GOAT GIRL: Grand Social, Dublin, tonight (€12.50) “Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put the Tories on the top/Put the DUP in the middle and we’ll burn the fucking lot.” No, it’s not some obscure […]
Tinfoil interview: ‘We feel techno in a very primal kind of way’
There’s a cliche of modern dance music as a solitary pursuit — of producers locked in studios fine-tuning DJ tools, hunched over screens, nano-checking every frequency for big-room optimisation. Irish duo Tinfoil’s visceral analogue techno […]
Mouse On Mars’ Dimensional People feels a bit… 2D
Amid all the obituaries and tributes after Mark E Smith’s death, there wasn’t enough love for his team-up with Mouse On Mars as Von Südenfed. The trio’s 2007 album Tromatic Reflexxions is an industrial-glitch master […]
Irish gigs round-up
SHAME | Whelan’s, Dublin, tomorrow, SOLD OUT. With their debut album Songs of Praise, English post-punk outfit Shame sneer all over the BBC’s hallowed hymn-filled institution – and the sleeve with the lads holding baby […]
Is Arcade Fire’s Everything Now really that bad?
Where do you go after one of the the most revered indie-rock albums of the 21st century? Arcade Fire’s 2005 debut Funeral has gone down as one of the defining albums of this generation, with […]
Premiere: Mount Alaska’s hypnotic remix of Feather Beds’ Headache Dreams
Dublin electronic production duo Mount Alaska have finally opened up their 2018 account with a remix of Headache Dreams by shoegaze-electronica artist Feather Beds, and it’s their most hypnotic and transcendent release to date. Dublin […]
March 2018 in 21 tracks
A post-Easter bank holiday comedown is easier to digest when you wash it down with industrial minimalism and techno, cosmic psychedelia, black metal gospel, fist-up hip-hop and a hymn to good ol’ planet Earth from […]
Zeal & Ardor bring the horror blues on Gravedigger’s Chant
Swiss act Zeal & Ardor was the bowel-churning highlight of Eurosonic 2018 – an avant-garde metal project that just might cross over this year, going by the justified hype from outside the regular metal channels. […]
Irish gigs round-up
ACTRESS & MOUNT KIMBIE, Button Factory, Dublin, Tomorrow, €20. Expect a few hours of curveballs as Mount Kimbie and Actress form like a three-headed Voltron and go back-to-back in this rare team-up. Actress, aka UK […]
Loah interview: ‘It’s all just a big human experiment of creating stuff’
After the recent Imagining Ireland showcase at the Barbican in London, the Guardian nailed it in a review by saying “this was Ireland, but not as we are told we know it”. The concert could […]
If you know what’s good for you: The Weetabix skinhead gang stomping all over the 80s
In the ongoing cultural appropriation wars we forget that skinheads got a serious raw deal in the 80s. Firstly, the subculture informed in part by Jamaican reggae and ska was infiltrated by Nazi punks who […]
Gerald Donald morphs into XOR Gate for new solo album Conic Sections
Drexciyan electro conceptualist Gerald Donald has sidestepped his regular aliases and collaborations for a new solo album of abstract electro futurism. The ever-elusive Donald is revered as one half of Detroit electro visionaries Drexciya, and […]
Form an indie Party Line: Belle and Sebastian, 22 years and counting
Through the summer in Ireland there’s a revolving door stream of outdoor gigs to indulge in, and Belle and Sebastian’s headliner at Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens last July went down as one of the most joyous […]
Irish gigs round-up
YOUNG FATHERS, The Academy, Dublin, Wednesday Edinburgh trio Young Fathers have been stumping people for years – especially since winning the Mercury Prize in 2014 with their debut album. Critics had a stab at it by […]
Donal Dineen interview: ‘The middleman is a dope’
The phrase ‘What’s the story?’ may have been turned into shorthand Dublin slang over the years, but it’s a greeting that taps into cliched Irish openness and curiosity: “So, what are you all about?” Telling […]
Moo Kid 