• Plain Living & High Thinking: An Interview With Belfast’s Latest Promotion

    January 8, 2018 - By 

    If you’ve been keeping track of the Belfast live music scene lately, you might have noticed – despite well-intentioned pockets and open-minded promoters – that it’s somewhat fractured and currently lacking the infrastructure to cultivate a strong grassroots music community beyond those looked after by management and the likes. Two bands who have organically harnessed their substantial following in a very short space of time are the groove-strewn, endlessly soulful jam trio Electric Octopus – having toured the UK, look to extensively traipse across Europe in Spring following the release of their latest album – and stoner-doom outfit Elder Druid, who released…

  • Interview: The Sunshine Factory

    November 13, 2017 - By 

    Ahead of the launch of their stellar new EP, Cruelest Animal, at Crane Lane on November 30, we talk to Jack Horgan and Mark Waldron-Hyden from Cork neo-psych five-piece The Sunshine Factory about influence, releasing via their own DIY label, Cork’s thriving scene at the minute, their plans for 2018 and more. Your forthcoming EP, Cruelest Animal collects some of your earlier recordings. A lot of bands would never dream to reveal their earlier trial-and-error. How did you come to the decision to compile and release the EP? Mark Waldron-Hyden (drums): Basically, since then and now we have recorded and…

  • Interview: Pat Metheny

    November 9, 2017 - By 

    It’s taken a while, but the wait for the many Irish fans of twenty-time Grammy-winning guitarist and composer Pat Metheny will finally be over when he plays his first ever gigs in Ireland, in Dublin on 13 November and in Belfast on 14 November. Given Metheny’s extensive, globe-trotting tours since the mid-1970s it seems odd that the Missouri guitar legend has never previously made it to Ireland, a curious fact that’s not lost on him. “I have been wanting to play here for forty plus years now,” says Metheny, “and for one reason or another, it has never happened. I…

  • Interview: Tandem Felix

    November 6, 2017 - By 

    Ahead of their first Dublin headline show in over two years tomorrow night Hugh O’Dwyer talks to Tandem Felix frontman David Tapley about their new music and returning to the stage. Tickets for their November 7th show upstairs in Whelans can be purchased here. A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll, the sound of Tandem Felix has changed quite a bit since some of the band’s earlier work such as Ryan Hoguet and the Popcorn EP. What would you attribute this change in style to? A few things really; I’ve loved country and country-related music for so long. I…

  • Interview: Rory Nellis

    November 2, 2017 - By 

    Ahead of launching his stellar new album, There Are Enough Songs In The World, at Belfast’s The MAC on Saturday, November 11, we catch up with Belfast’s Rory Nellis to talk momentum, collaboration, the craft of carefully-considered songwriting and more. Go here to buy tickets to Rory Nellis at The MAC Hi, Rory. You release your new album There Are Enough Songs In The World in just under two weeks. How are you feeling ahead of getting it out there? The final mastered track just came through today so I’m extremely excited and unbelievably relieved that it’s all done. Tell us about the…

  • Free Jazz Does Not Exist: An Interview With Han Bennink of Instant Composers Pool

    November 1, 2017 - By 

    Arguably the most important group on the European avant-garde music scene for the past 50 years, Dutch collective Instant Composers Pool will perform four dates in Ireland over the next few days. Brian Coney talks to ICP co-founder, virtuoso drummer and multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink about free jazz, opportunities for younger musicians, constantly pushing the boundaries and more. ICP play the following dates. More info here. Thursday, November 2: Culturlann, Derry Friday, November 3: The MAC, Belfast Saturday, November 4: The Sugar Club, Dublin Sunday, November 5: Triskel Arts Centre, Cork Some of my favourite ICP releases include your 1972 solo…

  • Weirded Out: An Interview With Feminist Horror Champions The Final Girls

    October 27, 2017 - By 

    Women have always been key figures in horror cinema, from Barbara Steele to Jamie Lee Curtis to Katharine Isabelle. While characters like Ellen Ripley, Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott represent some of the most famous examples of one of the horror genre’s most celebrated tropes – ‘the final girl’. Taking inspiration from this genre staple – coined by academic Carol J. Clover in 1992 – the Final Girls, a London-based programming partnership comprised of Olivia Howe and Anna Bogutskaya, have been exploring feminist themes in the horror genre through a series of screenings and writing. Crucial to their work is…

  • You Can’t Live In The Past: a Tête-à-tête With Badwan and Hayward of The Horrors

    October 26, 2017 - By 

    One third of quite possibly the country’s finest podcast NO ENCORE, freelance music scrivener and all-round man about (Dublin) town Dave Hanratty had a rather lovely yak with Faris Badwan and Joshua Hayward of the positively regenerated The Horrors recently. He transcribed it and here we are. What a world. Photos by Aaron Corr Faris Badwan is furious. Frankly, he has every right to be. The endlessly tall frontman of The Horrors has been betrayed, stabbed in the back with casual disregard by his guitarist, one Joshua Hayward. Just seconds after revealing that the pair are working on separate soundtracks…

  • Interview: Come On Live Long

    October 18, 2017 - By 

    Ahead of playing the final RHA Hennessy Lost Friday on the year on Friday night, we talk to Louise Gaffney from Dublin indie/alternative-pop maestros Come On Live Long about progression, perfectionism, influence and the importance of enjoying the moment. Go here for more info about the show. Hi, Louise. Your second album, In The Still, was released back in May. It’s right up there with the best Irish albums of the year. How was the songwriting process for this one? The songwriting process for In The Still was a little different to how it had been for the previous record. The…

  • Album Premiere & Interview: The Bonk

    October 6, 2017 - By 

    Having released a string of stellar singles over the last two years, Dublin & Cork-based experimental, orchestral, psychedelic garage rock project The Bonk have released their debut LP, The Bonk Seems To Be A Verb, and we’re delighted to premiere the entire album on its day of release. Recorded over the last few years while the outfit have been together, it’s released on cassette through Drogheda arts & culture collective Thirty Three – 45. Although the project is based around the compositions of frontman Phil Christie – of O Emperor, the substantial cast of musicians credited on the album includes some of the island’s most…