• Line-Up Announced for Body & Soul Stage at Electric Picnic

    July 29, 2019 - By 

    The line-up for the Body & Soul stage at this year’s Electric Picnic has been announced. Featuring the likes of Arvo Party, The Claque (pictured), Inni-K, Padda Hanna and Fonda, the full line-up for the stage – which is always a consistently eclectic affair at the annual Stradbally Estate festival – can be viewed below. This year’s EP line-up features everyone from The Strokes, Billie Eilish and Four Tet to Roisin Murphy, Sons of Kemet and Mitski. Go here to check out the full line-up for the festival, which returns to Co. Laois across August 30th to September 1st. Tickets…

  • Video Premiere: Queen Bonobo @ The Live Room Belfast

    July 11, 2019 - By 

    The Live Room is one of Belfast’s most valuable musical resources – an eclectic, Live At KEXP-esque showcase of the finest artists to pass through Belfast, based in the city’s most welcoming and well-equipped studio, Start Together. They’ve run the gamut from the crushing doom of Slomatics and Conan to the Word Up Collective‘s hotly-tipped R&B voices of Super Silly & Jordan Adetunji. Back after a brief quiet spell, the latest in their series is title track ‘Boom Boom’, taken from the debut album by Derry-based, Idaho-born chanteuse Queen Bonobo, taken from a session recorded during Belfast’s Output Convention in February. We’ve said it before, but Maya’s vocal has the uncanny ability to take the quality of a sine wave, and…

  • Bill Callahan – Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest

    July 5, 2019 - By 

    From his extremely ramshackle 1990 debut Sewn to the Sky up until 2013’s far more polished Dream River, Bill Callahan – better known for the first half of his career by the alias Smog – managed to maintain a reasonably prolific rate of output. Following a dub remix album in 2014, however, things fell rather silent. Had the man often referred to as the spiritual successor to Leonard Cohen finally run out of ideas after fifteen albums? Well, as it turns out, no – life merely got in the way. As Callahan found himself getting married and fathering his first…

  • Stream: VerseChorusVerse – Hold On/There Will Come Soft Rains

    July 4, 2019 - By 

    Not least since embarking on his solo career as VerseChorusVerse, North Coast musician and singer-songwriter Tony Wright has been an increasingly vocal exponent of challenging stigma associated with mental health in the music industry and beyond. Through his art, candour and activism, he’s become a vital champion here for living authentically and openly in a burdensome world. New double-single ‘Hold On (A Subtle Act of Rebellion)’ and ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ taps right into this advocacy. Equal parts spirited and defiant, they have been released as charity singles, in support of Help Musicians Northern Ireland. “HMNI helped me out…

  • Dublin Digital Radio launches 2019 Pride Programme, Queering The Airwaves

    June 19, 2019 - By 

    Dublin Digital Radio has shared its Pride Programme for 2019, which will run on the station every afternoon from 20th to 30th June. Titled Queering The Airwaves, the consistently vital platform’s inaugural Pride Programme aims to provide “an alternative space for LGBTQ stories and celebration”, with an emphasis being placed on subverting the often “corporatised and sanitised” public pride events that have become so prevalent. Informative and reflective broadcasts, discussions, radio documentaries and specially curated sound pieces will cover a broad range of topics significant to the LGBTQ+ experience in Ireland, including AIDS activism, parenting, clubbing and cruising. ‘I really…

  • Sounds Of The Undergrowth: Open Ear redefines what an Irish festival can be

    June 11, 2019 - By 

    If there was ever a space to disprove the absurd notion that the world of Irish independent music is disjointed or lacks community it would be Open Ear – Not that it needed disproving. For the past four years, the small festival on Cork’s Sherkin Island has shone a light on a countrywide scene that has, for some decades now, been quietly growing – thriving in the undergrowth. Expanding this year to a capacity of roughly 600 attendees, Open Ear’s celebration of Ireland’s experimental music scene, from its stalwarts to its adventurous young artists, is a testament to the unity and…

  • Gloria Bell

    June 7, 2019 - By 

    Gloria Bell is something of a gear change for Sebastián Lelio after his Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman. That film was a sobering deep dive into transphobia that drew fire from trans critics for dog piling woes upon a trans woman with little substance to back it up. Gloria Bell, an American remake of Lelio’s own 2013 film Gloria, is a much more nuanced and life affirming proposition The film’s opening act is a master class in patient character building. We follow Gloria, a fifty something year-old divorcee, as she sings love songs in the car, checks in on her distant…

  • Forbidden Fruit 2019 – Day Three

    June 4, 2019 - By 

    As people begin filtering into IMMA for the final time of the June bank holiday weekend, there is an easiness in the air. The audience is noticeably more mature than those of days gone by and most certainly of a more relaxed disposition. There’s not so much a hum of excitement, but rather a coolness- a feeling that says, “take it easy folks, have a nice one”. Easing the crowd into the day on the mainstage is Glasshouse, a chamber ensemble performing the music of Bon Iver, for a moderately sized crowd. Their interpretations of Justin Vernon’s work is a…

  • Forbidden Fruit 2019 – Day One

    June 2, 2019 - By 

    It’s about two in the afternoon and the sun is peeking out from behind a blanket of clouds to kiss the grounds of Kilmainham with intermittent drops of light and heat. The first few punters are entering the fields surrounding Ireland’s Museum of Modern Art for Forbidden Fruit, a weekend festival that showcases local and international talent for thousands amongst the idyllic surroundings of the IMMA grounds. Opening up the festival on the District Stage is a local artist: April, an RnB-inspired singer-songwriter from County Kildare. Being the first act of the weekend is always a daunting task, it is…