• 19 for ’19: Proper Micro NV

    February 13, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Limerick songwriter and producer Proper Micro NV. Photo by Moira Reilly Late last year, Limerick producer, singer and songwriter Rory Hall aka Proper Micro NV marked his arrival via the masterfully mottled Dormant Boy. Spanning experimental electronica and downtempo electro-pop jams, it proved a cohesive, gem-heavy twelve-tracker from an artist who has rightfully garnered comparisons to the likes of James Blake and Mount Kimbie from the off. Hall has packed a lot into his three years as an active proposition. From signing…

  • 19 for ’19: Lemoncello

    February 12, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Maynooth alternative folk duo Lemoncello. Photo by Joe Laverty A duo who formed while studying music and languages in Maynooth University, Laura Quirke and Claire Kinsella aka Lemoncello have carved out a unique, increasingly compelling niche in Irish alternative folk over the last five years. As well as helping to found the Common Grounds Collective – a group dedicated to building a network of musicians of all disciplines and giving them “a platform to create and showcase…

  • 19 for ’19: Rebekah Fitch

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    Though it’s not always easy to pinpoint why, some artists seem simply fated for big things. Of the myriad alt-pop acts that Ireland has produced over the last few years, the fast-moving upward trajectory of Belfast-based artist Rebekah Fitch is no such mystery. Drawing from influences spanning the likes of Björk and Portishead, to Sia and Stevie Nicks, Fitch has, over the last couple of years, emerged as something of a world-beating proposition. Having been nominated for the Contender Award at last year’s prestigious Northern Ireland Music Prize, her self-produced material to date – not least recent single, the emphatic ‘Need…

  • Every Saoirse Ronan Film Ranked

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    The release last month of Mary Queen of Scots marked the twentieth on-screen role for Saoirse Ronan, who has, especially in the past few years, carved for herself a reputation as one of Ireland’s most talented and versatile actors. Press interviews with the 24 year-old, who first appeared as a 10 year-old on RTE’s The Clinic, often invoke her dual geographical upbringing—born in New York to Irish parents, later raised in Carlow and then Dublin—as a way to talk about the complexities of belonging, a theme which, it will be clear, runs through her work. Here is each of Ronan’s credited films, excluding voice…

  • This Month In Irish Music: January

    January 31, 2019 - By 

    In the first of a new regular series, Colin Gannon rounds up the very best Irish tracks released of the month just gone, featuring SOAK, Arvo Party, ELLL, Problem Patterns, James Joys, Sister Ghost, Gadget & The Cloud , Maria Somerville and more. Problem Patterns — Allegedly In a month where the R&B musician R. Kelly—after painfully long years of swerving accountability for persistent, unsettling claims of heinous abuses—may finally have his day of reckoning in a court, new Belfast-based feminist punk group Problem Patterns’ snarling debut single, ‘Allegedly’, lands a certain potency. The word allegedly—itself a necessary adverb used in copy…

  • 19 for ’19: Tebi Rex

    January 31, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Maynooth alternative hip-hop duo Tebi Rex. Photo by Zoe Holman Maynooth’s hip-hop scene may not be bulging, but on the evidence of Tebi Rex’s offerings, we believe it truly homes one of Ireland’s most exciting prospects for 2019. The duo, comprised of Matt O’Baoill and Max Zanga, has swiftly attracted attention following the success of ‘Black Enough’ in 2016, with Word Up signing them to their newly launched collective. Although the collective nurtures hip-hop talent whose music…

  • 19 for ’19: Larry

    January 30, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Dundalk lo-fi alt-rock three-piece Larry. Photo by Aaron Corr When you record an album with Steve Albini (Shellac/Rapeman /Big Black) you get a certain amount of bang for your buck – you get a solid ranking of all the vegetarian restaurants in Chicago. You get recommendations for who best to master your album, i.e. Bob Weston (Shellac). You get to see your music mixed, not only by a master engineer, but also by a World Series of…

  • 19 for ’19: Extravision

    January 28, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Dublin post-punk threesome Extravision. Photo by Moira Reilly There is a shortage of great post-punk in the world today. While we’re a long ways away from the genre’s 1980s heyday, there are a number of contemporary bands, shrouded in darkness and the macabre, who are keeping that flame burning. One such band is Dublin’s Extravision. This three piece have successfully managed to recapture that Manchester sensibility all while infusing it with dream pop to create a woozy…

  • 19 for ’19: Porphyry

    February 1, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Derry artist Daryl Martin AKA Porphyry. Photo by Mickey Rooney “To explore the relevance of old philosophies and the art of the past in modern music, with layers of meaning created through leitmotif, musical allegory and literary references”. It’s no stretch to call Daryl Martin a genuine polymath. Based in Derry, Porphyry – named after the Roman Neoplatonic philosopher – is a fully-formed artistic vision, executed unlike anything else in Ireland. When we first 2017 debut EP…

  • Belfast Film Festival Euro Comedy Season

    January 24, 2019 - By 

    The Belfast Film Festival’s Euro Comedy season continues this week with two eccentric, original offerings: The Man without a Past and A Town called Panic. Aki Kaurismaki’s (The Other Side of Hope) The Man Without a Past plays like a cross between the Coen brothers’ character driven, noir-influenced cinema and the dryly deadpan, surreal films of Roy Andersson. It’s also incredibly beautiful to look at, with cinematographer Timo Salminen and Kaurismaki achieving a kind of live-action Edward Hopper painting in the film’s golden lighting and the precise posing of the characters.   The plot follows M (Markku Peltola) as the…