• Iron & Wine – Beast Epic

    August 24, 2017 - By 

    Hot on the heels of last year’s collaborative record with Jesca Hoop – Love Letter for Fire – Sam Beam returns to the Iron & Wine moniker with Beast Epic – eleven comparatively back-to-basics folk songs. Iron & Wine’s three-album run of The Shepherd’s Dog, Kiss Each Other Clean, and Ghost on Ghost gradually channelled Beam’s musical ambition into more florid arrangements while pulling his songcraft into the middle of the road. The same delicate turns of phrase were still present, but crowded out by florid flutes and saxophones. Recorded in Wilco’s Loft studio, Beast Epic marks a return to…

  • Interview: Looking Forward with Tim Wheeler of Ash

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    In between the victory lap of a 1997 anniversary tour and a new studio record set for release next year, Ash are spending the summer playing clubs and festivals across the UK. Jonny Currie spoke to frontman Tim Wheeler ahead of the band’s highly-anticipated headlining slot at Stendhal Festival in Limavady next month. If money was no object, what would be your dream festival line-up alongside Ash? Oh, that’s a good one. I’d say probably… Mudhoney, Weezer and Brian Wilson. You and the band are playing Limavady in August, but outside of touring with Ash are you back in Northern…

  • Broken Social Scene –  Hug of Thunder

    July 5, 2017 - By 

    From the ambient beginnings of Feel Good Lost to the communal song-craft of You Forgot In People, through the kitchen-sink sheen of the self-titled Broken Social Scene to the stripped-down (by their standards) Forgiveness Rock Record – the Canadian collective have always appeared entirely comfortable in their own skin. Confident enough to pursue other musical projects but still check-in with each other for a new record and tour at regular enough intervals, Hug of Thunder arrives seven years after Forgiveness Rock Record – the band’s longest hiatus to date. It has no right to be this good. The listener is…

  • Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly & James McAlister – Planetarium

    June 7, 2017 - By 

    “I am the god of war. I reside in every creature. Dispose of the future or put away your sword.” Michigan’s musical polymath Sufjan Stevens takes aim at the stars to reflect on the best and worst of our human nature on this collaborative record with Bryce Dessner of The National, composer Nico Muhly, and drummer James McAlister. The arrangements may be stellar, but earth is never too far away. “Love me completely in song” opines Stevens on ‘Venus’, with its references to Methodist summer camp and formative sexual experience. Each of the planets is a canvas for Stevens to ruminate on…

  • BNQT – Volume 1.

    May 3, 2017 - By 

    “I think we could all use a restart but what does that mean?” asks Midlake’s Eric Pulido in BNQT’s (pronounced “banquet”) glam-rock tinged opening track. He goes on to explore this question across Volume 1’s ten collaborative offerings with contributions from the front-men of Franz Ferdinand, Band of Horses, Travis and Grandaddy. As the artists stretched across the globe, Pulido guided the way with these recordings split both with travel to Denton, Texas and remotely over the net during the course of a year. Over that year and with some change, the songs grew from demos to fully realised recordings.…

  • Keeping a Certain Distance: An Interview With Neil Hannon

    April 13, 2017 - By 

    With the release of their eleventh record Foreverland last year, Neil Hannon’s The Divine Comedy continue to deliver witty, literate pop that still dents the album charts twenty years after their commercial peak. Jonny Currie catches up with Neil Hannon ahead of his show at Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter next month to discuss touring routines, growing old with your audience, and the importance of pop stars keeping their distance from fans. The Divine Comedy play Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival on May 3. Go here to buy tickets. You’re playing at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival next month. When was the last…

  • Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop w/ Erika Wennerstrom @ Marine Court Hotel, Bangor

    August 31, 2016 - By 

    Erika Wennerstrom breaks down in tears several songs into her support slot. Open House Festival Director Kieran Gilmore proclaims that “Bangor is the new Cathedral Quarter.” Jesca Hoop suggests that she and Sam Beam could be married by the end of the evening. Some context: on hiatus from fronting garage-rockers Heartless Bastards, Wennerstrom (below) is road-testing some emotionally direct solo material in Bangor tonight and it shows in her early nervous delivery. This is an intense and at times uncomfortable opening set, but she makes it through thanks to a hugely supportive audience. This is the Open House Festival’s fourth…

  • Ciaran Lavery – Let Bad In

    May 19, 2016 - By 

    With his rumpled suit, rural back-story, and battered guitar, not to mention the genre-hopping back catalogue and considerable streaming success it appears to be so far, so peak-beard for Ciaran Lavery. On his second full-length album Let Bad In, the Aghagallon singer-songwriter seamlessly welds together hip-hop beats, chamber balladry and soulful pop across ten addictively melodic tracks that demand repeated plays. This genre-hopping could sound calculating and impersonal but the album is more than held together by that glorious voice. Lavery’s enunciated delivery on album highlight ‘Return to Form’ transforms into a soulful rasp by the time the chorus comes round. This…

  • Steve Mason @ Black Box, Belfast

    May 4, 2016 - By 

    It’s a Saturday night in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter and Steve Mason is in good form. Recent interviews in support of his new album reveal a musician re-invigorated by the simple creativity of human interaction. Inside a buzzing, sold-out Black Box he is throwing catalogue shapes for photographers and sardonically re-naming songs. ‘A lot of Love’ is introduced as a love song from Chris Martin to Gwyneth (it’s too good for that), and the soulful tambourine-driven ‘Seen It All Before’ is re-christened “Slide On Fat Jesus.” He looks sweltered on stage in a full anorak but tries to…

  • Richmond Fontaine @ Voodoo, Belfast

    May 4, 2016 - By 

    There’s no room for sentiment during Richmond Fontaine’s last ever Belfast show. The band from Portland, Oregon have been regular visitors to the city since the release of the critically-acclaimed Post To Wire in 2004, and tonight their final album You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing To Go Back To gets some serious attention from the setlist. You Can’t Go Back is a summary of all that’s great about this much-loved Americana band so it’s fitting that most of the record is showcased this evening. ‘I Got Off The Bus’ – a song about the worst homecoming ever, alternates…