• EP Premiere: Porphyry – Wounded, White Light

    October 26, 2018 - By 

    The term folktronica is just a touch reductionist for what the Derry-born, now Berlin-based Porphyry is doing. While in a more superficial sense, he could be described as an outsider Villagers, nothing in Ireland is attempting to achieve what Daryl Martin has with new EP, Wounded, White Light.  We loved his previous, self-described ‘maximalist’ Ursa Minor/Coming Home EP, not least for managing “the unenviable job of being boldly unpigeonholeable as art, and deeply personal, without approaching any level of bloated grandiosity”. Through minimalistic methods, however, the same result has been reached once more, with effortless finesse. Its cleansing, organic, seemingly breathing compositions weave unexpected synth textures into alternately piano & guitar-led freak-folk-meets-Robbie Basho-ian primitivism. Across its four tracks,…

  • A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot

    September 12, 2018 - By 

    “It smashes the head open like a melon.” 11 year-old Kevin Barry is in his kitchen, holding a hatchet up for the camera. He turns to his makeshift armoury. Here, he demonstrates, is how you throw a saw at someone running away. Kevin Barry is the youngest child in the O’Donnell family, who live in Derry’s Creggan estate, estranged from official ‘city of culture’ pride. His older brother, Philly, is currently exiled in Belfast, on orders of the neighbourhood’s Republican paramilitary enforcers. For his apparently drug-fuelled anti-social behaviour, Philly was sentenced by a secret vigilante panel and blasted in the back…

  • The Barbiturates – Only Folkin’ Jokin’

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Arguably the Irish group most deserving – in the literal sense – of the cult band status, Derry’s The Barbiturates have just released their latest LP, Only Folkin Jokin. Like its mini-album predecessor The Holy Mountain, it comes with  a visual accompaniment that threatens ocular trauma. Loaded with a sense of backwoods fear of the urban sprawl and the powers beyond their control, it’s another self-produced release that comes as act II in a larger thematic trilogy. With an Easter Egg that begs to be discovered – trust us – The Barbiturates’ leader has crafted what feels like an extended invitation to tune in, drop out, with pieces that casually dabble in acid…

  • Autumns – Suffocating Brothers

    September 27, 2017 - By 

    Since starting out some time ago as a D.I.Y. shoegaze/garage-noise outfit, Derry’s Christian Donaghey has refused to sit in any one place for too long with his ongoing project, Autumns, releasing and echewing subgenre records for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Over the last couple of years, he’s grown into himself, really finding his place with his most recent EP. Finally, he’s released his debut full length, Suffocating Brothers on renowned Glasgow label Clan Destine after being written & recorded in the latter half of 2016. This material sees him continue to bring the intensely visceral Roland-fuelled rhythms of industrial & techno he’s adopted in recent times, melded…

  • Exhibition: Collected Shadows @ Void

    August 25, 2017 - By 

    Established twenty-five years ago, the original brief for the Archive of Modern Conflict was to collect and preserve materials relating to the First and Second World War – this saw the AMC primarily archive photographs but also manuscripts and materials. Over the course of the next quarter century this initial premise was expanded on and the AMC is now best viewed as an archive of the world, amassing photographs from multiple centuries on a wide variety of themes and topics. In conjunction with the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Touring, an initiative which organises touring exhibitions through the UK and NI, the AMC…

  • Void Derry: Workshops, New Director and Exhibition

    July 25, 2017 - By 

    Void Derry have announced the appointment of Mary Cremin as their new Director. Cremin, who’s CV includes Festival Director for 2015’s TULCA Arts Festival, Programme Curator at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios as well as Project Curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, will assume the role with immediate effect and has advised: “It is a privilege to be joining the team at Void. I look forward to building on the extraordinary programme that Maolíosa Boyle and the team have developed during her time as Director, and to articulate the next chapter. I look forward to working with the…

  • Exhibition: Brigitte Zieger @ Void

    June 3, 2017 - By 

    Parisian based German artist Brigitte Zieger has a new exhibition of works, entitled Other Scenes, opening tonight in Derry’s Void gallery. The new show, which is curated by Gregory McCartney, see Zieger “explores virtual and spatial 3D images which relate to history and the integration of displacements between images, sculpture and space”. The opening is proceeded by an artist’s talk at 6:30pm, with the launch scheduled for 7:30pm until 9pm. Tonight also see the launch of Abridged’s 0 – 1979 issue, which can be picked up on the night. Other Scenes continues until July 29th, with full details on the exhibition available here, with info on…

  • Exhibition: Showing Off @ VOID

    May 16, 2017 - By 

    This week is the last to see Showing Off in Derry’s Void gallery. The show, which has been curated by Mhairi Sutherland, has seen screenings from the New York initiative Women Make Movies’ archive. Void’s Gallery 2 has a rotation of feature film’s, with a fixed series of shorter films in the gallery’s other spaces. For this final week it’s Barbara Miller’s 2012 film Forbidden Voices: How to Start a Revolution with a Computer – which looks at female bloggers in Cuba, China and Iran as they document their countries’ regimes. This film will be shown daily at 11am and 1pm, with the shorter films, including…

  • Droids – Vessels EP

    February 2, 2017 - By 

    After a break of several years, Derry riffers Droids release their new EP, Vessels, on March 27. Recorded at Smalltown America Studios over the last few years, it’s a long time coming after their excellent, raw eponymous debut EP in 2012. Stream the first track to be unveiled from the EP, ‘Burn Down’: Vessels by Droids