• IndieCork – Still, Life – Cork’s Lockdown Sounds

    January 26, 2021 - By 

    As the world settled uncomfortably into lockdown last spring, the impulse to document and artistically interpret this cataclysmic moment was felt by many. Still, Life – Cork’s Lockdown Sounds is the IndieCork collective’s contribution to that global documentation, a 17-track snapshot of Cork’s experimental music scene compiled by Tony Langlois and Arty Pawsey. Compiling work created during spring 2020, it shows creative life continuing, confined to bedrooms and houses, with all its joy, fear, anxiety and beauty shining through. It is an eclectic mix, but a consistent thread is found in the electronics that pulse through Cork’s leftfield. The collection…

  • David Donohoe / David Lacey – Noctules

    January 18, 2021 - By 

    When discussing the merits of canonical composers, the electroacoustic pioneer and arch pessimist Iannis Xenakis declared, “I don’t think music ought to be pleasant all the time. Profound music is never like that. No really great music is tender”. A contentious statement it may be, but with Noctules David Donohoe and David Lacey have made a worthy argument in its favour. Recorded in the summer of 2020, and unveiled in November via Cork tape label Fort Evil Fruit, Noctules trades in the unease of these grim times. Comprising four interlocking compositions, the album is fused together with the ever-present tics and…

  • Richard Dawson @ Empire Music Hall, Belfast

    February 26, 2020 - By 

    After recuperating from crossing freezing Scandinavia and France, Richard Dawson ended his rest period by performing in Belfast for the first time since his appearance at the Black Box in 2017. This time the setting was the Empire, a venue with music hall origins befitting Dawson, a performer who folds together the antique and the modern. His ability to draw such a sizeable crowd is an encouraging sign for any lovers of folk music, particularly because his style is at the less accessible end of the spectrum. Along with Dublin’s Lankum, another abrasive, brilliant group, Dawson’s recent work has done…