In barren economic times we may be, but if we need something to cheer us up then we could do worse than look toward the Irish music scene. Perhaps not in a business-model sense, as the industry metamorphoses to adapt to the age of the download (and major-label chiefs stare into the void), but in…

Sometimes you wake up and the world has seemingly passed you by. And yet you realise you are not in your 80s, you have been awake and -on the pulse’ so-to-speak. And so you expect something of some thing and find that your expectations are not exceeded but’¦ side-stepped.
There are certain things this reviewer…

While UK music [arguably] struggles to find it’s late-noughties identity, many here in Ireland have embraced a certain eclecticism (often of a distinctly electronic flavour) in a bid to explore, move with the times and stay fresh. We seem to share this appetite with our cousins across the Atlantic.
In the US, bands such as…

In 2004 Birmingham, England, was gripped in the throws of a powerful cult known as the -Retro Futurist Electronic’ scene. They were hell-bent on bringing an all-consuming brand of spaced-out futuristic pop, influenced by the likes of Syd Barrett-era Floyd, Scott Walker and 60s lounge music, to the unwitting masses. Apparently they failed, as research…

We in Ireland have what seems to be an insatiable appetite for the introspective and sweetly-meek songs of a troubadour, and as such we seem to produce a high volume of them. Ex-Snow Patrol man (he won an Ivor Novello with them no less) and general Lightbody-collaborator Iain Archer, from Bangor, is one such minstrel.…

All bands strive to avoid the dreaded moniker of -One-Hit Wonder’ but all too often struggle to shake off the success of a single insanely-catchy hit. Swedish trio Peter, Bjorn & John made two albums before 2006′s Writer’s Block branded the whistling melody of -Young Folks’ on the mainstream’s brain, and this is their second…