• Wall of Sound: Marion Hawkes of Sound Advice

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    Belfast’s newest record store is far from your usual fare. With DJ Marion Hawkes at the helm, Sound Advice is helping set the pace for a city brimming with fresh possibility Photos by Darren Hill It’s only a few short years since Belfast was hit with a succession of independent record shop closures that left something of a wilderness unbefitting a city of its stature. Thankfully, with city centre joint Starr Records making strides, recovery has been swift. The latest store to open its doors is east Belfast’s Sound Advice, owned and run by Marion Hawkes, DJ and co-founder of…

  • And So I Watch You From Afar – Jettison

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    After five albums, And So I Watch You From Afar take something of a left turn with their first ‘multimedia album’ Jettison. Produced with accompanying visuals, their usual crushing riffs and frenzied guitar workouts are replaced, at least initially, by gentle chords resembling The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘To Build a Home’. Strings and spoken word passages from Emma Ruth Rundle and Clutch’s Neil Fallon float in and out, adding new dimensions to the beloved Belfast-based band’s sound The tension racks up though as the album continues, each movement seamlessly progressing into the next as one long continuous piece, at times recalling…

  • Ordnance Survey – Field Work

    December 22, 2021 - By 

    Outside of his work on keys and percussion for Dublin math-rock heroes The Redneck Manifesto and stints playing with Jape and David Kitt, Neil O’Connor has been quietly plugging away for years as one of Ireland’s finest electronic musicians and composers. While his Somadrone project started out in the realm of twitchy electronics and ambient vibraphone textures on early albums like Fuzzing Away to a Whisper, over the years it’s become more a fleshed out beast, adding weary vocals and occasional guitar on top of ice cold synths, like an intriguing blend of shoegaze and house. While we haven’t had…

  • The Altered Hours – Convertible

    November 1, 2021 - By 

    Given that they’ve been releasing music for a full decade now, it’s easy to forget that Cork quintet The Altered Hours are only now releasing their second full length album, Convertible. It must be down to the quality of the EPs they’ve released along the way – no mere stopgaps, releases like 2013’s Sweet Jelly Roll or 2018’s On My Tongue house so much of their most essential material. Debut long player In Heat Not Sorry surfaced in 2016 – an excellent collection of tracks, but one that often took a slower and starker direction than previous releases in a…

  • John Francis Flynn – I Would Not Live Always

    July 30, 2021 - By 

    While Ireland’s contemporary folk scene continues to go from strength to strength, London label Rough Trade must take some credit for bringing it to a wider audience beyond these shores. As well as releasing the past two Lankum albums on their main label, their burgeoning folk imprint River Lea has debuted with records by both Lisa O’Neill and Ye Vagabonds, and now brings us I Would Not Live Always, the debut from John Francis Flynn.  Flynn has been a longtime member of Dublin five piece Skipper’s Alley, with whom he’s already released two albums of traditional covers, but his more…

  • Arab Strap – As Days Get Dark

    March 29, 2021 - By 

    In this era of endless band reunions, it’s still easy to tell apart the cash ins from those that are meant to be. When Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton amicably went their separate ways in 2006 after six albums in ten years, it still felt somewhat premature. Their short run of reunion shows from 2016-17 were some of the best of their career, but the band was put back into hibernation as the pair resumed their individual projects, admirably turning down more big money offers and stating that the band would only continue if they could produce some…

  • A Chat with The Mary Wallopers

    March 17, 2021 - By 

    Dundalk brothers Charles and Andrew Hendy have been charming audiences in their guise as hip-hop duo TPM since 2015, with a run of hilarious but infectious singles about life on the dole, their love of curry sauce and their hatred of the national broadcaster. But their more recent reinvention as stout-swilling folk band The Mary Wallopers, with friend Seán McKenna in tow, came as something of a surprise. Armed with guitars, banjos and a seemingly bottomless well of traditional folk ballads, the trio have supported the likes of Lankum and Junior Brother, as well as playing their own riotous and…

  • Neil Brogan – Weird Year

    December 16, 2020 - By 

    It was only this summer that Belfast jangle pop trio Sea Pinks announced they were calling it quits after ten years, but frontman Neil Brogan has wasted no time in readying solo material, with debut Life Itself already appearing a mere month after his old band’s final EP Crocuses. Not that it should have come as any surprise. During their decade long run, Sea Pinks were always one of the most reliably prolific bands in the country, pumping out an impressive seven albums in that time on Brogan’s own CF Records, initially as the frontman’s bedroom recording project while drumming in…

  • Various Artists – A Litany of Failures Vol. III

    December 8, 2020 - By 

    All the way back in 2016, cassette label Little L Records put out a nice little four way split cassette featuring four of the best DIY bands from right across Ireland – Shrug Life and That Snaake from Dublin, Junk Drawer from Belfast and Oh Boland from Galway. Self-deprecatingly titled ‘A Litany of Failures’, what could have been a fairly low key release gained what felt like a higher level of importance thanks to a series of launch gigs in each band’s home city. Two years later, those involved decided to up the ante considerably – ‘A Litany of Failures…

  • Myles Manley – Cometh The Softies

    November 27, 2020 - By 

    Myles Manley’s new album has been a long time coming. After a series of EPs earlier in the decade, along with ironically titled compilation Greatest Hits 2012-13, the last few years have only seen occasional singles emerge from the hive, though his live shows have promised plenty, with a string of new songs and a sterling three piece band lineup completed by Chris Barry and Solamh Kelly – the former expertly juggling guitar, bass and keys, while the latter takes his place as one of the country’s most impressive drummers, full of jerky, jazz-inflected rhythms across a kit that even…