• And So I Watch You From Afar Announce OK? Festival

    March 2, 2020 - By 

    North Coast instrumental rock trailblazers And So I Watch You From Afar have announced details of a new music and arts festival in support of mental awareness and suicide prevention. Created to “celebrate community and to encourage asking the question… are you ok?” OK? will unite some of the country’s best acts at Belfast’s Telegraph Building on Saturday, March 28th. Raising money for Aware NI, PIPS and Help Musicians, the show will feature sets from ASIWYFA, SOAK, General Fiasco, David Holmes, Phil Kieran, Joshua Burnside, New Pagans, Catalan!, Pillow Queens, Junk Drawer, Jordan Adetunji, Careerist, Cherym, Problem Patterns and Gnarkats.…

  • EP Stream: Aul Boy – Making Strange

    February 28, 2020 - By 

    Everyone’s favourite rural slack power-pop escapists, Ramelton’s Aul Boy are back with new EP Making Strange. As ever, the wry quartet, led by Fionn Robinson, runs the gamut from jangle-pop ditties to experimental pocket orchestras [the masterful ‘Buttercup’]. Recorded at Donegal’s Attica Studios by Orri McBrearty, with some wonderful artwork from Daniel McGarrigle, it’s available on digitally & on CD. Aul Boy launch Making Strange tonight at Bennigan’s, Derry, and tomorrow night at Letterkenny’s Swilly Inn. Making Strange by Aul Boy

  • Stream: Tuath – pAy Ur TaXeS! (Feat. Post Punk Podge)

    February 20, 2020 - By 

    Having been called psych, noise rock, trip-hop, industrial, and any other lysergic-laced subgenre under our dying sun, Letterkenny’s Tuath continue to defy classification. They remain as shapeshifting an entity as the likes of Mr Bungle, Ween, and Primus – the latter of whose bulbous low-end shares a lot in common with their pulverising, singular new ‘doomer metal’ single ‘Pay Ur Taxes!’. The release, part of the forthcoming The Fuckening EP, sees frontman Robert Mulhern continue to laugh into the void, distilling their 2020 modus operandi into one easy to understand – unless you’re a conglomerate – mantra. Mulhern has submitted to us an essay on the origin…

  • Bright Eyes Set For First Irish Show in 18 Years

    February 18, 2020 - By 

    Bright Eyes are set to play their first Irish show in 18 years. Thanks to Selective Memory, the Conor Oberst-fronted Omaha indie folk band will play Dublin’s Vicar Street on Friday, September 4th. The show is the latest live date to be announced from the band following a 9-year hiatus. Tickets cost €37.50 standing and €42.50 seated. They go on sale at 9am on Friday, February 21st.

  • Premiere: Zizou – Living On A Plateau

    February 14, 2020 - By 

    Zizou is the brand new solo project of Mathieu Doogan – also singer & multi-instrumentalist with Dublin slack post-punks Angular Hank. Today marks the grand unveiling of his debut single, ‘Living On A Plateau’. Recorded and produced by Mark Belsky, and written in Montreál before Doogan relocated to Dublin, the project’s name comes from Mathieu’s French granny (“born before Zidane”). Striking that perfect combination of the emotional nuance and songwriting mastery of Sparklehorse and Wilco, it’s a wistful series of vivid, scattershot, kitchen sink portraits of those 20s wilderness years. The blurb reads: “It’s partly about nudity, partly about urban planning, mainly about the…

  • Video Premiere: Problem Patterns – Gal Pals

    February 14, 2020 - By 

    A silver lining to the three year cloud of political deadlock in Northern Ireland, today marks the first Valentine’s Day with equal marriage laws, with the first same-sex marriages having taken place earlier this week. Belfast punk quartet Problem Patterns have chosen to celebrate that fact with a video for catchiest single to date, ‘Gal Pals’ whose bubblegum exterior belies an incisive social satire – or in their own words: “Part social commentary, part potential theme tune for a cult queer romcom”. Each member of the band – which comprises Alanah Smith, Ciara King, Beverley Boal & Bethany Crooks – leads a verse, each of which deals with various stages in the…

  • Video Premiere: Son Zept – 1D2D RISE

    February 11, 2020 - By 

    Though it’s nigh on impossible to select a highlight from his new, seven-track album, A, ‘1D2D RISE’ by Belfast-based electronic alchemist and all-round polymath Liam McCartan aka Son Zept is very hard to beat. Somnambulant and wistful in equal measure, it’s a slowly unravelling three-minute burst of warped-out ambient, melding broad washes of synth with heart-tugging, Plantastia-leaning synth arps. Speaking about the track and accompanying video – which you can have an exclusive first look at it below – McCartan said: “It came from those dimly lit 3am sessions that happen again and again with the headphones on really tight. Trying to…

  • Beck Set For Dublin’s Trinity Summer Series

    February 11, 2020 - By 

    Beck is set for Dublin this summer. Marking his first Irish date since 2017, the multi-Grammy award winning artist will play an outdoor show as part of the Summer Series at Dublin’s Trinity College on July 5th. With support yet to be announced, tickets going on sale at 10am on Friday, February 14th, priced €49.90.

  • Knockanstockan Says “Goodbye for now, but not for good”

    February 9, 2020 - By 

    More than simply a highlight of the summer festival over the last 13 years, Knockanstockan has become synonymous with celebrating first-rate independent Irish music. Which is why news of the festival’s decision to go on hiatus this year, at the very least, will come as sad news for many. In a statement titled “goodbye for now, but not for good”, organisers of the Co. Wicklow festival said, “The Christmas of the Summer, the AGM of the craic, Electric Picnic on the dole, call it what you like there’s no denying that there is magic in those hills and there’s a decade-plus of…

  • Stream: DJ Limewire x Post Punk Podge – Stuck In The System

    February 7, 2020 - By 

    Photo by Eilis Walsh Talismanic Limerick rapper Post Punk Podge has a knack for cutting through to Ireland’s most uncomfortable truths, and one day ahead of the next Irish general election, the Direct Provision system – swept under the carpet by most leading politicians – is in his scope. ‘Stuck In The System’ is a collaboration with DJ Limewire – aka Cathal of Bleeding Heart Pigeons – whose beats accompany Podge with apt clautrophobia and dissonance. As many of you know, Direct Provision is essentially this generation’s Magdalene Laundries. A system in place for over two decades, asylum seekers become institutionalised, having been given just…