• Rave New World (24/4)

    April 23, 2015 - By 

    Hallelujah! Perambulations over with, we’ve reconvened Aidan Hanratty and Antoin Lindsay once more for this week’s Rave New World, your indispensable, Friday-afternoon guide to all the very best electronic gigs, tracks, releases and mixes. Jim Wells and Iris Robinson on a bonfire. GIGS No Disco presents… Aeroplane @ Aether & Echo, Belfast Saturday, April 25 Aeroplane has been floating around for a while, plying his take on disco and Balearic across the globe since the Halcyon days of electro house when Justice were undeniably the kings of the dancefloor. While they’ve faded away Aeroplane’s rather more tasteful sound means he’s still kicking about…

  • Visual Arts Outlook (22/4)

    April 22, 2015 - By 

    The week ahead is looking full already, writes Mary Stevens. Various events are happening outside of the gallery walls including a performance by Stuart Brisley as part of his exhibition Headwinds at The MAC Belfast on Thursday night. A Breath Crystal (Exhibition) Project Arts Centre, Dublin April 24 – May 30 This group show at Project Arts Centre curated by Mihnea Mircan from Extra City Kunsthal opens on Thursday night at 6pm. Artists Jean-Luc Moulène, Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan, Katerina Undo, Miklos Onucsan, Tom Nicholson, Phillip Warnell, Jonas Staal, Fabio Mauri, Jacqueline Mesmaeker and Lawrence Abu Hamdan represent the…

  • All Genres Weird & Wonderful: Vaporwave

    April 22, 2015 - By 

    In the first installment of a new feature, All Genres Weird & Wonderful, Kelly Doherty scours the world’s sub-genres so that you can sound informed at hipster dinner parties with minimal effort. Name: Vaporwave Origins: Unsurprisingly, the internet. Stemming a little bit from the Seapunk movement but very much with its own identity. How to use it in a sentence: “My kid brother asked mom to get the old Windows 95 computer out of the garage because it’s on point with his aesthetic. I think he’s turning vaporwave…” Sounds like: Oneohtrix Point Never, Washed Out, Animal Collective Vaporwave is many…

  • Blur Retrospective: Leisure (1991)

    April 22, 2015 - By 

    Examining the runt of a band’s musical litter is a never fun. Looking at this small, misshapen thing and comparing it to its stronger, better formed siblings, you almost develop a strange affection for it; a kind of pity. The perpetual adolescence nature of them, acne ridden and still trying to discover what they are and who they could be. Sometimes these little creatures contain more depth and warmth than their cooler, better developed counterparts. Other times they are the like visiting a social media ghost town and seeing all those images and ideas that you were so proud of…

  • Exclusive: Stream Three Record Store Gay Tracks

    April 17, 2015 - By 

    Fast becoming an Irish music institution Dublin’s Record Store Gay has some obvious added import this year ahead of the forthcoming Marriage Referendum. Now in its fourth year, the self-proclaimed celebration of music and diversity will host a mini-music festival, poster exhibition and pop-up music shop for international Record Store Day tomorrow at Dublin’s Outhouse LGBT Community Resource Centre. Hosted in association with Little Gem Records, the annual Record Store Gay CD covers compilation will also be released on the day, featuring some excellent tracks from the likes of Hi Fashion, Kate’s Party, I Heart The Monster Hero, Florence Olivier, Katherine Lynch…

  • Rave New World (17/4)

    April 17, 2015 - By 

    It’s Friday, the sun is shining (kind of) and Antoin Lindsay, befitting his custom, is here to deliver Rave New World, his weekly dose of all things electronic. Get stuck in. GIGS Twitch & Nocturne present – Move D at The Bunatee, Belfast Saturday, April 18 Move D’s been in the game for over two decades so you can be assured you’re in safe hands if you make the wise decision to head to Twitch on Saturday. Expect the finest and funnest selection of house, techno and disco from Mr. Moufang who gets as into it as the crowd does.…

  • ‘Traditional’ Discrimination Is Still Discrimination

    April 16, 2015 - By 

      I’m not sure if I’ll ever get married; never-say-never and no-one knows what the future holds of course. I’m not against marriage. I’m not anything-for-it really in terms of my own life right now. It’s just not something that’s on my agenda at this point in time. However the notion that I have the luxury of the option while some of my closest friends do not simply because of the gender of their partner makes me feel really really sad. In fact I wouldn’t want to get married in a country where it is a privilege of mine over…

  • 10 Picks for Belfast Film Festival

    April 16, 2015 - By 

    Kicking off this evening with Mark Cousins’ I Am Belfast, and running from April 16 to April 25, this year’s Belfast Film Festival boasts a programme traversing ever genre and sub-genre of modern and classic cinema. With screenings and one-off events taking place in venues large, small and altogether curious across the city, there is (as their full programme attests) quite literally something for everyone on offer. In fact, so dense is the schedule that we’ve enlisted the immeasurably tasteful Conor Smyth to whittle it down to ten of their most unmissable screenings and events. Delve in. I Am Belfast  The question…

  • Premiere: Robocobra Quartet – Wicker Bar

    April 14, 2015 - By 

    Set for release on April 21, Bomber by Belfast’s Robocobra Quartet captures a band whose brilliantly burgeoning sound gets more engrossing and self-assured with each release. Following on the heels of agog lead single ”80-88′, the brief but burrowing ‘Wicker Bar’ is a more inward-looking, abstracted affair, the band’s drummer/vocalist Chris Ryan meditating on backwashed thoughts and distant scenes, relaying beat-inflected stylings over dancing sax and a floating, spectral vocal ensemble courtesy of Patrick Gardiner. Sub-titled “four songs about three people, two novels, a failed assassination attempt and a volunteer-run community arts space” the EP was recorded by Ryan at Belfast’s Start Together…

  • Psych-Rock Revolution: Ireland and Beyond

    April 16, 2015 - By 

    When you consider Ireland’s rich history of iconic rock bands, those of a psych-rock persuasion don’t feature heavily on the list. Bands labelled as psychedelic were emerging in the US and Britain as early as the 1960’s. At the beginning it was defined by experimental songwriting, mind-altering drug culture, and a penchtant for flamboyant silk shirts. Tracing its roots back to the 1960’s you find bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Yardbirds, Jimmi Hendrix, The Doors, Soft Machine, Sly and the Family Stone and The Grateful Dead. Although Ireland could not be seen as a psych-rock hub, it has…