• 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…

  • Album Premiere: Half Forward Line – The Back of Mass

    October 27, 2017 - By 

    Just yesterday, we had the distinct pleasure of premiering the video for ‘Column A, Column B’ by Galway supergroup-of-sorts (actually, not of-sorts, of-actuality) Half Forward Line. Featuring So Cow’s Brian Kelly on guitar and vocals, Oh Boland‘s Niall Murphy and bass, and regular TTA photographer Cíarán Ó Maoláin on drums, the band’s brand new debut album, The Back of Mass, is a thing of rather brilliance, effortlessly distilling the varyingly-shaded starry-eyed, fuzzed-out, limb-flailing panache of their component parts and projects, commingling into a twelve-track salvo of soul-enhancing, real-life-confronting, impossibly-earworming garage rock. And sure, are you at all surprised? These guys haven’t spent huge chunks of their collective life…

  • 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…

  • Preview & Festival Mixtape: Le Guess Who? 2017

    October 25, 2017 - By 

    Laying comfortably in the shadow of Amsterdam is the chilled-out university town of Utrecht, where the red light district is gladly a distant memory, and typically Dutch architecture and culture are in great supply. While this particularly from of citywide festival can be tough to pull off, Le Guess Who? has developed and diversified every year, offering something for everyone. A holiday-planner’s dream, it boasts the artistic ambition with none of the associated pretentiousness. Many of the performances take place in the impressive TivoliVredenburg or multitude of other venues within walking distance. Most music starts after 5pm, offering the chance to visit the Rietveld Schröder House, tour the…

  • 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…

  • Runnin’ Down A Dream: Remembering Tom Petty

    October 3, 2017 - By 

    Rock and roll is built on shifting sands. What reinvents the wheel one day, is old hat the next. One minute you’re the Great White Hope, the next you’re Yesterday’s News. And in a world of ‘nearly was’, ‘has beens’, and ‘never were’, Tom Petty was a survivor. With his wide grin, sardonic expression, and electric guitar, he rocked his way through decades worth of pretenders to the throne, seeing them all off, without even seeming to break a sweat. Cool as the proverbial cucumber, Petty didn’t exactly blaze a trail, instead preferring to stand to the side, observing with…

  • Making It Count: An Interview With John Deery and The Heads

    September 28, 2017 - By 

    Look as far and wide as you will, but you’ll struggle to find an Irish band as respected as Derry’s John Deery and the Heads. Ahead of the launch of their wonderfully-woven third studio album, Nothing Permanent Lasts, at the Nerve Centre on Saturday night, we talk to the quartet’s main man about evolution, the power of change, successfully going down the crowdfunding route and much more. Go here to buy tickets and for more info about the album launch Hi, John. You officially launch Nothing Permanent Lasts at the end of the month. You ran a successful pledge campaign for…