• “If you aren’t catered for make it happen.” An Interview With All-Female Night GIRL

    July 21, 2016 - By 

    The brainchild of DJs Venus Dupree AKA Claire Hall and Marion Hawkes, Belfast’s The Pavilion will see the launch of all-female DJ night GIRL tomorrow night (Friday, July 22). With a vast musical back catalogue between them, the residents are promising a full-on musical assault spanning the gap between disco, Italo, house and techno. Brian Coney chats to Hawkes about why the time is right for the country’s first regular all-female night. GIRL is launching this weekend at the Pavilion in Belfast. When were the proverbial seeds for the project first sown? A few months after meeting Claire I guess.…

  • Dig Early: An Interview with Sligo’s Art For Blind Records

    July 14, 2016 - By 

    For over a decade, Art for Blind Records has been a home for underground, DIY and subversive music and zines of many stripes, both as a label functioning from wherever its composite parts are at a given time, and a series of stalls and shops that have followed them. As the duo prepare to release the debut EP from Cork noisemaker ELLLL and just off the release of the Altered Hours’ first 12″, Mike McGrath-Bryan speaks to Dany and Edel from Art for Blind about the label, its place(s), the people around it, and the future. Art for Blind doesn’t…

  • Interview: King Kong Company

    July 18, 2016 - By 

    Not merely one of the country’s most singular, genre-warping acts, Waterford six-piece King Kong Company are right up there with the very best live propositions around. Having just released their emphatic self-titled debut album, Brian Coney talks to the band about working with The Prodigy producer Neil McLellan on the release, capturing their live energy in the studio, their diverse range of influences and what the future holds in store. Hi guys. You’ve been getting some great reviews for your new, self-titled album. It was originally set to be released last year. Was perfectionism (or at least only wanting to release something you were…

  • The Pressure is Off: An Interview with Joe Mount of Metronomy

    July 13, 2016 - By 

    Metronomy are just one of those bands. On average the group have released a full record every two to three years, each one to more acclaim and appreciation than the last. From their wonky, wild sophomore record Nights Out to the refined pop reflections of Love Letters they’ve been a group whose steady rise through the ranks has looked almost easy. So easy in fact that it’s hard to imagine that it’s been a whole decade since the release of their outrageous debut Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe). ‘I suppose I’m part of the furniture,’ muses Joe Mount.…

  • Watch: Confess The Night, a new short by Dublin director and writer Dave Tynan

    June 23, 2016 - By 

    Featuring music by Dublin duo Simon Cullen & Sorca McGrath AKA Ships, Confess The Night is a brief yet perfectly engrossing two-minute short by Dublin director and writer Dave Tynan. A piece that is, according to its creator, “not exactly a short film but not exactly a music video either”, it is imbued with a curious somnambulist subtlety that has proven a lure in his previous efforts. Watch the film and see our brief Q+A with Tynan – in which he discusses his latest work, his early beginnings and career to date – below. Hi Dave. Can you give us some background…

  • Inbound: Elephant

    June 16, 2016 - By 

    With a busy few months ahead of him, including the release of new single ‘Stay With Me’ and a slot at Body & Soul at the weekend, Dundalk-based multi-instrumentalist Shane Clarke AKA Elephant is an artist carving out his own wonderfully inimitable path. Eoin Murray chats to him about his debut LP, Hypergiant, new stirrings and what it means to be a musician beyond the city. Since Hypergiant came out last October what have you been up to? Well I spent the end of last year gigging the album around. I decided at the beginning of this year to take a wee break…

  • Big Beats and Broad Strokes: An Interview with The Chemical Brothers’ Ed Simons

    May 31, 2016 - By 

    Whether you’re into dance, rock, indie or have miraculously found yourself sequestered in a brit-pop niche over the past twenty five years, you’ll know that The Chemical Brothers have spent much of that time making some of the most recognisable and respected music ever committed to stereo. A duo of immense creative breadth, their early work frenetically soundtracked a new wave of genre-crossover experimentation that would quickly become a go-to production style for their contemporaries. Fusing hip hop, techno, house and whatever remnants of UK hardcore that were still holding on for dear life, the influence of Ed Simons and…

  • An Interview with Northern Lights: Ben Glover, Malojian and Matt McGinn

    April 29, 2016 - By 

    Under the collective guise of Northern Lights, three of the North’s very finest singer-songwriters in Ben Glover, Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian (pictured) and Matt McGinn are gearing up for the second half of their touring dates right across the country. Each unto their own a revelatory craftsman of folk and Americana, their teaming up is most definitely an inspired proposition. Ahead of more dates at the start May (see below), Caolan Coleman chats to the threesome about the birth and impetus of the Northern Lights project, their individual trajectories and endeavours, as well as their plans for 2016. Wednesday, May 4: Roe Valley Arts Centre,…

  • Where He’s Meant To Be: An interview with Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat

    April 28, 2016 - By 

    As one half of the band Arab Strap with Malcolm Middleton between 1996 and 2006, Aidan Moffat quickly became one of the most influential voices in Scottish indie music. His unmistakable thick brogue and frank, confessional and often hilarious lyrics are reflected in so many newer Scottish bands while Moffat himself has guested with the likes of Mogwai and Frightened Rabbit over the years. Since Arab Strap’s amicable split, Moffat has undertaken all kinds of projects, from spoken word to his collaborations with Bill Wells to his electronic work as L. Pierre, to name a few. In 2014 he toured…

  • Killing Mockingbirds: An Interview with Jordan

    April 27, 2016 - By 

    As regular fixture and co-founder of Aether & Echo’s Nocturne and The Night Institute parties, Jordan has been at the centre of a lot of what’s been happening in Northern Irish dance music over the past few years. Killing Mockingbirds, the debut EP from the homegrown DJ-producer who cut his teeth in the electronic music world as a student in Leeds, is a five–track house music affair which drafts in Adesse Versions and Borrowed Identity to lend their sensibilities to the record in the form of two remixed tracks. Killing Mockingbirds (which was made available to the public last week)…