• Monday Mixtape: SlowPlaceLikeHome

    Set to play the TreeHaus stage at Body&Soul this weekend (10pm on Saturday night, soundtracking the literal summer solstice, no less), Donegal musician Keith Mannion AKA SlowPlaceLikeHome is one our must-see acts at the Co. Westmeath festival. Ahead of his appearance, Mannion has very kindly selected some of his all-time favourite tracks for this week’s Monday Mixtape, featuring the likes of The Dirty Three, Cluster and Tindersticks. The Dirty Three – Some Summers They Drop Like Flys Beautiful serenity of Whatever You Love, You Are album never fails to compel. If ever you get the chance to see them live, do! And…

  • Festival Mixtape: Indiependence 2015

    Featuring multiple stages across its tree-lined, 52 acre site, Indiependence Music & Arts Festival returns to Mitchelstown’s Deer Farm from July 31 to August 2. With a host of the country’s very best acts including Jape, Foy Vance, Ham Sandwich, Daithi and Ash set to play, international acts including Mark Lanegan Band, The Dandy Warhols and Basement Jaxx will also make an appearance. Go here to check out our comprehensive Indiependence Festival Preview and check out our twelve-track Indiependence Festival Mixtape below. Go here to buy tickets.

  • Classic Album: Television – Marquee Moon

    I was 17, staring forlornly out of my bedroom window to a street clad in the dimming light of dusk. As the stars began to pierce through the veil of night, one by one, two haunting chords began their journey towards the infinite. As duelling guitars spiral towards their chaotic, yet inevitable conclusion, I found myself standing beneath the Marquee Moon. Just waiting. To my teenage ears, this was perplexing. The music I was listening to, the epic title track to Television’s debut album, had been, and continues to be described as a punk record. But where were the distorted…

  • Deep Down South: A Changing of the Guard

    Cork metal and hardcore has been a scene that this column has attempted to shine a light on in recent times, owing to a complete lack of exposure elsewhere that completely overlooks a rich vein of talent and substance. It is this community your writer came from, and identifies strongly with. And last Sunday saw a changing of the guard, as two influential bands called it a day in a packed, heaving, sweating Fred Zeppelin’s. [r]evolution of a sun, active for most of their thirteen-year span in one form or another, brought a heft to their negative hardcore, aided by…

  • Cork Heads: Turncoat Press

    Turncoat Press is an independent Irish comics publisher based in Cork. They are Emmet O Brien, Chris O Halloran and Colin O Mahoney. On June 13 they are launching their second comic book ‘Life Signs’ in the Franciscan Well, Cork from 2pm until 8pm. Photos and interview by Brid O’Donovan. Turncoat Press. Colin: Turncoat Press is the three of us. Emmet, Chris and myself. We are a small press comics publisher. We’re based in Cork and we are on to our second publication now. So Turncoat Press is still very young. Myself and Emmet write and Chris draws. We wanted…

  • Track Record: Eilis Dillion (Records & Relics)

    In the latest installment of Track Record, Eilis Dillon, co-owner of Records and Relics – an antiques, vintage and record shop on Lancaster Quay in Cork city – reveals about her all-time favourite records. Photos by Brid O’Donovan. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band This is the first album I ever became obsessed with. My parents had it at home when I was a kid. I really loved it because it had the lyrics on the back so I’d sit at home and pour over the lyrics and play it over and over again. That was my first…

  • Rave New World (05/06)

    In the giddy, optimistic aftermath of Boiler Room debuts in Belfast and Dublin, as well as a hugely successful first outing for AVA Festival, Aidan Hanratty and Antoin Lindsay deliver their weekly look at all things electronic. GIGS Pogo: Bodytonic & Hidden Agenda present Late Nite Tuff Guy & Young Marco at The Twisted Pepper Saturday, June 6 So unfair, so unreasonable – Bodytonic and Hidden Agenda combine to bring two excellent DJs to town. Late Nite Tuff Guy is famed for his edits/reworks (a personal favourite is that of Roland Clark’s ‘I Get Deep’), while Young Marco has released…

  • The Record: Heroes In Hiding

    In the latest installment of The Record, Cian Donohoe, drummer from Dublin folk-rock quartet Heroes In Hiding offers an insight into the writing and recording of their second EP, Decorated Absence, which is released today. Photos by Tara Thomas. “Our second EP, Decorated Absence was recorded and produced by Philip Magee. The writing and recording process was hugely different to our first EP, Hush, which was released in March last year. Hush was self-produced and recorded and then mixed by SOAK’s producer, the brilliant Declan Legge. That first EP was a much longer and more easygoing process than the one we have just…

  • Festival Mixtape: Electric Picnic 2015

    With Blur, Grace Jones, FKA Twigs, Mac DeMarco and more added to the bill yesterday, this year’s Electric Picnic is shaping up to be one of the best outings for the annual Co. Laois festival in years. With many more acts yet to be revealed, Interpol, Jurassic 5, Manic Street Preachers, Belle and Sebastian, Battles, The War on Drugs, Jon Hopkins and Future Islands are also amongst the acts already announced to play this year’s festival, taking place from September 4-6 at Stradbally Estate. Go here to buy tickets to Electric Picnic 2015 and check out our Festival Mixtape for EP 2015 below.

  • All Genres Weird & Wonderful: Nintendocore

    Following on from the rather curious world of Vaporwave, Kelly Doherty continues to scour the world’s sub-genres so that you can sound informed at hipster dinner parties with minimal effort. This month: Nintendocore Name: Nintendocore Origins: The 8-bit Nintendo games of the 80s – think Super Mario, Zelda – combined with the angsty post-hardcore/metalcore that lights up the hearts of angry 15 year olds all over the world How to use it in a sentence: “All my son does anymore is sit in his room listening to Nintendocore. Between that and his obsession with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as…