• Ten to Catch at Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2017

    April 24, 2017 - By 

    Set to take over the quarter from April 27 to May 7, Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival returns from April 27 to May 7 with yet another exceptional programme of art, music, theatre, literature and ideas. And whilst it’s tricky even whittling it down to three times the amount, here’s our outright 10 must-see, must-attend, must-recommend-to-all-of-your-friends recommendations for this years festival. Don’t forget those tickets, you hear? William Basinski Friday, May 5 – The Black Box – 20.00 Our absolute highlight? NYC avant-garde master William Basinski (pictured above) at the Black Box. Profoundly unmissable. Discover/re-visit the extraordinary The Disintegration Loops below.…

  • Whose Subconscious Is This Anyway? – An Interview with Bob Gallagher

    April 21, 2017 - By 

    As you may well be aware from his directorial work on some of the best music videos to come out of Ireland in the past couple of years, Bob Gallagher is not a man to shy away from the unusual or unexpected. Perhaps best known for his Radar award winning video from 2016 for Girl Band’s ‘Paul’ (as well as ‘Pears For Lunch’, ‘Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage’ and ‘In Plastic’), Gallagher has also worked with artists such as SPIES, Floor Staff, James Vincent McMorrow, Naoise Roo, Participant, Saint Sister and Myles Manley, creating visual accompaniments that veer from the…

  • Primer: Clea van der Grijn

    April 25, 2017 - By 

    Cléa van der Grijn – Reconstructing Memory (Image Courtesy of Heike Thiele) Ahead of the opening of Clea van der Grijn’s Reconstructing Memory in Limerick City Gallery of Arts on April 27th, Rebecca Kennedy speaks with artist on voyeurism, love letters, self-censorship and the intersection between life as an artist and motherhood. Who is your favorite artist and what facet of their practice do you find fascinating? Sophie Calle. I think she’s a very interesting person. It’s like her life is recorded in snippets of film. I think I live vicariously through her work. I love that she spies so un-intrusively…

  • Festival Mixtape: AVA Festival

    April 21, 2017 - By 

    Returning to Belfast’s T13 for its third incarnation across June 2-3, AVA is the country’s most exciting annual electronic showcase. Ahead of what’s set to be another stellar two days in the company of the likes of Jeff Mills & Guillaume Marmin, Marcel Dettman, Bicep, Fatima Yamaha, Ben UFO, Job Jobse, Rebekah, Denis Sulta, OR:LA and many more, we have compiled a 15 track playlist featuring some our must-see acts. Still to nab your ticket? Get on it here.

  • Two’s Company: Meet Cork’s Alliance Promotions

    April 19, 2017 - By 

    A pair doing stellar work on the live gig front Leeside, Gordon O’Keeffe and Arlene Murray of Cork based Alliance Promotions sit down with Eimear Hurley to talk about their work in the Cork music scene First off: how did you guys get into music promotion? Gordon: I’ve been doing this for nine or ten years altogether. I started off in the punk scene. More and more people started coming until there wasn’t enough room in Fred Zeppelin’s anymore.  So we looked for bigger venues and it progressed from there. Alliance as it is now started about five years ago,…

  • Up and At Them: An Interview With Thor Harris

    April 20, 2017 - By 

    Thor Harris is a percussionist extraordinaire best known for being the pulsing, rhythmic heart of avant rock legends Swans. Yet he is also a carpenter who crafts his own instruments, an artist and a staunch opponent of the political right. The latter of which got him in a bit of trouble when his tongue-in-cheek video dubbed ‘How to Punch a Nazi’ saw him suspended from Twitter. Though the incident may have been a shock to the Austin based musician it highlighted his particular brand of philosophical, social commentary and political outrage. On April 28 he’s bringing his group Thor &…

  • 25 Years On: Looking Back at Pavement’s Debut Album Slanted and Enchanted

    April 19, 2017 - By 

    Slanted And Enchanted, Pavement’s debut album, has aged oddly well in the twenty five years since its release. It’s an album that hundreds of bands have tried to ape and one that few indie rock bands have ever equalled. It would be easy to say that its an album that exceeds the sum of its parts but that would be doing a huge disservice to the band themselves. From Stephen Malkmus’ laconic delivery of his oblique witticisms to the lo-fi/hi-fi quality of the recordings themselves to the band’s winsome way with melody, it’s an album that never fails to delight…

  • Record Store Day 2017: Irish Round-Up

    April 15, 2017 - By 

    Doubled up as its tenth annual outing, Record Store Day takes place this Saturday, Saturday 22. As ever, record stores the length and breadth of the country will be marking the occasion in different ways. Here’s our run-down of where to be this Saturday, from 8am right up until the end of the after-party. Dublin Spindizzy Records As some new standalone titles, Spindizzy on South Great George’s Street will stock up to three-quarters of this year’s RSD titles in limited quantities. Opening at 8am especially for the day (with access from the Drury St. entrance) the store will also host Spindizzy and friends…

  • Preview: An Act of War – TANK at the MAC

    April 14, 2017 - By 

    In 1965, an American scientist lived with a dolphin for ten weeks to try and teach him to speak English as part of a NASA-funded research project into human-animal communication. Condemned as an elaborate circus trick, these lessons remain a controversial episode in the space race between the two Cold War superpowers. The critically-acclaimed, Fringe First award-winning TANK rips this history apart to explore the difficulties of bridging cultural divides, the politics behind the stories we tell and what happens when you inject a dolphin with LSD. Ahead of its two-night residency at Belfast’s the MAC across April 20-21, Brian Coney talks…

  • Keeping a Certain Distance: An Interview With Neil Hannon

    April 13, 2017 - By 

    With the release of their eleventh record Foreverland last year, Neil Hannon’s The Divine Comedy continue to deliver witty, literate pop that still dents the album charts twenty years after their commercial peak. Jonny Currie catches up with Neil Hannon ahead of his show at Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter next month to discuss touring routines, growing old with your audience, and the importance of pop stars keeping their distance from fans. The Divine Comedy play Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival on May 3. Go here to buy tickets. You’re playing at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival next month. When was the last…