• Turning Pirate’s Mixtape @ Lost Lane, Dublin

    April 16, 2019 - By 

    Lost Lane, Dublin’s newest venue, opened its doors this weekend on the site of what used to be the relatively infamous Lillie’s Bordello. While the truism about difficult second albums doesn’t quite translate to a live venue, word about the success of the launch night does put some pressure on tonight’s Turning Pirate Lost Lane Mix Tape to deliver. The bill is promising in itself, we know we can expect to see Barq, Cathy Davey and Niamh Farell of HamsandwicH fame but we are also promised VERY special guests. They even used caps lock. Compere Bryan Quinn introduces Barq (Half…

  • BFF 19: A Bump Along The Way

    April 15, 2019 - By 

    Opening the 19th Belfast Film Festival, Mark Cousins, newly installed Chairperson and mega-watt generator of cinematic enthusiasm, advertised the rectangular frame of Movie House Dublin Road as a place where Belfast will “meet the world”. For the inaugural night, at least, the world is the other side of Ulsterbus 273. Northern Ireland’s second city, and the experiences of the women living there, is receiving fresh attention with the success of Lisa Magee’s likeable Derry Girls, and is joined by Tess McGowan and Shelly Love’s A Bump Along The Way, a broad, sometimes difficult local indie with a sympathetic eye for feminine…

  • Ye Vagabonds – The Hare’s Lament

    April 14, 2019 - By 

    Just under two years since Dublin-based duo Ye Vagabonds announced their debut self-titled album, their second, The Hare’s Lament, has landed. A collection of traditional and folk songs, sung in both Irish and English with a medley of skilfully played string instruments and the most beautiful harmonies, it’s a remarkable follow up. Brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn have created a sound that is based on a rich folk tradition, but have revived it with their own fresh approach and style of songwriting, resulting in just over 40 minutes of elegantly arranged songs that feel both contemporary and rooted in…

  • Stephen Malkmus – Groove Denied

    April 11, 2019 - By 

    The rock press has made much of Stephen Malkmus’ reinvention on Groove Denied, his first solo LP to lack any contributions (credited or otherwise) from his Jicks bandmates; publicised as an homage to the minimalism and analogue electronics of late-’70s and early-’80s post-punk, it’s been received as a left-turn for a songwriter closely associated with ’90s indie noise. Malkmus discussed the new direction with Rolling Stone recently, explaining: “I guess everyone has their distorted self-image, and I have one where I think I’m a music-maker who can go anywhere” – and though the album reflects this playful approach, one might highlight his awareness…

  • Happy as Lazzaro

    April 9, 2019 - By 

      Reality slips and slides in Happy as Lazzaro (“Lazzaro Felice”), the third feature from Italian film-maker Alice Rohrwacher, a curious, engrossing magic realist drama animated by cycles of power, class and history. The film seems to hang continuously in the air, suspended and provisional. On an Italian country estate named Inviolata (“unviolated”: a virginal space, a fake Paradise of simple toil), generations of sharecroppers work pitiless schedules, harvesting tobacco for the owner, the cartoonishly imperious Marchesa Alfonsina De Luna (Nicoletta Braschi), receiving no wages and chipping away at a perma-debt that holds them captive. The crisp visual textures and cramped…

  • Shazam!

    April 9, 2019 - By 

    Bam! A flash of lightning hits and, just like that, D.C.’s moviescape jolts into life, pumped up on the wisecrack adrenaline of hot red and yellow. Losing faith in its core Clark and Bruce brand, Warner Bros. and D.C. Studios are finding returns pivoting towards the weird and the unexpected. After all, their most entertaining round of post-Nolan superheroics was the one hardly anybody actually saw: last year’s Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, a self-aware, colourful, sing-songy adventure aimed squarely at kids that succeeds by hitting jokes and delivering a believable character arc. Echoing Titans’ story impetus of a…

  • Nealo w/ Alex Gough @ Whelans, Dublin

    March 31, 2019 - By 

    From the smoking area of Whelans, dull rhythmic thuds can be heard from within the venue’s upstairs stage. Alex Gough has just begun his very first live set and for the few that have gathered to watch, it is apparent that he is no ordinary hip-hop act. Clad in what could be described as 1960s beach-wear, the 19-year-old Waterford-born prodigy is not only the on-duty MC, but also the resident drummer. Gough effortlessly juggles J-Dilla inspired beats with flows that are as smooth in delivery as they are sticky with funk. Although stiff at first, Gough (below) and his band…

  • The Dig

    March 28, 2019 - By 

    The Irish bog is fertile metaphorical soil. It’s dank, ancient, unforgiving. It brings you down and sucks you in and swallows you up. It is our countryside version of Jordan Peele’s sunken place. In The Dig, filmed in soggy Northern Irish landscapes, the bog represents obsession, or death, or the past; ideal terrain for a moody murder-mystery drama drenched in male guilt. Written by Stuart Drennan, whose 2014 film Breaker also turned on questions of memory and buried secrets, and marking the feature directorial debut of Belfast-born brothers Andy and Ryan Tohill, The Dig gets much out of its basic premise…

  • James Yorkston – The Route to the Harmonium

    March 28, 2019 - By 

    It’s been five long years since Scottish folk singer James Yorkston’s last solo album – 2014’s The Cellardyke Recording and Wassailing Society – though he’s certainly not been resting on his laurels in that time. As well as turning novelist and podcaster (spinning esoteric tunes on ‘46-30’), he’s put out two highly acclaimed albums in quick succession with his new trio, Yorkston/Thorne/Khan – a sort of folk-fusion collaboration with his regular double bass player Jon Thorne and Indian sarangi player Suhail Khan (a third album is already recorded and ready for release early next year). All the while, though, he’s…

  • Maria Somerville – All My People

    March 25, 2019 - By 

    It’s quite rare to encounter a debut album as self-assured as Maria Somerville’s All My People. The Galway native has crafted 27 minutes of impossibly tight and well constructed music that possess a confidence which is seldom encountered so early in a career. Drawing from the deep wells of everything from folk and ambient to doo-wop and post-punk and the experiences of Irish youth, Somerville mixes these elements into a beautiful concoction of dream pop goodness. What’s so striking about these seven cuts is how well defined each actually is. By its very nature, the sort of ethereal mood that…