• Watch: And So I Watch You From Afar @ The Live Room Belfast

    December 11, 2017 - By 

    Having just returned from a mammoth European tour and ahead of their biggest hometown show to date, our very own world-beating instrumental titans And So I Watch You From Afar play the inaugural session at The Live Room Belfast, following the release of their massively acclaimed fifth album, The Endless Shimmering. Having transcended their reputation as not just an internationally-respect math-rock outfit, but one of the cornerstones of contemporary Irish – specifically Northern – subculture, the north coast quartet are in many ways they’re the only band who could’ve fittingly kicked off this series of sessions Start Together Studio‘s Live Room, where four of their five albums have been…

  • Buí – Eugene

    November 20, 2017 - By 

    There’s not much to beat a cathartic wallow from an earnest dose of honest-to-goodness indie rock, so if that’s what you’re after, look no further than Eugene, the album that emerges from singer-songwriter Josh Healy, aka Buí. Released on November 27, accompanied with a launch show, the LP was recorded at Earth Music Studios by Vic Bronzini-Fulton, and features appearances from a range of local names like Joel Harkin, and members of Colonel Chocolate & the Justice Triangle. Healy is also, in this project, joined by Eoin Johnson & Rónán McQuillan of his previous project, Josh The Human. Written throughout 2014-2017, Eugene is dripping with emotion, sincerity and character;…

  • Exhibition: Let Us Eat Cake @ Belfast Exposed

    November 14, 2017 - By 

    If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Northern Ireland is the worst place to live, in terms of rights, in the whole of the UK or Ireland. Fundamental rights that exist throughout Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales do not exist in the North. Over the past decade homophobic hate crimes have increased year on year, and specific legislation for trans hate crimes is absence. When all of these are mixed in with the melting pot conservative ideologies, such as creationism, that still exist in Northern Ireland, it results in an atmosphere unconducive to the LGBTQ+ community. It is this community,…

  • Lisa Hannigan @ The Duncairn, Belfast

    November 6, 2017 - By 

    Lisa Hannigan and her band have just edged into the first verse of their fifth song at Belfast’s Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts. I’ve quickly nipped to the bathroom, where I overhear this brief tête-à-tête between two gentlemen: “Some gig, isn’t it?” “I’ve only just arrived. Stuck in traffic.” “Oh, Jesus.” As I leap up the stairwell back into the venue space, it suddenly hits me: the “Oh, Jesus” immediately (and very tellingly) severed the exchange between the two strangers. When it comes to a Lisa Hannigan show, it really is in your best interests to be present from the very first note…

  • Rory Nellis – There Are Enough Songs In The World

    October 31, 2017 - By 

    One of the country’s finest songwriting voices, Rory Nellis, releases his second album, There Are Enough Songs In The World on November 11. The frontman of deeply-respected Belfast power-pop outfit Seven Summits, his 2015 debut LP Ready For You Now was followed by a string of numbered singles, drip-fed to us over the space of 18 months in a typically curated fashion, to make up There Are Enough Songs In The World. It’s an approach, as we’ve already said, has served to isolate each song in its own right, building up and developing a narrative that is clearly threaded throughout the release. A collection of parables, ruminations, and the many suspects of the…

  • The Tragedy of Dr Hannigan – Fawkes Ache

    October 27, 2017 - By 

    The vaudevillian, murder balladeering musical theatre of The Tragedy of Dr Hannigan sees the release of its inaugural LP, Fawkes Ache on November 24. Having first reared its curious little head back in July via the swaggering ‘Hey Little Worried One’, the collaboration is the self-proclaimed bastard child project of North Coast chameleonic rock troubadour par excellence Tony Wright and producer & multi-instrumentalist Dead Stevens AKA Deany Darko. The sonic warmth of rock’n’roll fused with the cold, hard truths of the blues, it would, in the hands of anyone else, be just about any grizzled blues-rock album. But, in the same way the genius of Nick Cave’s Grinderman lies in its total & utter…

  • Premiere & Interview: Blue Americans – ‘Bull On Venice Beach/Holy Goo’

    September 1, 2017 - By 

    En­ough tears have been shed over the once-fertile, in-breeding Belfast music scene – or more specifically, a certain strain of D.I.Y. post-hardcore that was once ubiquitous in the wake of Brand New and Reuben’s premature breakups – led by young, hungry outfits like More Than Conquerors, who quite successfully married that sound with an astute ear for a hook, delivered by the gilded throat of Kris Platt. Everyone in that band went their separate ways almost exactly two years ago, following not much shy of a decade together. All things, however, must pass, and since then, the landscape has drastically…

  • Elder Druid – Carmina Satanae

    August 21, 2017 - By 

    Ballymena/Belfast occult-loving stoner-doom outfit Elder Druid have announced details of their debut album, Carmina Satanae – the Latin Term for Songs of Satan. The LP was recorded live in the studio by certified heft-bringer Niall Doran at Start Together Studios in Belfast over 3 days in August. As well as inevitable genre touchstones like Sleep & Electric Wizard, the iron lungs of frontman Gregg McDowell lends it a fury matched only by the likes of Down. Eight tracks strong, two of which are fresh recordings from their prior Magicka EP, they look set to make a significant dent on the UK & Irish doom scenes, having already toured…