• Monday Mixtape: Arvo Party

    Belfast musician and producer Herb Magee AKA Arvo Party selects and talks about some of his favourite tracks, including Jon Hopkins, Metronomy, Nine Inch Nails, Rival Consoles and more. Photo by Michael McKeegan Nine Inch Nails – Copy Of A I don’t think I would be a producer at all without having heard NIN. When I hear Downward Spiral it took me somewhere I had never been before. It is depression and anger distilled into a single format. That said, this track is from their Hesitation Marks album, which was just ok. ‘Copy Of A’ is the stand out track for me and it…

  • Stream: Arvo Party – Liberté

    It came as no surprise to us when we discovered that Herb Magee aka Arvo Party was nominated for last year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize. In his review of the Belfast-based producer and musician’s self-titled debut album, Cathal McBride said, “With great Irish electronic acts like Solar Bears and Adultrock having called it a day within the last year, Magee sounds more than ready to take up the mantle they’ve left behind.” Seven months on, Magee continues to uphold this promise in style. A masterfully propulsive six minutes of electronica blurring sonic lines via late 1990s trance worships, simmering ambience surges,…

  • Stream: Wyvern Lingo – Snow II (Arvo Party Remix)

    Via the likes of his 1/1/2017 EP, this stellar John Carpenter cover in back in October, remixes for the likes of Rory Nellis and New Pagans and the release of his Northern Ireland Music Prize-nominated self-titled debut album – one of our Irish albums of the year, no less – it’s safe to say Belfast producer and musician Herb Magee AKA Arvo Party has a very strong 2017. Sealing the deal on the last few months is Magee’s brand new remix of ‘Snow II’ by Wyvern Lingo, a six-minute electro re-imagining that nocturnalises the original in fine fashion. Having already confirmed his…

  • Arvo Party – Arvo Party

    There’s been something of a LaFaro-shaped hole in Belfast’s music scene since their dissolution a couple of years ago. In a city that’s had no shortage of post-hardcore-leaning bands over the years, LaFaro stood far in front, assisted by a rawness and lack of pretence, not to mention frontman Jonny Black’s vocals that swapped the usual throaty screams and Americanised emoting with a sarcastic snarl handed down from Steve Albini and mclusky’s Andy Falkous. After going on to join Cahir O’Doherty’s Goons – a band who were similarly riffy but lacked that same LaFaro spark and never really got going…

  • Premiere: Arvo Party – Null Set

    Although many of you won’t need told, Belfast-based musician and producer Herb Magee is a jack of all trades, master of many. A current or past bassist for several stellar Northern Irish acts including three-piece GOONS and riffmasters general LaFaro, Magee has also been drip-feeding us varyingly-shaded electronic and ambient sounds as Arvo Party since early last year. A handful of original efforts and various first-rate covers later, Magee will release his brilliantly inspired, self-titled debut album on Friday. Traversing ambient, drone, neo-classical and experimental electronic sounds – as well full-on, straight-up electronica – the release is an 11 track, 50-minute masterstroke from an…

  • EP Stream: Arvo Party – 1/1/2017

    The electronic music-making moniker of LaFaro and GOONS bassist Herb Magee, Arvo Party first caught our attention back this time last year with debut EPs Beep and Tintinnabuli. With an album in the works, Magee resurfaced on Sunday with the aptly-titled 1/1/2017, a compilation EP of sorts featuring five tracks that wouldn’t seem remotely out of place on say, the soundtrack to Commando, Rocky IV, Kickboxer – and countless other classic 80s action movies besides. Conjuring the likes of Todd Terje, DROKK, John Carpenter, Dog Blood and Floating Points, Magee said of the EP on his Bandcamp page: “This EP is a collection of…

  • EP Streams: Arvo Party – Beep/Tintinnabuli

    From Joy Orbison, Camper Van Beethoven and Chet Faker to Truman Peyote, Ringo Deathstar and Joanna Gruesome, punny musical monikers range from the positively inspired to the downright cringeworthy. Falling very much into the former camp, Arvo Party is the new-fangled electronic-leaning appellation of Belfast’s Herb Magee of kaput riffmasters general LaFaro and three-piece GOONS. Diametrically at odds to said heavydom, Magee has unveiled two EPs of sublime throwback minimalist electronica: four-track release Beep and the five-track Tintinnabuli, which features two re-imaginings of (the actual) Arvo Pärt’s ‘Für Alina’ and ‘Solfeggio (Excerpt in C Major)’. Back to back, it’s an exceptional double curveball from the Belfast-based bassist and…