• Playlist For Kanye: Beck’s 20 Best Songs

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    Kanye, we’re gon’ let you finish but Beck is easily one of the most innovative, exciting and singular artists of our generation. We love you, Kanye, we really do, but Mr. Hansen has consistently churned out some of the most downright exceptional sounds – party-starting jams, neo-psychedelic throwdowns and brooding odes –  over twelve studio albums, three EPs, forty singles, fourteen soundtracks and thirty-nine genre-spanning  collaborations. He’s good, Kanye – he’s very good – and to prove it, if you’ve got the time in your very busy schedule, here’s a playlist comprised of Beck’s 20 best songs. It took us ages…

  • Cork Heads: Cathy O’Donoghue

    February 10, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Cork Heads, Brid O’Donovan chats to Cathy O’ Donoghue, owner of Turquoise Flamingo, a vintage clothing and accessories online store and blog. She also co-runs Oh Me, Oh My DIY creative workshops in secret locations. The Things you do as a Child. Arts and crafts with my mum I suppose. We lived out in the country and we had no neighbours. I have one sister who didn’t come along until I was five so she wasn’t fun until I was eight or nine. I was a bit of a tomboy but I was girly too.…

  • Screen/Play #1: Tortured Artists in Whiplash and Frank

    February 12, 2015 - By 

    Damien Chazelle’s testosterone-pumping Whiplash, released last month, is a musical coming-of-age story with the form of a boxing movie; never more so than in a pivotal ‘training montage’ in which the young hero, the talented but arrogant jazz drummer Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), works to regain his lost first-stringer position. In a move obviously designed to provoke the music student, band conductor Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), who rules his classroom with equal parts terror and humiliation, has replaced the ambitious Andrew with a drummer of lesser ability. Andrew channels his frustration and rage into a gruelling, cymbal-smashing practice session, applying…

  • Clatter O Actors

    February 5, 2015 - By 

    “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much” Helen KellerTo be honest I’ve always been a bit of a DIY girl, and I definitely don’t mean that in the flat-packed Ikea furniture kind of way. I’m talking about the reality of making our own opportunities as artists and continuing to create despite the limited resources and awkward obstacles that may be thrown our paths along the way.I was lucky. When I was starting out with dreams of being an actress, I fell in with a really great group of very talented people who had just set up…

  • Monday Mixtape: Sam Coomes (Quasi)

    February 2, 2015 - By 

    Best known as frontman of quintessential American indie rock band Quasi, Sam Coomes is our latest willing subject in the often indispensable, always mind-bogglingly tasteful Monday Mixtape. Twenty years into the game, ex-husband and wife duo Coomes (Donner Party, Heatmiser, etc) and Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Wild Flag, etc) AKA Quasi are the living, breathing definition of indie rock royalty. Formed in Portland in 1993, the duo’s uniquely infectious, incomparably insightful brand of indie rock has spanned nine studio albums and countless EPs worth of material. Featuring everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Iggy Pop, Coomes’ mixtape is a sublime, ten-track…

  • Rave New World (30/1)

    January 30, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Rave New World, the ridiculously informed, boundlessly savvy Antoin Lindsay & Aidan Hanratty delve into best new electronic tracks and mixes of the week, as well as various unmissable upcoming nights and releases. Gigs Scope presents Music in the Community at The Menagerie, Belfast Friday, January 30 Get down to The Menagerie for Scope who are putting on a host of local acts. Belfast hip-hop act Dsgrace is celebrating his album launch on the night alongside Rave New World favourite Bloom, Twitch’s Paddy Towe and the usual Scope DJs Nez, Paul Acroplane and G-BO. Main thing is it’s…

  • The Record: Abandcalledboy

    February 3, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of The Record, Brian Coney talks to Ryan Burrowes (below) from recently-expanded Belfast-based quartet Abandcalledboy about changes within the ranks, the writing and recording of their forthcoming new material and their plans for the rest of the year. Photos by Colm Laverty. You’ve been playing sets solely comprised of new material live recently. Why such a shift there? Basically the shift was down to how much we have changed musically, the older material doesn’t really fit with the tracks we have now. We used our last mini-tour (with 100 Onces) to say goodbye to the older…

  • Start A Van

    January 27, 2015 - By 

    The follow-up to his introductory piece – Start a Band – And So I Watch You From Afar drummer Chris Wee continues his regular column with some of the more interesting, occasionally perilous tales of a touring band on the open road. Hello again and apologies for the delay on this follow-up installment of my column. My friends, family and colleagues will collectively attest to my gross misuse of such phrases as ‘sorry for the late reply’, ‘sorry i’m only getting back to you now’ and ‘sorry I just saw this’. In truth, I am awful at correspondence. I feel like my pre-disposition towards…

  • Track Record: Brian Cash (Halves)

    January 26, 2015 - By 

    Featured arguably the most eclectic choices to date (and there’s been quite a few of those) Brian Cash from Halves chooses and talks about his all-time favourite records, including Mogwai, The Redneck Manifesto and a Disney compilation. Photos by Aidan Kelly-Murphy. Super Furry Animals –  Mwng Tim from Halves, to his credit, got me into the Furries. I was always slightly confused by them before that. Pretty much all their records are amazing but I have a special place in my heart for Mwng (above): it’s the sound of a band doing exactly what they want to do without pandering to expectation. An…

  • Monday Mixtape: Claire Miskimmin (Girls Names/Cruising)

    January 26, 2015 - By 

    Following on from Aghagallon singer-songwriter Ciaran Lavery and And So I Watch You From Afar guitarist Niall Kennedy, the latest willing subject of Monday Mixtape is Claire Miskimmin ofGirls Namesand Cruising. Traversing U.S goth rock pioneers Christian Death, Melbourne garage punk five-piece Total Control, Detroit post-punk quartet Protomartyr and more, the ten-track playlist is a half-hour sojourn of wonderfully doom-laden proportions. Cruising play Belfast’s Menagerie on March 14 as part of Sunglasses After Dark. Claire Miskimmin DJs at her night, Bad Vibes, at Belfast’s Woodworkers every second Thursday night. If you like what you hear below, make sure to hit it up this…