• US Tour Diary: And So I Watch You From Afar

    September 22, 2015 - By 

    Hello from Philadelphia! As I write we’re at tonight’s venue the Union Transfer, waiting for our soundcheck slot while the mighty The Fall of Troy are doing theirs. We’re on tour with them and a great NY based band called Slothrust at the minute, both serving up masterclasses in their craft each night, keeping us blow-ins from Ireland very much on our toes each night. After this we part ways to meet up and do the rest of the tour with our Sargent House label mates Mylets and Blis. We’re two weeks into the five week tour, having journeyed from…

  • DIY Dublin: Mish.Mash

    September 21, 2015 - By 

    In the latest instalment of DIY Dublin, Joe Donoghue chats with the guys behind Dublin cafe and gallery Mish.Mash. Photos by Abi Denniston. So tell us a bit about how Mish.Mash got started? Who’s idea was it? Had either of you worked in service or hospitality before? The idea for Mish.Mash was always somewhere in the air. We both knew what atmosphere we would like to have in our café and what kind of café culture we would like to show and sell. Our experience was more than enough to start finally something without a “boss”. How is it running…

  • Monday Mixtape: Lee Ranaldo

    September 21, 2015 - By 

    The folks at The Thin Air have asked me to provide an eight song mixtape. I’ve been in the studio at the moment working on ‘that difficult third album’, as Clinton Heylin calls it, and so most of what I’m listening to at the moment is the stuff we are making. But within that activity is the acknowledgment of a host of previously-made music – references, riffs, textures, emotional tones – so the following selections reflect some of these various influences we have been obsessing over at the moment. In no particular order. Something From Pet Sounds or Smile We…

  • Rave New World (18/9)

    September 18, 2015 - By 

    Aidan Hanratty and Antoin Lindsay preview all the very best electronic gigs, mixes, tracks and releaes of the week. GIGS Mvestle ‘Poultice’ tape launch with Roslyn Steer, School Tour, Flash Moderne at TenterHooks Gigspace Friday, September 18 Mvestle marks the release of their new tape Poultice on Fallow Media with a small gig in Dublin’s TenterHooks. The tape is a thrilling work of twisted electronics, and they’re supported by the wonderful Roslyn Steer, whose Still Moving I raved about on these very pages last month, alongside School Tour and Flash Moderne. An evening of unusual sound no doubt, but one…

  • Smalltown America All-Dayer: Lost Avenue & Freak’s

    September 15, 2015 - By 

    In the second installment of our multi-part feature, we’re pleased to present two new live videos featuring Derry punk band Lost Avenue and Freak’s at Derry label Smalltown America’s sixth All-Dayer. Having featured headliners Scottish trio Carnivores in the first installment, the new videos capture two of the country’s most promising young bands performing two of their very best tracks, ‘Daggers’ and ‘Symmetry and Correlation’ respectively. Buy the STA All Dayer #6 here and check out both videos – shot and edited by Paul Martin Brown – below.  

  • Monday Mixtape: John Kowalski (Solar Bears)

    September 14, 2015 - By 

    Having just received test pressings for their forthcoming third album, Dublin electronic twosome Solar Bears are on the brink of re-confirming their reputation as one of our very finest outfits (not that necessarily needs doing, of course). Ahead of some more announcements, John Kowalski from the duo delivers this week’s wonderfully diverse, suitably esoteric Monday Mixtape, featuring tracks from Plaid/BDP, The Emotions, Claude Marbehant, The Remarkable Earth Making Machine and more. Photos by SCAN

  • Premiere: Cat Palace – Slime EP

    September 10, 2015 - By 

    Having positively kicked our ass (in the perfectly non-physical realm of being smitten) with the release of his ache-laced, quasi-mystical debut self-titled EP back in February, Dublin artist David Blaney AKA Cat Palace elicited the following rather grandiose words from yours truly:  “… an Irish singer-songwriter doing something very singular indeed.” In relatively recent hindsight, it transpires we were so on the money we may as well have been resting on a goldmine – a fact doubly confirmed with Slime, Blaney’s second, four-track EP. Whilst continuing in the generally hushed, lo-fi leaning vein of Pedro The Lion, Jason Molina and Bonnie Prince Billy, Slime sees Blaney’s decidedly…

  • Smalltown America All-Dayer: Carnivores

    September 10, 2015 - By 

    The first in a two-week series of videos capturing Derry label Smalltown America’s recent, hugely successful sixth All-Dayer, we very much start as mean to go on in the solid company of Scottish alt-rock trio Carnivores. Illustrious headliners at the eight-act showcase at the tail-end of July, the STA-signed band went one further and seized the opportunity to record their entire performance as a live album, the aptly-titled Live at Smalltown America. A self-proclaimed “glimpse of three men lost in a primal blur of musical electricity, swimming in seas of violent noise”, the nine-track release is available to download for two weeks…

  • Rave New World w/ Timmy Stewart Mix

    September 4, 2015 - By 

    In what’s probably long overdue, we’re proud to introduce the Rave New World mix series. We’ll be hosting mixes from some of our favourite DJs and artists from the island of Ireland. First up we have a legend around Belfast, Timmy Stewart. Timmy’s been DJing around Belfast for ages and his knowledge of house, techno, disco, the lot, is unmatched in the city. He’s been the in-house booker for Shine and Stiff Kitten as well as taking up monthly residencies in Yello, Love & Death, Aether & Echo and The Hudson as well as co-running the Extended Play imprint. To…