• Gone Girl

    October 6, 2014 - By 

    Who knew extreme marital dysfunction could be such a riot? Adapted by Gillian Flynn from her best-selling novel, Gone Girl is a lurid and sickly funny evisceration of modern marriage. Flynn efficiently translates the book’s twisted psychologies and David Fincher, with his regular photography team and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ downbeat score, anchors the violent camp in his cold suburban surfaces. The film has the studied dread of Patricia Highsmith and the page-turning brio of a schlocky airport novel, and is a wicked satire on the ‘missing girl’ media phenomenon. It is also the first must-see studio film of the autumn. On…

  • Aphex Twin – Syro

    October 3, 2014 - By 

    To give Richard D James an introduction seems redundant. Anyone uninformed of his past work has almost certainly listened to other artists inspired by it; such was the impact of many of his staple albums throughout the 90s. His reach within electronic music has oft been referred to as game changing, immeasurable, and essential. So when his unmistakable emblem began appearing on blimps, tagged across multiple European capitals and even within the darkest reaches of the deep web accompanied by a stark ‘2014’, the electronic music producer from Cornwall sent music lovers worldwide into a state of frenzy. The hype…

  • Jozef Van Wissem @ Whelan’s

    October 3, 2014 - By 

    The last time we encountered the tall, black-clothed figure of Jozef Van Wissem it was at a holiday camp in the southeast of England. The lone lute player delivered a unique set at the final ATP festival in December of last year. On that occasion he had just provided the soundtrack for Domingo García-Huidobro’s film Partir To Live, which premiered at the festival, but his collaborations with another director have garnered more attention in recent times. Jozef met Jim Jarmusch in New York and gave him a CD of his work. Both have a history in New Wave and noise…

  • Mano Le Tough, Special Request, Chez Damier @ Limelight

    October 3, 2014 - By 

    Cultural arbiters and part time energy drink company Red Bull have seen fit to spend some of their considerable savings throwing a weekend-long event in Belfast, with a huge array of talks, workshops and film screenings every day, and big name producers and DJs like The Juan MacLean, Greg Wilson and Space Dimension Controller playing every night. Friday night was set to be the biggest event on the bill, with Dubstep-pioneer-turned-Disco-peddler Skream headlining, alongside Paul Woolford under his Special Request alias, house legend Chez Damier and Belfast stalwart Jordan. I was curious to hear for myself what a Skream DJ…

  • Electric Wizard – Time To Die

    October 2, 2014 - By 

    Rejoice, rosy-eyed Neanderthals, for your patience has been well rewarded. It’s been an age and a score (or four years to be precise) since last we were gifted with a new Electric Wizard LP, and anticipation has been boiling for months since it was announced that Wizard original, Mark Greening, would be taking a seat behind the drum kit for the first time since the trance-inducing Let Us Prey in 2002. It has already been an absolutely stellar year for doom metal with cumbersome offerings from favourites such as Conan and EyeHateGod, so it’s hard to not feel spoiled filthy…

  • Alt-J @ 3Arena

    October 1, 2014 - By 

    The cliched and indeed meteoric rise of Alt-J has at times dazzled with its intrigue. Having spent years tucked away in student bedrooms, perfecting a necessarily minimalist style yet reticent to unveil it, the Leeds act equally seemed uninspired by the fame that eventually came their way. The wonderfully portentous Mac-only reference of their name, early refusal to feature their own faces in promo shots and distinctive vocals made it clear they were going to do things on their own terms. Terms, in a leftfield twist, that didn’t turn out to include bassist and founder Gwil Sainsbury. It’s been an…

  • Adebisi Shank, Adultrock @ Whelan’s

    September 29, 2014 - By 

    It was only this August that we finally saw the release of This Is The Third Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank, a whole four years after its predecessor, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. But barely a month later, the band made the shock announcement that they were calling it a day and that their pair of album launch shows in Whelan’s would in fact double up as farewell shows. The outpouring of love in the Irish music press since the announcement has highlighted just how much this band has meant to music fans in Ireland in the last…

  • 20000 Days on Earth

    September 22, 2014 - By 

    It’s important to understand that we all have our own biases. So before I discuss the new documentary 20000 Days On Earth, I feel it is important to establish that I’m a firm believer in Nick Cave and the strange, almost Lovecraftian shape his career has taken. From the apocalyptic noise of Birthday Party to last years pretty excellent  Bad Seed’s release Push The Sky Away and all of the films and novels in between, Cave has taken a journey filled with drugs, violence and religion which is just screaming to be explored cinematically. Anything that can give me more…

  • Pride

    September 22, 2014 - By 

    Pride works – and it really works – because it finds a way to perfectly be the kind of film you think it’s going to be while also offering surprising shades of feeling. The story of a real-life alliance between striking miners and gay and lesbian activists in Thatcherite Britain has a colourful, slightly cartoonish anti-Establishment bounce in its step, familiar from other British heart-warmers like Billy Elliot and The Boat That Rocked (with whom it shares Bill Nighy). But writer Stephen Beresford and Matthew Warchus are generous and compassionate in their treatment of characters and their dignity, producing a celebration of working-class solidarity and friendship…

  • Noble

    September 19, 2014 - By 

    Noble, the biopic of Irish humanitarian Christina Noble starring comedian Deidre O’Kane, feels a lot like a TV movie. First there’s the on-the-nose title, which reminds me of those movies you sometimes see on satellite channels, the ones that rip off blockbuster plots and give them over-literal titles like Space Danger or Future Saviour. The film may as well be called Saint Christina or The Pluck of the Irish. And second, there’s the intensely by-the-numbers approach it takes to Noble’s life story, as cribbed from memoirs like Bridge Across My Sorrows and Mama Tina. The film shifts chronologically between two stories: the ‘mis-lit’ material of her growing up in post-war Dublin squalor and ‘present day’…