• Neil Young and Promise of the Real @ SSE Arena, Belfast

    June 8, 2016 - By 

    “If you’re here writing a newspaper piece or something, please try to ignore that…” So remarks 70-year-old Neil Young, quite possibly the coolest man on earth, a handful of songs into a career-spanning, increasingly rapturous set with Promise of the Real at Belfast’s downright reverential SSE Arena tonight. In typically unflustered fashion, he’s just stopped a few seconds into the intro of ‘Harvest Moon’ having neglected to attach his harmonica; a rare blip that not only serves as a brief reminder that even the greatest have their moments of infinitesimal fallibility but also that we’re in the presence of a master who – briefly setting aside his towering…

  • Tuath – Existence is Futile

    June 8, 2016 - By 

    Tuath, an Irish experimental noise band currently based in Donegal, are on the verge of releasing their second EP, Existence is Futile, set for digital release 15th June. Despite obvious connections which can be made between the band’s sound and genres such as shoegaze, electro and psych rock, what is captured beautifully in the EP is the group’s ability to defy the limitations of all generic conventions, creating an impressively unique sound for themselves. The diverse range of musical influences that motivate the band’s music is clearly evident throughout, aided by the variety of instruments used. The four-track EP opens strongly with the title track ‘Existence is…

  • Classic Album: Van Halen – 1984 (1984)

    June 6, 2016 - By 

    Two immense planets having been moving in synchronous orbit around a dazzling sun for a few years now, their every movement in synch with each other. But on one of the planets, a new technological overlord has begun conducting experiments, playing with dangerous new discoveries that will threaten to transform the harmonious nature of these two planets forever. Eddie Van Halen has mastered the synthesizer, and is about to smash headlong into the party-loving world of David Lee Roth, with devastating consequences. The year is 1983, and things are about to get rough. Van Halen’s self-titled 1978 album is one…

  • Paul G. Smyth @ The Lutheran Church, Dublin

    June 6, 2016 - By 

    A year or so ago, I was told about an amazing gig that had happened in the National Concert Hall. It was unlike any live performance that the person recounting the night had ever seen. From that moment I was intrigued and eager to see Paul G. Smyth perform. Smyth, a member of The Jimmy Cake as well as a revered genius in the art of improvisational music is probably one of the most important musicians in Dublin. A sentiment immortalised following an outstanding, and at times unnerving, performance on a remarkably beautiful summer’s evening in St. Finian’s Church. The…

  • Overhead, The Albatross – Learning to Growl

    June 1, 2016 - By 

    A lot of people will tell you that Post-Rock had its day about five years ago, that those who have kept the torch burning the brightest are the just the ones who held it aloft in the first place, and that all the rest have merely fallen by the wayside or been left dragging their heels through the faux-sentimental, desperately “cinematic” mud. In a lot of ways they would be right I suppose. More bands than you can count dabbled in that realm of tremolo picked, delayed guitars and the“quiet bit/heavy bit” structure, to the point where a listener could…

  • I Have a Tribe – Beneath a Yellow Moon

    May 31, 2016 - By 

    Dubliner Patrick O’Laoghaire, better known as I Have A Tribe, last week released his long awaited debut album, Beneath A Yellow Moon, a stunningly imperfect indie-folk record, brimming with eleven brilliantly honest tracks. This intimate album comes as a follow up to 2015’s No Countries EP and upon a single listen it becomes clear that, even within such a brief timespan, O’Laoghaire’s songwriting has undoubtedly become so much more complex. The range of emotion he is now capable of evoking has grown extensively, now fully projecting the vibrant colours in his mind into the outside world, overshadowing his past two EPs and demonstrating his growth and brilliance as…

  • Gold Panda – Good Luck and Do Your Best

    May 31, 2016 - By 

    2010 was a bizarre time to be a producer of electronic music. At the advent of the bedroom producer and a period when Youtube channels like Majestic Casual were oversaturating our ears with sugary “chill” electronica – or whatever the heck it was called – it was a time in which one track could come to define an artist far too early into their musical career, long before they were in a position to be defined at all. Luckily, a number of artists managed to break free from the labelling and pigeonholing that coincided with having a Youtube “hit” around…

  • Sofar Sounds @ The Kino, Cork

    May 27, 2016 - By 

    It’s wonderful to see Cork landmark The Kino in proper use again. At one stage in recent memory it was the only independently run cinema in the entire country and, as a younger man, it hosted me as I indulged my love of music documentaries. Needless to say, it features prominently in the hearts of many throughout the country. Tonight, the old picture house is showcasing actual music in the form of Sofar Sounds and its grassroots and novel approach to live performance. With the seats removed, the cinema organically takes the shape of a natural music venue and, with…

  • The Last Shadow Puppets @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    May 27, 2016 - By 

    A youthful crowd assembled in the Olympia Theatre for the first of three performances, the live debut of The Last Shadow Puppets in Dublin. The majority of attendees were of similar age to me, approaching mid-twenties, whom I assumed had grown up with Alex Turner’s prolific lyrics and music as both an Arctic Monkey and Last Shadow Puppet, and had encountered Miles Kane as a Rascal along the way. There were a handful of families present, mostly with younger daughters a little younger than I was when The Age of The Understatement was released in 2008. You couldn’t help feeling…

  • Marissa Nadler – Strangers

    May 27, 2016 - By 

    In the lead up to the release of her seventh LP Strangers, the second to be released on Sacred Bones/Bella Union, Marissa Nadler welcomed interviewers into her apartment instead of having features built on distant phone-calls or coffee shop meetings . This willingness to allow the external into the internal, the welcoming of outsiders into the most sacred and personal of spaces is something that plays heavily into this album. Moving from the highly introspective lyricism that has defined her previous releases, Nadler it seems has now taken to bringing the influence of others, be they strangers or best friends,…