Who knows what these Norwegian electro-pop kids are so happy about – we thought their home town of Bergen was full of black metallers stabbing each other in the face and burning churches. Crass generalisations aside, Casiokids’ third album Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen… (‘Revelation Over the Mountain’) is a hyperactive day-glo summer jamboree that’s on general

Gonjasufi is a PR wet dream – a perpetually stoned yoga teacher from the Mojave Desert signed to Warp Records, who’s got a voice that Flying Lotus calls “timeless, incredible filth”. Box-ticking aside, he claims he’d be “a dangerous man without music”, so it’d be rude not to look behind the dreadlocks.
San Diego native…

It’s been a while, but Depeche Mode‘s Martin L Gore and Erasure‘s Vince Clarke got back in the studio this year for the first time since the Mode’s 1981 debut album Speak & Spell….
Don’t expect the VGMC project to be scraps from Depeche Mode, Erasure and Yazoo’s table though — their first EP

So is this an album? If we believe everything we read in the press notes, The Pathway To Tiraquon6… is a ‘prequel’ to Space Dimension Controller’s second album due next year – or the soundtrack to a 24th century alien invasion that sees techno cosmonaut Mr 8040 bolted back in time to modern day Earth

If you fancy sticking two fingers up to the dull winter evenings, a healthy dose of lush Swedish chamber pop might be the ticket. Multi-instrumentalist Emil Svanangen aka Loney, Dear is stopping off in Dublin’s Sugar Club tonight as part of his European tour supporting the album Hall Music…, released last month. His sixth

Tarantulas, scorpions, upside-down crosses, aliens with machine guns, MC Ninja with a mouthful of maggots and MC Yo-Landi sporting a Bambi onesie — check out Die Antwoord‘s latest video that apparently led to a split with their label.
The South African body-shock rappers dropped the video for ‘Fok Julle Naaiers’ after giving the fingers to…

Lex Records is 10, and Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood have teamed up with hip-hop Supervillain DOOM for the label’s birthday celebrations.
‘Retarded Fren’ is a preview track from Lex’s upcoming Complex compilation, and features samples from Greenwood’s soundtrack from There Will Be Blood…, buried under tribal drums and some fine psychedelic wordplay

Listen carefully and you can hear the global wailing and gnashing of teeth from Depeche Mode fans. The moody Mode classic ‘Enjoy the Silence’ is the latest song to have its heartstrings plucked out with an over-egged faux-Broadway musical makeover from SuBo, using the template of Tori Amos’s solo piano version and bleaching it of…

Summer festival dance tents are a fading memory at this stage but the sun’s been out this week so let off some steam. Promoters Pogo and We Are Electronic are joining forces tomorrow for a night at Dublin’s Twisted Pepper, bringing over two of Europe’s heavy hitters.
German-based Polish pioneer Robert Babicz aka Rob Acid…

State has been giving Emeralds the runaround for the last few months. For starters, the Icelandic volcano farted ash clouds all over their planned Whelan’s show last May. We then missed them at Primavera a few days later as we waited in a three-hour queue for wristbands, and at Bestival they had the misfortune of…

Galleries by Claire Weir: Friday | Saturday | Sunday…
Four days in and I’ve still got a few goosebumps left in the tank. James Blake is nearing the end of his early evening Big Top set, and as the bass tremors burrow up through the grass my soles are vibrating. Blake’s live set, like his

Galleries by Claire Weir: Friday | Saturday | Sunday…
I think we’re out of luck with the weather. The clouds look like they’re about six feet above our heads and they’re getting blacker by the minute. After yesterday’s techno crusade it’s time for a well-earned siesta, which means we sacrifice a few bands to escape

Galleries by Claire Weir: Friday | Saturday | Sunday…
Most of your plans evaporate at festivals. The so-called ‘early’ night on Thursday turns into a wake-up call on Friday morning with my face stuck to a plastic bag in the corner of a mate’s tent, eyeballs sewn in with red thread. A quick glance at

Galleries by Claire Weir: Friday | Saturday | Sunday…
Bestival arrives at a funny old time – a few days after the Electric Picnic we’re still finding bruises, chasing lost sleep and scraping muck off our boots, while packing for the last big hurrah of the festival season. And we really can’t kid ourselves that