• For The Love of Music: An Interview with Andrew Weatherall

    February 17, 2020 - By 

    There simply was no one quite like Andrew Weatherall. One of the most respected selectors, prolific producers and legendary gentlemen in the game, the announcement of his death at the age of 56 has ruptured the music world. Capturing the very essence of the man – his abundant charm and unending devotion for music – we’re pleased (and yet, of course, sad) to share this previously unpublished interview with the man himself from 2015. In it, you can trace the makings of someone who, more than most, could always effortlessly transform a potentially great night into something positively unforgettable. Words by Chris Jones How…

  • Q+A: Steffi

    June 23, 2017 - By 

    The Fabric and Fabriclive mix series have been on a roll recently, with stellar entries from Special Request, Call Super and Nina Kraviz recently added to the canon. The latest addition, Fabric 94, is from Dutch DJ, producer and label owner Steffi. A longtime resident at Berlin’s Panorama Bar (the house-focused corner of techno monolith Berghain), she enlisted an intriguing cast of long-time friends and new faces, asking each one to make a track specifically for the mix. What came out of it is a deep and dark journey with plenty of minor key drama, subaquatic basslines and nary a…

  • Q+A: Timmy Stewart

    May 28, 2015 - By 

    This Saturday’s AVA Festival in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter shines a light on the city’s vibrant house and techno scene like never before. Chris Jones speak to a true hero of the Belfast scene, house DJ, producer and Extended Play co-chief Timmy Stewart. Photo by Niall Murphy How did you first get into DJing? Did you take to it straight away? My friends and I were coming to that rebellious teenage angst age (imagine an acid house Inbetweeners) when the whole rave scene was beginning to blossom. My girlfriend at the time had an older brother who was a Belfast DJ…

  • Hardwell and the Defence of Dance

    February 12, 2014 - By 

    To read the hysterical coverage following last week’s Hardwell concert, you’d think that end times were upon us: thousands of feral, drug-abusing teenagers on the rampage with the Dutch DJ as their dark prince. The debate over the next couple of days was depressingly predictable, with fingers pointed at dance music, drugs and “prinking”, or pre-drinking – a catchy new name for a custom as old as the hills. Hardwell’s Edinburgh show was even cancelled as a frankly bizarre precaution. But there’s no need to panic. This was a 16+ event featuring a globally successful dance music star, in a…

  • Manic Street Preachers – Ulster Hall, Belfast

    September 24, 2013 - By 

    Manic Street Preachers are the great survivors of British rock music. In an era where the touring landscape is awash with bands of their vintage (and younger) on money-spinning reunion tours, the Manics keep racking up the albums, the tours and the years – 27 at the last count. And yet here they are, packing out the Ulster Hall again as they tour to promote their eleventh studio album, Rewind The Film – yet another top five chart hit. Given that album’s delicate nature – all acoustic guitars, slow tempos and snatches of brass – it’s not surprising that tonight’s…

  • Zomby – With Love

    June 26, 2013 - By 

    Ever since he began to turn heads during the dubstep boom of 2007 and 2008, Zomby has delighted in confounding expectation at every turn. At a time when Skream and Benga were becoming crossover dubstep stars, he preferred to look back to the long-gone era of rave and jungle on his electrifying debut album Where Were You In ’92? By using such a title, he set himself up as a rave guru despite the fact he was only a kid at the time, while his Twitter account is a non-stop stream of self-aggrandisement, hectoring and sometimes tedious, sometimes amusing beefs.…

  • Deafheaven – Sunbather

    June 13, 2013 - By 

    Much of the discourse surrounding San Francisco’s Deafheaven has concerned how metal or otherwise they are. Though their sound is rooted in the death-obsessed subgenre of black metal, it touches on post-rock, hardcore and shoegaze, while band members George Clarke and Kerry McCoy opt for button-down shirts and side-partings over corpsepaint, leather and steel. As Clarke told The Fader recently, ““If you ever see me with a spiked jacket on, I just look like a douchebag.” They get tagged as hipsters by black metal purists, and mocked for their non-adherence to tradition. And, fortunately, they don’t appear to care a…

  • Solar Bears

    June 3, 2013 - By 

    Earlier this year, Dublin/Wicklow duo Solar Bears released their second album, Supermigration. The record built on the template they set out on their debut album She Was Coloured In – a blend of nostalgic electronica, psychedelia, Krautrock and sci-fi themes – while reshaping and refining it, tapping into their pop tendencies and working with guest vocalists for the first time. Chris Jones spoke to John Kowalski and Rian Trench over email to find out more about the record and where the band might be headed next. How did you feel the first album went in terms of execution and reception,…

  • Mount Kimbie – Cold Spring Fault Less Youth

    June 1, 2013 - By 

    It’s a familiar trajectory – new outfit releases a series of head-turning EPs on a niche electronic label, graduates quickly to a full-length album and then gets snapped up by a much larger concern for a full assault on hearts and minds. That path has now more or less been trodden by three leading lights of the dubstep diaspora: James Blake, Darkstar and now Dom Maker and Kai Campos of Mount Kimbie. While Blake has sought to weld his background in dubstep production to a new role as a writer and singer of delicate soul, Darkstar and Mount Kimbie have…

  • British Sea Power – Black Box, Belfast

    May 10, 2013 - By 

    The last time that British Sea Power visited Belfast, in February 2011, something felt different. The band, by this point a seasoned touring outfit with several joyously received Belfast gigs to their credit, were playing the Spring & Airbrake for the second time, but attendance was down, the atmosphere was flat and the setlist dragged, stuffed full of songs from the lacklustre album they were promoting at the time, Valhalla Dancehall. Just as their previous record, the Mercury-nominated Do You Like Rock Music?, seemed set to propel them skyward, Elbow-style, it looked like the Brighton band were already on a…