• Preview: Borders

    If you’ve caught only a fleeting second of the visuals accompanying the music of Borders, you’ll know that it carries with it a huge weight of visual import. Spanning symphonic ambience and widescreen electronica, the record – which scooped last year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize – was a remarkably filmic meeting of the minds from two of the country’s most innovative artists, Ryan Vail and Eoin O’Callaghan AKA Elma Orkestra. It checks out, then, that such a naturally scopic, wonderfully-wrought statement on belonging and the universal power of nature and our place within it would translate well to the documentary format.…

  • Monday Mixtape: Elma Orkestra & Ryan Vail

    In the latest installment of Monday Mixtape, Eoin O’Callaghan aka Elma Orkestra and Ryan Vail – a duo who has recently released one of the Irish albums of the year in Borders – select some of the tracks made an imprint on writing and recording of the project. Catch Borders, live, at the following upcoming shows: Stendhal Festival – 16th August Electric Picnic – 30th August Max Richter – On The Nature of Daylight (Entropy) This has been one of our favourite tunes to date. We’ve been listening to it since its release many years ago. Most recognise it from the…

  • Stream: Elma Orkestra and Ryan Vail – Arrival

    As collaborative projects go, Borders by Derry artists Ryan Vail and Eoin O’Callaghan aka Elma Orkestra is one that fully deserves your attention. Having both been releasing music independently of one another since 2012, the pair have worked together on a release that sees their diverse creative paths meet head-on. Across eight tracks, from opener ‘Droves’ to the beat-laden outro ‘Arlene’, they masterfully blur the contours between contemporary electronic and classical realms. This breaking of new ground – of pushing boundaries and thwarting expectations via attention to detail and a joint penchant for analogue equipment – is what underpins Borders,…