• Teeth Bared and Tongues in Cheek: An Interview With BATS

    April 9, 2019 - By 

    BATS are easily one of Irish musical landscapes’ greatest oddities. A five piece playing a fusion of post-punk, prog and metal with lyrics devoted to topics such as the Higgs Boson Particle, New Earth Creationist Kent Hovind and the Cthulhu mythos. Proudly outspoken with teeth bared and tongues firmly in cheek, there has been silence in the BATS camp since 2012’s superb Sleep of Reason. Now having just completed a Kickstarter campaign for their forthcoming album, Alter Nature the group are back to pick up where they left off. Words by Will Murphy Photos by Moira Reilly Let’s start with the…

  • Throwing It Out There: An Interview With Kristin Hersh

    April 8, 2019 - By 

    U.S. singer-songwriter, musician and author Kristin Hersh talks to James Cox about pride, process, PTSD, guitar-playing and forthcoming new Throwing Muses material. Your latest release Possible Dust Clouds is certainly one of the more muscular and unapologetically rocking entries to your solo catalogue. Can you talk us through some of the influences behind the album? Where was your mind at when writing and recording this latest batch of songs? I wanted to hear how it feels to be at a show rather than how it feels to listen to a live recording (which is usually just a lousy recording!). The songs themselves…

  • Belfast Film Festival Preview: The Kiosk – A Q+A With Director Neal Hughes

    March 27, 2019 - By 

    A must-see at this year’s Belfast Film Festival is the debut screening of The Kiosk by director Neal Hughes. Capturing the singular spirit and humanity of the city and its citizens, it’s a look through the eyes of a barista serving coffee from a small coffee kiosk in the heart of Belfast City Centre. We catch up with Hughes to discuss the impetus behind the project, the future of the Kiosk following the major fire at the nearby Primark in August and how his film reveals the poetry of everyday Belfast. Catch The Kiosk at Movie House on Dublin Road on Saturday, April…

  • Royal Yellow’s Mark O’Brien talks sound, streaming and life after Enemies: Interview

    March 13, 2019 - By 

    Royal Yellow is the pseudonym for Mark O’Brien, the multi-talented former frontman of post-rock darlings Enemies. After a ten year career culminating in a global tour and the release of their third album, Valuables, Enemies called it a day. This is when O’Brien went solo, charting out a course of his own drawing influence from every direction and creating something truly unique. Royal Yellow takes cues from the likes of The Avalanches and DJ Shadow, somewhere where hip-hop, jazz, rock and pop collide. After the viral release of his debut single ‘Hazeldene’ and the follow up ‘Aruba’, Royal Yellow will…

  • A Turn Up For The Book: An Interview with VerseChorusVerse

    February 27, 2019 - By 

    Last year, Belfast-based, North Coast musician and singer-songwriter Tony Wright aka VerseChorusVerse took the leap. It’s one that few musicians ever get around to but for some, Wright including, writing about his life seemed to stem from a kind of cosmic duty; as a means to both memorialise and give literary content to a remarkable life lived. Luckily, it seems that Tony Wright, despite everything, is only getting started. To call Chapter & Verse(ChorusVerse) a page-turner would be doing it a disservice. As anyone who has delved into the author’s music – or caught him live – can attest, he’s every bit the born fabulist. Recounting…

  • Inbound: James Joys

    November 20, 2018 - By 

    Not merely one-half of Belfast duo Ex Isles, James Joys is the music-making moniker of Belfast experimental composer James Thompson. Influenced by the likes of Ben Frost, Holly Herndon and Tim Hecker and more, his recently-released debut EP, Super_Tidal, melds electronic, ambient, noise, electoacoustic and rave across five tracks. Ahead of a busy 2019, Joys talks to us about conceptual distinction, confidence, collaboration, and crafting a release that translates the feeling of “being in a massive club with lots of different rooms, with all sorts of music blasting away”. Your recently-released EP, Super_Tidal, is a work of “electroacoustic rave entropy”. Very intriguing.…

  • Life Trainee: An Interview With SOAK

    November 19, 2018 - By 

    It’s been three years since Derry born singer-songwriter SOAK broke into public consciousness with her emotionally raw and beautifully-crafted debut album Before We Forget How To Dream. After heaps of critical praise, a Mercury prize nomination, an Irish Choice Music Prize Album of The Year victory and a little time away from the limelight, the 22 year old is back with a new song ‘Everybody Loves You’, the promise of a second album coming soon and a tour at the end of November. Ahead of her show at Belfast’s Oh Yeah Centre on November 26 (tickets here), Kelly Doherty spoke…

  • A million vivid details: Max Cooper interviewed

    November 15, 2018 - By 

    Merging ambient textures and modern classical elements with the banging clamour of accessible dance beats, Belfast born Electronic composer Max Cooper has been studiously perfecting his brand of music for over 10 years now. Drawing on his deep rooted interests in science and technology, the artist has created a uniquely cerebral body of work, built upon cavernous soundscapes that alternatively surge and flutter with elemental energy. Conceived in relative isolation and primarily concerned with the infinitesimal intricacies of the unknowable human mind, Max Cooper’s latest offering, One Hundred Billion Sparks is, suitably, both epic in scale and minutely detailed;  a tour…

  • Look At Now: O Emperor interviewed

    November 2, 2018 - By 

    Almost a decade ago, O Emperor released their debut record Hither Thither to critical acclaim. From there, the Waterford-bred quintet would go on to constantly redefine how bands in Ireland could record and share music without, forever shirking the limits and binds of being tied to a major label. From the grandiose psych-folk of their debut to the weird, gritty krautrock, komische, garage rock and psych of Vitreous and the Lizard EP, the five-piece have proved themselves time and time again to be a group who have defied expectation at every turn. The outfit’s announcement in September that they would be disbanding, while disappointing…

  • Album Stream + Interview: Woven Skull

    October 31, 2018 - By 

    Photo: Colum O’Dwyer Back at the end of 2016, we included Leitrim experimental/psych outfit Woven Skull in our 17 for ’17 round up of acts to watch in the coming year. We like to think we were fairly on the money with the trio, who both on an individual level and as an outfit delivered dividends throughout 2017 and well into this year… Mondola player Natalia Beylis, for one, developed her breathtaking field recordings and drones project with the release of The Sunken Hum Vol 1: Field Rhythms & Drones and Scchh​.​.​.​phh. Guitarist Aonghus McEvoy, meanwhile, continued his solo and…