• Gig of the week: The Bonnevilles, Tied To Machines and more

    October 1, 2013 - By 

    Our gig of the week this week is the wonderfully-titled Oktobersesh, a four-band, riff-fuelled charity show at Banbridge Town Football Club on Saturday, October 5. Set to be headlined by Lurgan garage-blues duo The Bonnevilles, the line-up for the fundraiser also features the mighty talents of hardcore heroes Tied To Machines (above), Co. Down “experimental alternative indie” quartet AudioCavalry and Dromore post-rock band The King Said. Check out the poster for the event (overlooking Abandcalledboy, who had to pull out) below and go here for the event page.

  • Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe

    September 19, 2013 - By 

    Early morning. Almost dawn. A ghostly figure emerges from an old country house. She passes across the landscape humming to herself. Rivers. Mountains. Forests. She seems to glide above them all, integrating their songs and sounds into her own. Broken branches. Animal cries. The whispering wind. At points, the early light of dawn can be seen crashing through the trees with tremendous force. The light casts shadows upon her face. It is during these moments that the beauty of her song radiates the most. But all things move towards their end and she ceases progressing before eventually turning silent. The…

  • Arctic Monkeys – AM

    September 17, 2013 - By 

    You have to hand it to the Arctic Monkeys. Most artists who have achieved accelerated success at such a tender age remain gobby guttersnipes with an admirable desire to grind axes but a significant lack of axes to grind. They rarely make it beyond the second album, confined instead to an occasional mention in a question on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Not so with the ever prolific Alex Turner et al., who have now released five full-lengths, several EPs, a live record, a soundtrack and a wealth of b-sides which could be justifiably included on a mainstream release. Further, the quality control is…

  • Floor Staff – The Good Luck EP

    July 12, 2013 - By 

    It’s really difficult to write good pop music; unlike most other genres, great pop requires a level of clarity of vision and perfection that can be cripplingly hard. So it’s always a real treat when exciting pop music lands straight on your lap. With their debut release, The Good Luck EP, Dublin duo Floor Staff have given the world a proper Summer treat. Working with a kitchen sink mentality, the EP mixes emotionally volatile vocals, tight and powerful rhythms and a cracking brass section with effortless effect. The production and mixing is one of the most laudable aspects of the…

  • Maya Jane Coles – Comfort

    July 9, 2013 - By 

    Maya Jane Coles has steered a steady and prolific career as a DJ and remixer since teaching herself the rudiments of her trade at the age of fifteen through the wonders of computer based DJ packages.  Having filed Essential Selection mixes for Radio 1 and remixed for top dogs such as Gorillaz and Massive Attack, Maya Jane was named fourteenth most influential DJ in the world by Rolling Stone, a prestigious feather in anyone’s musical cap and headphones.  The perpetual challenge for a DJ when creating an album is the choice of vocalist for the tracks; it can either lift…

  • Kanye West – Yeezus

    July 1, 2013 - By 

    Yeezus is Kanye West’s most polarising album to date, and it’s not just down to the testing sonic wonderland he’s created from such anti-pop genres as Chicago drill, house and industrial. Detractors who charge West with accusations of egotism, narcissism  and a bloated sense of self worth are unlikely to tolerate the most confrontational and aggressive piece he’s ever made, with topics such as power, materialism and a creeping distrust of women on Ye’s increasingly insular agenda. Inevitably, deriving enjoyment from Yeezus comes down to whether you can endure what’s on the mind of the man who in a recent…

  • Watch: Broken Social Scene play ‘Late Night With Jimmy Fallon’

    June 7, 2013 - By 

    Toronto-based label Arts and Crafts – home to Broken Social Scene, Bloc Party and more – celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. To help mark (et) the occassion, the people’s favourite ever-changing supergroup Broken Social Scene appeared on last night’s “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon”, performing ‘Almost Crimes’ (from 2002’s You Forgot It In People) and ‘7/4 Shoreline’ (from their 2005 self-titled). Even Feist turned up! As well as photo exhibits and a one-day festival in Toronto, the label will also be releasing a collaborations compilation with other artists from the label’s roster, as well as a retrospective comp looking…

  • Mount Kimbie – Cold Spring Fault Less Youth

    June 1, 2013 - By 

    It’s a familiar trajectory – new outfit releases a series of head-turning EPs on a niche electronic label, graduates quickly to a full-length album and then gets snapped up by a much larger concern for a full assault on hearts and minds. That path has now more or less been trodden by three leading lights of the dubstep diaspora: James Blake, Darkstar and now Dom Maker and Kai Campos of Mount Kimbie. While Blake has sought to weld his background in dubstep production to a new role as a writer and singer of delicate soul, Darkstar and Mount Kimbie have…

  • Sgt. MCA’s Lonely Beastie Boys Club

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    A year on from the tragic, altogether untimely death of Beastie Boys rapper Adam Yauch aka MCA, the boundlessly creative, wonderfully thoughtful Dave Frecknall has only gone and re-imagined Peter Blake’s legendary cover for the Beatles’ 1967 LP Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to feature characters associated with the Beasties Boys or referred to in a whole host of their songs. Awesome. Check out Dave’s frankly ingenuous creation and reference guide below! R.I.P. MCA.  

  • Vanilla Gloom – Vexed EP

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Vanilla Gloom. It sounds like the sort of thing a depressed Willy Wonka might create. A grunge gumdrop, say. Just a taste and you’re transported back, back, back in time, all the way to the early-Nineties and a rain-slicked Seattle. Creatures in plaid lumberjack shirts and distressed jeans stalk the land, stomping their enemies under their Doc Marten-ed heels, paying tribute to King Kurt. Times are heavy. Times are good. Vanilla Gloom’s Vexed EP will take you back to those times just as surely as any magic lozenge. They’re a new-fangled, guitar-toting, female three-piece. They’re from Derry, originally, now based…