• Irish Tracks of the Week – September 17th

    September 17, 2021 - By 

    Here’s the very best Irish tracks and releases of the week, featuring BANYAH, Pillow Queens, Havvk, Somebody’s Child, April, Peter Sumadh, Biig Piig, Colm Warren, Smallmint and more. BANYAH – Lost With The Lights Pillow Queens – Rats HAVVK – No Patience Somebody’s Child – Staying Sane EP April – Piece of Me Biig Piig (w/ Metronomy) – 405 Peter Sumadh – Parting Wounds Smallmint – Synonym Synonym by smallmint Colm Warren – September Roses Steven Rainey – Ultra Contact Sports by Steven Rainey Sophie Doyle Ryder – Hunni Hunni

  • Chairmen of the Bored: Nostalgia’s Tight Grip on Stranger Things

    October 18, 2016 - By 

    The opening of Netflix’s smash hit Stranger Things finds four adolescent boys gathered round a table, intently focussed on some bits of paper, and some lead figures. The boys are playing Dungeons & Dragons, the perennially popular roleplaying game which caused a moral panic in the 1980s, with concerned moral crusaders convinced that the game was a recruiting ground for Satanists and murderers. The game serves as a framing device for the whole show, with our four young heroes sent on a quest more dangerous and compelling than any dungeon adventure they might concoct in the basement. And along the…

  • How Satire Explains The Rise of Trump

    April 6, 2016 - By 

    “Let’s Drop The Big One And See What Happens” On November 8th 2016, the United States of America will elect a new president, and at the moment, in the eyes of many commentators, it’s a three horse race as to who that individual will be. On one side, the liberalism of Bernie Sanders is vying for prominence with the pragmatism of Hillary Clinton, and on the other side stands the man no-one would have expected, the irascible Donald Trump. The eyes of the world will be upon the US, and it’s difficult not to feel history is being made, for…

  • In Search of Space: Exploring The Fringes of The Mind With Hawkwind

    May 6, 2015 - By 

    As Hawkwind’s first four years on record are collated on a new 11cd boxed set, This is Your Captain Speaking… Your Captain is Dead, Steven Rainey delves into the murky world of space rock, and discovers much more than simply a band responsible for unleashing Lemmy on the cosmos. At the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, astronaut Dr David Bowman is pulled into a vortex, going on a journey into the infinite, a kaleidoscopic assault on the senses that could mean everything or nothing. Both Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke weren’t exactly in hurry…

  • Classic Album: Grateful Dead – Live/Dead (1969)

    December 4, 2014 - By 

    The very best music takes you to a different place, a different headspace, to the one you’re in before you hear it. And on the Grateful Dead’s masterful 1969 live album Live/Dead, they grab the listener and pull them head-first into another dimension. You don’t have to be on drugs to enjoy this, but that’s not to say they didn’t need them to create it. The psychedelic era of the late 60s is a problematic time in music history. On the one hand, it saw a generation of talented people reach deep into themselves, and begin to push at boundaries and…

  • Remake/Remodel – When Cover Versions Go Weird

    October 28, 2014 - By 

    Doing a cover version is a tricky job, with the amount of creative effort required to make it work frequently outstripping the potential rewards. But sometimes, just sometimes, the elements lock into place, and the planets align, and we’re taken to a higher level of consciousness. The BBC have been running a campaign to find the best cover versions of all time, and the Flaming Lips have just unleashed their song by song reworking of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but what about the ones that slipped through the cracks? This list might not be the best covers in the…

  • Classic Album: The Sisters of Mercy – Some Girls Wander By Mistake

    July 2, 2014 - By 

    Incredibly, the Sisters of Mercy have not released any new music for twenty-one years. Their last release was a compilation entitled A Slight Case of Overbombing back in 1993, which featured one new song, and since then they’ve been silent. However, unlike My Bloody Valentine or Guns ‘N’ Roses, who also left epic gaps between records, creating a mystique that sustained them, The Sisters of Mercy have disappeared into the realm of myth or legend, forgotten by all but the most devoted few. But a cursory look at the period they were active shows that they were a Big Deal,…

  • Getting Re-Acquainted: Bob Dylan – Jokerman

    April 21, 2014 - By 

    It’s strange how, nearly 50 years after someone shouted “JUDAS!” in the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966, Bob Dylan still has the power to provoke a reaction. For many people, he’ll forever be the wiry, electric veined pop-provocateur of the mid 60s, re-writing the rulebook on the way to burning himself out, whilst for others, he’s still the prototype folkie, with his work boots and dirty denims, honking on a harmonica whilst calling out injustice wherever he finds it. Dylan’s 70s records are reasonably well regarded, with 1975’s Blood on the Tracks still remaining the archetypical ‘breakup’ album, and his late…

  • Getting re-acquainted: ZZ Top – Sharp Dressed Man (1983)

    March 4, 2014 - By 

    Like a punch in the face, ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ explodes out of the speakers, a sleek, streamlined beast of a song, riding a pulsating electric beat into the horizon. Never mind the suits, the beards, and the cool cars, ZZ Top’s legacy to popular music is making hard rock that you can dance to. Trying to sound ‘modern’ is the kiss of death, but when you do it as good as this, you’re onto a winner. Eliminator, ‘Sharp Dressed Man’s parent album, kinda came out of nowhere. ZZ Top had been a very successful boogie-rock band, churning out blues riffs,…

  • 20 Years of Being Brave – How Marillion Crawled Back From Obscurity

    February 20, 2014 - By 

    Twenty years ago, a record called Brave hit number ten on the UK album chart. It was by a band who had best been known for ‘Kayleigh’, a hit single they’d had nine years earlier, fronted by a different singer. It’s all ancient history now, but the band are still going, and whilst they’re still largely known for that hit single, the hardcore fans have been celebrating the Brave anniversary with much fanfare, a veritable army of fans rhapsodising over the raw, emotive music contained within the album. But how can a band who are arguably remembered for one 29…