• Open Ear Festival Announces Stage Times

    May 28, 2018 - By 

    One of the most unique and diverse festivals in Ireland, set in the beautiful off-coast sanctuary of Sherkin Island, Open Ear Festival holds its third annual outing from May 31-June 3, and times have just been announced. From avant-garde sound design and ambient music to experimental dance music and groovy electronics, it is a festival that champions the best of the best in the Irish undergrowth. As a festival of forward-thinking musical technologists, it’s nigh-on-peerless in Ireland right now. This year, the Thursday includes an opening concert featuring Dream Cycles, electroacoustic artist Roger Doyle and organist & drone artist Aine O’Dwyer in a hidden location on…

  • The Bonk & Percolator Announce Co-Headline Tour

    May 3, 2018 - By 

    The artists behind two thirds of our top three Irish albums of last year embark on a run of dates spanning the island over the next few months. Improvised psych-pop outfit The Bonk are set to play five shows with kraut/drone trio Percolator. We’ll be hosting the Belfast date at the Menagerie on June 28 – more details will be announced on that shortly. The Bonk An incredible, dynamic live outfit, The Bonk is a broad-based musical project headed by Waterford songwriter and improviser Phil Christie (O Emperor). Gathering influences from 60’s garage, jazz and experimental pop, the band’s arrangements bring recursive rhythms and improvised melodies…

  • Hilary Woods – Colt

    April 25, 2018 - By 

    Some artists are just destined to wind up on certain rosters. One such act is Dublin’s Hilary Woods, an artist whose solo craft we’ve followed with a certain glee over the last couple of years. On June 8, the musician, ex-JJ72 member and multi-instrumentalist will release her debut full-length album, Colt, via Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones, an indie imprint whose discerning (and, so far, pretty impeccable) penchant for repping acts such as Zola Jesus, Jenny Hval, David Lynch, John Carpenter, Blanck Mass and Marissa Nadler runs directly parallel with Woods’ very own crepuscular craft. Her minimal composition & otherwordly layered atmospherics follow two acclaimed EPs and recent scoring of a horror film for IFI’s Weimar…

  • Le Guess Who? 2017

    November 24, 2017 - By 

    Photo by Tim van Veen You can’t help but admire the audacity of Le Guess Who? After an almost household-friendly 2016 lineup, they made a point of aiming their powers of tastemaking further toward the underground, with a broad range of curators that give as accurate a microcosm of the festival as you’d hope – Perfume Genius, Jerusalem In My Heart, Grouper, James Holden, Han Bennink, Basilica Soundscape & Shabazz Palaces. This comes accompanied by everything a fan of music & the arts could dream of, including the world’s largest record fair, the smaller Le Mini Who? festival. Every festival…

  • Preview & Festival Mixtape: Le Guess Who? 2017

    October 25, 2017 - By 

    Laying comfortably in the shadow of Amsterdam is the chilled-out university town of Utrecht, where the red light district is gladly a distant memory, and typically Dutch architecture and culture are in great supply. While this particularly from of citywide festival can be tough to pull off, Le Guess Who? has developed and diversified every year, offering something for everyone. A holiday-planner’s dream, it boasts the artistic ambition with none of the associated pretentiousness. Many of the performances take place in the impressive TivoliVredenburg or multitude of other venues within walking distance. Most music starts after 5pm, offering the chance to visit the Rietveld Schröder House, tour the…

  • ¡NO! – Sediments

    October 9, 2017 - By 

    Dublin experimental project ¡NO! have been steadily drip-feeding us their improvised limited edition CDs and cassettes gradually over the last three years, as well as their regular Concrete Soup nights, which feature live collaborations with internationally-renowned artists. Their tenth release in that time is Sediments, released through Little Gem Records. In the same way the late ’60s & early ’70s led Berliners to fluctuate between their own interpretations of psychedelia, jazz & blues, and making experimental, deeply ambient electronic without pause to consider genre restraints and pay heed primarily to creative impulse -leading to the movement known broadly as krautrock, ¡NO! have paid similar heed to expectation and convention. Although…

  • The Bonk – The Bonk Seems To Be A Verb

    October 7, 2017 - By 

    Having released a string of stellar singles over the last two years, Dublin & Cork-based experimental, orchestral, psychedelic garage rock project The Bonk released their debut LP, The Bonk Seems To Be A Verb, on October 6. Recorded over the last few years while the outfit have been together, it’s released on cassette through Drogheda arts & culture collective Thirty Three – 45. Although the project is based around the compositions of frontman Phil Christie – of O Emperor, the substantial cast of musicians credited on the album includes some of the island’s most respected artists & virtuosi: Phil O’ Gorman – Guitar Brendan Fennessy – Drums Jim…

  • Porphyry – Ursa Minor/Coming Home EP

    July 24, 2017 - By 

    Experimental singer-songwriter Porphyry has just released his debut EP, Ursa Minor/Coming Home. Solely performed by Derry multi-instrumentalist Daryl Coyle, it’s an ambitious EP that’s difficult to pin down in genre, with lush arrangements and instrumental flourishes, and truly unpredictable songwriting. Independently released, it was recorded by Start Together’s Niall Doran & Smalltown America’s Caolan Austin, and mixed by Doran. The EP, although could be categorised as baroque pop, or psych-folk, or ambient, or shoegaze or even *gasp* prog rock, it manages the unenviable job of being boldly unpigeonholeable as art, and deeply personal, without approaching any level of bloated grandiosity. Check it out below – we’d…

  • Video Premiere: Tuath – Youth

    July 14, 2017 - By 

    Being just about the best thing in Ireland that we could call trip-hop, experimental Donegal psychers Tuath have a new single, and we’re delighted to show it for the first time. Casting an oneiric glimpse back to the years we’ve tossed away, the video is much like Tuath as a band: a ragtag affair that would have you believe everything they do is for kicks, but that belies a feeling that goes much deeper – listen and you’ll hear. ‘Youth’ is the title track from their forthcoming EP of the same name, due for release on August 15, and it echoes everything on the outer fringes from shoegaze, prog,…

  • The Jimmy Cake – Tough Love

    June 22, 2017 - By 

    Experimental kosmiche post-punks The Jimmy Cake release their sixth album Tough Love on July 14 through the respected Irish indie label Penske Recordings. Formed as a 10-piece in Dublin back in 2000 from the ashes of experimental noiseniks Das Madman, they’ve had a revolving lineup, recording – the last being 2015’s Master. Tough Love was written for a one-off performance in Dublin arts space The Joinery in 2015, with two distinct movements and styles – blending their usual krauty psychedelia with some stoner groove. Check out ‘Observatory Destroyer‘. The Jimmy Cake launch Tough Love at the Grand Social on July 8, and tickets are priced at €13 from Billetto,…