• Bullitt Presents: Ryan Vail [Live]

    October 13, 2016 - By 

    Belfast’s Bullitt hotel on Church Lane runs a free admission performance as part of a new series of events, kicking off with a free live show from Derry electronic musician Ryan Vail in their bar on Saturday, October 15. Combining electronic, classical & folk, amongst other genres, Vail (above) has released three EPs and a collaborative album, Sea Legs, with Ciaran Lavery, and just released his debut album, For Every Silence, nominated for an NI Music Prize. Check out the video for ‘Wounds’ from earlier this year below. Admission is free and doors open at 8pm. DJ duties come from Girls Names‘ Cathal…

  • Gross Net – Quantitative Easing

    October 13, 2016 - By 

    Not content to solely be in arguably Ireland’s finest post-punk act, Philip Quinn of Girls Names releases his debut album, Quantitative Easing under the Gross Net moniker on November 25. Starting out alongside Autumns’ Christian Donaghey as a guitar, bass & drum machine combo, they released their eponymous debut cassette in 2014. Donaghey departed, and Quinn followed up earlier this year with the even better, dark, Berlin techno-tinged Outstanding Debt; it’s brimming, poetically enough, with the kind of satirical econofear channelled by the likes of Cabaret Voltaire & Throbbing Gristle in the Thatcher era. If you’d like to get further under Gross Net’s nihilist skin, check out our recent…

  • Magic Pockets – Volcano of the Bleeding Skies

    October 12, 2016 - By 

    With a beautiful, Roger Dean-esque album cover befitting a ’70s proggy Krautrock cult classic, Ruadhan O’Meara AKA Magic Pockets has unveiled his debut album titled Volcano of the Bleeding Skies. Also known for providing the synthesised sonic tapestries in Dublin noise-merchants No Spill Blood, O’Meara’s album comes out via Cork label Penske Recordings – home also to The Altered Hours and Woven Skull – on Friday, November 25. Expect a world of psychedelic & minimal synthscapes from the album, which was recorded using vintage synthesisers, drum machines, electronics and manipulated samples, recorded to 1 inch tape. In the same way the likes of Boards of Canada have…

  • Inbound: BDBR

    September 27, 2016 - By 

    Following a several-odd year nadir for Northern Irish music, it looks once more like there’s an emergent wave of genuinely interesting Northern acts influenced by a whole new set of cult favourites. BDBR is a bedroom project and the pseudonym under which singer-songwriter Ryan Mills operates, armed only with his telecaster, pedalboard and back-of-the-throat vocal tones. So far, he’s got a five track EP of demos so far, none of which reach the 3 minute mark, recorded in his bedroom and mixed by Robocobra Quartet’s Chris Ryan. His sound, he tells us “came around through trial and error and playing…

  • Premiere: Survival Bag – The Vivid Past

    September 21, 2016 - By 

    Johnny Muir AKA Belfast’s Survival Bag, has self-released several tracks recently, most recently the evocative ‘The Vivid Past’, an sonic experience akin to the feeling of emerging from Madchester’s ecstatic haze into the grim reality of Cool Britannia. Like much of Survival Bag’s music, each instrument was played and recorded by Muir, with his own spoken and sung vocals, programmed sounds and discovered samples. Conceptually, the song is about memory loss and confusion, as Muir explains: “When I was growing up, my grandma suffered from severe dementia – always described as ‘hardening of the arteries’ whatever that is – and she came to live with us. But sometimes she…

  • R51 – No Chill EP Premiere & Interview

    September 9, 2016 - By 

    R51 are amongst the hardest working bands on the island right now; they’re taking this seriously. Falling broadly into a nu-gaze sound without ever losing sight of their carefully crafted & thoughtful pop sensibility, they’re a five piece with all the right components. In the studio, they’re all about pop perfection and live, it’s a padded mallet of sound. They’re led by the power coupling of frontwoman Mel Shannon’s soaring vocals – also band photographer & craftsperson – and lyricist & guitar wizard Jonny Woods – who records & produces everything in their studio – with the punk edge coming from…

  • Godspeed You! Black Emperor @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    August 24, 2016 - By 

    It’s about sixteen months since instrumental Montreal collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor last played Ireland, and with the venue, stage backdrop, equipment, lighting, and setlists almost identical to the last, there’s a familiar sense of n different sort of ritual on this particular Sunday at Vicar Street. The ongoing sub-50Hz rumble of the venue gives way to the entry of the seemingly accidental wandering onstage of a percussionist, double bassist and violinist, kept just visible by warm amber light. As they ease into some droning, exploratory notes, more musicians appear onstage, before the mass organically transforms into the band’s now…

  • Classic British Horror Screenings @ The Ulster Folk Museum

    August 19, 2016 - By 

    Northern Ireland Screen Digital Film Archive, National Museums Northern Ireland, the British Film Institute and FilmHubNI, classic British horror movies come to rural Northern Ireland for a pair of unique events at Cultra, Holywood’s Ulster Folk & Transport Museum. In the atmospheric setting of the Folk Museum, the audience will have an opportunity to wander through the parkland on which the museum is situated and discover the charming period cottages, farms, schools and shops to set the scene. Before the feature, there will be a screening of footage from Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive. Focusing on the theme of folk…

  • Inbound: Slouch

    August 2, 2016 - By 

    Perhaps it’s just us, but we’re noticing a serious – and welcome – islandwide resurgence on the scuzzy alternative rock front as of late, with Dublin way ahead of the pack. This month, it’s young trio Slouch, who come from Knocklyon, on the outskirts of the city, just before the mountains – and they sound like it. They released their debut EP, Feminine Elbows, last year, which boasts the sound of a desert contained within a garage in the ‘burbs. They’re carried with the just-loose-enough, gut-led rhythmic swagger of Physical Graffiti-era Zeppelin with the influences of a subsequent three decades…

  • Cian Nugent, Nap Eyes & Cryboys @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    May 16, 2016 - By 

    It’s a diverse crowd of music heads both old and young here at Whelan’s for a night of straight-up good music, untethered to current trends for what’s a homecoming show for Cian Nugent who has been gallivanting across America with main support Nap Eyes recently; this night kick starts the European leg. Opening the show are one of Nugent’s numerous side-projects, alt. country-meets-power-pop of Cryboys. Their 3-4 minute nuggets evoke early Wilco in what appears to be their first outing in some time with the group. It’s a strong set, scattered with the kinds of nostalgic hooks one would expect…