• Brilliant Corners Announce 2017 Programme

    January 11, 2017 - By 

    One of the country’s most reliably consistent and forward-thinking jazz festivals, the line-up has been revealed for the fifth outing of Moving on Music’s Brilliant Corners. Set return to various venues in Belfast from March 7-11, the festival pays homage to the inimitable Charles Mingus with I Am Three, get experimental with Sirene 1009 and FAINT+, showcase some stellar local talent with Hands, Organ Failure, and Joseph Leighton, delve into full prog-rock mode with Belgian guitar trio Dans Dans and Norwegian guitar-bass-drum blasters Hedvig Mollestad Trio, before bowing out with Robocobra Quartet and Strobes. Elsewhere, Belfast Film Festival will once again be screening some…

  • The Thin Air and Moving On Music present: Damo Suzuki (CAN) with Blue Whale and Robocobra Quartet

    December 9, 2016 - By 

    Presented by The Thin Air and Moving On Music, the legendary Damo Suzuki, vocalist of pioneering Krautrock group CAN, will return to Belfast for a fully improvised show with experimental rock maestros Blue Whale, and Californian improviser, sound artist, inventor and writer, Paul Stapleton. Support on the night comes from one of the country’s very best bands, Robocobra Quartet. This is set to be an unmissable event for anyone with even a passing interest in experimental and improvised music. Featuring “an assembly of sound carriers to communicate with each other and the audience”, Damo Suzuki has performed as ‘Damo Suzuki’s…

  • Football As Never Before @ The Strand Arts Centre, Belfast

    November 8, 2016 - By 

    A ninety-minute avant garde documentary about George Best, set to live music and performed in an art deco cinema, might sound like something from the 1970s alternative arts scene, particularly when only one of the footballing superstar’s goals is featured.  But this is Belfast in 2016 and the catalyst for this future-retro Best tribute is Dublin composer/musician Matthew Nolan, who specializes in putting music to silent/avant-garde films. The film in question is “Football Like Never Before”, shot by German film-maker Helmuth Costard in 1970 and released the following year. Eight 16mm cameras tracked Best for the full ninety minutes of…

  • Beat Root: Chris Wood & Trembling Bells

    September 17, 2016 - By 

    The contrast between the caustic avant-rock of Metá Metá and the acoustic, traditional folk that opened day three of Beat Root could not have been starker. Fiddlers Conor Caldwell and Danny Diamond have been playing together since their teens, though their professional collaboration as a duo is relatively recent. The duo presents material from its album, North (Claddagh Records, 2016), a reimagining of traditional tunes, beginning with the bouyant number ‘The Further in the Deeper’ by Donegal fiddle legend John Doherty, with the duo swapping the melody and rhythmic roles back and forth. A set of reels, ‘Drunken Wagn’er/’Over the…

  • Beat Root: Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh & Metá Metá

    September 14, 2016 - By 

    Back for its second year, Beat Root, Moving On Music’s festival of roots music, offered a program as diverse as imaginable, from harps, fiddles and thundering rock to singer-songwriter mastery and psychedelic folk.  Traditions, and the bending of them, were the constant dualities at play across four evenings of uplifting music, that taken together, amounted to one of Belfast’s best music festivals of the year to date. Though often associated with formal recitals, the harp can be one of the most expressive and one of the most thrilling of instruments – just think of Colombian Edmar Castaneda or Shetland islander Catriona…

  • Beat Root 2016

    September 5, 2016 - By 

    Presenting four days of wonderfully diverse roots music, Belfast’s Beat Root festival returns with yet another stellar bill from September 7-10. With all shows taking place in the city’s Crescent Arts Centre, this year’s schedule traverses Scottish psych folk maestros Trembling Bells with support from London-born, Galway-raised musician Brigid Mae Power (above), sublime psychedelic samba, distorted jazz and Afro-punk in the form of Metá Metá, English folk musician Chris Wood with support from Conor Caldwell and Danny Diamond, as well as Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh of The Gloaming and This Is How We Fly, with support from Amy McAllister. Whilst you can pay per gig,…

  • Brilliant Corners 2016

    February 1, 2016 - By 

    One of the country’s most reliably consistent and forward-thinking jazz festivals, Brilliant Corners will return to various venues in Belfast from March 5 to March 12. As expected, the bill for this year’s festival – hosted by Moving on Music – is as delightfully idiosyncratic as expected; Vein Trio will bring Latin Rhythms to the Belfast Parge, recently-passed jazz legend Ornette Coleman will receive due tribute, the synth-soaked free jazz of OKO and Tim Berne will illuminate the Black Box, whilst Dinosaur and Alarmist will team up for what’s set to be a highlight of the festival. Elsewhere, artist-in-residence David Lyttle will co-ordinate…

  • Brilliant Corners To Return in March

    January 13, 2016 - By 

    One of the country’s most reliably consistent and forward-thinking jazz festivals, it’s been announced that Brilliant Corners will return to various venues in Belfast from March 5 to March 12. As expected, the bill for this year’s festival – hosted by Moving on Music – is as delightfully idiosyncratic as expected; Vein Trio will bring Latin Rhythms to the Belfast Parge, recently-passed jazz legend Ornette Coleman will receive due tribute, the synth-soaked free jazz of OKO and Tim Berne will illuminate the Black Box, whilst Dinosaur and Alarmist will team up for what’s set to be a highlight of the festival. Elsewhere, artist-in-residence…

  • TEMPERED Contemporary Music Weekend

    October 29, 2015 - By 

    Hosted by the indomitable, ridiculously informed Moving On Music, TEMPERED is a celebration of homegrown contemporary music talent that will take place in three Belfast venues – Black Box, St. George’s Church and Crescent Arts Centre – from November 5-8. All very reasonably priced shows, The ‘JamJar’ finale, Ian Wilson’s The Last Siren, Ed Bennett’s Decible Ensemble, Crash Ensemble’s Born In the 80s and Chamber Choir Ireland’s Arvo Pärt at 80 make up the weekender’s superb five-show programme. Go here to pre-book tickets now.