• Music From Beyond: An Interview With Fort Evil Fruit

    September 7, 2022 - By 

    Paul Condon of Limerick-based cassette-only label Fort Evil Fruit discusses spreading outsider music with a DIY ethos Words by Justin McDaid Photo by Nance Hall One Step Beyond and Hits Out of Hell by Madness and Meatloaf, respectively, held residency in my dad’s car for as long as I can remember. I still have those tapes. I still love Madness and Meatloaf. I might not own my own car but thanks to people like Paul Condon and Fort Evil Fruit, my tape collection has multiplied and diversified exponentially, particularly over the various lockdowns we’ve all endured in recent times. Before…

  • Horsey – Debonair

    August 18, 2021 - By 

    It was already evident from their slow drip of sporadic singles over the last five years that Horsey were a band lacking neither in ambition or invention, even if the inclination to get a record out seems not to have been a pressing concern. Their debut album, Debonair, is a little over 30 minutes long but within that span is a carnival cast of gonzo characters and leftfield sojourns.  The standard verse-chorus-bridge formula is accounted for, sure enough, but  what transpires between the first few seconds of a song and where it eventually winds up is anybody’s guess. If Jim Steinman…

  • Angel Olsen – Whole New Mess 

    August 28, 2020 - By 

    The songs on Angel Olsen’s new album should not, we are told, be considered to be merely a collection of demos. Nine of the eleven tracks on Whole New Mess already appeared on last year’s All Mirrors record, albeit in a more fleshed out form, and then some. For that album Olsen teamed up with orchestral composer Jherek Bischoff, arranger Ben Babbit, and an expanded band to deliver a feast of synths, strings and horns, all topped off with some of Asheville, North Carolina-based artist’s most commanding vocal performances to date. While unavoidably similar, Whole New Mess, is a very…

  • 10 for ’20: Acid Granny

    February 4, 2020 - By 

    In the first installment of 10 for ’20 – our new series previewing ten Irish acts we’re convinced are set for great things in 2020 and beyond – Justin McDaid introduces one of the country’s most singular live acts, Dublin quartet Acid Granny. Photo by Ivan Rakhmanin There’s a celebrated quote on a famous theory attributed to a clever man. Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with Acid Granny for an hour and it seems like time is being pulped into some sort of amniotic goo where we all converge…

  • Palehound – Black Friday 

    July 9, 2019 - By 

    With a warm, longing ode to a friend, Palehound’s third record opens with the kind of astutely observed, compassionately wrought sketch that we have come to expect from Ellen Kempner since her 2015 Dry Food, and indeed its 2017 follow-up, A Place I’ll Always Go. Where the former dealt largely with Kempner embracing her own sexuality, the follow-up was more mournful in tone, although encased in Palehound’s exuberant and often inventive indie rock they never felt maudlin or morose. ‘Company’, just Kempner and an organ, is the introduction to a Palehound record that, while tackling the same uncertainties of relationships as those previous,…

  • Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky – Droneflower

    May 10, 2019 - By 

    Ethereal gothic folk and experimental post-hardcore are convenient, if broad, brushstrokes to describe the individual styles of Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky, but those labels would be to do both a disservice. Theirs at first seems a disparate pairing that might never otherwise have come about save for the fact that they both drank in the same Brooklyn bar. Nadler though has previously dabbled with Scott “Malefic” Conner of black metal outfit Xasthur, among others, not to mention a single released with John Cale earlier this year. Brodsky, best known from the heavier realms of Cave In and Mutoid Man,…

  • 19 for ’19: Larry

    January 30, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Dundalk lo-fi alt-rock three-piece Larry. Photo by Aaron Corr When you record an album with Steve Albini (Shellac/Rapeman /Big Black) you get a certain amount of bang for your buck – you get a solid ranking of all the vegetarian restaurants in Chicago. You get recommendations for who best to master your album, i.e. Bob Weston (Shellac). You get to see your music mixed, not only by a master engineer, but also by a World Series of…

  • Sun Kil Moon – This Is My Dinner

    November 13, 2018 - By 

    Mark Kozelek plays music, eats, and watches boxing matches. This is all that he does. This we learn towards the end of This Is My Dinner. This, we already knew. Let Sun Kil Moon’s ninth album, then, illuminate a few more of the obscure corners of Kozelek’s mind. His favourite Lou Reed album? Berlin. Favourite Jonathan Richman song? ‘Hospital’. Does he hate Steely Dan and The Eagles? Yes. Does he love AC/DC’s ‘A Touch Too Much’? Also yes. Will he ever eat reindeer? Definitely not. These are just a few mundane insights from the myriad details that are densely strewn…

  • Roger Waters @ 3Arena, Dublin

    June 28, 2018 - By 

    A lone figure sits on a sand dune on the domineering backdrop screen, facing the waves as the ambient clamour of seascape sounds permeate the chatter and hum of 3arena; oh so gradually intensifying. “Come ye in from the bar”, it almost whispers, and crashes, until the air vibrates that bit more and a thrum of bass is joined by choir-like vocals. “Get in, ye bastards”, they seem to beckon in their serene siren voices. And the people come, pints in hand. He knows how to build an air of subtle expectation, does Roger Waters. Always did. There can’t be…

  • Eleanor Friedberger – Rebound

    May 19, 2018 - By 

    In the aftermath of the US elections, Eleanor Friedberger spent some time in Athens with the intention of writing an album. Somewhat side-tracked by the city’s allure, she ended up forming a Greek band,  leaving the demos for what would become her fourth solo record until her return home. The remnants of her transitory escape from the reality of a Trump regime are found in the title of the album, Rebound, named after a Goth club in the Greek capital whose music and character informs these ten tracks. Friedberger’s previous band project with her brother Matthew yielded some wildly imaginative…