• Joanna MacGregor @ The Market Place Theatre, Armagh

    April 9, 2015 - By 

    Many of the world’s greatest classical pianists are content to spend the entirety of decades-long careers playing the same scores. Joanna MacGregor, however, is cut from a very different cloth. The British pianist, conductor and curator’s journey has been marked by adventure and an open-minded approach to music that has seen collaborations with artists as diverse as Talvin Singh, Django Bates, Dhafer Youssef, Andy Sheppard and Brian Eno. MacGregor may be world-renowned for her interpretations of Bach, but interdisciplinary projects like 2002’s Crossborder, which fused Chinese traditional music, contemporary dance, film and computer technology prove that, to borrow from jazz parlance,…

  • A Place To Bury Strangers w/ Travis Is A Tourist @ Voodoo, Belfast

    April 7, 2015 - By 

    On a cold, dank – did I mention cold? – and generally miserable Belfast evening, what could  be more inviting than some live music with good friends and good beers? Not much, and as we headed into Voodoo, safe in the knowledge that the aforementioned factors would welcome us, we were thrilled to just be warm and dry. Then, at 8.30 sharp-ish, Travis Is A Tourist takes to the stage in support of the headline act for the evening, A Place To Bury Strangers. Wonderful. Well, actually, wonderful in a sense.  Here’s the thing: Travis Is A Tourist (below) is…

  • Cloud Castle Lake w/ Willow Sea – Roisín Dubh, Galway

    April 1, 2015 - By 

    Sound problems from the get-go don’t stop local multi-instrumentalist Willow Sea from dishing out his usual generous helping of genre crossing fun in his support slot for Cloud Castle Lake on Thursday in the Roisín Dubh. Combining clunky electronica, cheeky sampling and shredding guitar work, it’s always a pleasure to watch Mr. Sea having fun on stage as he piles the blocks of his soundtrack – ready tunes on top of one another and engaging the bar in some charming, self-deprecating banter; “That’s the depressing shit out of the way, time to get obnoxious”.  Unfortunately though, the dynamic in the…

  • Sleater-Kinney @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    March 30, 2015 - By 

    Less than six months on from announcing No Cities To Love, their first studio album in a decade, Sleater-Kinney are currently experiencing a remarkable rebirth and easily their most popular streak in their three-decade long career to date. The twenty-first show of a twenty-one date comeback tour that has seen them zig-zag them across the States and Europe, Carrie Brownstein (above), Corin Tucker (below) and Janet Weiss return to Dublin tonight a valiant and imposing alt-rock force; an unspeakably influential and headstrong threesome that has weathered the storm of changing scenes and industry to assert that they are, without a…

  • Young Fathers w/ Simi Crowns @ The Academy, Dublin

    March 30, 2015 - By 

    A chatty Thursday night crowd sit through an increasingly punchy, but not overtly engaging opening few minutes from support Simi Crowns. The Dublin-reared rapper throws out some strong armed but inaccurate hooks that fail to engage all but the most enthusiastic in the audience. Such is the lot of the support slot, right? Except Simi Crowns does not pack up his things and go home. With a bit of charm and a hint of exuberance he manages to make his pop-esque, Chase and Status inflected style of hip-hop hit home. By the time the set is over the crowd are…

  • Idlewild @ Limelight 2, Belfast

    March 23, 2015 - By 

    It was shortly after delivering a memorable, thrashy show in Stiff Kitten back in 2010 that Idlewild quietly disappeared from music. It is fair to say that we missed them. Now, with the itches for solo projects having been successfully scratched and the time taken to patiently develop new material, the band returned to Belfast touring on the back of their first album in five years. The Limelight 2 was packed to absolute capacity. ‘Everything Ever Written’, despite being a good album, is unlikely to have brought such a crowd. This was clearly a loyal audience collected many years before…

  • Kindred: Ital w/ Matt Burns (Twitch) @ Menagerie, Belfast

    March 21, 2015 - By 

    Tonight, as we approach the beginning of the weekend with all the vigour one can muster from a Monday through Friday work-a-day existence, the only logical decision is to go big or go home, right? Choosing the former, the ‘go big option’, with total and firm disregard for the inevitable suffering to be endured post-partying, our sights are set firmly on The Menagerie, Belfast, so that we may dance, groove and lap up some of the finest house and techno courtesy of Brooklyn-based producer and electronica explorer, Ital, AKA Daniel Martin-McCormick. Kicking off ever so slightly later than planned, we…

  • No Monster Club Album Launch @ Bello Bar, Dublin

    March 16, 2015 - By 

    “I never break any strings in rehearsal… but when we’re live, I break every string in the book.” I’ve never been in rehearsal with No Monster Club yet I found myself pleasantly unsurprised when frontman Bobby Aherne made this observation Saturday night at the launch party for his new album, People Are Weird. Staged in the basement of Dublin’s Bello Bar, the choice in venue captured an absurdity that could only be matched by the dry humour of Aherne’s lyrics. This stale 70’s smoking parlour boasts wooden panels, low ceilings, and a revival art-deco aesthetic that’s dying to be in some…

  • Cruising @ Menagerie, Belfast

    March 17, 2015 - By 

    So far, Cruising have been taking things fairly slowly. Though the Belfast/Dublin quartet officially operate under pseudonyms (Benzedrine Black, Sex Grimes, Dan Handle and Dick Vortex), they’re easily recognisable to anyone who has even a passing interest in Irish music at the moment, made up as they are of members of Girls Names, Sea Pinks, September Girls and the now defunct Logikparty. Another one of Sunglasses After Dark’s top notch events, without a support act The Menagerie slowly fills up to the sounds of The Stooges and other assorted proto-punk bands, which sets the tone for what’s to come. It’s…

  • Jape @ The Woodworkers, Belfast

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    Going to see Jape for the first time in a while is always an interesting proposition, seeing as the lineup can often be entirely different from the previous occasion. Such is the case tonight – they’re still a trio, albeit with a different drummer from the Ocean Of Frequency tour, and Richie Egan is still front and centre of course, with Glenn Keating still his right hand man but things have still been rejigged, with Egan now on bass and sampler rather than guitar and keys, and Keating on electronic percussion and sequencer. It’s an interesting adjustment and seems to…