• Stream: Arvo Party – Halloween (Main Theme)/Tubular Bells (Exorcist Theme)

    October 31, 2018 - By 

    John Carpenter’s soundtrack to his 1978 classic Halloween remains one of the greatest horror scores of all time – a fact reflected in the many tributes and remixes of its main themes over the years, not least Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ cover of the film’s menacing and instantly recognisable main theme. Last Halloween, Belfast producer Herb Magee AKA Arvo Party offered his own take with a “VHS Mix” interpretation that blended original with a lo-fi, wonderfully warped aesthetic and shuddering synth work more redolent of Carpenter’s soundtracks to the likes of Assault on Precinct 13. Now, in the year of our Lord John Carpenter…

  • Album Stream + Interview: Woven Skull

    October 31, 2018 - By 

    Photo: Colum O’Dwyer Back at the end of 2016, we included Leitrim experimental/psych outfit Woven Skull in our 17 for ’17 round up of acts to watch in the coming year. We like to think we were fairly on the money with the trio, who both on an individual level and as an outfit delivered dividends throughout 2017 and well into this year… Mondola player Natalia Beylis, for one, developed her breathtaking field recordings and drones project with the release of The Sunken Hum Vol 1: Field Rhythms & Drones and Scchh​.​.​.​phh. Guitarist Aonghus McEvoy, meanwhile, continued his solo and…

  • The Specials Announce Dublin Return

    October 30, 2018 - By 

    2-Tone heroes The Specials have announced their return to Dublin next year. Having last played the city back in 2014, the Coventry band will play Olympia Theatre on April 11th. The show is part of the band’s 40th anniversary tour, and coincides with the release of a new album, Encore – the band’s first new music in 37 years. Tickets go on sale on Friday, November 2 at 9am.

  • Massive Attack Set For Mezzanine XXI 2019 Show in Dublin

    October 30, 2018 - By 

    Bristol trip-hop legends Massive Attack will stop off in Dublin next as part of a tour celebrating their seminal 1998 album, Mezzanine. Promising a “totally new audio/visual production” the show at Dublin’s 3Arena on Sunday, February 24 will also feature Elizabeth Fraser, the Cocteau Twins singer who lent her vocals to the album’s second single ‘Teardrop’. The show will re-imagine Mezzanine via “custom audio reconstructed from the original samples and influences”, and is described by Robert Del Naja AKA 3D as “a one off piece of work; our own personalised nostalgia nightmare head trip”. Tickets are priced €49.50 and go on sale…

  • Video Premiere: DJ Nervou$ x Post Punk Podge – Never Coming Home

    October 30, 2018 - By 

    Note: content contains themes of domestic violence. Two of Ireland’s most exciting independent prospects have teamed up for new single ‘Never Coming Home’ to raise funds for Limerick’s ADAPT House, which helps families suffering domestic abuse. Following on from homelessness charity single ‘Home Is Where The Heart Bleeds’, Post Punk Podge is posited once more as the conscience of modern Ireland, backed by claustrophobic beats from Just Mustard guitarist/vocalist David Noonan, aka DJ Nervou$. Factoring toxic masculinity, substance abuse and mental health into its weighty fable, the vitriol of its final refrain will leave you like you’ve just blitzed through The Butcher Boy, staring into nothingness, as Podge manages to decry perpetrators of domestic…

  • Manic Street Preachers Set For Dublin Return

    October 22, 2018 - By 

    Four years on from playing the Dame Street venue, Manic Street Preachers will play Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on Sunday, May 12th, 2019. The show will mark the 21st time the Welsh alt-rock heroes have played the capital, with their first show in the city being March, 1992 as part of the Generation Terrorists tour. This new date will come off the back of the 20th anniversary reissue of the band’s fifth album, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. Tickets go on sale at 9am from Friday, October 26th, priced €54.50.

  • Watch: Bouts – Love’s Lost Landings (Pt. 1)

    October 19, 2018 - By 

    Five years on from the release of their debut album, Nothing Good Gets Away, Dublin indie rock quartet Bouts resurfaced back in May with ‘Face Up’. The lead single from the band’s highly-anticipated second full-length, Flow, frontman Barry Bracken called it “a no-filter, punch the air plea for staring things down and pushing on through.” Second single ‘Love’s Lost Landings (Pt. 1)’ picks up the pace in emphatic fashion. Accompanied with visuals from Paris/London-based French photographer Gwenaëlle Trannoy (link below) it’s an equal parts slick and starry-eyed burst of indie rock from the re-emerging Irish four-piece, centreing around frontman Barry Bracken’s…

  • EP Premiere: Son Zept – Q2B

    October 19, 2018 - By 

    Liam McCartan, AKA Son Zept, releases his debut today, and it’s one of the most exciting, forward-thinking electronic releases to emerge from here in some time. Parallels could be drawn with the likes of Autechre or Aphex Twin from an experimental standpoint, as his Q2B EP reveals McCartan as a true polymath, where concern with ideology is tantamount to creating limitless club potential. Brimming with atmosphere punctuated by his dense ‘polypatternism’, the Q2B EP is a work of deconstructed club music that alludes to the memory-triggering aspects of techno, noise, trance, power-ambient and industrial, often falling into umbrella of electroacoustic composition. We’ll have a full interview with Son Zept in the coming…

  • Stream: Skelocrats – You’ll Never Make Me Talk

    October 18, 2018 - By 

    Call off the funeral procession: Skelocrats are back. Yes, Popical Island’s finest have returned after four years with one of their strongest single efforts to date, ‘You’ll Never Make Me Talk’. Better yet, the track – which brims with the band’s singular blend of lush baroque and earworming jangle-pop – is the first taste of a new Skelocrats full-length, which is set for release at some point next year. You’ll Never Make Me Talk by Skelocrats

  • Stream: Daithí – Lavender/Orange (feat. Tandem Felix/Sinead White)

    October 18, 2018 - By 

    Daithí has returned with not one, but two sublime new singles. It’s a collaborative one-two from the Galway-based electronic producer : featuring Dublin’s Tandem Felix, the wistful ‘Lavender’ is a stark affair marrying stoic beats, skeletal piano phrases and vocals bearing the imprint of hidden pangs. ‘Orange’, meanwhile, is an open letter penned to another about the end of a relationship. Tussling with a romantic cul-de-sac, head-on yet with subtlety, is no mean feat. For Daithí and Sinead White – whose vocals carry the single – it’s delivered with nuanced grace and earworming aplomb. Out tomorrow, stream both singles below.