• The Cyclist – Sapa Inca Delirium

    November 9, 2017 - By 

    Derry’s Andy Morrison AKA The Cyclist has produced some of the most compelling home-grown club-ready cuts in recent memory and it’s arguably down to the fact that he’s so singularly focused. “Tape Throb”, a line of peculiar yet inviting analogue elements that Morrison has applied to his output since 2013’s Bones in Motion, typically exhibits a crackling warmth in tone and dulled melodic sheen. For the most part, this transformative “filter” morphs dance-floor orientated releases into sub-sonic grooves that bury themselves in your ear and refuse to leave – see 2014’s wildly unshakeable Flourish. With Sapa Inca Delirium, his first album…

  • James Holden & The Animals Spirits – The Animal Spirits

    November 8, 2017 - By 

    It’d be an understatement to say that there’s been a few high profile career curveballs of late. Private complaints resulted in the resignation of a defence secretary, sexist Facebook comments culminated in the suspension of an MP and Beyoncé announced her first foray into acting. Heck, even the Queen turned out to be a shareholder in rent-to-buy retailer BrightHouse (kinda). Spare a thought for James Holden, who amongst all these revelations has quietly executed a brilliant career change of his own, albeit with much less than his fair share of the limelight.   Holden has always had a taste for…

  • Conor McGregor: Notorious

    November 7, 2017 - By 

    Part of the fascination surrounding Conor McGregor is that so many people who claim not to care about the Dubliner spend so much time talking about him. The persona; the cars; the suits; the bravado – all gets discussed routinely around pub tables and all of it gets minutely dissected. Is he bringing shame on the nation or representing a sea change in what it means to be Irish? Is he a highly skilled sportsman or a street brawler participating in thinly-veiled barbarism? Is he a showman or a bigot? Is he both? Notorious offers little answers on the above.…

  • Slow Place Like Home – When I See You … Ice Cream!

    November 8, 2017 - By 

      If you’ve had your finger anywhere near the pulse over the past half decade you’d be aware of chill. Everything can, and most probably will, be described as “chill” in 2017. Your boyfriend is chill. Your dog is chill. Even your boss can be “pretty chill” sometimes. For once, this term doesn’t feel like a gross understatement when describing Slow Place Like Home; he’s an artist so chill it will make your weekend on Inishmaan look like a four day bender in Marbella. Keith Mannion has been making music under the moniker of Slow Place Like Home for nearly six years…

  • Lisa Hannigan @ The Duncairn, Belfast

    November 6, 2017 - By 

    Lisa Hannigan and her band have just edged into the first verse of their fifth song at Belfast’s Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts. I’ve quickly nipped to the bathroom, where I overhear this brief tête-à-tête between two gentlemen: “Some gig, isn’t it?” “I’ve only just arrived. Stuck in traffic.” “Oh, Jesus.” As I leap up the stairwell back into the venue space, it suddenly hits me: the “Oh, Jesus” immediately (and very tellingly) severed the exchange between the two strangers. When it comes to a Lisa Hannigan show, it really is in your best interests to be present from the very first note…

  • A. Savage – Thawing Dawn

    November 5, 2017 - By 

    Andrew Savage has been ensconced in the music scene since his teenage years growing up in Denton, Texas. He played in bands, organised small-scale guerilla marketing campaigns – promotional bathroom band graffiti – and self-released lo-fi tapes until firmly establishing his position within the independent DIY realm with his band Parquet Courts following their debut in 2011. Their reputation has grown steadily and they have seamlessly become an act that figures into the same conversations that laud the likes of Ought and Black Lips. In a relatively short space of time they have become stalwarts of a scene of bands…

  • The Death of Stalin

    November 3, 2017 - By 

    Armando Iannucci is a writer/director better known for his groundbreaking and highly acclaimed work on television shows like I’m Alan Partridge and The Thick Of It. But, as shown with recent films like the razor-sharp political satire In The Loop and his latest, The Death Of Stalin, Iannucci can now be revered as one of the UK’s top filmmakers. And while his latest is a little light on historical accuracy, there is no doubt that this is a fine piece of absurdist satire, bolstered by an exceptional cast. On the 5th of March 1953, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin – one…

  • Album Review: Lankum – Between The Earth And Sky

    November 2, 2017 - By 

    Lankum (under their previous name Lynched) released their well received debut album, Cold Old Fire three years ago. Having been plugging away for some time on the live scene, this record helped establish the band as one of the luminaries of a recent wave of Irish folk. Alongside acts such as Landless, Spook of the Thirteenth Lock, and The Gloaming and individual artists such as Lisa O’Neill and Brigid Mae Power, amongst many others, Lankum represent a new generation of practitioners, deeply aware of and knowledgeable of the folk tradition, yet unafraid to draw from beyond the confines of the…

  • South Park: The Fractured But Whole (Ubisoft, Multiformat)

    November 1, 2017 - By 

    As any fule kno, the list of videogames that have made the transition to successful cinema or television adaptations is shorter than an Ewok’s trouser legs. Last year’s Assassin’s Creed is a case in point: a richly detailed and layered console franchise that was squandered on a half-baked, deeply frustrating movie that in turn made a respectable taking at the box office but ticked off both critics and gaming fans alike. It was not the first adaptation that failed to leap the gap between different media, and it certainly will not be the last. Likewise, the number of films or television programmes…

  • Album Review: Fever Ray – Plunge

    November 1, 2017 - By 

    Artists can spend an entire career trying to forge a distinguished identity, but every now and again one arises and manages to do just that after one record. Karin Dreijer, AKA Fever Ray is one of those. Dark, distorted monochrome throbs and nuanced icy atmospheres helped her self titled debut reach critical acclaim back in 2009, revealing an ear for the organic compositions and textures that Dreijer couldn’t express with her sibling as one half of The Knife. It’s devilish that a surprise follow up album, Plunge, would be released digitally (physical release landing February 2018) in late October, arriving…