• Classic Album: The Dismemberment Plan – Emergency & I

    November 24, 2014 - By 

    “The only thing worse than bad memories, is no memories at all” – Travis Morrison, “Spiders In The Snow” Emergency & I is a legitimately great record. It’s one of those rare, incredibly charitable records that just keeps on giving and giving. Repeat listens reveal so many layers and nuances to each of the songs. Musically, everything seems to work. Eric Axelson’s basslines are genuinely inspiring, so good in their own right that they could carry the songs on their own, and often do. This is offset by Joe Easley’s drumming acting perfectly as Axelson’s foil and sliding effortly between…

  • Transition Cinema: Outburst 2014 Review

    November 24, 2014 - By 

    The film programme of the 8th annual Outburst Queer Arts Festival, screened at Belfast’s QFT, offered a showcase of some of the most interesting additions to international queer cinema. A running theme in this year’s films is that of identities in transition. Characters move from female to male, naive to mature, adolescent to adult, loser to big-shot, in to out. Sometimes they escape their current identities through bravery and curiosity; other times they are forced to by events out of their control. New identities and arrangements promise liberation and novelty, but navigating the changes brings unseen problems. Sometimes they make…

  • Classic Album: ‘Corndogs from Pedro’ – Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime

    November 20, 2014 - By 

    Punk rock – as a movement, as a mindset, and as a musical rebellion against the status quo – has always had a tendency to slide into an unusual conformity all its own. In the birth of any new scene – after the initial spark of originality – codes are established, styles become uniforms, and common mantras unite bands and fans alike. Perhaps no lyric can define the punk scene in Southern California in the early 1980’s like those of the Minutemen on the track ‘The Glory of Man’: “I live sweat, but I dream light years.” Big ideas that…

  • MayKay: All Views My Own

    November 19, 2014 - By 

    “Not only am I a really good singer, I’m really good looking as well.” My long suffering mother warned me very early on about being misquoted. She told me to be careful with every word I said and imagine every sentence as a headline. Make sure you can stand by your words. Why say anything otherwise? “Yeah whatever, Mum. I’m 22 years old. I know what I’m doing! Stop patronising me! I’ve been doing this for almost three whole years!” So, yes. I did say the aforementioned sentence. Yes, I did become mute and open mouthed for about two hours…

  • Cork Music Trail: Ones to Watch

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    It would seem that MTV have remembered what their (previously-orphaned) acronym stands for, turning their attention away from mouth-breathing reality-show nonsense, and on to music, of all things. With the announcement of the Shepard Fairey-directed Rebel Music calling attention to youth subcultures around the world and the transcendent tunes that soundtrack their lives, the idea hits that the floundering music-channel grandfather has either finally realised the error of its ways and is earnestly trying for relevance, or has just been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Either way, the cable & satellite success story of the 1980s wobbles its way to Cork…

  • Video Premiere: Zaska – Different Light

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    We’re pleased to present the premiere of the new video by eight-piece Dublin supergroup Zaska. Fronted by Max Zaska, the band granted our photographer Tara Thomas behind the scenes access to capture during the shoot. Check out her gallery for more images and watch the video – produced by Stoneface films and directed by Jon Hozier-Byrne – below.

  • Smolder and Scully: The Fall Review

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    Your mum’s favourite serial killer is back. At the end of last year’s five-episode run of BBC2’s The Fall, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) packed in his moonlighting strangling escapades and carted his family onto the next Stenna Line to the Highlands. But you can’t keep a good stalker down, especially when he’s one half of the BBC’s most locally successful and internationally exportable drama for years. In last week’s sophomore opener, he’s back to eyeing up brunettes on the Larne line. In the meantime, creator Allan Cubbit has had to defend the show against claims that it glamourizes female violence,…

  • Playlist: Northern Ireland Music Prize 2014

    November 13, 2014 - By 

    A year on from Foy Vance walking away with the inaugural album award, this year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize will take place at Belfast’s Mandela Hall on Saturday night. Culminating in Northern Ireland alt-rock legends Therapy? (above) performing their landmark 1994 album Troublegum in full, the ceremony will see twelve of the North’s finest acts – from the quaintest to the downright behemothic – compete for the prize. Go here to buy tickets to the ceremony – also featuring performances by Robyn G Shiels, Sullivan & Gold and More Than Conquerors – and stream our Northern Ireland Music Prize playlist via Spotify…

  • Track Record: Joe Greene (Documenta)

    November 4, 2014 - By 

    In this latest installment of Track Record we catch up with Joe Greene, singer and guitarist for Belfast based drone pop outfit, Documenta. Ably assisted by fellow Documenta member, Steven Henry, he goes through his record collection discussing ten albums we all should own. Photos by Dee McEvoy Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy Their seminal record. The reason I love it? It sounds like Phil Spector on crystal meth with a broken fuzz pedal. Can – Ege Bamyasi My favourite Can record. It’s a record which has stuck with me. It sounds so odd… but familiar. Spacemen 3 – Playing With…

  • Classic Album: Prince & The Revolution – Parade (1986)

    October 30, 2014 - By 

    In no uncertain terms, Prince is one of the most important musicians of the 20th century. Between 1980 and 1988 he released a series of albums that are still startling in their invention, originality, and scope. As a pop star, he remains an enigma, and as a performer he is arguably unrivalled. However, the last twenty years have not been kind to him, and as he stages another attempt at grabbing the public’s interest with the simultaneous release of Plectrumelectrum and Art Official Age, we look back at his 1986 classic Parade, and wonder, where did it all go wrong?In many respects, Parade shouldn’t work. It’s the…