• Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.

    April 20, 2017 - By 

    Kendrick Lamar has a lot resting on DAMN. He is, of course, in a “good place” artistically at the moment, to say the least: he’s widely considered the greatest rapper in the game at the minute, off the back of two instant-classic albums and frequently stunning guest verses across various musical landscapes (appearing on songs from jazz bassist Thundercat, mega-producer DJ Khaled and pop-rock also-rans Maroon 5 in the past year). 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly‘s seismic impact created fans in David Bowie and Barack Obama and enemies in the right-wing press, and found it’s single ‘Alright’ being adopted at Black Lives…

  • Lost Avenue – Best Friends

    April 20, 2017 - By 

    Derry based punk trio Lost Avenue recently unveiled their new EP Best Friends, the latest in a series of small releases that punch well above everything they’ve done before. Something about the release threatens to get lost within itself, however, thrashing violently towards an uncertain conclusion. When listening to Best Friends, it’s hard not to get the impression that the band are aiming for something that is certainly achievable, but they’ve overcooked it, using sharp conversions and sudden alterations to an unnecessarily degree. This is likely due to some combination of self-doubt and the need to appear unique in an industry where…

  • Fionn Regan – The Meetings of the Waters

    April 14, 2017 - By 

    Capturing an image that denotes a changing phase in one’s life and making that image resonate can be a laboured and often trite task for an artist. An example: about five years ago at a Bon Iver show in what was then the O2 Arena in Dublin, Justin Vernon made a passing remark about how life’s cyclical nature can be observed in the beginnings and endings of seemingly insignificant things – in his case, tubes of toothpaste. It was a nice thought, but one that perhaps felt too individualised to produce anything more than a shrug of vague acknowledgement from…

  • Happyness – Write In

    April 12, 2017 - By 

    Let us begin with a simple, easy to follow tip. It is seldom a good idea to listen to people who take their grammatical cues from Will Smith Oscar Bait. Might seem like a wise move at first, but therein lies danger. Happyness are a decent old fashioned, fuzzed out indie band, in the American sense of the genre; their style being essentially comprised of many long, drawn out jams that stretch on into the horizon. Speed and brevity are not any kinds of priority. While this has lent to a variety of dreamy, spaced out cuts in the past…

  • Father John Misty – Pure Comedy

    April 12, 2017 - By 

    Josh Tillman is a multi-faceted character. You have to regard him as such when considering his work because what he does as a musician he does so with an elusive persona, an alter ego. There are many angles to consider when deconstructing his songwriting, which can often make for interesting debate with friends and among critics. He conjures a similar reaction to Marmite in that you either love him or loathe him. Nonetheless, he has managed to dispel the disdain his personality ignites by making his music the central element of his existence and by exercising thought provoking content throughout…

  • Future Islands – The Far Field

    April 10, 2017 - By 

    By 2014, the days of a hard-working band catching their break on late night TV were supposed to be over, at least until Future Islands proved everyone wrong. Clever synth-pop number ‘Seasons (Waiting on You)’ was elevated so much by frontman Samuel T Herring’s performance on David Letterman that they were catapulted onto another level. His hip swaying, chest beating, growling run through the song was almost comically sincere, downright bizarre, and completely captivating. It soon went viral, inspiring GIFs and blog posts aplenty. It even collected prestigious ‘Song of the Year’ gongs from Pitchfork, NME, Spin and others, while…

  • Pharmakon – Contact

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Noise music mostly operates within the sphere of the modern avant-garde, but can be a deeply alienating experience for many; not only because of its tendency to be anti-everything – structure, melody, basic auditory comprehension – but because of its potential to generate actual discomfort in listeners. Despite this, its compositional strategies can be almost decadent in execution – when Lou Reed wanted to release his 1975 double album Metal Machine Music (mostly impenetrable but considered by many to be a pioneering Noise work), he wanted to release it on RCA’s classical arm, Red Seal. Reed, along with many proponents…

  • Wire – Silver/Lead

    April 3, 2017 - By 

    Wire have always been a band more interested in looking forward than back. On returning from their first hiatus in 1985 they famously hired a Wire covers band, The Ex Lion Tamers, as their support act so they could be freed up to focus exclusively on new material. So it seems entirely appropriate that they would celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut performance with another new album, their fifteenth. Although still most celebrated for their initial trio of envelope-pushing albums between 1977 and 1979 – the frantic art-punk of Pink Flag, the more effects-laden post-punk of Chairs Missing and…

  • Real Estate – In Mind

    March 29, 2017 - By 

    It has been a busy three years since Real Estate’s third album, Atlas was released. Firstly, founding member Matt Mondanile decided to leave the band with the intention to focus primarily on his band, Ducktails. Meanwhile, in 2015 frontman Martin Courtney took some time away to record his solo debut, Many Moons. Now, with the addition of Julian Lynch on lead guitar, Real Estate’s return with In Mind maintains the lyrical themes that has defined their output up to this point: the metaphorical utilisation of nature as a reflection of relationships; romantic as well as familial and platonic. And while the…

  • Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked At Me

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    You did not walk with me Of late to the hill-top tree By the gated ways, As in earlier days; You were weak and lame, So you never came, And I went alone, and I did not mind, Not thinking of you as left behind.   I walked up there to-day Just in the former way; Surveyed around The familiar ground By myself again: What difference, then? Only that underlying sense Of the look of a room on returning thence.   Thomas Hardy In July of 2016, musician Geneviève Castrée died.  She was survived by husband Phil Elverum and her…