Distorted Perspectives festival at Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny featuring Robocobra Quartet, Tuath, K-X-P and more. Photos by Mickey Rooney.
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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…
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Holy moly! Don’t you dare sit down, gang, this is important. Dublin Jazz-Punk (or, psyjance as they like to call it) collective Vernon Jane are here to kick the living daylights out you and your loved ones and teach you a lesson while they’re at it. Following on from the 2016 EP The Inner Workings of a Damaged Nobody, the group have returned with a vengeance with new single ‘Fuck Me’. The abrasive, merciless track finds the band channelling influences from the brutally hard-rockin’ camps and those of frenzied jazz. Band leader and vocalist Emily Jane bellows lyrics that demand attention and which grapple…
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Elaine Mai will release her new EP The Colour of the Night on 19 May. Following ‘Enniscrone’ from October 2016 and a recent remix of Liza Flumes ‘Sheets’, the Dublin based producer and vocalist has now revealed the title track of the forthcoming release. Much in the same vein as ‘Enniscrone’, which also features on the EP, ‘The Colour of the Night’ is an atmospheric electronic number with a solid backbone carrying it to its peak. Mai’s ability to capture sincere emotion in simple, warm melodies is on full display here with the words of loss and of nostalgia being carried by chiming synths…
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Taken from his Sampler EP, Dublin’s Stephen Tiernan AKA Participant has unveiled ‘Next Year’. The EP, which was released exclusively on cassette in March, features five singles on Side A and a collection of samples and field recordings on Side B. A delicate slice of atmospheric folk, Tiernan’s acoustic guitar and tempered vocals are gradually joined by additional textures, keys and faint strings, giving the track a neo-classical edge with hints of Ólafur Arnalds creeping through. With candid lyrics confronting themes of complacency, self-worth and commitment, Tiernan said of the track: “‘Next Year’ is a song that for me deals with the idea of…
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Ahead of the release of his Holiday Home EP this Friday 28 April, Daithí has revealed another shimmering pop-leaning cut. Welcoming back regular collaborator Sinead White for a typically excellent guest vocal, ‘Aeroplane’ is a more melodic cut than the EP’s propulsive title track from last month. Despite its dancefloor focus, the track maintains its organic atmosphere through breezy keys, recorded natural samples and White’s voice, reminiscent at points of some of SBTRKT‘s collaborations. The song is brought to life by the accompanying video which features footage shot in Daithí’s hometown of Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare from the 90s. Speaking of the track…
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Coinciding with the release of her forthcoming fifteenth studio album, Native Invader, it’s been announced that Tori Amos will play Cork’s Opera House on September 6 and Dublin’s Bord Gàis Energy Theatre on September 7. Tickets for the shows – priced €51.15 and €53.15 – go on sale from 10am this Friday. These dates kick off a two-month European tour, concluding at Glasgow’s O2 Academy on October 6. Here’s the full dates. September 6. Ireland, Cork – Opera House 7. Ireland, Dublin – Bord Gais 9. Belgium, Gent – Capitole 10. Luxembourg – Luxembourg Den Atelier 11. France, Paris – Grand Rex…
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Cléa van der Grijn – Reconstructing Memory (Image Courtesy of Heike Thiele) Ahead of the opening of Clea van der Grijn’s Reconstructing Memory in Limerick City Gallery of Arts on April 27th, Rebecca Kennedy speaks with artist on voyeurism, love letters, self-censorship and the intersection between life as an artist and motherhood. Who is your favorite artist and what facet of their practice do you find fascinating? Sophie Calle. I think she’s a very interesting person. It’s like her life is recorded in snippets of film. I think I live vicariously through her work. I love that she spies so un-intrusively…
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London-based Cork producer Toby Kaar has returned with the beat-driven, vocoder-heavy strut of ‘Promises’. The follow-up his debut EP, last year’s Gumbrielle, the single – which Kaar said was recorded “some time ago” – is deceptively earworming in its reiterative patterns and woozy, cyborg-like vocals, not least via its closing refrain: “I just want to know, what happened to our love? We used to be best friends, where did it go wrong?” We dig.
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Hope Dickson Leach keeps her aim steady and hits her targets in The Levelling, her first feature and a sturdy, professional piece of grim English countryside realism. Trainee veterinarian Clover (Game of Thrones’ Elle Kendrick) is called back to the family farm when she receives word that her brother Harry, who was just given stewardship over the land, has shot himself with a hunting shotgun. The police have filed it as suicide, but her father Aubrey (Joe Blakemore), insists that it was just a “bloody stupid” accident, a descriptor he seems to apply to almost everything, his manner one of…