Articles by Hilary A. White
Author of 48 posts.
Hilary A White is a freelance writer for The Sunday Independent and Heineken Music. His writings have also appeared in The Irish Examiner, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times' The Ticket supplement and Adventure Travel Magazine. He has been a published music journalist since 2006, when he began writing for the then-monthly music magazine Connected under 'Adam White'. He went on to become Assistant Editor there until 2008, and also worked as a sub-editor for Associated Newspapers. He has appeared numerous times on the Phantom FM show Cinerama, as well as State of Play and Icon, and Newstalk's Culture Shock show.
Website:http://www.state.ie
Every decent music compilation should tell a story. In the case of Too Late To Stop Now! 1981-2011…, a birthday celebration for indie label Reekus Records, the story is writ large across each of these 40 tracks cherry-picked from their stable over the past 30 years. It’s a sweet yarn too, for the large
Back in February, State was craning our necks in disbelief along with Conor O’Brien, The Ambience Affair and a host of visibly hot-and-bothered couples during an evening in the Workman’s Club (watch the State video by Stephen Mogerly and read a review from Dara Higgins). Anna Calvi’s debut Irish performance was the stuff of mythology;…
Describing themselves as an “ongoing musical project”, Dubs Modern Skins certainly have that lived-in feel about them, so much so that you wonder why it’s taken this long for the quartet to get around to releasing a debut LP. Don’t let the name confuse you, by the way; this is unreconstructed swagger, equal parts dirt…
Picking Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut as the subject of this unique JD Set concert was another example of Neil Hannon’s playful brilliance. Bowie, Scott Walker or XTC all could have been in line for the covers treatment but he chose a recent classic that no one would object to hearing a supergroup of the finest…
The following is a 2006 face-to-face interview conducted by Hilary White with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. Linkous took his own life this time last year following a long battle with depression and addiction. He was highly regarded as a collaborative and visionary artist and producer, and his death came as a blow to his many …
It’s getting so you know Choice Music Prize season is upon us. Beards are stroked down to a thin stubble as the very nature of awards ceremonies is pondered aloud. You may spot some of the nominated artists on your travels around our capital looking tidy and pleased with themselves. If all this wasn’t unsettling…
In the interim before the Gallagher brothers decide to settle their differences and reform Oasis, there are less worthwhile things Liam and the rest of the group could be getting on with than Beady Eye. Interestingly, they have as much to prove as a debutante outfit, and while the signposts are bluntly obvious – The…
Director: Rob Letterman
Cert: PG
Released: December 26, 2010
Rob Letterman’s experiences with DreamWorks’s well-received animated features Shark Tale and Monsters Vs Aliens are utilised well in Gulliver’s Travels’… visual field. The costumes, CGI and the sets are the principle triumph of a comedy for younger viewers that won’t rock the world of anyone over
The reasons I never ‘got’ Arcade Fire remain unclear. It may have been that I grew sick of people ordering me to love them upon my arrival home from a couple of years away. Returning to Ireland in 2005, it was all Orcade Foyre this, Orcade Foyre that. Jump forward five years, and I’m exiting…
Jaz Coleman is good value whatever way you look at him. Killing Joke, his post-punk/industrial outfit, have, consistently, been satisfying the dark and noisy urges of certain corners of society since 1979 and are now recognised by everyone from Tool to Soundgarden to Nine Inch Nails as instrumental in the emergence of ‘thinking man’s metal’.…
A particularly English brand of sauce is slapped on this odd pseudo-romantic comedy based on Posy Simmonds’s Guardian cartoon strip. Girl of the moment Gemma Arterton plays the curvaceous Tamara Drewe, a provocative but desperate journalist who returns to her family home in England’s rolling West Counties to do the place up. She causes a…
Black cats and rabbits’ feet may be de rigueur elsewhere on this Friday the 13th, but everyone in Whelan’s on Wexford Street is feeling particularly lucky tonight. Arriving a tad late, State has just watched the last few numbers by Enemies, darlings of the Richter Collective cult, who intersperse their careful thrashing and bashing with…
Oh dear. Bonnie Prince Billy’s fans all realise just how lucky they’ve been to get a ticket for this most intimate Whelan’s show (he could easily fill Vicar St, you suspect) and before the night’s out, they’ll make silly heckles and sounds between songs to vent their giddiness at seeing the much-exalted Americana Mystic mere…
Apathy For The Devil by Nick Kent (Faber & Faber)…
In his own right, Nick Kent was a talented journalist, prepared to wade through the cultural flotsam of rock music whenever required, even if it put his very health at risk. Stylistically, he was full of groove and bite – his riffs on fame, hedonism
