• Mats Gustafsson – Piano Mating

    February 18, 2016 - By 

    Mats Gustafsson is a sax player who has been recording since the 1980s, but for this strange release on Blue Tapes and X-Ray Records, he’s travelling a different path. Tasked by the label’s head with making music using an instrument he’d never recorded with before, he opted for the the Dubreq Pianomate. This is an obscure machine that acts as a kind of keyboard-less synth, generally used with a piano. In Gustafsson’s case, however, he turned the machine on itself, creating sounds that are shrill, calming, enraging, all dragged out in two lengthy sides of grinding drone. Gustafsson is known…

  • Animal Collective – Painting With

    February 17, 2016 - By 

    Baltimore’s Animal Collective have spent the best part of two decades attempting to give experimental pop a good name, with mixed results: after scoring a direct hit with 2009’s critical high water mark Merriweather Post Pavilion, the hazy experimentation of 2012’s follow up Centipede Hz alienated many of their new followers, and their trend of swaying between catchy weirdness and self-indulgent noodling has been a feature throughout their discography. As a result, the news that 2016 would bring the first Animal Collective album in four years was met with as much apprehension as anticipation: for a band that on average released an album a…

  • The Survivalist

    February 16, 2016 - By 

    The Survivalist is a lean film for lean times. It’s seven years after the end of civilisation, the collapse of oil production having devastated world population levels, a setup communicated quickly via an efficiently severe line graph animation. Out in the Irish countryside (shot in Ballymoney forestry) lives the unnamed recluse, played by Belfast’s Martin McCann (’71, Boogaloo and Graham), alone in a cabin and eking out a basic existence off the land. Derry-born Stephen Fingleton’s feature debut opens with an audacious establishing section, silent except for the scrape of bark and sploosh of wet soil, following McCann’s hermit as…

  • Kerrang! Tour 2016: Sum 41, Frank Carter, Roam & Biters @ The Academy, Dublin

    February 15, 2016 - By 

    What’s probably most striking about tonight’s annual Kerrang! tour performance is the absence of side fringes and panda bear eyeliner. While outside there are a plethora of young folks trying to convince the bouncer that their older sibling’s ID is their own, the crowd inside the venue seems to be within their early to late 20s. This is the Kerrang! tour; the purest distillation of angsty misunderstood youth that a €3.50 magazine can offer. So why is the crowd from Animal Collective or TV On The Radio here? Does the long awaited return of pop-punk legends Sum 41 really inspire…

  • Foals w/ Everything Everything @ 3Arena, Dublin

    February 12, 2016 - By 

    Coming off the sound of their excellent 2015 record Get to Heaven Everything Everything take the stage packing all their reverb-y epic-ness into the 3Arena’s panoramic sound. They kick in with a metallic, eighties edge and the vocals have a sharp bite that more than make up for Jonathan Higgs contained but usually irreducible, athletic range. ‘Regrets’ lives up to its anthemic potential and ‘Cough Cough’s frenetic rhythms make way for the best pop-post-rock soup on any mainstream menu. In ten minutes the Manchester locals have already played a stormer. By the time they unleash a bouncy, tricky version of…

  • Sunflower Bean – Human Ceremony

    February 8, 2016 - By 

    One of the inherent issues of being part of the hype machine is that your teething pains stand a good chance of destroying  you. If you don’t come out of gestation period fully formed and with the next OK Computer neatly tucked into your back pocket then it’s back to the “2PM slot on the smallest stage” ghetto for you. Brooklyn’s Sunflower Bean, hotly tipped for indie rock stardom for the last two years, are victims of their own hype. Their debut LP, Human Ceremony, is a record borne of that expectation that struggles to find it’s own feet. Clear…

  • Goosebumps

    February 5, 2016 - By 

    Even viewed through the forgiving prism of nostalgia, the Goosebumps books were always more goofy than scary, with their green sludge lettering, gotcha twists and titles like Say Cheese and Die! or Say Cheese and Die – Again! Coming nearly twenty years (!) after the Fox Kids television show, the big-screen outing for R. L. Stine’s sprawling series leans into its inherent silliness, producing an entertaining and entertainingly self-aware kids v. ghouls adventure. Teenager Zach (Dylan Minnette) and his mother (the always good Amy Ryan) have just moved into their new home in Madison, Delaware, for a fresh start after the death of his father, a pathos that is…

  • Jesu/Sun Kil Moon – Jesu/Sun Kil Moon

    February 4, 2016 - By 

    The name Justin Broadrick has previously been evoked by Sun Kil Moon on Universal Themes’ opening track – a gushing paean to “Godflesh’s guttural growls from hell.” Broadrick’s massively influential industrial metal band disintegrated in 2002 amidst various personal difficulties, with Jesu following in the wake of the break-up. Godlesh have since reconvened (as documented in ‘The Possum’), and it’s an astute move on Mark Kozelek’s part to change things up musically, hooking up with his long-time friend for this collaborative effort after the reflections of Benji and Universal Themes. With Jesu/Sun Kil Moon Kozelek’s lyrical ponderings are given a…

  • The Strypes w/ Support @ The Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    February 1, 2016 - By 

    For years, Cavan boys The Strypes have been plagued with endless comparisons and negativity. Tonight’s headline show at The Olympia Theatre shows a band that have finally come into their own. With all three bands tonight being Irish, there really is a sense of national pride in the room. After Bitch Falcon and Travis Oaks (below) have warmed up the crowd, from the second The Strypes arrive on stage until the moment they leave, there’s not a moment of quiet in the venue. With a brass section as well as plenty of new material, The Strypes really do appear to…

  • Cian Nugent – Night Fiction

    January 31, 2016 - By 

    Night Fiction is Dubliner Cian Nugent’s third album; on previous instrumental releases he has shown himself to be a prodigious guitarist and composer, but this record sees Nugent’s vocal chops come to the fore.  His sound tips its hat to world folk music, including African folk; one of the continents great musical exports, Ali Farka Touré’s guitar playing is a good reference point.  Psych rock could also be cited as an influence, and as such his songs often have a hypnotic quality which allows you to immerse yourself in the detail. On ‘Lost Your Way’ guitar lines dance along whilst Nugent’s voice crackles…