guests. Tickets range from Follow €20.07 – €27.55 and can be bought here. Endlessly recommended.
Another year, another stellar first wave announcement for Cork’s Quarter Block Party. Returning for its sixth edition from February 6-9th, the music and performing arts festival have revealed some of the acts who’ll be making an appearance at various venues across the city. Best of all, it’s full of some straight-up TTA favourites: The Bonk, Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies, Maija Sofia, Lemoncello (pictured), Elaine Howley, Aoife Nessa Frances, God Alone, Melts, Jar Jar Jr., Pretty Happy and Soft Focus. Festival manager Caoilian Sherlock commented: “We are delighted to bring the sixth edition of Quarter Block Party to Cork this…
The winner at this year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize has been announced. Taking place at Belfast’s Ulster on Thursday night, the annual ceremony saw Eoin O’Callaghan Elma Orkestra & Ryan Vail walk away with the main Best Album prize for their collaborative Borders release. As well as performances from Strange New Places, Jordan Adetunji, Saint Sister, O’Callaghan & Vail and Oh Yeah Legends Award recipients Snow Patrol, Sister Ghost walked away with Best Live Act, Cherym won the Oh Yeah Contender Award and Junk Drawer took Best Single with ‘Year of the Sofa’. Meanwhile, X-ray Touring’s Steve Strange won the Outstanding Contribution to…
Comprising Shane Crosson, Girlfriend’s Sophie Dunne, Jamie O’Suiligh and Ryan McClelland, Hales Lake have played a string of stellar shows in Dublin, Belfast and Limerick this year. Impassioned and curveballing, the have been sets introducing a quartet who, right off the bat, are staking a claim with a sound melding alternative and emo with ‘gazey textures and a fist-clenched noise-rock sensibility. Look no further than debut single, ‘Pro-Strife’, which you can stream below. Speaking about the track, the band offered up the mini-manifesto of sorts, reflecting on how cross-country issues has helped bolster island-wide solidarity in the creative community of which…