Features
Interview with Cut Copy: “We are trying to capture a euphoric state”
It’s a good time to be in Cut Copy. Guitarist Tim Hoey sounds very pleased with himself. And well he should be. The Australian band have just released their third album, Zonoscope… to critical acclaim and are about to launch a world tour. The record is a decadent mix of electronic wizardry, thumping beats and
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The Levellers – It Was Twenty Years Ago Today….
The UK music scene of 1991 was an odd place. The mainstream charts were clogged with awful mainstream records, the indie scene was petering out and those in the know were looking across the Atlantic. Into this world came The Levellers, a group of musical and social outsiders who were about to release their second…
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The Oscars 2011: A blow-by-blow account
Speech! Book! Grit! Hours! Toy! Bone! Swan! Fight! Kids! Ehhh, Inception.
Hello from Hollywood. Ok, it’s actually Capel Street, Dublin 7, but Sky Movies is on and i’ve got a pipe of Pringles. There are tanned people so very better looking than I standing around getting microphones stuffed in their faces, plenty of tuxedos rented…
Oscars preview: The truth about Oscar
He’s proud. He’s gold. He’s nude. He’s called Oscar and they all want to get their well-manicured hands on him.
We are now swirling right at the centre of the awards season maelstrom. Ricky Gervais’ ego-stomping antics at the Golden Globes have begun to fade from memory and the organizers of the BAFTA’s are working…
State Intervention #9 – KT Tunstall
For most of the diners in Tower Records’ Soundbites cafe, Monday lunchtime was just another opportunity to grab some food and a chat. For State readers however, it was a chance to catch KT Tunstall perform at the ninth State Intervention. Treating us (and Bandwidth Films) to three tracks from her latest Tiger Suit… album
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Jamie Lawson interview: He really wasn’t expecting that…
Sitting in his small flat in London, singer-songwriter Jamie Lawson truly wasn’t expecting what happened to him in the last few weeks. In a matter of days, Lawson went from being a relative unknown to a YouTube sensation.
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State Mix #32 – We Are Losers
They may be one of ours Faces of 2011 but We Are Losers lead bloke Gavin Elsted has knocking about Dublin’s indie scene for a few years now, what with Super Extra Bonus Party, his electronic project Adultrock and now with fuzz-pop upstarts We Are Losers.
The Losers make lo-fi scuzzy guitar pop with garage…
My Chemical Romance interview: “We just have no reason to be sad anymore”
Mere hours before they take to the stage in Dublin’s O2, bassist Mikey Way and guitarist Frank Iero of New Jersey punk-pop icons My Chemical Romance chatted to State about the inspiration behind their fourth studio album, Danger Days: the True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys…. Though the gig itself was far from
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State Mix #31 – Kohwi
Kohwi is Cory Levinson – a sonic arts and math academic by day and an electro-acoustic musician by night, self-described as psychedelic-sleep music.
A graduate of Universtity of Michigan, Cory is now studying at Queen’s University Belfast and will play his first gig in Ireland alongside Sacred Animals and Low Sea at The Workman’s Club…
Meet Florrie: The Xenomania drummer turned pop star
She learnt to drum by listening to the Spice Girls! She likes watching invasive surgery on telly! She is Florrie, and she hopes to be the next pop sensation to “sweep the nation”. Working from Xenomania’s base in Kent, there’s no doubt that she’s operating in an environment that produces the so-called “goods” when it…
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Updated: Brits 2011 – No Fun
So here we are again. The Brits 2011, an award ceremony still searching for an identity, still looking to strike the right balance between the chaotic and the creative. Following a number of years where it has flirted with the former without ever really going the whole way, this year saw the emphasis firmly on…
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State vs Phantom 105.2 free gig this week
It’s been a while since we did battle in the live arena, what with our Christmas Midnight Mass and last month’s Ones To Watch shows, so we’re delighted to be getting back into the ring this weekend. Joining us at the Mercantile on Friday 18th will be the good folk from Phantom 105.2 and a…
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Dubstep February Mix – Duffstep
State’s dubstep mix series returns with a contribution from special guest Jeremy Duffy aka Duffstep whose debut LP Getting to Sirus… is released this month on his Join The Dots label. His live act has seen him perform alongside Kode 9 and Shackleton, definitely an act to watch for 2011.
Check out his genre bending
Might Be Giants – Total Warr
It’s probably safe to say that not many great landmarks in cultural history have come as a result of visits to EuroDisney. But it was after a trip to the anthropomorphic mouse-endorsed theme-park that Kiki and Guigui, the two young Parisians who make up Total Warr, finally sat down in an apartment and recorded their…
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