• Monday Mixtape: Elma Orkestra & Ryan Vail

    August 12, 2019 - By 

    In the latest installment of Monday Mixtape, Eoin O’Callaghan aka Elma Orkestra and Ryan Vail – a duo who has recently released one of the Irish albums of the year in Borders – select some of the tracks made an imprint on writing and recording of the project. Catch Borders, live, at the following upcoming shows: Stendhal Festival – 16th August Electric Picnic – 30th August Max Richter – On The Nature of Daylight (Entropy) This has been one of our favourite tunes to date. We’ve been listening to it since its release many years ago. Most recognise it from the…

  • Chromatic Launches With a Beautiful One-Shot Performance From Saint Sister

    August 9, 2019 - By 

    Over the coming weeks and months we’ll be teaming up with Chromatic, a Dublin-based duo who film performances using unique spaces as visual and acoustic backdrops. The vision of long-time friends Kieran “Sherry” Sheridan and Ror Conaty – who have both been active in the Dublin music scene for years – Chromatic is a series born from a joint desire to “open up music/musician circles to audiences who might not be aware of the artists on their doorstep.” Sheridan and Conaty correlated that with their love of outdoor natural space, as well as unique buildings and history that’s found across the…

  • Shooting Star: Remembering Elliott Smith Playlist (1969-2003)

    August 6, 2019 - By 

    On October 21st 2003, one of the most naturally-gifted, boundlessly resonant singer-songwriters of his era, Steven Paul “Elliott” Smith bookended his story in Echo Park, California. He was thirty-four years old. Having spent several years lauded as a troubled genius, his reported suicide kickstarted the creaky old myth machine into gear once more. But whilst destined to remain “that Good Will Hunting guy” for countless people not too au courant with, say, Quasi’s discography, the outpouring of confusion and raw grief on that day in October 2003 was unprecedented, bringing into sharp focus the extent to which Smith was regarded in the lo-fi…

  • Festival Mixtape: Stendhal Festival 2019

    August 2, 2019 - By 

    Set to return to Limavady across 15-17th August, Northern Ireland’s only unmissable summer festival – and three-times winner of Ireland’s “best small festival” – Stendhal is shaping up to be just as memorable as its last few outings. Ahead of our festival preview next week, we’ve whittled the year’s bill down to a twenty-track mixtape, featuring SOAK, Basement Jaxx, Kitt Philippa, Sister Ghost, New Pagans, Kíla, Talos, Elma Orkestra & Ryan Vail, Malojian, Lisa O’Neill, Bouts, Arvo Party and more. Go here to buy tickets to this year’s festival.

  • Monday Mixtape: Electric Octopus

    July 12, 2019 - By 

    Next month, Belfast psych-jam maestros Electric Octopus stop off in Dublin, Belfast and Derry for three unmissable shows with Freiburg four-piece Sound of Smoke. Ahead of that, guitarist Tyrell Black, bassist Dale Hughes and drummer Guy Hetherington select and wax lyrical about some of their all-time favourite tracks, including Alice Coltrane, Thom Yorke, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and more. Derek Trucks Band – Sahib Teri Bandi Besides the fact that Derek Trucks and the song are just straight up great. The energy that comes from it is incredible! It builds and weaves in so many ways and the slide guitar…

  • This Month In Irish Music: June

    July 5, 2019 - By 

    Was June the strongest month in Irish music this year so far? By way of Girl Band, Yankari, Uly, Roisin Murphy and more, Colin Gannon makes a strong case in his monthly round-up. Girl Band — Shoulderblades Girl Band (pictured) are back. Dara Kiely’s ungodly, contorted howl is back, as exorcistic and scabbed as ever. In the same month that Two Door Cinema Club made their excruciatingly ghastly comeback, Ireland’s revered purveyors of shadowy, techno-informed noise rock arose from their slumber. Kiely’s health problems led at least in part to their lack of visibility over the past few years, creating a…

  • Mixtape Preview: The Promise – The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town

    June 27, 2019 - By 

    In the latest installment of Mixtape, a season of music films curated by Feature, the Oh Yeah Music Centre will play host to a screening of Thom Zimny’s 2010 Bruce Springsteen doc The Promise – The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town on July 3rd. As modern retrospective music films go, none have pulled off conveying the bliss and burden of mounting superstardom – the legal issues, the towering pressure, the creative gestation – with the same power and panache as Zimny’s film. With his 1975 third album, the critically and commercially devoured Born To Run having made him a star beyond his wildest…

  • Monday Mixtape: HEX HUE

    June 24, 2019 - By 

    In the latest installment of Monday Mixtape, Belfast musician Katie Richardson aka HEX HUE selects a mixture of old and new favourite tracks, from Lykke Li to Christine and the Queens, that have “fed into the HEX HUE story in different ways”. So Sad So Sexy – Lykke Li Lykke Li was the first Scandinavian artist I really remember notably hearing loving. I love how much her sound has changed over the years and she has been a big influence on me – partly just by introducing me to a Geographical world of music that I have consistently fallen more and more…

  • This Month In Irish Music: May

    June 18, 2019 - By 

    In the latest of a new regular series, Colin Gannon rounds up the very best Irish tracks released of the month just gone, featuring Alarmist, Post-Punk Podge and the Technohippies, Gemma Dunleavy, April, Department of Forever and more. Citrus Fresh — DiCaprio The abrasive grain of the Limerick accent render it a useful weapon for aggressive, menacing rapping, as Hazey Haze’s attritional style has expertly shown. But Haze’s friend, collaborator and spiritual brother in Limerick’s DIY rap scene, Citrus Fresh, adopts a different mode on the tender, celestial ‘DiCaprio’: a break-up song, captured in low-fidelity hip-hop. A twinkling sample recalling the…

  • Mixtape Preview: 30th Century Man @ Oh Yeah Music Centre, Belfast

    June 11, 2019 - By 

    Some things just bear repeating: between Aretha, Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Prince, popular music has lost some towering and boundlessly influential figures in recent years. In March, perhaps the most inimitable of them all passed on, leaving behind a legacy that, above all else, remained impervious to second-guessing. Over six decades, Scott Walker emerged as an auteur effortlessly wielded progression, enigma, and subtlety like no other. From fronting L.A. pop trio The Walker Brothers in the 1960s right up until his sublime score for Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux last year, he steadfastly broke new ground, contorted boundaries and followed one of most remarkable trajectories in popular music.…