• Festival Mixtape: Focal Festival 2018

    August 1, 2018 - By 

    Across August 30, August 31 and September 1, Focal Festival will return for its third and largest outing in the grounds of Crescent Gardens in Belfast. Approximately 3,500-4,000 people are expected to attend this year’s festival, which was created to celebrate the best of Northern Irish music and industry. This year boasts a genre-spanning line-up of homegrown music, including General Fiasco, Emerald Armada and Jealous of the Birds. As well as music, Focal Festival 3.0 will mix it up with the likes of morning yoga, the screening of two films (including Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, featuring a drinking game) and a…

  • Festival Mixtape: Arcadian Field

    July 25, 2018 - By 

    One of the most scenic, intimate music festivals in Ireland returns for its third year over the weekend of August 4 & 5, Arcadian Field. Taking place at Bellurgan Park at the foot of the Cooley Mountains just outside Dundalk – its manor house woven into the festival area – it’s a celebration of all that’s culturally rich in Irish music, art, spoken word, poetry, theatre, comedy, workshops & in nature – with a Burning Man-esque fire ritual on the final night, as well as candlelit drawing room performances and nature walks. There are several new programming additions on offer this year. As well as…

  • Track Record: A Ritual Sea

    July 17, 2018 - By 

    Donna McCabe from Dublin-based French/Irish band A Ritual Sea reveals some of her all-time records, including Benoît Pioulard, Cate Le Bon, Vangelis, Circuit des Yeux and Angel Olsen. Photos by Moira Reilly. Benoît Pioulard – Précis Benoît Pioulard is the moniker used by the American visual and music artist Thomas Meluch. Précis is an album that myself and Flo bonded over while living in two different countries and is one of the records we fell in love to. It got us through two year’s long distance, before Flo moved to Ireland. It’s full of layers of beautifully hazy music, produced with the lightest touch. It is intricate, delicate, dreamy…

  • Nazi Town, USA: Welcome to Leith’s Desperate, Unending Relevance

    July 13, 2018 - By 

    What would you do if Hitler moved in next door? Two years ago the Foyle Film Festival screened Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker’s documentary Welcome to Leith, a harrowing, stranger-than-fiction tale of Neo-Nazis trying to take over a tiny North Dakota town. I used to think about it about once a month. Now I think about it every day. Leith, Grant County is three square miles in size. You can fit the whole population in one train carriage. Its mayor is also the school bus driver. In 2012 it gets a new resident: a quiet, scraggy-haired older man…

  • Emotional Content: Key Tracks from Celtronic Festival (2001-2018)

    June 28, 2018 - By 

    Currently underway in Derry, Celtronic has been at the forefront of the Irish electronic music scene since 2001. With the best still to come at this year’s outing the next four nights via Avalon, Phil Kieran & the Ulster Orchestra, Gerd Janson and more, organisers from the festival have selected one key track from each year of the festival to date, featuring the likes of DJ Koze, Alloy Mental, KiNK, Lykke Li and Blawan. 2001 Event: Radioactive Man at The Nerve Centre Key Track: Radioactive Man – Uranium 2002 Event: Tom Middleton at Sandinos Key Track: Cosmos – Take Me With You 2003 Event: Funk D’Void…

  • Festival Mixtape: KnockanStockan 2018

    June 24, 2018 - By 

    KnockanStockan returns to the shores of Blessington Lake in Co. Wicklow across July 27-29 and brings with it the finest homegrown summer festival bill of the year. With exactly four weeks to go (nab your tickets stat) here’s some of our must-see acts at this year’s outing. Go here for the full line-up, info and to buy tickets

  • Video Premiere: Solkatt – Nocturne

    June 21, 2018 - By 

    In 2017, Peter Lawlor (AKA Replete) and Leo Pearson (whose worked with David Holmes, Shit Robot, more) were commissioned to create 90 minutes of original music for a 46-speaker geodesic dome at Electric Picnic. The installation, a part of Red Bull’s Soundome Stage, found the pair embracing sounds on a grand, cinematic scale that nonetheless maintained a danceable groove. Now, having release a couple of stellar singles over the past couple of months, the duo are readying the release of their debut album. With their third single ‘Nocturne’, the pair revive themes that gleamed through on first single ‘Je Suis’:…

  • The Pirates Don’t Eat The Tourists: Jurassic Park, 25 Years On

    June 14, 2018 - By 

    John Hammond is Steven Spielberg. Yes, it’s an obvious analogy: Richard Attenborough’s bio-engineering CEO and the maestro who directed him are both bearded childlike innocents, starry-eyed dreamers, alchemists who conjure stunning spectacles for an adoring public and make serious bank in the process. And both have seen their legacy squandered. In the twenty-five years since Jurassic Park’s release, across four sequels, the parks and their improbable animal attractions have been misused and mistreated, spiralling, in an inevitable logic Dr. Ian Malcolm would appreciate, towards chaos. In this month’s underwhelming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom a burst of volcanic violence snuffs out…

  • David Kitt shares spellbinding new video for ‘Cling Film’: Watch

    May 30, 2018 - By 

    David Kitt has shared a spellbinding new video for ‘Cling Film’, lifted off his triumphant Yous LP from March this year, released via All City. The video finds Kitt teaming up with visual artists D.A.D.D.Y – Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman – in a hypnotic, floral trip. You may remember the pair for their video for Jape’s ‘Floating’ way back in 2004. “As long time fans of David’s we were excited for the release of his new record Yous and talked to him about making something for the track ‘Cling Film’,” explain Ahern and Loughman. “Although when it finally came about we were in intense pre-production…

  • Carol Keogh: Walking In Her Shoes to the Polling Station

    May 23, 2018 - By 

    This week, In Her Shoes founder, Erin Darcy, outed herself on the Facebook page, having been its anonymous primary moderator since January of this year. Erin is a young mother of three who gave birth to and is raising her children in Ireland but as an immigrant has no voting rights herself in the forthcoming referendum. This extraordinary page, recounting the individual stories of women who have travelled for terminations, has been her contribution to the Repeal campaign. Knowing this drives home the fact that so many women without electoral influence (and their families) are nonetheless affected by the Eighth…