Modern rap has no shortage of provocateurs, but Baltimore’s JPEGMAFIA seems to enjoy knocking noses out of joint as much as knocking out fearless and confrontational albums. The Afghanistan and Iraq War veteran is no […]
IAMDDB: Turn up the Vol
While many current R&B and hip-hop artists struggle with a phoned-in live show lacking in effort and content, IAMDDB’s longest recording to date is her 2019 album Vol.Xperience Live@Roundhouse London. Over 75 minutes and 24 […]
Sleater-Kinney: We’re still only at our halfway point
After 25 years and nine albums, Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein said recently that they’re in their mid-period. Bold words for a veteran band, but back up by that ninth album The Center Won’t Hold. The LP […]
Prosumer hits Boiler Room Dublin — there’ll be dancing at this one
Belfast’s electronic music festival and conference teams up with the live streaming video platform to showcase a night of loose-limbed house and techno. Boiler Room is infamous for videos showing rigid half-dancing, sheepish hangers-on and […]
HMLTD: The hypebeast band that time forgot
Around 2016 there was a whiff of PR and journo hysteria off this London bunch, recalling the time everyone lost the plot about Fischerspooner during the electroclash years at the turn of the millennium. For […]
Mango x Mathman won’t be keeping it too Casual on first Irish tour
In an interview in 2017 just before the release of Mango x Mathman’s debut EP Wheel Up, MC Mango told me: “Grime music isn’t alien in Ireland anymore.” He’d been considering the growing acceptance of […]
More notes than most: Black Midi
So have bands made it when they appear in Rolling Stone, or is that too dad rock for an avant-garde guitar band? The wrinkly old publication last week declared Black Midi to be “England’s not […]
Algiers’ fist-up punk soul
Many bands claim to hit soul at different angles, but Atlanta group Algiers take the fury of the 60s and 70s protest soul movement and ram it with heavy electronics, post-punk and enough sloganeering to […]
Beak> still hard drone by
With Geoff Barrow’s other band Portishead without an album since 2008 and with no immediate plans to tour properly, he’s once again on the road with BEAK>, for some sleek krautrock analogue electronics. Too many […]
Dan Deacon goes down to the wires
To this day, one of the most joyous gigs I’ve been to was Dan Deacon in 2007 in the sadly long defunct Crawdaddy, downstairs in Tripod. It’s been too long. The Baltimore electronic artist takes […]
Schoolboy Q’s Crash course
As a former Crips member, Schoolboy Q often veers into gangsta rap checklist territory, but it always shoots off as authentic. The first track on his 2019 album CrasH Talk is even called Gang Gang, […]
070 Shake gives up the Ghost
Still only 22, New Jersey rapper and producer 070 Shake was one of the artists who got the most out of Kanye West’s infamous Wyoming recording sessions last year. Even before the torturous roll-out of […]
Lee Field has 50-odd years of grit in his throat
With more than five decades of wear and tear and grit coating his voice, soul veteran Lee Fields has a greater story than most young chancers — or many of the oldies for that matter. […]
First Fortnight: Ending mental health stigma since 2009
First Fortnight is heading into its 11th year of raising awareness and trying to erase the stigma of mental health in Ireland and further afield. The first few weeks of January are always a struggle […]
Wire still kicking into the future on Primed & Ready
“Are you scoping the future?” sings Wire’s Colin Newman in the first line of ‘Primed & Ready’ — the second single off the band’s upcoming 17th album Mind Hive. Dunno about you, but over their […]
