• Stream: Kyoto Love Hotel – I Float

    March 2, 2020 - By 

    Ever-increasingly over the last few months, the name Kyoto Love Hotel has cropped up left, right and centre. And very deservedly so. The Tipperary pair, comprising Joe Geaney and Laura Sheary, have succeeded in their M.O. of making “songs for thoughts to dance to.” Better still, via tracks including previous singles ‘Still’ and last year’s stellar ‘Shapes That Bond You‘, their live shows – including a stand-out performance at Output Belfast last month – have proven wonderfully escapist affairs, brimming with entrancing electronic pop. New single ‘I Float’ is a textbook case in point. Taken from a new EP, which is expected to drop…

  • Monday Mixtape: Strange New Places

    February 17, 2020 - By 

    Including almost certainly the greatest pop song ever written, fast-rising Belfast five-piece Strange New Places reveal some of their all-time favourite songs. Ash Loyalty Festers – Onsind A haunting exploration of a society abandoned by a racist upper class and a life framed by the failures of nationalism, this song builds its message with beauty and power. Topped off with an overdub of political analysis by Akala, this track is everything folk-punk should be. Your New Old Apartment- Signals Midwest, Sincere Engineer This track is so affecting, so sad, hopeful and sincere, that for many days straight I listened to…

  • Video Premiere: Son Zept – 1D2D RISE

    February 11, 2020 - By 

    Though it’s nigh on impossible to select a highlight from his new, seven-track album, A, ‘1D2D RISE’ by Belfast-based electronic alchemist and all-round polymath Liam McCartan aka Son Zept is very hard to beat. Somnambulant and wistful in equal measure, it’s a slowly unravelling three-minute burst of warped-out ambient, melding broad washes of synth with heart-tugging, Plantastia-leaning synth arps. Speaking about the track and accompanying video – which you can have an exclusive first look at it below – McCartan said: “It came from those dimly lit 3am sessions that happen again and again with the headphones on really tight. Trying to…

  • Beck Set For Dublin’s Trinity Summer Series

    February 11, 2020 - By 

    Beck is set for Dublin this summer. Marking his first Irish date since 2017, the multi-Grammy award winning artist will play an outdoor show as part of the Summer Series at Dublin’s Trinity College on July 5th. With support yet to be announced, tickets going on sale at 10am on Friday, February 14th, priced €49.90.

  • Track-by-Track: Arborist – A Northern View

    February 10, 2020 - By 

    Released last week, A Northern View cements Mark McCambridge aka Arborist’s rep as one of the country’s most distinctive songwriting voices. Whether you look to opener ‘A Stranger Heart’, the sublime ‘Here Comes The Devil’ or, in fact, any one of the album’s eleven carefully-crafted tales, it’s a filler-free feat of mottled, forward-pushing folk-pop from the Belfast-based artist. Let’s go one further: for our money, it’s the Irish album of the year so far. Ahead of its official launch at the Menagerie in Belfast on February 28th, McCambridge gives us generous track-by-track breakdown of the release below. A Northern View by arborist A…

  • Monday Mixtape: Cherym

    February 10, 2020 - By 

    From Pixies to Lana Del Rey, Hannah Richardson, Nyree Porter and Alannagh Doherty aka Derry pop-rock trailblazers Cherym take us on a guided tour of their all-time favourite songs. Photo by Ciara McMullan Hannah Charly Bliss – Black Hole Charly Bliss are ultimately my favourite band. This was the first song I heard of theirs. I love how Evas sugary sweet vocals are complimented by the fuzziness of the guitars. The music video for this is everything you expect it to be, full of colour and glitter. Literally everything I have ever loved in a band. Tancred – Sell My Head…

  • Andy Shauf – The Neon Skyline

    February 6, 2020 - By 

    Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf invites listeners into a whimsical narrative with his latest album The Neon Skyline. This is Shauf’s sixth album, following his hugely successful 2016 outing, The Party. In similar style, The Neon Skyline incorporates casual conversation with friends into the lyrics, and with many of the songs we find him as a quiet observer in deep contemplation. The stories that are told throughout the tracklist all take place over the course one evening in the Skyline restaurant, after which the album is named, and loosely mirror the events in Shauf’s life in the aftermath a breakup. The title…

  • EP Premiere: Panik Attaks – White Water Rafting

    February 3, 2020 - By 

    There’s timely releases, then there’s White Water Rafting by Dublin five-piece Panik Attaks. Clocking in under 10 minutes, it’s a searing and supremely fucked-off blitz, brimming with full-blown righteous indignation aimed squarely at Varadkar and other such paltry cunts clinging to power. A pay-what-you-like release on Bandcamp, the fury and fist-clenched bombast of tracks like ‘Fear’ and ‘Fire In The Hole’ is nothing short of thrilling to behold. Have a first listen to the release – and have a first look at the video to lead single and outright EP highlight ‘The Boom Is Back ‘ below. White Water Rafting by Panik Attaks

  • High Rise | Low Rise: Gross Net & Blue Whale @ Rosemary Masonic Hall, Belfast

    February 1, 2020 - By 

    On Saturday, February 1st, Belfast Film Festival will host a one-off event exploring utopian and dystopian urban visions of Northern Ireland. Taking place at the former Masonic Hall on Rosemary Street – a three-storey stone building designed by Young & Mackenzie that was officially opened in 1956 – High Rise | Low Rise promises a playful, in-depth look at how modernist architecture and urban design was presented in media through the 1950s to the 1980s in Northern Ireland. Bringing that to life are two of Belfast’s best musical propositions: Blue Whale (above) and Philip Quinn aka Gross Net, who will be providing live soundtracks to…