• 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…

  • Preview: Brian Irvine Ensemble @ Brilliant Corners Jazz Festival

    March 5, 2019 - By 

    It was at last year’s Brilliant Corners when the Brian Irvine Ensemble ended their 6-year hiatus, and for good reason. Irvine cuts a singular figure not just in Northern Irish music, but worldwide, as one who embodies the spirit of the perpetually open-minded Brilliant Corners and all that jazz music encompasses, by pushing ever forward, with only a slight glance at anything that preceded.  The ensemble comprises around a dozen in number, drawn from varying backgrounds of contemporary classical, jazz & improvised music in Europe & Russia. As with many of artists comprising the Brilliant Corners 2019 lineup, their performances give themselves entirely over to neither formless improvisation…

  • DIFF19: Ray & Liz

    March 5, 2019 - By 

    Writer/director Richard Billingham has said that Ray & Liz reflects his memories of his childhood, rather than the reality. After watching this blisteringly bleak film, I can’t tell if that’s cause for relief or great concern. The film serves as an adaptation of ‘Ray’s a Laugh’, a collection of portraits featuring Billingham’s alcoholic father. In the present day, Ray lies in his high-rise tenement flat in Birmingham, drinking homebrew made by his friend Sid. Ray’s welfare does just enough to cover his addiction and since Sid picks up his dole, he scarcely needs to move – except to pour booze…

  • Beirut – Gallipoli

    March 2, 2019 - By 

    For a project born out of the narrow confines of a bedroom in landlocked Santa Fe, Beirut’s influences have always been remarkably far flung. Right from the off, the band’s globetrotting song titles and grand orchestrations betrayed Zach Condon’s wanderlust and romantic tendencies and allowed him to project himself out from the desert plains of New Mexico and into the imagined eastern gulags and louche European locales so central to his sound and aesthetic. At a time when indie music was more firmly rooted in a traditional band format, Condon quickly marked himself out as a purveyor of strange and…

  • Premiere: Maya Goldblum – Light Me Up

    February 15, 2019 - By 

    Content Note: Depression & suicide One of the growing number of Derry-based acts currently blurring genre lines and eschewing conventions, Idaho-born singer & guitarist Maya Goldblum – or Queen Bonobo in a full band setting – is set to release her debut album, Light Shadow Boom Boom, in May. Ahead of that, we’re premiering lead single ‘Light Me Up’, a buoyant slice of soulful jazz whose winsome face belies a diaristic portrayal of depression, as Goldblum brings gravitas and candour to a style of music currently underrepresented – at least in an artistic sense – in Northern Ireland. Maya had a chat with us about its subject matter: “Light Me Up stemmed from feeling constrained in…

  • Stream: Royal Yellow – Aruba

    February 12, 2019 - By 

    ‘Aruba’ is the slick new single from Mark O’Brien (A.K.A. Royal Yellow). The former Enemies front man has followed up on his infectious 2018 release ‘Hazeldene’ with a track which offers us a wider glimpse of Royal Yellow. Contrasting the lo-fi beats and melancholic lyrics of ‘Hazeldene’, ‘Aruba’ draws in the listener with whispered chanting reminiscent of Blue Swede’s ‘Hooked On A Feeling’. What follows is a rush of well polished pop, rock, soul, and everything in between. While the song features strings, flutes, and rich vocal harmonies alongside a grooving rhythm section, it remains balanced, never losing itself under…

  • Every Saoirse Ronan Film Ranked

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    The release last month of Mary Queen of Scots marked the twentieth on-screen role for Saoirse Ronan, who has, especially in the past few years, carved for herself a reputation as one of Ireland’s most talented and versatile actors. Press interviews with the 24 year-old, who first appeared as a 10 year-old on RTE’s The Clinic, often invoke her dual geographical upbringing—born in New York to Irish parents, later raised in Carlow and then Dublin—as a way to talk about the complexities of belonging, a theme which, it will be clear, runs through her work. Here is each of Ronan’s credited films, excluding voice…

  • Album Premiere: Postcard Versions – Postcard Versions

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    Making good on the promise of last year’s debut single ‘Sunday Morning With Nate‘ – which came in at number 28 on our 2018 Irish Tracks of the Year and featured on independent compilation A Litany of Failures Volume II – Postcard Versions‘ debut album is here. Comfortably resigned and pragmatic in its optimism, Postcard Versions looks at a hungover languor as a chance for reprieve. Its 10 tracks never outstay their welcome, clocking in at just short of half an hour, making this another essential breezy indie rock album to add to Dublin canon alongside Popical Island, Tandem Felix & company – and it’s arguably the finest ever not to include a cymbal. Clearly a…

  • 19 for ‘19: Natalia Beylis

    January 15, 2019 - By 

    19 for ’19 rolls on, featuring nineteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going places in 2019. Throughout January we’ll be previewing each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph from one of our photographers. Third in our series marks a leftfield turn in the form of one of Ireland’s most evocative sonic artists, Natalia Beylis. Photo by Sean McCormack ___ As a member of Leitrim experimental/psych outfit Woven Skull, Natalia Beylis’ mandola offers an earthiness and melodic weight to the clamorous percussion and howling guitars that surround it. The band – who featured two years ago in our 17…

  • Marcus Woods shares fast-paced electronic cut, ‘Saturn V’

    January 9, 2019 - By 

    We first became aware Marcus Woods back in 2017 around the release of his polychrome via the ever elusive Wooden Spoons imprint. The now tape exclusive EP of self-proclaimed ‘Chill Trash’ was a fine introduction to the Dublin producer whose atmospheric, lo-fi beats have seen him evolving to be one of the country’s most sought after young producers. Last October, he released his debut digital album, demo, which you can check out here. Now, the 18-year-old beatmaker is embarking on his 2019 release schedule, launching proceedings with the fast-paced and percussive electronics of ‘Saturn V’. Shared via his own Burner Records, the track is named after…