• Stream: El Grey – My Names A, Your Names Zed

    April 20, 2016 - By 

    Well this is pretty mind blowing – Bray-based singer-songwriter project El Grey has released an 18-minute stream-of-consciousness odyssey. Despite being known to be one for creating atmospheric pop soundscapes, cinematic in scope, her ambition had never reached heights of magnitude until ‘My Names A, Your Names Zed’ – available to purchase on Bandcamp. The recording was completed with no pre-production or strict composition in place beforehand, and was recorded live in one take. Much like El Grey’s process in writing – alternatively: channelling – the song, it’s one to sit back and let happen to you, as it accomplishes that feat of tapping into something deeper entirely. It’s…

  • TV Eye: Horace and Pete

    April 5, 2016 - By 

    The tenth and final episode of Louis CK’s experimental online-self-distributed series, Horace and Pete, arrived in subscribers’ inboxes on Saturday to no fanfare or announcement of the series’ conclusion – simply an email from CK saying he had nothing clever to say about it. It was written, filmed and directed by Louie in the week prior to each release, evidenced by the highly topical barroom discussion, with even Hulk Hogan’s Gawker sex tape discussed. In its finest moments, Horace & Pete feels like zeitgeist-capturing cult television event, and for anyone into it, the personal email from Louis was the highlight…

  • Monday Mixtape: Steven Agnew

    February 29, 2016 - By 

    Following on from his two-part TTA interview, Green Party of Northern Ireland leader Steven Agnew selects and talks about some of his all-time favourite songs, featuring Yo La Tengo, Hot Snakes, Neutral Milk Hotel and Slint. Go here and here for Stevie Lennox’s interview with Agnew. “I’m one of those people who laments technology. I miss making mixtapes. I wouldn’t even have the equipment to make or play it on anymore, but I was a big fan. High Fidelity was always one of my favourite books – the rules of making mixtapes. I’ve never sat down to think about it,…

  • Reverberation Psych Fest Announces Lineup

    February 10, 2016 - By 

    The full line-up for the second annual (and comprehensively unmissable) Reverberation Weekend at Dublin’s Grand Social has been announced. The psych fest takes place over April 8 and 9 in association with Heineken Ireland Music, and features some of the best acts in the genre, from home and abroad. The lineup is as follows: The Cosmic Dead The Cult Of Dom Keller The Black Tambourines Twinkranes Woven Skull Beach Wild Rocket Fabric I Heart The Monster Hero Sun Mahshene Tickets go on sale from Monday, February 15, available at Tickets.ie.

  • The Co-Present Returns

    February 4, 2016 - By 

    The Co-Present on Radiomade.ie have been providing one of Irish music’s most valuable independent services, and resume their 3pm Saturday afternoon slot on February 6 with the inimitable BP Fallon and 21st century Irish national treasure, drag queen and gay rights activist Panti Bliss. It’ll no doubt be a fantastic, honest chat with the show’s perennial host, Dwayne Woods (below). As ever, the show will feature some live music, this time from cross-border atmospheric-folk-pop duo Saint Sister. The young act, featuring Gemma Doherty and Morgan MacIntyre, have in no time become one of the hot prospects on the island, playing with Arcade Fire’s Will Butler following a performance…

  • Interview: Steven Agnew – Punk Principles & Policies (Part 2)

    February 4, 2016 - By 

    Part 1 of our interview last week with the Green Party NI leader Steven Agnew focused on his early involvement in the local music scene and the anarchist movement around it, leading toward his eventual election and current role at Stormont. Here, we’re given a seldom-seen look into the – apologies – Kafkaesque system within which the only Stormont-elected member of a minority party has to work – overcoming contradictory policy, surrounded by homogeneous career politicians in the red-tape-encumbered uncooperative & uncommunicative system of departments that make up the Executive. It’s the devolution of power in more ways than one,…

  • Interview: Steven Agnew – Punk Principles & Policies (Part 1)

    January 26, 2016 - By 

    This two part interview gets into the bones of how and why someone who grew up in a predominantly working class Protestant background, who associated and lived primarily around those of an anarchist persuasion with a grassroots ethos, came around to getting involved with the slimiest business around: Big NI politics. We’ll follow through, in The Thick of It fashion, to the absurd complexity inherent within any political structure, and how it’s navigated by someone who actively tries to get things done outside of tribal politics – the extent of which is felt far beyond simply Green vs. Orange. Where…

  • 16 For 16: Naoise Roo

    January 18, 2016 - By 

    In the latest installment of 16 For 16 – in which we profile sixteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going to do great things this year – Stevie Lennox lauds Dublin chanteuse Naoise Roo. Photo by Pedro Giaquinto Dublin’s Naoise Roo is a rare talent who arrived seemingly fully-formed, arriving last year with her debut release in the form of the full band LP, Lilith, resulting in slots at Electric Picnic, Vantastival and Valentia Island. She’s fortunate enough to possess one of the most evocative and texturally-rich voices on the island, and skilled enough to match it with a knack…

  • Watch: Gascan Ruckus – Bitter Victories

    January 12, 2016 - By 

    The Middletown boys in Gascan Ruckus are at it again, with the video for the second, semi-titular single from their forthcoming long-awaited debut album, Narrow Defeats and Bitter Victories. Never concerned with taking themselves more seriously than is necessary, it comes complete with an Uncle Hugo-friendly countrified intro. It’s noticably more hook-driven than past efforts, but still channelling some of the contemporary anthemic post-hardcore in the vein of Dinosaur Pile-Up or Basement that they’ve been plying in recent years. The video was recorded by Belfast Yank BeeMickSee and Axis Of’s Niall Lawlor, with their latest album recorded by Ben McAuley at Start Together Studios. You can…

  • 16 For 16: Apartments

    January 12, 2016 - By 

    In the latest installment of 16 For ’16 – a feature in which we preview sixteen of our favourite Irish acts that we’re certain will do great things in 2016 – Stevie Lennox introduces Belfast duo Apartments. Photo by Liam Kielt Fast-becoming the strongest single noun pluralisation-monikered emotional hardcore band on the island, Apartments released their 6-track official debut EP, Rush, in October, following a promising 2014 demo. Their sound is rooted in the kind of math-rock-tinged American Midwestern sound that’s been gestating in Ireland for the last couple of years, channelling, loosely, American Football, Cap’n Jazz and a ferocious sense of…