• Open Ear Festival Announces Stage Times

    May 28, 2018 - By 

    One of the most unique and diverse festivals in Ireland, set in the beautiful off-coast sanctuary of Sherkin Island, Open Ear Festival holds its third annual outing from May 31-June 3, and times have just been announced. From avant-garde sound design and ambient music to experimental dance music and groovy electronics, it is a festival that champions the best of the best in the Irish undergrowth. As a festival of forward-thinking musical technologists, it’s nigh-on-peerless in Ireland right now. This year, the Thursday includes an opening concert featuring Dream Cycles, electroacoustic artist Roger Doyle and organist & drone artist Aine O’Dwyer in a hidden location on…

  • Galway’s Lá Tech Festival Is Celebrating Electronics In The West This Weekend

    May 1, 2018 - By 

    Galway’s Lá Tech Festival & Conference makes its inaugural outing this weekend in the city’s Commercial Boatclub, Woodquay and it’s looking like a very special way to spend your long weekend. Taking place on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th May, the festival features a huge host of grassroots, local talent from the likes of Tinfoil (DeFeKt, Sunil Sharpe), Jamie Behan, Lolz, Noid The Droid and Tommy Holohan. Representing Galway’s ever-evolving new wave of club promoters at the festival are Refuge Events’ Mossy Hynes, Basement Project, Origin and Anti Social Acid Club. On an international level, the festival will also host some of European techno’s big names in the form of Ancient Methods, Anetha, I Hate Models,…

  • Autumns – Dyslexia Tracks

    October 16, 2017 - By 

    Despite flecks of dust barely touching his debut album, Derry subgenre polymath Christian Donaghey, aka Autumns has announced yet another release on its way, in the form of his new Dyslexia Tracks EP, released on Belfast independent Touch Sensitive Records. Debut album Suffocating Brothers came out on Clan Destine Records at the end of September, with numerous remixes, cameos on specialist labels, and other releases bubbling to the top throughout this year. Autumns has never sounded as assured as he has recently, the creative trajectory approaching levels hinted at over the last few years. With his live show moving into a fully-fledged, techno-industrial piece of performance…

  • Autumns – Suffocating Brothers

    September 27, 2017 - By 

    Since starting out some time ago as a D.I.Y. shoegaze/garage-noise outfit, Derry’s Christian Donaghey has refused to sit in any one place for too long with his ongoing project, Autumns, releasing and echewing subgenre records for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Over the last couple of years, he’s grown into himself, really finding his place with his most recent EP. Finally, he’s released his debut full length, Suffocating Brothers on renowned Glasgow label Clan Destine after being written & recorded in the latter half of 2016. This material sees him continue to bring the intensely visceral Roland-fuelled rhythms of industrial & techno he’s adopted in recent times, melded…

  • Group Zero – Structures and Light

    February 1, 2017 - By 

    With his primary project currently working on album number 4, Girls Names frontman Cathal Cully is to release his debut solo effort, Structures and Light under his Group Zero pseudonym. Released on February 17 on Touch Sensitive Records, like his bandmate Philip Quinn’s Gross Net electronic side-project, it projects the flip-side of their post-punk day-job, instead channelling the shadowy intensity along the lines of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, without ever approaching an over-reliance on nostalgia or pastiche. As Touch Sensitive & Cully himself say: The genesis of this newly discovered musical freedom coincided with a viewing of ‘Pyramid of Light’ by Heinz Mack from the post-war Dusseldorf based…

  • Gross Net – Quantitative Easing

    October 13, 2016 - By 

    Not content to solely be in arguably Ireland’s finest post-punk act, Philip Quinn of Girls Names releases his debut album, Quantitative Easing under the Gross Net moniker on November 25. Starting out alongside Autumns’ Christian Donaghey as a guitar, bass & drum machine combo, they released their eponymous debut cassette in 2014. Donaghey departed, and Quinn followed up earlier this year with the even better, dark, Berlin techno-tinged Outstanding Debt; it’s brimming, poetically enough, with the kind of satirical econofear channelled by the likes of Cabaret Voltaire & Throbbing Gristle in the Thatcher era. If you’d like to get further under Gross Net’s nihilist skin, check out our recent…

  • Levon Vincent – Levon Vincent LP

    February 18, 2015 - By 

    Considering it’s a debut record, there’s a lot of interest in Levon Vincent’s self-titled album. Levon Vincent isn’t your regular LP debutant, though. A steady release of a couple of 12”s and singles as well as occasional mixes and a relentless global touring schedule means that Vincent is now one of the most recognisable names in techno and house. Vincent’s music also has an ethos – the title of the first track we heard from the record Anti-Corporate Music should give you a fairly rough idea what that would be. There’s been rumours that Vincent has been leaking his own…

  • Smart Casual Vol. 1: Come Down With Me

    November 13, 2014 - By 

    The Pavilion hosts a unique, new – to Belfast – night, tentatively titled Smart Casual – almost certainly a reference to this – in its middle bar on November 23. The night takes its cues from other clubs, with the likes of Body & Soul, Optimo, and the aim is to create something of a chillfest, with an eclectic but dubby/spacey atmosphere, which will progress to a conclusion of straight-up house and techno. The laid-back night is open deck, meaning anyone with the skills and the means is encouraged to bring their own wax and spin to their heart’s content. Admission is completely free and the event kicks…