Cal Folger Day w/ Guests, Gulpd, Cork – 14.02.13
Gulpd looked swell on Thursday night. Mary Kelleher’s visuals of blue birds soaring in nothingness on the back wall added to the jitters in the room and the feeling that we had more than likely slipped into another dimension on the way in the door and that we’d be going on a strange journey very...
Tinoras – Plink EP
With one album and two EP’s under his belt, Kerry producer Tinoras is back with his superbly titled Plink EP. Tinoras is known to give it socks in a live setting and his latest offering is no different. His bandcamp tags are listed as ‘ambient’, ‘breakcore’, ‘electronic’ and best of all ‘bog rave’. Also, it...
Mnemotechnic – Awards (Smalltown America)
‘Shallow Goals’ kicks off Mnemotechnic’s album in style. Full of piss and vinegar, this track stinks up the place in no time. It’s a stormer and would have you on the dancefloor in seconds. It’s over in no time and you’re left reeling. And that’s kind of the problem here. Throughout the rest of the...
Popicalia #17, Anseo, Dublin w/ Lie Ins (album launch), Cave Ghosts, Oh Boland – 02.02.13
As a twist on our usual “review” format, we asked Mike Stevens from Lie Ins to give us an insider report on his own gig/album launch last weekend – so prepare for Tuam shams, corduroy suits and the love that dares not speak its name… Popicalia #17 was a special one for me, as we...
Yo La Tengo – Fade (Matador)
Yo La Tengo visit Vicar Street at the end of March – Conor dusted off one of his favourite musical fantasies to check out their latest, 13th, album… First published on The Underground of Happiness I used to have a Yo La Tengo fantasy. It involved pulling up in traffic next to a boyracer, one...
Review: Maria Minerva, Half Moon Theatre, Cork – 02.02.2013
Photo: Bríd O’Donovan It has to be said – it’s fucking cold. Saturday night in the Half Moon and everyone here still has their jacket on. It’s not helped by the layout tonight – the Big Empty Room version of the Half Moon – and the fact that there must be oh, at least half...
Review: Grave Lanterns, The Pavilion, Cork – 31.01.13
Photo: Bríd O’Donovan Having heard a lot of good things about Grave Lanterns – not least from Emmet and Ronan’s writeups of their previous gig – I was keen on Thursday last to see them first-hand. With the Cork band family tree they have behind them, the members’ credentials were in no doubt, and it...
My Bloody Valentine – m b v
Special correspondent Darlene Clair runs the rule over the new MBV… ‘Soon’ was all we heard for years. Then the consensus was, “No more, sorry”. Kevin had his Shields up and seemed to say “that what you want isn’t all I need.” However fans were blown a wish last night when this Loveless bunch released...
Lie Ins – Death to Lie Ins (Popical Island)
Lie Ins are Michael Stevens on guitar and songs and Ruan van Vliet on drums, with some help from their friends in the Popical Island extended family, and this is their debut album. Surprising that, as this is an accomplished collection of garage pop nuggets that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you’ve listened to...
Saint Yorda w/ Mark Buckeridge, The Pavilion, Cork – 26.01.13
Photo: Bríd O’Donovan (The Bowery, July 2012) As I made my way up those steps of The Pavilion last Saturday night, I honestly wondered if another act had been added to the bill, or perhaps I’d wandered into the wrong gig? I’d been expecting a lonesome singer songwriter, with a guitar and a bunch of...
High Wolf w/ Linda & Irene Buckley, in Pictures, @ TDC, Triskel Arts Centre, 25.01.13.
Photography by Bríd O’ Donovan
Rest || ‘I Hold the Wolf’
REST‘s new one “I Hold the Wolf” takes the elusive and slick instrumentaler’s noughties’ post-rock style into creepy and dark new spaces, and it feels so good. I remember trying to drink through an intense headache in an uncomfortably rammed Nancy Spain’s in 2003 as REST brought the house down at some UCC Live Music...
