• Belfast Becomes a UNESCO City of Music

    November 8, 2021 - By 

    Belfast has become UNESCO City of Music. The city has been awarded the prestigious City of Music title, which recognises its rich musical heritage, as well as the importance of music to its future. It’s only the third city in the UK to be awarded the coveted status. Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Kate Nicholl, said: “We are thrilled and honoured that Belfast has been bestowed the prestigious UNESCO City of Music title and to have Gary Lightbody and Hannah Peel on board as official patrons. This is wonderful news for Belfast! “Belfast is proud of its music culture. Creativity…

  • Stream: F.R.U.I.T.Y. – U.P.S.

    July 15, 2021 - By 

    Arriving on the Belfast scene like a bucket of pink paint into white, Dan O’Rawe, aka F.R.U.I.T.Y. brings a chameleonic, singular blend of woozy, lo-fi electronica, hip-hop and experimental pop, underscored by the ingrained localised perspective of a queer person in Northern Ireland. Following up on his contributions to Bangers N’ Breakups, a darkwave cover of ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ and debut single ‘Not Quite Exceptional‘, new single ‘U.P.S.’ is the first single taken from F.R.U.I.T.Y.’s self-titled debut EP, out 5th August. It sees Tobacco & Eels-esque hazy, kaleidoscopic synth textures frame off-kilter, identity-exploring pop in the vein of Ezra Furman, Jazmin Bean…

  • Stream: This Ship Argo – Hum

    January 15, 2021 - By 

    In recent years – and particularly in the last, thanks to Bandcamp – we’ve seen the rise of a wide net of self-produced superlative electronic artists. In the Northern Irish cul de sac, you have the increasingly world-beating Arvo Party, synthwave retromancer Alpha Chrome Yayo, and more recently, Aileen McKenna, AKA This Ship Argo has been cropping up on the radar with her singular brand of experimental electronic pop. At turns earworming, introspective and profoundly moving, TSA strikes a rare midpoint between densely-layered chamber pop, and ruminative minimalism. Her new single ‘Hum’ is out today, accompanied by alternate mixes from Arvo Party & A Cappella, following…

  • EP Premiere: Mark Loughrey – On Through The Veil Anew

    December 10, 2020 - By 

    On Through The Veil Anew is the new five-track EP from experimental folk artist Mark Loughrey, born near the border town of Strabane, and currently based in Berlin. His first major release since the 2017 release of debut album, Treppenwitz, it’s both sonically and thematically a marked progression towards more ambitious arrangements and experimental storytelling. Drawing from the kind of subtly subversive contemporary Northern Folk tradition carried out by the likes of Arborist & Joshua Burnside, it’s steeped in roots, but subtly subversive of genre convention. Its expansive, yet intricate, organically arranged compositions at varying points call to mind the earthly etherealism of Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird…

  • Watch: Problem Patterns – Christmas Number One

    December 11, 2020 - By 

    Whether you’re thrilled or dreading the prospect of a quiet Christmas this year, Belfast’s finest feminist punks have a single we’re delighted to let you hear. Its doo wop-via-Breeders harmonies guaranteed to have you grinning from ear to ear, ‘Christmas Number One’ is a refreshingly positive take on coping with expectations of seasonal cheer. Now, don’t let our lazy rhyming couplets put you off – Problem Patterns’ latest single is as earworming as they’ve ever been. Normally, we’re not ones to copy & paste a press release, but as ever, they put it better than we could have: “Known for their feminist punk ethos, Problem have tackled such topics as…

  • Nomadic Rituals Announce New LP Tides

    November 16, 2020 - By 

    From Slomatics and Elder Druid, to War Iron and Astralnaut, Northern Ireland is responsible for some of the finest, most thoroughly crushing sludge-doom around. Perhaps most decimating of all are Nomadic Rituals. Comprising Craig Carson, Peter Hunter and Mark Smyth, we last heard from the Belfast band back in 2017, circa the release of their “sludgy, space-evoking, cosmos-atomising” second album, Marking the Day. Three years and one reality-mangling pandemic on, the band are back with news of their third full-length, TIDES. Recorded, once again, by Niall Doran at Start Together Studios, the six-track release is headed with the typically pulverizing ‘Them’, which you can stream…

  • Red Bull and AVA Team Up For Special Max Cooper AV Show

    November 13, 2020 - By 

    Red Bull and AVA have teamed up to host a special performance by London-based Belfast producer Max Cooper. Streamed from Carlisle Memorial Church in Belfast, the homecoming performance will see Cooper bring a new AV show to the high Victorian, neo-gothic style building. Doubling up as the first electronic performance in the venue, the event will be available to AVA’s online community for free on Wednesday, November 18 at 8pm via YouTube, Facebook and the AVA website. Sarah McBriar, Creative Director of AVA said, ‘After stepping inside the building in 2015, we knew we wanted to bring a part of AVA to Carlisle…

  • Moving On Music Set To Hold Online Concert Event ‘All The Noels’

    October 20, 2020 - By 

    Belfast-based tastemakers par excellence Moving on Music are set to hold unique online live music experience held throughout the Black Box, Belfast, titled All The Noels. The 30-odd-minute single shot, walk-through experience is set to showcase different music taking place across the various spaces of the venue. The video – recorded across one day by a team of audio-visual professionals – attempts to capture the feeling of being in possibly our favourite Belfast venue for live music. Performances come from some of TTA faves, experimental rock quartet Blue Whale, traditional Irish vocal quartet Landless, Irish jazz pianist Scott Flanigan‘s Trio, jazz drummer Steve Davis, folk duo Laytha and traditional flute & whistle player Martha Guiney with Shane McCartan. Speaking of the project, Mick Bonner of Moving on Music said “it was…

  • Monday Mixtape: Son Zept

    October 19, 2020 - By 

    Recently championed and playlisted by the likes of by ourselves, The Quietus, DJ Mag and leftfield DJ par excellence Avalon Emerson, “Northern Ireland’s resident electronic compositional polymath” Liam McCartan, AKA Son Zept has just released his second mini-album of 2020, B. Today, he gives us an uncharacteristically abridged mixtape of some current favourite tracks. I tried to keep this as just a stream of thought and not cram in stuff that I’d end rambling about daft things like cheeky hauntological anti-memory sound (*ahem*). Excluded tunes from Aphex Twin + Aphex covers, Mal Waldron, Oneohtrix Point Never, Eprom, Lyra Pramuk, Pinch & Mumdance, Holly Herndon, Chassol,…

  • Watch: SORBET – Birth (My First Day)

    September 16, 2020 - By 

    Ahead of the release of his debut solo EP, Life Variations this Friday, producer/songwriter/vocalist – and bandleader with Robocobra Quartet – Chris Ryan, AKA SORBET has lifted the cloche on the video for opening track ‘Birth (My First Day)’, which conjures the all-too-real sensation of impostor syndrome. Directed by Dominic Curran with AR motion graphics by Fabiano Benetton, the piece is a magic-realism expression of the singular, otherworldly feeling of the writing alone through his period of home-studio isolation. The seed of Life Variations grew from meditations upon two piano chords to which Ryan was repeatedly and profoundly drawn. Each of its three tracks takes this notion and explores cyclical threads and progression through key stages…