A weekly feature in which our writers share their favourite tracks of the week.…
Beirut – ‘O Leãozinho’ (chosen by Alan Reilly)
Mandolin guitar and Zach Condon’s winning yodel, it doesn’t take much more than that. ‘O Leãozinho’ means “little lion”, it’s song by Brazilian composer Caetano Veloso covered by Beirut for the Red Hot

A weekly feature in which our writers share their favourite tracks of the week.…
Siouxsie & The Banshees – ‘Dear Prudence’ (chosen by Lisa Hughes)
Take too much drugs with The Beatles, thrown in a Maharishi and this is what you get: an ode to a tranced out Prudence Farrow (sister of Mia) to come

In the year and a bit that we’ve been running our State live shows at the Mercantile in Dublin we’ve seen many things – Le Galaxie playing their synths head high in the audience, a saw / beatbox combination, a whole rake of great new bands – but we haven’t had a brass section. Until…

Hard Fi are back with a new single. Premiered on Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show last night, April 28th, ‘Good For Nothing’ is the first new material from the band since 2007′s Once Upon A Time In The West.
The upcoming third album, Killer Sounds…, was produced by Stuart Price and is set

The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange will hit Kelly’s in Portrush on Saturday May 14th. The last time around, the Nightlife Exchange Project took place on November 27th all across the globe where cities swapped nights and culture globally. Our State rep was in India for the event and back home in Ireland the night happened in…

We know State has some Cradle of Filth fans in our midst so this one is for them. The band have a new video for ‘Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned)’ taken from the bands forthcoming album Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa… out on November 1st.
You can hear another new track ‘Nun With The Astral

Carol Keogh of Autamata shares her experiences from the recent Austin City Limits festival.…
Austin City Limits (ACL) began as a live music session for the Public Broadcasting Service in 1976. Aside from its regular service, ACL records a yearly session with a chosen band from the festival line-up, previously REM and Dolly Parton among

Julien Clancy travelled to New York for the CMJ Music Marathon a few weeks back and in the first of two podcasts focusing on the festival, he talks to some “buzz” bands at the festival including Passion Pit, Marnie Stern and Project Jenny Project Jan…. We hear some music from them also!
Next week,

Sebastien Tellier is the front-runner for most bizarre artwork of 2008 for his album Sexuality. Idolator…

Broken Social Scene play Dublin’s Vicar Street on May 20th.…