• I Am Belfast

    April 21, 2015 - By 

    The movies were like magic carpets, Mark Cousins tells us about his younger days, introducing Festival opener I Am Belfast at the Moviehouse Dublin Road. The film itself is a kind of magic carpet ride through the city, with Cousins as the excitable genie, showing us not a whole new world, but the same one, viewed from unexpected angles. Belfast, tilted. We begin in the clouds, coming down on the city from above, Cousins bringing his film-making eye to his hometown after a career spent Out There. Cut to a stained mountain face, raw and prehistoric, its reflection stretching outward in a pool…

  • Villagers – Darling Arithmetic

    April 21, 2015 - By 

    Villagers has always been something of a vehicle for Conor O’Briens creative vision. Early on as a band it enabled him to explore the rich soundscapes we heard on Becoming A Jackal; the arrangements were complex, brooding and gave more than a tip of the cap to Nick Drake’s darkest days and recordings, but was most certainly foregrounded with O’Brien’s soloist vernacular. {Awayland} had a different, but no less focused modus operandi, with O’Brien and co. expanding a sound that ultimately felt like a more colourful, collaborative experience. Now on album number three, Villagers’ Darling Arithmetic goes beyond a back…

  • The Mighty Stef – Year of the Horse

    April 27, 2015 - By 

    Dublin’s The Mighty Stef went for nailed-on quality with the production of The Year Of The Horse, traveling to California to splash out on Arctic Monkeys and QOTSA studio legend Alain Johannes. It’s a solid tactic, and sees the rocker’s tight, clean yet snarling stomp polished to a complex gem of a guitar album. It’s been a long road at a full eight year since Stefan Murphy released his debut, entitled The Sins Of Sainte Catherine. Perhaps that heady sense of an album slimmed down and refined over an extended period is a product of the wait; the outcome of…

  • Hedda Gabler @ Abbey Theatre, Dublin

    April 21, 2015 - By 

    Retelling the story of a woman plagued by unrest and uncertainty, Mark O’Rowe’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler offers an initial presentation of cold austerity. At first glance, from foreboding show poster to spacious set, the makings of stark drama are at hand. However, the uncertainty which tinges the fabric of Ibsen’s anti-heroine ultimately seeps into every aspect of production in the Abbey Theatre’s latest venture, leaving the piece feeling directionless and its audience unguided. On entering the space, the set, designed and dressed by Paul Mahony and Liz Barker respectively, paints an impressionistic portrait dominated by striking visual perspective.…

  • Primer: Burn After Inking

    April 17, 2015 - By 

      In the latest installment of Primer, Eoghain Meakin takes a look at Burn After Inking, an exhibition of illustrations and paintings from Gavin Fullerton, Christina O’Donovan, Melissa Malone, Patrick Semple, Fiona Meade and Daniel Spencer at Dublin’s The Mart. Photos by Aine O’Hara MART continues to shine as one of the city’s premier, not-for-profit creative spaces. Spread out over the venues two main rooms this eclectic mix of styles and ambitions are linked by the fact that they could all find a home in story books from Beatrix Potter to the positively post-modern. Reading the room like a text,…

  • Robocobra Quartet – Bomber EP

    April 16, 2015 - By 

    In the quest for the new sound, the path is one paved with ambitious intentions and fraught with admirable failed experiments and laughable attempts at the avant garde. Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music is a terrible album that forces the listener to reconsider what they might constitute as real music, while Lulu is an album where James Hetfield feels it appropriate to yell “I am the table”, while Lou Reed’s withered husk struggles to sing some Burrowsian tripe. Both of these releases are burying their fingers in the earth, digging for something and coming up with dirty fingers. There are…

  • Ben Howard @ 3Arena, Dublin

    April 15, 2015 - By 

    Returning to Dublin after four months on from two-night run at the Olympia, Ben Howard’s sold-out performance at 3Arena would normally indicate momentous progress for a second-album tour. October 2014’s I Forget Where We Were marked a piquant shift toward the sultrier side of Howard’s folk bearings and has captured coveted spots on charts the world over, including number 1 in the singer’s own UK. And yet, as a set list for an arena tour, Howard’s new material simply falls short. The packed crowds of Dublin’s stunning 3Arena broke into wild applause as the house dimmed to welcome Howard’s humble…

  • Princess @ The Woodworkers, Belfast

    April 13, 2015 - By 

    More a pub than a performance venue, The Woodworkers is certainly an interesting space, and upon entering, we were happy to see that the sizeable crowd were largely there for the same reason as us – to watch some glorious live music from Dublin’s Princess, rather than pint it up before heading onwards. Princess wouldn’t come on until 11.30pm though, so we were treated to an eclectic selection of tunes from Chris Jones in the meantime, whose penchant for house and some very funky electronica kept our heads bobbing quite happily until the main act were setting up. Then, at…

  • AAA: The Mighty Stef Album Launch

    April 12, 2015 - By 

    Redemption is a story told intimately well by the tattered glory of rock ‘n’ roll.  At the peak of an atypically hot week in Dublin, hometown hero Stefan Murphy embodied that redemption through a genuine baptism by fire in the sweat-box that is Whelan’s music hall.  Heralding the launch of his new album Year of the Horse, The Mighty Stef, as he’s known to fans, led his band mates through a raucous set, featuring friends old and new, and making a remarkable fresh start in the local legend’s career.  For an hour and a half of warm-up acts, as cult followers…

  • Bloodborne (Sony, PS4)

    April 12, 2015 - By 

    Gluttons for punishment will find much to enjoy in Bloodborne, an unremittingly sadistic title that apparently has one difficulty level, and that level is brutal. Anyone familiar with From Software’s Dark Souls series will know the level of cruelty to expect here: a fearfully malicious and dark underworld where everything and everyone has the sole intent of annihilating you. None of this might sound particularly appealing but Bloodborne has the same compelling quality that infuses other equally addictive games. It proves your mettle, for sure, to be killed over and over and over again yet still want to keep coming…