Tag Archives: Ireland

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Land Lovers – Angeline

What you may need to know…

1. Dublin pop five-piece Land Lovers continue paying homage to the guitar pop of the ’50s and ’60s with upcoming third long-player The Rooks Have Returned.

2. Already firmly established as lynchpins of the city’s lo-fi/pop community, the band have also co-founded the Popical Island label and annual all-day gig, as well as circumnavigating the Irish festival scene and supporting Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, among others.

3. Streaming above is Angeline, the first single from the album, releasing May 13 via Popical Island.

4. The band launches the album at the Workman’s Club [Wellington Quay, Dublin 2] in Dublin on May 21, with Dinah Brand and Field Trip in support. Kickoff 8pm, €10 in or €15 including a copy of the new record.

Verdict: Taking a page straight out of a ’60s pop fanzine, Land Lovers add a thoroughly modern snark and a profound DIY sensibility to raucous early rock ‘n’ roll.

Land Lovers

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Hope is Noise – Bad Code

What you may need to know…

1. Hardy perennials of Cork’s DIY music community, four-piece Hope is Noise trade in noisy, heavy, hardcore-inflected, yet immediate and accessible alt-rock.

2. Last year celebrating ten years under their current moniker, the lads’ history extends all the way back to their secondary school days in the early ’90s, with the same core line-up remaining intact over the course of several bands over nearly 20 years. Eagle-eyed observers may remember them as The New Messiahs, among other names.

3. This year will see the release of fourth album Demons, and the completion of a documentary on their life and times both as a band, and as a group of lifelong friends.

4. Streaming above is Bad Code, a single taken from the upcoming album released back in November to coincide with their tenth-anniversary gig.

5. Next Friday, the band takes a rare sojourn to Waterford, where they play The Thirsty Scholar as part of the venue’s Voodoo Sessions. Kickoff at 9pm, support from The Smoking Giants.

Verdict: A furious, focused outfit that channels a wide range of influences, themes, and emotions into their music, and a formidable live proposition with a stage presence honed over the better part of two decades together.

Hope is Noise

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Here’s what you may need to know…

1. Limerick producer Graeme S. and vocalist Senita Appiakorang (also of neo-soul outfit Shookrah) are electronic/afrobeat duo Lakerama.

2. Coming together last year as a collaborative musical project, the band has stepped into the live sphere, including appearances at Dublin’s Bernard Shaw and Cork’s Quarter Block Party.

3. Debut EP One is streaming in its entirety in the widget above, including much-fancied lead off tune Take.

4. Catch them this Friday evening, supporting the mighty Rusangano Family, with whom Graeme has previously collaborated, at the Kino in Cork.

Verdict: A potent combination of ambient, house and Afrobeat influences, Lakerama’s standout quality is their command of dynamic, with Senita’s massive voice adding presence to Graeme S’ diversely informed electronica.

Lakerama

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The Bonk – Ancestor

What you may need to know…

1. Emerging from jam sessions in Cork’s Big Skin studios, The Bonk derive their moniker from a colloquialism for complete mental and physical collapse.

2. The band is headed up by Waterford man and O Emperor guitarist Phil Christie, and features several of that band’s members. They made their debut appearance under the name earlier this year, at the Quarter Block Party festival.

3. Last week saw the release of debut single Ancestor as a free download from the band’s Bandcamp page, streaming above.

4. The band’s next live excursion is April 16 as part of Cork record shop/community centre/institution PLUGD Records‘ celebration of five years at their current home at the Triskel Arts Centre’s TDC venue.

5. Also appearing are the impossibly promising Barchester Chronicles, prolific troubadour Laurie Shaw, singer-songwriter Roslyn Steer, with Cork hip-hop icon Stevie G spinning discs in the shop (upstairs, 12-6) beforehand and in GULPD Cafe (downstairs) all night.

Verdict: A bit early at this stage for hyperbole, but what’s here reminds your writer of Captain Beefheart’s more focused moments – swaggering, confident grooving that doesn’t necessarily skimp on the psychedelia.

The Bonk

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Cian Nugent – Things Don’t Change That Fast

What you may need to know…

1. Finding his voice on third full-length Night Fiction, Dublin guitarist and composer Cian Nugent taps into his long-running appreciation for ’60s and ’70s singer-songwriters and the blues after stints with instrumental experimentation and psychedelia, both as a soloist and with accompaniment from his band The Cosmos.

2. Streaming above is Things Don’t Change That Fast, a moody, pensive rumination taken from the aforementioned long-player, released this past January.

3. A man of eclectic influences to say to least, from the aforementioned singer-songwriter oeuvre, to surf-rock, to jazz, Nugent has made a playlist for The Thin Air with some of the tracks he’s used as reference points on the new record.

4. Nugent plays Cobh’s Sirius Arts Centre on May 7, while their next Dublin show is Whelan’s on May 12, sharing a bill with Canadians Nap Eyes.

Verdict: Having been one of the most forward-thinking people in Irish music the past few years, Nugent has really come into his own on the new LP. Not all who wander (creatively or thematically) are lost.

Cian Nugent

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Media plurality in Ireland by the European University Institute’s Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom

You may recall recent reports about the European University Institute’s Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom examination of media plurality in Ireland.

The report found there’s a ‘high risk’ in relation to the concentration of media ownership in Ireland and that, although there is no legal impediment to becoming a journalist in Ireland, there are ‘barriers’ which ‘limit the access of some groups – e.g., the working classes, ethnic minorities and the disabled – to the profession’.

The report also noted that, ‘there is also anecdotal evidence to suggest that some media owners have sought to influence editorial content’.

Lol.

Further to this…

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Journalism in Crisis conference

University of Limerick on Thursday.

Criticalmediareview writes:

Journalism’s independence from social and political forces has again come into question as seen with the cosy relationship between journalism and the financial and property sectors; while recently both newspapers and broadcasters are increasingly coming under accusations of bias in their reportage of social and political events.

This conference will bring together journalists, media workers and media theorists to discuss the role of journalism in the 21st century, conditions for journalists in the contemporary newsroom and prospects for the future of the media industry.

Journalism in times of crisis – University of Limerick April 7, 2016 (Criticalmediareview)

Journalism in times of crisis (Facebook)

Previously: Press Reset

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The Sunshine Factory – Cruelest Animal

What you may need to know.

1. Beginning to garner praise, Leeside young neo-psychedelic four-piece The Sunshine Factory arrived in February when they packed out the Cork Community Print Shop, launching an eponymously-titled tape EP in the process.

2. From said cassette comes Cruelest Animal, streaming above. The band’s Soundcloud is also full of rough demos, painting a picture of a band that’s been slowly putting the pieces together over the course of the past year.

3. Next gig is on April 16, supporting Dublin shoegazers September Girls (launching album Age of Indignation) in Cyprus Avenue, Cork, presented by Leeside rock raconteurs Alliance Promotions.

4. The band have the biggest break of their young run so far next month, touring in support of English psych-rock legends The Telescopes. Thursday 12 at Brewery Corner in Kilkenny, Friday 13 (!) at The Thirsty Scholar in Waterford, Saturday 14 at the Crane Lane Theatre in Cork, and Sunday 15 at Dublin’s Workman’s Club.

Verdict: With inflections of post-punk and psychedelia amid the band’s noise, The Sunshine Factory will appeal to genre enthusiasts, as well as anyone of lo-fi/possible C86 sensibilities.

The Sunshine Factory

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Gavin Prior – Between Breaths

Here’s what you may need to know…

1. Guitarist/producer/improv veteran Gavin Prior returns with latest solo LP All Who Wander, available now for preorder on Bandcamp via Deserted Village. Single Between Breaths is streaming in the widget above.

2. Currently of free jazz/metal lads Tarracóir and acapella group The Primal Barber Trio, he’s also been part of folk outfit United Bible Studies and improv group Murmansk.

3. Among the host of musicians he’s improvised live with are Can vocalist Damo Suzuki, world-renowned cellist Okkyung Lee, and London reductionist-school harpist Rhodri Davies.

4. Previous solo works The Avalon Suite (inspired by examples of second-language English while teaching in Korea), and Babbleon Cork (a series of field recordings completed while resident in Shandon’s Guesthouse) are now available for free download.

Verdict: A man with an extensive and intriguing body of work across original compositions, improvisation, and field recordings continues his journey.

Gavin Prior

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Wild Rocket – touring Ireland in April

Here’s what you may need to know…

1. Here’s that unfathomably heavy dose of psychey, synthy, doomy, spacey noise you ordered, courtesy of Dublin four-piece Wild Rocket, an amalgam of all manner of weighty musical matters and celestial themes.

2. 2014 saw the release of debut LP Geomagnetic Hallucinations, back in very limited stock again on 12″ at their Bandcamp page (track Interplanetary Vibrations streaming above). While you’re there, get your lugholes on a free live album from 2015’s Siege of Limerick: Earrach, for a dose of the band in their natural environment.

3. The lads have a busy April ahead of them, playing Dublin’s Reverberation Weekend at the Grand Social on April 8th, alongside bands like Scots The Cosmic Dead and Dublin krautrock duo Twinkranes…

4. …before going on an excursion around the country, co-headlining with fellow Dubliners Venus Sleeps, on the grandiosely titled ‘Infinite Crossroads Tour’. April 28th, they’ll be playing On the Rox in Dublin, the 29th sees them playing Cork Community Print Shop, and on the 30th, they’ll be at Feasant Fest, in Emmett’s of Ballina, Co. Mayo. Finally, on the 1st of May, they’ll be at Galway’s Loft, as part of the venue’s Walpurgis Night.

Verdict: Ample riff worship for doom devotees, enough synths and oddness to intrigue prog and psych heads. Catch ’em live for best effect.

Wild Rocket

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Twin-Headed Wolf – released/gigging pre-debut album The Long Decay

What you may need to know…

1. Julie and Branwen are Twin-Headed Wolf, a pair of twin sisters from Lahinch, Co. Clare, specialising in wonky, playful folk, making heavy use of the pair’s way with vocal harmonies.

2. Having spent the last few years perfecting their offbeat, ethereal take on the folk oeuvre with an array of non-traditional instrumentation and charismatic live presence, the duo serves us a curveball with an acapella album of folk standards that functions as prelude to their upcoming debut LP proper: The Long Decay.

3. The record is named for its recording in the Emmanuel Vigeland Mausoleum in Oslo, back in January, a tomb/acoustic chamber with up to 14 seconds of echo.

4. With the record released in February and launched in Dublin’s Unitarian Church, the pair turn their live attention to Cork Community Print Shop, with a live engagement in the non-profit arts space on Friday, April 8th.

Verdict: Gleeful, joyfully demented folk antics with a bold experimental streak. Their impending debut LP of originals ought to be a treat.

Twin-Headed Wolf