• Isobel Anderson and Alliance for Choice Launch #IMALIFE Fundraiser

    Belfast-based musician Isobel Anderson has teamed up with Northern Irish abortion rights organisation Alliance for Choice for an important fundraiser, #imalife Centering around one woman’s account of her journey to England to have an abortion, her song ‘_4284_ / I’m A Life’ – titled after the number of women who travelled from NI and ROI to access abortions in 2015 – doubles up as a powerful and incredibly well presented accompaniment to the appeal. “This money is vital to enable us to deliver workshops across Northern Ireland and GB,’ Alliance for Choice said. “Those we have done so far have made a tangible…

  • Stream: Isobel Anderson – Feed Me/Effortless Pain Relief

    Having recently released the wistful ‘Flint Shingle’ – a track we called a “delicately textured, perfectly phantasmal ambient effort” – Belfast-based artist Isobel Anderson has return with its follow-up, ‘Feed Me’. A track that once more sees Anderson’s command of harmony and counterpoint blend with textures and rhythms that weave in wonderful patterns, it makes for an exquisite four minutes from the Sussex-born musician. Better still, the spectral, reverberating meditation that is ‘Effortless Pain Relief’ proves an equally enchanting b-side. Two of her strongest tracks to date, we reckon.

  • Stream: Isobel Anderson – Flint Shingle

    A compelling highlight from her recent live shows, ‘Flint Shingle’ by Belfast-based artist Isobel Anderson is a wonderfully meditative song inspired by the jagged cliffs of her childhood in South East England. The first single to be taken from her fourth studio album, CHALK/FLINT, the track – a “self-proclaimed symphony to the sea” – is a delicately textured, perfectly phantasmal ambient effort written in her birthplace of Sussex and recorded in Belfast. Anderson said, “It is sort of a love song, if only with a nostalgic, almost regretful, sentiment. The idea is that the landscape acts as a sort of sobering force, a marker of…

  • International Women’s Day: The Missing Voice

    As part of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8, Belfast’s the MAC will host The Missing Voice, a special two-part panel and performance event. Kicking off with the launch and live recording of a new podcast series ‘The Missing Voice’ produced by Belfast-based musician Isobel Anderson (pictured), the night will also feature performances from Anderson, DIE HEXEN and Little Green Cars‘ Faye O’Rourke. Joining the Missing Voice panel on the night will be all three performers, Oh Yeah Music Centre Chief Executive Charlotte Dryden and producer, DJ and founder of Body Fusion Bobby Analog. The Missing Voice series…

  • Interview: Isobel Anderson

    Three increasingly majestic studio albums in, Belfast-based experimental singer-songwriter Isobel Anderson has steadily established herself as one of the finest forward-thinking artists of a generation. Held in the highest of esteem by critics including BBC Radio’s Lauren Laverne and Jamie Cullum, to name but two, the East Sussex-derived musician talks to Brian Coney about inspiration, experimentation and how artists can break free from pre-conceived musical confines. Hi Isobel. You released your superb third album, In My Garden, in December last year. How did you approach things, from both a songwriting and recording perspective, on the record? In terms of songwriting, the album…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2013 (100-75)

    It’s that time of year again: End Of Year” lists are steadily rolling in from every conceivable direction, many of us are still debating the BBC Sound of… verdict for next year and we’re all silently pondering our own favourite albums and EPs of the last twelve months. Closer to home, it’s been yet another ridiculously impressive year for Irish music, both North and South. Since January 1, right up until the writing of this article (December 10), a single week hasn’t gone by that wasn’t soundtracked in some way by the very best in new, homegrown music. As such –…