• BNQT – Volume 1.

    May 3, 2017 - By 

    “I think we could all use a restart but what does that mean?” asks Midlake’s Eric Pulido in BNQT’s (pronounced “banquet”) glam-rock tinged opening track. He goes on to explore this question across Volume 1’s ten collaborative offerings with contributions from the front-men of Franz Ferdinand, Band of Horses, Travis and Grandaddy. As the artists stretched across the globe, Pulido guided the way with these recordings split both with travel to Denton, Texas and remotely over the net during the course of a year. Over that year and with some change, the songs grew from demos to fully realised recordings.…

  • Gorillaz – Humanz

    May 3, 2017 - By 

    We should all be honest and accept that this record was never going to match the expectation that preceded it. Gorillaz have been a reliable stalwart for over a decade now and their brand of politically motivated electronica and hip-hop has consistently delivered. They’ve soundtracked environmental decay, an Iraq war, and a recession and now, with a despot in the white house, it’s unsurprising that Damon Albarn chose this moment to return. What is surprising though is how limp and muddy it feels. Humanz is not the record it could be. It’s unfocused, messy and, worse still, pedestrian. A guest…

  • The Big Moon @ The Academy, Dublin

    May 2, 2017 - By 

    With doors open at a very early 6:30pm and a no-alcohol policy to boot, the gig may have advertised itself as rather low-key in scope to anyone new to The Big Moon. This train of thought would’ve been a fatal mistake as the London band thundered their way through a blistering set that surely won over everyone present in Academy 2 on the night. Irish band Pillow Queens got the night off to a lively blend of music aligned somewhat to 90s pop-punk, playing music from their 2016 EP Calm Girls alongside future releases. The crowd are energised by their performance,…

  • J Dilla – Motor City

    May 2, 2017 - By 

    If you ever want to lose yourself on a lazy Sunday just take a walk into the discography of one James Dewitt Nancy, better known as J Dilla. The producer, sometime rapper, beat maker and hip hop arbiter now has a dizzying amount of work available in the public sphere and each mixtape, album and bootleg is worth a listen. First you’d have to consider his massive contributions to The Pharcyde’s essential LabCabinCalifornia, his work with De La Soul, Q-tip and Common. Then you may choose to wade through his work with neo-soul luminaries like Erykah Badu and D’Angelo. All…

  • Slowdive – Slowdive

    May 2, 2017 - By 

    The irony is perhaps hard to avoid when describing Slowdive’s career. The five-piece did indeed go diving and sadly with much less grace than their name suggests; Their 1993 sophomore effort Souvlaki remains one of the definitive albums of the early 90’s shoegaze era, quickly followed by one of the most forgettable in Pygmalion. Languid and limp throughout, Slowdive dismantled their wall of sound not brick by brick but with a wrecking ball almost overnight. The band were soon dropped by their record label Creation only one week after Pygmalion’s release and have themselves since admitted they’d lost their energy and…

  • Daithí – Holiday Home EP

    April 28, 2017 - By 

    Daithí teased listeners as far back as last year with the first scintillating, electro-pop banger from his latest endeavour, Holiday Home. The snappy five-track release lands today and, just as that first single, ‘Falling For You feat. Sinead White’ suggested, it shows Daithí continuing his progression in maturity as a producer, providing a collection that exudes confidence. The Galway/Clare-based producer continues to craft fascinating, atmospheric tracks that cross- weave traditional Irish cultural elements with modern-day electronica. He’s managed to ramp up the sophistication on this one, continuing to transcend boundaries by inventively fusing together electronic, folk and synth elements. With…

  • Talos – Wild Alee

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    In Wild Alee, Cork’s Eoin French, AKA Talos, has created a long player of considerable depth and uncomplicated beauty. A debut-proper, the record follows on from a series of releases that only delicately hinted at the kind of multi-tonal, meticulously constructed arrangements that French, and currently his extended Talos outfit, have now harnessed in all of their charming sheen. A result indebted, no doubt, to both the fact that Wild Alee was partly written and conceived of in Reykjavik with Valgeir Sigurðsson (Sigur Rós; Bjork), as well as in Ireland under the guidance / magic touch of Ross Dowling. From the off, it’s…

  • I Am Not Your Negro

    April 26, 2017 - By 

    If the words and legacy of poet, playwright, novelist and social commentator James Baldwin were ever in danger of being forgotten, then director Raoul Peck (Fatal Assistance) has done the world a great justice. And who better to deliver these words than Samuel L Jackson, with his suitably defiant, yet eloquent delivery of the great man’s words. I Am Not Your Negro is a documentary that compiles various writings on race relations in the US by Baldwin before he died in 1987 and ties them into the huge racial problems that still exist today. The film is centred around material…

  • This Other Kingdom – Rêveur

    April 24, 2017 - By 

    It’s been two years since the release of This Other Kingdom’s debut album, Telescopic. The album slotted neatly into the top 10 in both the iTunes Irish chart and earned them a reputation among the best of Ireland’s psychedelic music scene. As such, the bar was already set quite high for their 2017 follow-up, Rêveur. A sudden, invasive intro immediately sheds all and any fears of Telescopic‘s success begin merely a case of luck. ‘Common Colours//Common Sounds’ is an aggressive lament for rebellion against conformity (“This is the system to stop you from thinking”). It pulls listeners from one realm to…

  • Unforgettable

    April 21, 2017 - By 

    Unforgettable is a pulpy crazy-ex thriller about the resentment directed at someone taking up space where they do not belong. Rosario Dawson is the likeable new squeeze and Katherine Heigl is the ice-Barbie hovering at the sidelines, desperate and calculated, willing to do anything to reclaim the family she believes to be rightfully hers. And the movie itself, a first time directorial effort from seasoned producer Denise Di Novi, feels like it has taken a swerve and ended up in the wrong place. Sitting in the multiplex, you feel like you’ve drifted off on the sofa watching middle of the…