• EP Stream: Haüer – Esperbyte

    September 9, 2014 - By 

    Dublin electro wizard Haüer immediately grabbed our attention last week with ‘Merc II’, the lead single from his second EP, Esperbyte. “Cursed with a weakness for nostalgic 80’s music production and synth-based cinematic film scores”, the producer has concocted real retrofuturistic, synth-governed magic on the aforementioned four-track release – evoking everyone and everything from Perturbator to Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s Drokk: Music inspired by Mega​-​City One – set for release on Friday. Ahead of our interview with producer – as well as our review of the EP – stream the Esperbyte via Soundcloud below. Photo by Loreana Rushe.

  • The Curse of Success – Billy Squier

    September 7, 2014 - By 

    In certain respects, the career of pop rocker Billy Squier can only be viewed as a failure. He was on the rise, he hit a fairly major speed-bump, and the wheels came off in a spectacular way. But judged by today’s standards, Squier was a hugely successful musician, in both commercial and critical terms, and even when he ‘failed’, he was still more successful than many of the current hit parade. Looking back, Squier’s story could have only happened in the 80s, and out of all the strange tales in rock and roll history, his is one of the only…

  • Electric Picnic 2014: Seven Must-See Acts

    August 28, 2014 - By 

    Sold out for the second year in a row with good reason, there’s obviously a veritable plethora of talent at Electric Picnic. As a result, it’s never easy to sift through all the bands you may or may not want to catch, so here’s our two cents on some of the acts you should choose to give a few of your minutes to. Slowdive Having reunited in January to play Primavera earlier in the year, Slowdive’s Electric Picnic appearance marks one of a limited number of reunited dates on these isles from the shoegaze masters. They released three albums in their…

  • ‘Est-ce que c’est Chic?’ How NI’s love for Nile Rodgers squares with one Belfast disco oddball

    August 25, 2014 - By 

    I love disco music but I didn’t dance to Chic last Tuesday night. Instead, I watched a YouTube video of (early 80s Belgo-Portugese popstar) Lio’s ‘Sage Comme une Image’ on a disco loop. The music is exotic but fun: a tipsy groove Nile and Bernard would surely dig; Europe via downtown New York and all that. In the vid, Lio applies red lipstick, shimmies, then coyly boozes it up… as some weird dude just kind of hovers.   ‘J’adore cette chanson et le clip est genial.’ ‘Timeless musique!’ ‘Oh those French girls…’ offer some comments. ‘Nice titties’ suggests another, less…

  • Interview: Adebisi Shank

    August 25, 2014 - By 

    With sold-out shows in London and their eagerly-anticipated Irish return on the horizon, Niamh Hegarty speaks to bassist Vinny McCreith of Adebisi Shank about everything from This is the Album… to the brand new, critically-acclaimed This the Third Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank. So, your third album went on release here in Ireland, UK and US releases to follow this week. How have you been feeling about the reaction so far? It’s really positive so far and thinking back, it makes me think back to the second release and a lot of people have it in their heads that a lot…

  • 100 Years of Irish Women Artists 1870-1970

    August 21, 2014 - By 

    Irish Women Artists 1870–1970 at The Ava Gallery is one of the most significant exhibitions of its kind for many years. The seventy five paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures represent some of the most important artists in the history of modern Irish art and have been gathered from privately owned collections  throughout Ireland. This doesn’t happen every day. In fact, the last time historical Irish women artists were accorded such an honor was back in the 1980s. “I do think it’s very significant,” says Claire Dalton, co-manager of the exhibition. “So much happened in that time period that still resonates…

  • 30 Years of Serious Mucking About – Gerry Anderson (1944-2014)

    August 21, 2014 - By 

    In Northern Ireland, we like to think of ourselves as an open, friendly, earthy people, bereft of the pretensions and airs that our ‘betters’ frequently display. Not for us the ‘hoity toity’ high life, instead preferring that natural warmth and good folk humour that touches the parts of the heart few other things can approach. Frankly, the truth is somewhat different (to put it mildly), but if one were able to hold up an avatar of what we consider to be the embodiment of that warmth and humour, you’d have been hard pressed to find anyone better than broadcaster and…

  • A Brief History of Post-Rock

    August 14, 2014 - By 

    Of the countless genre names that describe modern music, post-rock is probably the vaguest of those widely used. Open to generalisation, uncertainty and blind exaggeration, it has no commonly accepted definition and many acts including Tortoise and Mogwai have distanced themselves from the term. That said, much like postmodernism or the avant-garde, there remains a general consensus about the development and essential traits central to this most ambiguous of labels, currently used to describe the likes of This Will Destroy You, Mono and our very own Adebisi Shank, And So I Watch You From Afar, etc. Brian Coney attempts to trace…

  • Festival Mixtape: Hard Working Class Heroes 2014

    August 14, 2014 - By 

    Yesterday, 100+ acts were announced to playing Hard Working Class Heroes, hands down the country’s finest annual showcase of emerging, independent, homegrown talent. Spanning dozens of genres, the festival – taking place across Dublin from October 2-4 – is set to be a downright unmissable three-day event. Check out our twenty-track, decidedly eclectic Festival Mixtape for HWCH below via Spotify.

  • “We Are…” by Diarmuid Kennedy

    August 13, 2014 - By 

    Whether you’ve encountered him or not – and chances are many of you have – self-professed “unprofessional photographer” Diarmuid Kennedy has been a veritable fly-on-the-wall of Belfast music over the last couple of years. A masterfully discreet operator, he is often one of a small handful at people to brave line-ups of all-but anonymous debutantes and furtive young musicians; his photography – just like his work capturing bigger, more established local bills – providing a priceless insight into an ever-evolving, somewhat maligned but, for the most part, consistently impressive music scene. Sitting outside the Pavilion Bar on Ormeau Road – a venue in which the photographer has shot innumerable up-and-coming bands…