• Label Mixtape: What’s Your Rupture?

    April 14, 2016 - By 

    Running an independent record label can often seem like one of the more concrete definitions of a ‘labour of love’. Brooklyn-based label What’s Your Rupture? (WYR?), founded in 2003 by one Kevin Pedersen, has managed to strike a superb balance in its release strategy – giving a platform to newer bands while simultaneously bringing older artists to new audiences. Oddly enough, the label originally started off the back of the notoriety gained by Pedersen’s stand-up comedy act, but has since gone on to become one of the most venerated underground labels in contemporary music. While fairly discerning in what he…

  • Out Of Oblivion Into The Light: An Interview with Mission of Burma

    April 12, 2016 - By 

    For years, Boston post-punk legends Mission of Burma were one of rock music’s great ‘what if?’ stories, an obscure but influential band that broke up far too soon due to singer/guitarist Roger Miller’s tinnitus, worsened by their notoriously loud live shows, leaving behind just one full length album, an EP and a couple of singles. When they finally reformed in 2002 (with Shellac’s Bob Weston taking over the role of tape manipulation from Martin Swope) they did it properly, refusing to be a mere nostalgia act and issuing a string of new albums that sounded just as vital as what…

  • Monday Mixtape: Tim Burgess (The Charlatans)

    April 11, 2016 - By 

    I love putting a line up together for a festival. Tim Peaks, our stage, coffee shop and general place of ace happenings will be heading to festivals from Scotland to the Isle of Wight, taking in Liverpool Sound City, Kendal Calling and Festival Number Six from May to September. Tim Peaks means I can invite some of my favourite bands along to play – some are bands from O Genesis our record label, some are old friends and a couple are new bands I’ve not had the chance to see live and others are bands that have been playing at Tim…

  • Rave New World (08/04)

    April 8, 2016 - By 

    Aidan Hanratty and Antoin Lindsay return with the best electronic gigs, tracks and mixes of the week. Gigs Melodic: Francois K + Donal Dineen / Melodic DJs at The Sugar Club, Dublin Friday 8 April 2016 Francois K is a legend, simply put. DJing since the 70s, he knows his stuff and has managed to keep with the times while maintaining his identity. Donal Dineen is a local legend too, so this is a wonderful opportunity to see two heavyweights in one night. Boom. AH Bastardo Electrico presents Prosumer at Cyprus Avenue, Cork Friday 8 April 2016 Prosumer is a regular enough visitor…

  • Inbound: God Creative & Crimes Against

    April 7, 2016 - By 

    Both stellar acts in their own right, Dublin’s God Creative and Crimes Against have joined forces to collaborate on an upcoming album. In this installment of Inbound, Eoghain Meakin catches up with them just after this historic Easter to talk ancestors, ‘the scene’ and solid gold rocket ships. Photos by Pedro Giaquinto. Everything is changing in Ireland. Hip Hop, once the cast out of the home-grown music scene and the last import only product on the musical menu, is growing in strength, respect and deployment. Case in point is Dublin’s latest collaboration between long time rapper God Creative and writer/producer Crimes Against. Billed…

  • How Satire Explains The Rise of Trump

    April 6, 2016 - By 

    “Let’s Drop The Big One And See What Happens” On November 8th 2016, the United States of America will elect a new president, and at the moment, in the eyes of many commentators, it’s a three horse race as to who that individual will be. On one side, the liberalism of Bernie Sanders is vying for prominence with the pragmatism of Hillary Clinton, and on the other side stands the man no-one would have expected, the irascible Donald Trump. The eyes of the world will be upon the US, and it’s difficult not to feel history is being made, for…

  • Track Record: Kevin Breen (Kid Karate)

    April 6, 2016 - By 

    In this installment of Track Record we hang out with Kid Karate’s Kevin Breen (and a crocodile) while he takes us through some of his favourite records from Tame Impala to Talking Heads. Photos by Aidan Kelly Murphy. Michael Jackson – Bad Who’s bad? A hee hee! Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly Hands down the best album of 2015.  Nothing has blown my mind like that in a long time. Kendrick is doing what Kanye thinks he’s doing. A great album to expand your consciousness. Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon My friend Dave Parle turned me on to this guy.…

  • TV Eye: Horace and Pete

    April 5, 2016 - By 

    The tenth and final episode of Louis CK’s experimental online-self-distributed series, Horace and Pete, arrived in subscribers’ inboxes on Saturday to no fanfare or announcement of the series’ conclusion – simply an email from CK saying he had nothing clever to say about it. It was written, filmed and directed by Louie in the week prior to each release, evidenced by the highly topical barroom discussion, with even Hulk Hogan’s Gawker sex tape discussed. In its finest moments, Horace & Pete feels like zeitgeist-capturing cult television event, and for anyone into it, the personal email from Louis was the highlight…

  • Cinema 16 For 16: Victoria

    April 4, 2016 - By 

    An alternative guide to this year’s cinematic offerings, we trawl through the dilapidated rows of seats in the back alley ‘art’ cinemas and crumbling picture palaces so you don’t have to. Rescuing gummy Venus de Milos from sticky crevices and fishing midget gems out of cold cups of tea. Diaries at the ready cinephiles. One city. One night. One take. So reads the tagline for Victoria, the new film from relatively unknown director Sebastian Schipper that has cinephiles the world over going all googly eyed. It’s the ‘one take’ from the tagline that is especially capturing attention- with the film…

  • Monday Mixtape: Cian Ó Cíobháin (An Taobh Tuathail/Ceol ar an Imeall)

    April 4, 2016 - By 

    Easily the country’s very best radio programme, Cian Ó Cíobháin’s An Taobh Tuathail has proved impossibly formative for so many musicians, music writers and music lovers throughout the length and breadth of the country. A nightly, midweek traipse through the very best underground sounds, the show (which translates “the Other Side” in English) is a veritable trove of electronica, experimental, ambient and more. You can tune in here. Co-presented with Eithne Shortall, Ó Ciobhain returns with the seventh season of TG4’s alternative music programme Ceol ar an Imeall on Thursday, April 7 at 10.30pm. This first episode features Mark Ronson and performances Ham Sandwich…