• The Hold Steady – Thrashing Thru The Passion

    August 27, 2019 - By 

    Back at the turn of the decade, The Hold Steady were on the top of their game. The self-described “best bar band in the world” had four phenomenal LPs under their belt and were poised to carve out their own niche and achieve the same level of devotion of someone like Bruce Springsteen. Their sound was a fusion of classic arena rock, mid ‘80s hardcore and hip-hop inflected beat poetry about drugs, drunks, and Christianity in Minneapolis. Everything was vital and taut and elevated to these wonderful theatrical heights by off-kilter time signatures, unconventional structures and a veritable hodgepodge of…

  • Villagers @ Open House Festival, Bangor

    August 26, 2019 - By 

    Put succinctly, Villagers make beautiful music. The reason that their songs are quite so beautiful, and the reason that they connect on such a deep level with their audience, is that all of the white noise, static and blasts of Stax horns are anchored by the state of being human and all of the frailty and vulnerability that comes with it. In a scene so often dominated by archness, cynicism and borrowed nostalgia, Villagers are all about heart-on-the-sleeve sadness and fist-in-the-air joy, and this forms the core of what makes tonight’s performance so compelling, and the thread that is woven…

  • Fionn Regan – Cala

    August 23, 2019 - By 

    Wicklow boasts one of Ireland’s most varied coastlines. From Bray Head’s rocky outcrop to Brittas Bay’s rolling sand dunes, the landscape is almost limitless in its drama, and that’s before we even get to the mountains. In short, it’s the kind of landscape to leave romanticists salivating, and accordingly has been the subject of artists, musicians and storytellers for generations.  Its latest muse is Fionn Regan, who returned to the coastline of his home county for his sixth LP, Cala. Since recording his Mercury-nominated debut The End of History in Bray, it’s fair to say Regan has been on somewhat…

  • Féile na Gréine: The Beauty and Togetherness of a DIY Festival

    August 22, 2019 - By 

    Féile na Gréine blasted through Limerick this weekend with an unprecedented force taking over venues and public spaces in an explosion of rhythm, creativity and unity. The tireless efforts of Limerick’s best and brightest designers, sound engineers, artists and all round creatives seamlessly came together to create a beautiful moment in time, forever frozen in the hearts and minds of the beholders. Now in its second year DIY LK and Lower your Expectations collaboration glistened day through day with the sheer determination of the community to bring music alive within the city. With this year’s festival expanding into nearly double…

  • Bon Iver – i,i

    August 22, 2019 - By 

    Justin Vernon has written his most personal work in isolation, secluded in a cabin in Northern Wisconsin. In the span of 13 years, the Bon Iver project has empowered him to map his personal growth, archive periods of stress, and mediate addiction and trauma. The fourth iteration of this journey, i,i, reflects on the duality of the self as it navigates a turbulent political landscape. The inner and outer worlds communicate here, and seek to find peace. The band embraced a dramatic move towards experimentation on 2016’s 22 A Million, producing some of their most urgent and effective work. Here,…

  • Marika Hackman – Any Human Friend

    August 20, 2019 - By 

    A decade on from Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’,  pop seems to have arrived at a place where girls kissing girls is no longer being treated as provocative or performative, or being fetishised for clout. Queer stars like Haley Kiyoko, Princess Nokia, Janelle Monáe, Christine and the Queens and St. Vincent are dominating the mainstream landscape, going beyond heteronormative boundaries and exploring what it means to be queer in 2019.  Marika Hackman’s latest release is a bold and brazen addition to the zeitgeist. Written in the wake of the English singer-songwriters break-up with fellow musician Amber Bain (The Japanese House),…

  • Cascando @ Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival

    August 12, 2019 - By 

    It’s too far to see the expressions or to hear the reactions of the rowers gliding past as they observe twenty figures clad head to toe in black-hooded robes like Medieval monks, walking silently along the riverbank in single file. A penny too, for the thoughts of the two children, and their dog, on the opposing bank of  The River Erne. The ‘audience’ in this immersive piece of theatre is moving to the rhythms of Samuel Beckett’s radio play Cascando, headphones under hoods relaying this new interpretation by the award-winning Pan Pan Theatre. Created by Aedin Cosgrove and Gavin Quinn…

  • Clark – Kiri Variations

    August 9, 2019 - By 

    In 2018 a British TV miniseries, Kiri, was revered for admirably broaching the contentious topic of transracial adoption. Viewers and critics alike applauded the series bravura performances, so much so it went on to receive two BAFTA nominations. The composer of its score, Chris Clark (a.k.a Clark) clearly shares the same infatuation, feeling that he wanted to revisit and rework the series soundtrack for his tenth studio album.  On his first LP playing away from the ever-wonky Warp (home of Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Oneohtrix Point Never), boundaries are tested. It’s clear that this ambition of Kiri was. Never one…

  • Beatyard 2019 @ Dún Laoghaire

    August 6, 2019 - By 

    Beatyard is a very different festival to your standard Irish festival. Boat parties and a concrete setting make for a different experience than the typical field fare. Families litter the audience and Bodytonic pieces are everywhere you turn from the Wigwam stage to the Eatyard area. Setting a festival in such a centralised area is no mean feat but Beatyard manage to pull it off with unique elements and a stellar line-up. This year’s Beatyard predominantly caters to dance fans with an occasional spot of pop music. The Main Stage boasts a number of big-name festival acts whilst the Wigwam…

  • Pas Moi/Not I @ Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival

    August 5, 2019 - By 

    A broken mind is a terrifying notion. Once gone, so too, has a large slice of the humanity. Isn’t that why we hurry past the insane, with their babbling interior monologue, on the street? It’s a brave playwright who subjects an audience to the mad jabbering of a fractured mind, delivered relentlessly  at the speed of thought for a dozen minutes. And in the pitch black, with only the speaker’s mouth illuminated. Samuel Beckett, who was many things, was nothing if not a courageous writer. Beckett’s Not I, a powerful and unsettling portrait of the isolation of madness, returned to…