The Sudden Club Weekender, a massive three-day throwdown featuring some of the best new music from Ireland and the UK, presented by the good folk of the Southern Hospitality Board, at the Kino in Cork City, December 9th-11th.
Tickets as priced in each pic, available now.
Also, next month, a fundraiser for the Abortion Rights Campaign at the same venue. More on that this week.
This Ain’t No Disco.
The (spiritual) return of the RTÉ music staple, presented by Irish music legend Dónal Dineen, co-producing with Arbutus Yarns man Myles O’Reilly.
Streaming above: an interview with Dónal Dineen on the original TV show, and the new endeavour, broadcasting exclusively online.
The absolute best news.
That Snaake – reissue first two E.P.s
What you may need to know…
01. Dublin noise-rock four-piece That Snaake riff equally on no-wave angularity and bleary-eyed early ’90s pop, a concoction referred to by the band as “seshcore”.
02. Hailed by Goldenplec as “unfashionable”, the band have been steadily gigging in Dublin over the past while, and have notched up stage time with Proto Idiot, Cat Palace and Sister Ghost, among others.
03. Streaming above in its entirety is newly-released E.P. compilation, In the Court of the Baby Kyng. Collecting the band’s first two extended players, Go Bricker and Blinded by the Smell, two equally ramshackle statements of intent.
04. Available now for streaming, download, and on limited-run cassette via tape-slingers Little L Records. That’s purple spray-painted cassette, we might add.
05. Also, the label is still selling its entire back catalogue for a fiver/pay-more-if-you-like. That’s a fairly ridiculous deal for nearly 125 singles, E.P.s and full-lengths, if you so desire, including the above.
Verdict: A succession of noisy, entirely smart-arsed, but eminently likeable tunes. Full taste.
Ropemaker – playing Galway with Hope is Noise and The Magnapinna
What you may need to know…
01. Math-rock three-piece Ropemaker hail from the alternative-music capital of Ireland, Portarlington, Co. Laois.
02. Having gigged sporadically the last few years, they’ve already shared stages with Steve Strong, the dearly-departed Terriers (the real ones, not the Dublin-based pretenders), ZINC and others.
03. Streaming above is the band’s 2015 extended-player, Abyssinia, available for download via the band’s Bandcamp.
04. Catch them live next at the Roisín Dubh on the 19th, in support of FEAST’s Cork takeover of the Roisín Dubh, featuring Hope is Noise and The Magnapinna.
Verdict: Swaggering, striding math-rock in a Battles or Alpha Male Tea Party vein. Grand.
https://vimeo.com/190055397
Louis Berry – Restless
Finn Keenan writes:
Here’s my new music video for Liverpool lad Louis Berry. With this video I wanted to do a surreal take on all the worries and distractions that prevent us from achieving a certain goal. I wanted to make something that was specific to Louis but also something anyone with a restless mind could relate to.
All shot in Cavan Town Hall, with endless help from Cavan locals! :)
In fairness.
The 2016 installment of the Other Voices festival in Dingle, and attendant tapings for the TV series of the same name, were announced today in a video (above) featuring headliner Lisa Hannigan.
Heading into its fifteenth series, it remains one of the few outlets on Irish television for independent music.
Liza Geddes writes:
Between Friday 2nd and Sunday 4th of December, Lisa will join a slew of Irish and international artists to record the fifteenth series of the music TV show, which airs on RTÉ2 in 2017. The St. James’s Church recordings will be hosted by BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens, Dublin born/London made DJ and broadcaster Annie Mac and Fight Like Apes‘ leading light May Kay.
In an exclusive Other Voices performance filmed in Berlin, Lisa confirmed appearances in Dingle from internationally breaking Dublin hip hop artist Rejjie Snow, much lauded UK singer and writer Pixie Geldof, Californian musician and singer Margaret Glaspy, Rough Trade signed Irish indie act Girl Band and Mobo nominated musician, poet and artist Kojey Radical.
These and many more emerging and legacy artists will travel to Dingle for the December sessions.
Lisa also performed the track Snow from her latest No. 1 album At Swim, a taster of what to expect from the festival.
Tickets are will be given away free in various competitions, keep an eye on ’em here.
IMLÉ – Album launch and video for single Críochfort
What you may need to know…
01. Last time we checked in with Gaelgóir funk/hip-hop outfit IMLÉ, they’d been doing well with single Fún Orm and preparing for their debut full-length.
02. The aforementioned is now complete, and releasing via Gael Linn this month.
03. Streaming above is the video for new single Críochfort, featuring the Hot Zombie collective, and directed by the band’s Fergal Moloney. On the song’s subject matter, the band writes:
Tá neart faoin saol seo le bheith dóchasach faoi. Déanann Críochfort plé ar an gcaidreamh casta atá againn mar dhaoine leis an domhan. Tá rudaí diúltacha agus dearfacha ag baint leis, ach sin cuid den tsaoil ina maireann muid.
04. The band launches the record next Thursday at the Bello Bar in Dublin (formerly the Lower Deck), with more national dates to follow.
VERDICT: Subtly groovy stuff that doesn’t really fall neatly between any set of pews musically. Adoption of the mother tongue is but one aspect of IMLÉ’s sound.
Fight Like Apes – announce breakup and final gigs
What you may need to know…
01. Dublin indie/pop veterans Fight Like Apes announced their imminent split on social media this morning, following a prolonged radio silence. It closes a career that includes two Choice Music Prize nominations.
02. The band last year released their self-titled third album, a slightly calmer affair than its slightly overcaffeinated predecessors, Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion, and The Body of Christ & The Legs of Tina Turner, bearing an energy for which the band became infamous live.
03. Streaming above is the video for Crouching Bees, the lead-off single from the aforementioned eponymous long-player. Not to pick favourites, but it’d be silly to just horse Jake Summers into their eulogy.
04. The band’s farewell statement included the announcement of their final gigs. Write the band:
Stick a fork in us, we’re done.
We’ve been quiet for a while now. We’ve had a lot of thinking and talking to do.
We’d be here all year if we started listing the people we wanted to thank, so we’ll just do that in our own time.You’ll see us all again under different musical guises but, these 3 shows will be Fight Like Apes’ last. We want to call it a day while we’re all still pals and are proud of what we’ve done.
And we are very, very proud.
It’s a deadly time in so many ways to be in a band; you can have so much control over your work if you’re clever; you can release it how and when you like and in our opinion, right now, Ireland is the healthiest it’s ever been in terms of talent and diversity.
But, there are massive challenges for a lot of bands, mostly financial, that make this a tough job and sadly, those obstacles have become too big for us.
I think we all know that we’re going to hear announcements like this more often. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that we can’t keep producing records if you keep not paying for them. Bands are having to sell beautiful albums for €2.99, labels can’t give you as much support since they’re losing income too and our alternative radio stations* are practically non existent now, meaning so many wonderful bands will not get a chance to get played on radio as they’ll be competing with huge pop acts.
Please buy your music in independent record stores or directly from the band.
Don’t fool yourself in to thinking that your £10 subscription to Deezer and Spotify helps us at all. It does not. Look how many bands are on there and do the maths.
Please go to gigs. Please buy merch.
Thanks to all you entirely crazy, wonderful people who have supported us and danced and screamed with us over the past 10 years. We could never thank you enough.
I still can’t believe some of the amazing things we’ve done together and how far we came.
If you want to come see us here’s how:
November 24th, The Roisin Dubh, Galway (free)
November 25th, Connollys of Leap, Cork
December 9th – back to where we had a our very first gig 10 years ago – Whelans, Dublin.
FLA out.
-MK, Jamie, Conor, Pete-
*RIP TXFM. We absolutely adore you and everything you’ve done for music in Ireland.
VERDICT: Another veteran act calls it a day in a time of transition for an active Irish music scene. They’ll be sadly missed, but this upcoming tour ought to be the New Orleans funeral that Fight Like Apes deserves.
Enjoy live music?
Broadsheet’s music department (editor: Mike McGrath Bryan) has teamed with Nialler9, adding a weekly Cork gig listing to Nialler’s already-extensive Weekly Dublin Gig Guide.
So… y’know.
Rejjie Snow – teethgrinding new video for single Pink Beetle
What you may need to know…
01. Alex Anyaegbunam, also known as Rejjie Snow, has taken on the world, and done so without so much as a second thought for the Irish musical establishment. Keen-eyed observers will remember his brief run as Dublin-based teenage wordplay prodigy Lecs Luther.
02. Soon after his time in the Luther pseudonym, he went Stateside to further his then-burgeoning soccer career, eventually tiring of it and coming back to Ireland to work on his real passion. Debut E.P. Rejjovich, released in 2013, did the business, and resulted in a deal with leading indie platform 300 Entertainment.
03. Streaming above is the video for single Pink Beetle. Inspired by the thoughts of a trip to the dentist, as if Hallowe’en wasn’t spooky enough.
04. It’s been released digitally via 300, his second single for the label, and prelude to his debut album, due “as soon as possible”, as confirmed in a recent interview with US industry mag Billboard.
Verdict: Success finds people in many different ways, and Snow has undoubtedly gone about it in his own fashion. It all bodes well for the man with the husky, concentration-laden delivery.
