• First Acts Announced for Stendhal Festival

    April 28, 2017 - By 

    The first wave of acts have been announced for this year’s Stendhal Music and Art Festival. Set to return to Ballymully Cottage Farm in Limavady across August 11-12, Ash (pictured), Ulrich Schnauss ft. Nat Urazmetova and Ciaran Lavery are amongst the main names. With many more to be announced, here’s the full first line-up: ASH, Sharon Shannon, Ulrich Schnauss ft. Nat Urazmetova, Ginkgoa, Ciaran Lavery, The Four of Us, Anthony Toner, Jealous of the Birds, Ryan Vail, Ryan McMullan, Paddy Nash, Joshua Burnside, Rosborough, Susie Blue, No Oil Paintings, Roe, Hiva Oa, John Street Band, Emma Lusby, Bror, Chloe, McAllister, Basork, Conor Mason,…

  • Little Dragon Set For Dublin Hallowe’en Show

    April 27, 2017 - By 

    Touring in support of their recent fifth full-length studio album, Season High, Swedish electronic quartet Little Dragon will play their first Irish show in three years when they hit up Dublin’s Vicar Street on Hallowe’en night (October 31 – just in case). Tickets for the show are priced at €24.50 (incl. booking fee) and go on sale at 9am on Thursday, May 4.

  • Todd Terje Set for District 8

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    With the Irish festival and gig calendar already brimming with many must-attend events, it’s been announced that Norwegian electronic wizard Todd Terje will play a live set at Dublin’s District 8 on Friday, June 16 courtesy of Hidden Agenda. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 9am from €18 + fees. Go here for the show’s Facebook event page and here to buy tickets.

  • Carlow Arts Festival Announces 2017 Programme

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    Celebrating its 38th year, the programme for this year’s Carlow Arts Festival – which runs from June 7 to 13 – has been unveiled. Set to take place across the festival’s HQ at Carlow College, St. Patrick’s and VISUAL, as well as local landmarks, this year’s bill is full of various free events, a host of live music, visual art and, as ever, family friendly events. Amongst some of the highlights this year include recent RTE Choice Music Prize winners Rusangano Family, R.S.A.G., Stomptown Brass, as well as a world festival first: a big screen performance of Philip Glass and…

  • Stream: Skymas – BubbleDub

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    Back in September last year, Belfast duo Martin Corrigan (ex-Alloy Mental) and Nick Todd AKA Skymas released one of our Irish tracks of 2016 in the form of ‘No Easy Way Out‘. Seven months on, the pair are back with its follow-up, the equally virulent electro-rock blast of ‘BubbleDub’. Featuring none other than Stephen Leacock (Franklyn/ex-General Fiasco) on guitar, it’s a typically propulsive – and masterfully bombastic – banger from the pair, released a day ahead of supporting K-X-P at Belfast’s Voodoo as part of this year’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. Propelled by Corrigan’s chorus refrain of “solution in destruction” the…

  • Premiere: Elma – Drive

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    One of the hardest working – and masterfully diverse – musicians in the island of Ireland, Derry multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and songwriter Eoin O’Callaghan makes music both under the moniker Best Boy Grip and as part of Wake America. Adding yet another string to his sonic bow, new project Elma explores more more open-ended, soundscape-based terrain. A seven-month process in which O’Callaghan exclusively used analog gear – a Revox 77B tape machine, cello, bass and a bunch of synths – the project is predominantly instrumental in nature, but will also feature snippets of conversation with a Peruvian hermit by the name of Dolama. According to…

  • Video Premiere: Beach – Bram Toker

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    Released earlier this month, we said ‘Bram Toker’ by Dublin neo-psychedelic five-piece Beach was an effort confirming their arrival as a band to be “considered alongside fellow Irish sonic diviners The Altered Hours and Elastic Sleep“. A few short weeks later, the single – one of our favourite by Irish act this year – comes bearing a visual accompaniment, directed and animated by Ross Ryder. Have a first look at that below. Beach will play a Knockanstockan Presents show in Whelan’s on May 12, as well as their first headline in London on May 18 at the Islington.

  • The Avalanches Set For Dublin and Belfast

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    Australian electronic legends The Avalanches have announced their long awaited return to Ireland. The group – who released their critically-acclaimed second album, Wildflower, last year – will play Belfast’s Limelight 1 on Thursday, June 15 and Dublin’s Academy on June 16. Tickets are priced at £21.50 and €26.90 respectively (inc. booking fee).

  • Watch: Vernon Jane – Fuck Me

    April 27, 2017 - By 

    Holy moly! Don’t you dare sit down, gang, this is important. Dublin Jazz-Punk (or, psyjance as they like to call it) collective Vernon Jane are here to kick the living daylights out you and your loved ones and teach you a lesson while they’re at it. Following on from the 2016 EP The Inner Workings of a Damaged Nobody, the group have returned with a vengeance with new single ‘Fuck Me’. The abrasive, merciless track finds the band channelling influences from the brutally hard-rockin’ camps and those of frenzied jazz. Band leader and vocalist Emily Jane bellows lyrics that demand attention and which grapple…

  • Stream: Elaine Mai – The Colour of the Night

    April 25, 2017 - By 

    Elaine Mai will release her new EP The Colour of the Night on 19 May. Following ‘Enniscrone’ from October 2016 and a recent remix of Liza Flumes ‘Sheets’, the Dublin based producer and vocalist has now revealed the title track of the forthcoming release. Much in the same vein as ‘Enniscrone’, which also features on the EP, ‘The Colour of the Night’ is an atmospheric electronic number with a solid backbone carrying it to its peak. Mai’s ability to capture sincere emotion in simple, warm melodies is on full display here with the words of loss and of nostalgia being carried by chiming synths…