• Dreaming On: An Interview With Pleasure Beach

    October 26, 2016 - By 

    Ahead of their Jameson Bow St. Session alongside Wyvern Lingo and Amaron + Magic at Cork’s Crane Lane tomorrow, Alan Haslam from Belfast five-piece Pleasure Beach talks to Brian Coney about writing hits, what defines dream-pop and taking it as far they can. Register for free tickets to the band’s Bow St Session here. Hi guys. For the uninitiated, how did Pleasure Beach come about? When were the seeds sown and when did it all come to flourish? Hi! Well, we were all involved in various other projects around the time of the band’s formation. I had a handful of new songs…

  • Stream: Pleasure Beach – Magic Mountain

    April 18, 2016 - By 

    Belfast’s Pleasure Beach have had an interesting first year of life. Having garnered almost immediate attention with their debut single ‘Go’ the band were left to cut their teeth on the live circuit with eyes and ears already planted firmly on them. The five piece took to their high-profile support slots with precociousness and charm despite their sets often comprising of 50% covers. Their debut EP Dreamer to the Dawn was a dazzlingly colourful release with ‘Go’ playing on the same field as The War on Drugs and Bruce Springsteen while ‘Hayley’ was a delicate, sleepy number that radiated with an emotional “soundtrack ready” charm. The band has…

  • Choice Music Prize 2016 @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    March 4, 2016 - By 

    The Choice Music Prize celebrates the diversity and talent present in the Irish music scene. Tonight’s show in particular shows the vast range of bands and artists, both up-and-coming and those who have already well and truly made their mark. Whilst there may only be two awards up for grabs – Song of the Year and Album of the Year – the 12 bands that perform illustrate the real reason why we’re all here. Before announcing the winner of the former prize, there are performances and interviews for Today FM. Although the interviews fall slightly flat at times (simply because the crowd talk…

  • Stream: Pleasure Beach – Dreamer to the Dawn

    October 15, 2015 - By 

    Forming from the ashes of Yes Cadets, ‘Dreamer to the Dawn’ by Belfast five-piece Pleasure Beach bears the urgent hallmarks of the likes of overlords Arcade Fire, The National and The War on Drugs. The follow-up to their very well-received debut single ‘Go’ (which we featured here) the band’s new single is a streamlined slice of zealous electro-pop. If Springsteen snuck into Beach House’s studio circa the recording of Teen Dream and magic came to pass, this would surely resemble the result. ‘Dreamer to The Dawn’ is taken from the band’s debut EP of the same name, which will be released via…

  • Hard Working Class Heroes 2015 – Saturday

    October 8, 2015 - By 

    ‘It’s better to burn out than to fade away,’ said the now sixty-nine year old Neil Young. So maybe it’s not such a bad thing that the HWCH schedule, on paper at least, looks like it wants to wind down rather than go out with a bang. But though it may not have the head whipping allure of the first two nights there’s still certainly enough to justify hitting those streets. Take Sinead White for example, surely a rising star, but even her to the point, uncluttered song writing cannot conjure a crowd out of thin air. It’s a problem…

  • Inbound: Pleasure Beach

    May 25, 2015 - By 

    Belfast’s newest dream-pop outfit Pleasure Beach dazzled into our ears at the end of April with their shimmering and uplifting first release ‘Go’. The song emerges from a haze of wavey synths, which envelope and carry the twanging 50’s diner guitars and driving drums. The five-piece seem to have put enormous concentration into the sound they are hoping to achieve and into how each instrument would play off the other on their glamorous debut. With ‘Go’ being the first and, thus far, only thing we have to go on with Pleasure Beach it is safe to say that anticipation is…

  • Stream: Pleasure Beach – Go

    April 23, 2015 - By 

    Belfast dream-pop bands are few and far between. Deeming themselves just that – exactly 3,339 miles to the east of Baltimore’s Beach House – are Pleasure Beach, a new-fangled five-piece who met whilst working in the “estimable coffee shops of Belfast”. Featuring members of Northern Irish acts including Yes Cadets and In An Instant, the band’s debut single, ‘Go’, takes its cue from “pounding stadium Americana, hypnotic krautrock and blurry-eyed Scandinavian pop”, forging a self-assured and decidedly mesmeric four-and-a-half minutes of sun-kissed, wanderlust-driven pop. A self-proclaimed “part bruised break-up song, part existential post-apocalyptic horror story”, you can stream the track below.