The margin by which The Frames have so far failed to forcibly etch both themselves and their music onto the minds of the plain people of Ireland remains a source of disappointment, great upset and mystery.
The industry may not have always liked them but their fans couldn’t be more passionate. Ten members, four studio albums, three managers and two major labels later, The Frames still managed to add up to more than the sum of their parts. Peter Murphy, with help from Glen Hansard and other key players brings the story of the band up to date in this, the final part of our two-part special [Photo Mick Quinn]
In anticipation of their forthcoming Short Stories album, ‘I Spy’s casual rhythms and Carol Keogh’s Kate Bush-meets-Tanya Donnelly vocals culminate in a cheerful love song that wouldn’t be so out of place at a barbeque.
Lifted from what is arguably his most aesthetically pleasing album to date, The Lyre Of Orpheus, Breathless is ripe with poetic finery and endless elegance. Although some prefer Caves tortured, writhing energy, this single proves that he can also turn his hand to a splendidly tender and touching acoustic love song. By contrast, There She Goes, My Beautiful World is a more upbeat though no less affecting affair, marrying Caves sombre baritone with the joyful sound of the London Community Gospel Choir. Predictably, its a near-perfect moment of life-affirming splendour.
Whether it's a four-minute love song about a caress that lasts ten seconds, a journey through the universe in a silver plane or a simple escape form war, Air promise that you'll never have a bad trip with their music. Danielle Brigham talks to Jean-Benoit Dunckel, one half of the enigmatic French duo.
Playwright Michael Harding insists that composing and playing music has inspired his writing for the stage, a theory borne out by his latest play, Talking Through His Hat
He may have been beaten out of sight by Robson & Jerome, Wet Wet Wet, Lionel Richie and Unchained Melody , but Chris De Burgh was the undisputed star of Channel 4 s Top 10 Hits: Love Songs. BARRY GLENDENNING reports.
This year over 15,000 young people took part in the Irish Youth Music Awards competition. We catch up with winners Magick Guvnors Radio Bottle to talk nerves, victory and their unusual name.
Cork singer-songwriter NICOLE MAGUIRE is rapidly making a name for herself with her full-on pop-rock songs, swoonful voice and dogged determination. On the release of her debut album Fight The Score she talks to Jackie Hayden.
Shaz Oye has been described as having the most extraordinary voice ever to come out of Ireland. On the eve of the release of her much-awaited debut album, she talks to Jackie Hayden about her Irish upbringing, and its highs and lows.
Country rockers Richmond Fontaine are back with their most accessible LP yet. Frontman Willy Vlautin talks about juggling music and literary careers, and his recent foray into racehorse ownership.
In the run up to her Sligo Live appearance, chanteuse Martha Wainwright talks about learning from her father Loudon, channelling Edith Piaf and the perils of true romance.
Kevin Rowland, whose Dexy's Midnight Runner's album Don't Stand Me Down has just been re-released in a radically new version tells Stephen Robinson "Never say never" when asked about a possible Dexy's reunion
They may, for the moment, be garnering more press attention for their singer s love life than for their music, but THE warm jets are one hell of a fine band in their own right. Tape: NIALL STANAGE.
The dark, romantic Raining Down Arrows is the latest milestone in the creative
liberation of Mundy, a man whose thoughts on love, friendship and connecting with the audience are at the core of his music.
Dropped by Warners, but buoyed up by mega-sales of a soundtrack hit, Nick Lowe is back with a great new album, The Impossible Bird, and lots to say about Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello and a benevolent devil with the feet of a chicken. Interview: Joe Jackson.
She may be one of the biggest r&b stars on the planet, but that doesn’t mean MARY J/ BLIGE is happy with her lot. in one of her frankest
intervews yet, she tells HELEN TOLAND why she’s been given a bad rap
With Lights Of The City, underground faves JUBILEE ALLSTARS have finally made the album they ve always talked about. And they re still talking about disappearing Dublin, real Irish pop, love songs, dinner parties and much more. words: EAMON SWEENEY. Star Charts: Declan English
20 years and the last seven days: U2 have gone through a whole heavenhell of a lot to get here. One can only guess at Bono’s state of mind, high on the euphoria of playing the most ecstatic shows of his band’s career, drained from the freeze-dried exhaustion of flying home to Dublin from all points around Europe to endure the dim purgatories every son goes through when his father is dying.
Veteran agitprop folk-rocker Steve Earle talks to Peter Murphy about kicking against George Dubya, jamming in Galway and revamping Shakespeare for the 21st century.
You know that your pop star interviewee is confident about the quality of his splendid new album, when he's happy to talk about everyone else under the sun. So it is with Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant as he gives the thumbs up or down to Eminem, Liza Minelli, Kylie Minogue, So Solid Crew, Boy George and Westlife. Keeping score: Stuart Clark
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it s not a new game we ve invented to pass slow days at HP Central, just a reflection on the confusion you can face when a CD or tape arrives which is recorded and packaged so well that you don t know whether it s a demo or an actual release that should be re-directed to the Album Dissection and Resuscitation Department.
Making her solo debut, Andrea Corr has set about re-casting herself as a vampish singer with a taste for dark beats and sultry wordplay. In a forthright interview, she talks about her unexpected re-invention.
Inspired by a renewed interest in Christianity, MAIRE BRENNAN of CLANNAD has spread her solo wings again. It s better to be addicted to faith than to drugs, she tells JACKIE HAYDEN
Watching David Bowie on television recently one couldn't help but think of Neil Hannon. Not that he is a musical "chameleon"—to use the phrase most often applied to Bowie—but he does seem to be a person more comfortable presenting to the world a series of ever-changing poses designed to conceal rather than reveal his "real self", as in vocally situating himself somewhere between Barry White and Prince on the magnificent Charge, or satirising—while still relishing—his role as the eponymous sexist hero in Becoming More Like Alfie. Strangely enough, Neil confesses that he was thinking something similar while watching Bowie being interviewed
NO LONGER ANGRY YOUNG MEN, BUT STILL PRETTY PISSED OFF THIRTY SOMETHINGS, JAKE BURNS AND BRUCE FOXTON TELL STUART CLARK WHY STIFF LITTLE FINGERS REFUSE TO LAY DOWN AND DIE. PIX.: CATHAL DAWSON.
RICHARD THOMPSON s new album Mock Tudor consolidates his position as one
of the most articulate and influential songwriters around. GEORGE BYRNE met him.
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Lewis Carrol may all be touchstones for the muse of sinÉad lohan, but this is one talented and increasingly successful singer-songwriter who definitely does things her way. joe jackson meets a self-confessed "spacer".
Pix: Mick Quinn
We asked the fans to vote for U2's Greatest Hits and they did - in their thousands. The result is a selection of 20 tracks which, without doubt, would combine to produce a record to rank among the weightiest and most powerful anthologies in the history of rock. The full track listing is not without its controversial selections and omissions, however. Bill Graham and Niall Stokes take us through the fans' vision of the fab four's dream album.
Still making great music after all these years, Van Morrison is an Irish genius worthy of comparison with the most enduring ’60s legends such as Bob Dylan and Neil Young
The Corrs hit paydirt with In Blue, an album of memorable pop songs that topped the charts in over twenty countries around the world. It gave them the breathing space they needed to re-establish their roots, to live a little and to reassess their purpose as a band. Now, with the release of Borrowed Heaven, they’re back in the music biz frontline – slightly older, considerably wiser, but still with the same hunger to make great and honest records.
"The Joshua Tree" clarifies how U2's vocation has become the revival and renewal of rock and the recovery of its most romantic values. It also highlights the group's new commitment to the song. Review by Bill Graham
There are no saints in love. That’s a lesson The Frames’ mainman Glen Hansard learned the hard way – and which he articulates in the bittersweet love songs that make up much of the band’s new album The Cost. Hot Press hits the road with the band for an extended interview, conducted in radio studios, backstage areas, tour buses – and one very dedicated fan’s house.
Snowman FC from Cork won the Irish heat of the JD Sets, played live in the legendary Jack Daniel's Distillery in Tennessee and recorded with REM man David Barbe in Nashville.
P.J. HARVEY's latest album, Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea will surprise listeners with its positive spirit and sheer lust for life. Hell, she even manages to get Thom Yorke to sound like Tom Jones! KIM PORCELLI meets an artist who has come in from the cold
Though he was busking in Grafton Street at 14, it s taken Glen Hansard more than a few shakes of the lamb s tail to reach the plateau of success which his songwriting talents have, for so long, threatened to take him but after the colossal success of Revelate , The Frames are, finally, set fair to enjoy their day in the sun. Here, Glen and guitarist, Dave Odlum, put Niall Crumlish in the picture.
Though he was busking in Grafton Street at 14, it s taken Glen Hansard more than a few shakes of the lamb s tail to reach the plateau of success which his songwriting talents have, for so long, threatened to take him but after the colossal success of Revelate , The Frames are, finally, set fair to enjoy their day in the sun. Here, Glen and guitarist, Dave Odlum, put Niall Crumlish in the picture.
Glasgow on the morning of the release of Deacon Blue's second album, "When The World Knows Your Name", is bathed in sunshine boasting a skyline view of the drive from the airport that is in sharp contrast to the image entrenched on the cover of the band's debut album "Raintown". Bright and sharp, the morning reflects the initial impressions of the new record, the bustle of the first rush-hour of the day reflecting the urgency of the opening tracks, "Queen Of The New Year'', "Wages Day" and "Real Gone Kid".
t certainly would, Joe. But you can have a toot on my megaphone if you like! Gavin Friday discusses the finer points of sexual politics not to mention the post-Freudian subtext to his stunning new meisterwork Shag Tobacco with Dr Joe Jackson. Our man in the white coat concluded: Gavin s time has come. But is the world finally read
If you’re Randy Newman you’ll also need a piano, some borrowed dominants and lashings of irony. And that’s just for starters. Joe Jackson hears about the private, public and musical lives of one of American music’s most singular talents.
Think about direction, wonder why . . . It’s eleven years since Stano released his debut album Content To Write In I Dine Weathercraft. Despite his genuine originality and dedication to his art over the intervening years, he remains one of Ireland’s most enigmatic performers, more appreciated on the continent than in his homeland. Interview: Joe Jackson
During a career spanning almost forty years as a professional musician, Van Morrison has created an extraordinary body of work. A masterful musician, songwriter, producer, arranger and musical director, he possesses one of the most uniquely recognisable and powerful voices in music. His influence on contemporary music has been profound but far from resting on his laurels, his latest work Back On Top ranks among his finest albums to date. For Van Morrison, the search goes on. It was particularly appropriate, therefore, that he was chosen to become the first inductee into the Hot Press Irish Music Hall of Fame, at a special ceremony there last week. Report: Niall Stanage.
He’s the joker in the Irish music pack, a working class hero who has at once conquered and subverted the mainstream. For his first album in six years JERRY FISH and his MUDBUG CLUB have also roped in some top-tier collaborators including rockabilly queen Imelda May and Carol Keogh.
The task of exhuming a number of folk legend Woody Guthrie’s unused lyrics and setting them to music would be a daunting prospect for most artists – but not Billy Bragg, the self-styled Bard of Barking. The guitar-slinging socialist has teamed up with acclaimed US country-rockers Wilco to do just that. Interview: Colm O’Hare.
Confronted by an autobiography with a dual narrator, Joe Jackson asks the real Ray Davies to stand up and testify on homosexuality, marriage, groupies, the essence of Kinkdom – and the true story of Lola.
From stardom with Westlife to the breakup of his marriage, and a subsequent attempt to kickstart his solo career, Brian McFadden had an extraordinarily eventful year. With his private life routinely splashed all over the tabloids and controversy currently raging over everything from his latest video to his admiration for Nirvana, he remains in the eye of the storm. In a candid interview with hotpress, he discusses living his life in the media spotlight, his decision to leave Westlife, drink, drugs, sex and the continuing fallout from his break-up with his wife Kerry.
With his new album sex, age and death in the shops, BOB GELDOF, songwriter and performer, is back in our midst. but after the traumatic personal events of the last five years - events which inform the songs on the new record - the private man is arguably under scrutiny as never before. In this heartfelt, eloquent and, at times, angry interview with JOE JACKSON, Geldof talks about the loss of Paula Yates, the death of Michael Hutchence and his own painful journey back to happiness
Her split with Damien Rice caused headlines around the music world. Now Lisa Hannigan is taking her first steps as a solo artist with a wonderfully ethereal debut album, Sea Sew. She talks to hot press about the end of her partnership with Rice, her hopes for the future and the influence of romantic entanglements on her powerfully feminine songwriting.
They were one of the most successful – and dysfunctional – bands of all time. Now THE EAGLES are aging gracefully and packing out arenas across the world, with Irish gigs on the way.
An Irish band who don’t entirely fit in at home, Relish can console themslves with a great new album Karma Calling, and an international fanbase that stretches from the U.S. to Japan.
An Irish band who don’t entirely fit in at home, Relish can console themslves with a great new album Karma Calling, and an international fanbase that stretches from the U.S. to Japan.
A new album, a new producer, a new sound and a new lease of life so where better to launch mary black s Shine than in New Orleans? Report and
interview: siobhAN LONG
A new album, a new producer, a new sound and a new lease of life so where better to launch mary black s Shine than in New Orleans? Report and
interview: siobhAN LONG
A glimpse into Glen Hansard’s tour diary while on the road with The Frames' fourth album For The Birds (2001) - including reflections on their first landmark Olympia show (March 30th, 2001)
Returning from an extended hiatus, Manic Street Preachers are in stridently upbeat form. In a revealing interview, they reflect on their enduring cultural imprint and talk about long lost Manic Richey Edwards.
The Streets’ new album, A Grand Don’t Come For Free, looks set to skyrocket Mike Skinner’s status as the voice of hedonistic British youth. Hot Press meets up with Skinner backstage in Derry to discuss the creation of his latest masterwork, the perils of fame, superstar collaborations, hanging out in Ibiza and the art and artifice of his onstage persona.
Having learned her moves on RTE with AA Roadwatch, Drive and Live At 3, LORRAINE KEANE moved to TV3 in the role of Entertainment Correspondent. Here she talks about life, love, the media and what it s like to be the daughter of an Indian!
Interview: NIALL STANAGE. Photos: Colm Henry
In the magical, wind-swept landscape of Ireland's remote north-west the cameras roll as U2's Bono and Maire of Clannad make the video for their collaborative single "In A Lifetime". Bill Graham joins the entourage at work and at play and talks to the main protagonists.
Three years since his Mercury-winning second album swept the world, ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS’ Antony Hegarty is going back to nature. His new record is both a requiem for a dying planet and a statement of hope for the future – one that draws deeply on his Irish-Catholic upbringing. Prepare to have your spine tingled all over again.
Loved by the Kaiser Chiefs and bushy moustached Ukrainians alike, The Chalets have partied their way round most of the western world in recent months. Stuart Clark hears about backstage beerathons, ding dongs with Kele from Bloc Party and monkeys in track-suits.
While the entity that is U2 continues to be the dominant focus in the creative lives of its four members, away from the band, Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry have all indulged in extra-curricular activities, bringing them – and their music - into contact with such legends as Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Keith Richards, and Roy Orbison, By Dermot Stokes
Peter Murphy takes a train to the wild west (Galway that is) with the original Texas Jewboy, crime writer and legendary stardust cowboy Kinky Friedman. Peter Matthews has the negatives.
James Dean Bradfield on The Cult of Richey, The Spanish Civil War, Jon Bon Jovi, and the new album This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours. Truth Serum: Peter Murphy. Light Detector Test: Simon Clemenger.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
Actress, writer, director, singer and not quite so archetypal French heroine Julie Delpy renders terms like ‘renaissance woman’ positively anaemic. Currently back on the map with Before Sunset, one of the cinematic highlights of the year, she talks art, sex romance and Gallic caricatures.
With ‘Yellow’, Coldplay captured the imagination of even the most resistant of hard-boiled rock’n’roll cynics. Now, as A Rush Of Blood To The Head achieves lift-off in the U.S., even the sky is no longer the limit.
For years, Holly Johnson delayed having a HIV test. When he did, it checked positive, and Holly began a journey of self-discovery that has seen him develop enormously. Now, the former lead singer with Frankie Goes To Hollywood is proud, committed and highly politicised . . .Interview:Joe Jackson
U2, Elvis Costello, The Pogues, The Waterboys, Emmylou Harris, Hothouse Flowers, The Everly Brothers, Christy Moore just some of the dozens of artists who contribute to an adventurous new five part TV series which traces the extraordinary return journey that Irish traditional music has made to America and beyond. Here, Liam Fay previews the programmes, talks to Philip King who originated and nurtured the project and hears many of the participants explain how they discovered the importance and influence of Irish music.
Niall Stokes draws on his best-selling book Into The Heart: The Stories Behind The Songs Of U2 to offer a unique insight into the way in which some of the greatest songs in the history of popular music came into being.
MIKE SCOTT once fronted the greatest rock n roll band in the world, but before the world got a chance to wake up to the fact he had gone west and invented raggle taggle. Now with a new Waterboys album, A Rock In The Weary Place, just released, Scott takes time out to reflect on his strange but true adventure. By PETER MURPHY
For many people it is U2's greatest album. Twenty years on, to mark it's re-release, Colm O'Hare talks to Daniel Lanois and reflects on the extraordinary background to a monumental album.
From "Out Of Control" to "All I Want Is You", Neil McCormick presents a major critical retrospective on the complete recorded works of U2, the band who went from being one of the world's worst cover groups to become a leading force in modern Rock'n'Roll
They go together like a horse and carriage. You can't have one without the other - or words to that effect. In fact, however, even rock 'n' roll has yet to invent an erotic language that does justice to the breadth and complexity of human desire. In pushing out the boundaries, madonna has taken on the role of sexual pioneer, and done it with courage and no little success. Niall Stokes weighs up the evidence . . .
Certain artists are blessed with the ability to say something poignant and meaningful with their music. On the evidence of this eopnymous record, Gavin DeGraw is not one of them.
Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian decided two years ago that the laidback slo-fi sound for which they had won our acclaim (at the height of our love affair with folky acoustica) had become restrictive, and so Ether Song was to be their harder-edged departure. With their latest, Jack In The Box, we have a mélange of those good intentions and the usual wavering West Coast falsettos.
This is the twelfth album that Dwight Yoakam has released to date. That makes six albums proper, one live album, one Christmas album, one compilation of odds and sods and one covers album, as well as two greatest hits collections.
How Rollerskate Skinny faded into obscurity while lesser contemporaries like Lush and Love & Rockets sold truck-loads of records is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most perverse mysteries.
Lifted from what is arguably his most aesthetically pleasing album to date, The Lyre Of Orpheus, ‘Breathless’ is ripe with poetic finery and endless elegance.
IT'S NOT all that hard to fathom the phenomenal success and longevity of Tracy Chapman. Her winning combination of simple, folk-based melodies, wise, knowing vocals and a quietly spoken dignity, has made her the most popular singer-songwriter of the last decade.
They've always been the pet love for critics and musos the world over, with Pavement, Belle And Sebastian and The Auteurs all queuing up with a trolley full of praises and cover versions.
OR, IF you prefer, a very long album about love.
69 Love Songs does exactly as it says on the tin – it’s a 3CD set of pop sonnets by workaholic wonderboy Stephen Merritt, originally conceived as a 100-song revue to be performed by a cast of singers in the hotel bars and cabaret spots of New York.
Tom Baxter is blessed with a talent to melt even those who feel inevitably bored around singer-snoozing-songwriters. For a debut release the maturity of his voice and the arrangements are gobsmacking.
The Boy With No Name has a handful of absolute crackers, proving that Travis are still capable of penning a tune that wraps its tendrils around your ears and won’t let go until at least four minutes have passed.
The younger generation of Irish singer-songwriters have tended to obscure Luka Bloom's place in the firmament. But with this more reflective and introspective album (his 10th), he restores himself to his rightful place in the pantheon of intelligent and passionate songsmiths with his uncanny ability to see the power and meaning in the atoms of daily life.
If you’re like me, then The Divine Comedy 1993-96 was aural El Dorado, the last couple of albums were disappointing, and Absent Friends is the one you’ve been waiting for; the one you were worried Neil Hannon might never make.
"Every hero bores us at last" - Ralph Waldo Emerson. If it's journalistic objectivity you want, you've come to the wrong place.
You see, I've idolised Kim Deal since before my first encounter with a potty,
According to my calculations, Paul Brady celebrates forty years as a professional musician this year. You certainly wouldn’t think so – looking at the fresh-faced (and decidedly blonder than usual) chap staring out from the cover of his first album since 2001’s Oh What A World. And if his gruelling touring schedule is anything to go by (he treks around the US in Feb followed by an Irish/UK tour) the man from Strabane shows little sign of slowing down.
The Used furious mix of nu-metal and skate punk may not be the most original of cocktails but it’s the way they blend the ingredients (with just enough contradiction) that keeps them from sliding into mediocrity.
As soon as you spot Terry Hooley – the man who released ‘Teenage Kicks’, kids – holding court at the bar, you know you’re in for a classic Belfast rock ‘n’ roll night.
The break, brief as it was, seems to have done him a power of good. His voice on this recording is lighter, stronger, and more flexible than it's been in years
Tracks like ‘Nine Million Bicycles’ and ‘Halfway Up The Hindu Kush’ could easily trouble charts the world over; indeed virtually all the tracks are the epitome of radio-friendliness.
Recorded in his home studio in rural County Kilkenny, Iarla Ó Lionáird’s second solo album has a quiet, introspective feel that stands in contrast to his work with the Afrocelts (formerly the Afro Celt Sound System).
They don’t come more unlikely than this long-distance collaboration between the Scottish-based former Belle and Sebastian chanteuse and the ever-versatile Screaming Trees/Queens of the Stone Age vocalist and LA resident.
Get ready for the first great Northern Irish record of 2009 – PANDA KOPANDA’s fantastic This Hope Will Kill Us. The band give us a blow-by-blow account.
Part of Jimmy Scott's appeal lies in his longevity, of course. Now 76, when he throws his arms out wide, one can only marvel, partly at the sheer breadth of the gesture, but mostly at how anyone so frail can remain standing without support.
With the singer-songwriters-versus-guitar-bands debate currently making waves, Derryman Paul Casey’s debut album comes as a timely release, effortlessly straddling the divide and likely to keep both camps happy.
Following a seemingly endless bout of movie soundtrack projects, Newman's first album proper in almost a decade has been hailed (most notably by Newman himself) as his best yet. Whether that's true or not is debatable, but Bad Love, produced by Mitchell Froom (Crowded House, Suzanne Vega, Ron Sexsmith etc.) is certainly up there with past glories such as Good Old Boys, Sail Away and Little Criminals.
The Cake Sale does for Irish musicians what The Reindeer Section did for Scotland’s: i.e. it makes a group of disparate songwriters and performers sound like the most talented and cohesive band in the world ever.
There are artists who operate as holistics and healers, lifting the spirit, rousing the body. Then there are the pathologists and post-mortemizers that map the anatomy of cancers.
ven before they take the stage Cold War Kids and Elvis Perkins have insured the joint will hop and then some. Nothing, however, could adequately prepare one for the maniacal surge when Brooklyn’s finest appear.
For more than 30 years now, Colum Sands and his siblings have observed the fabric of Northern Ireland as its society struggles with the notion of political change, and the methods employed to achieve it. Not for them the high moral tone of the artist as commentator; their preferred conduit is humour and gentle persusion, the pointing up of folly through the well chosen word.
Whereas Gran Turismo was very much a beast of the studio, this fourth album finds them re-grouped and re-inspired as a band, confident in their own abilities.
After eighteen years in the business, the majority of which were spent wandering in the wilderness, The Waterboys are back with their first album proper since ’88’s Room To Roam.
Clannad have always seemed among the most interesting and endearing of Irish traditional explorers – since Clannad 2 I've dutifully acquired their records (their debut album, made while still at school, unfortunately was a non-event).
The best mysteries come in triads, like the Sibyl’s three visits to king Tarquin and the three prophetic books he ended up with. Scott Walker’s third solo record in 30 years is no less abstruse an endowment.
This Galway collective have been happily beavering away on the not-so-difficult second LP, Garden Tiger Moth, for a couple of years now while the initiated few held their breath.
Though they’re still hammering on about western society (‘Everything’s In Question’), corruption (‘Packing Things Up On The Scene’) and corporate greed (‘Ascension Street’), the political message is more weighted within the music rather than weighing it down.
For Stolen Moments he’s taken a bunch of new songs, two of which were written in tandem with RTE newsman Conor Mark Kavanagh, to Nashville, and teamed up with that city’s conveyor-belt musicians.
With this debut album Julie Feeney announces herself as the most intriguing female voice - bar the criminally neglected Shaz Oye - to come out of Ireland since Sinead O’Connor.
Bat For Lashes' debut, Fur And Gold, is an album that delivers the listener from any form of humdrum existence into a deeper realm of dream and dementia.
For all the romanticism and swoonsome sentiment, Baxter’s sound is
frightfully muscular. Aided tonight by a string quartet, his set is bracing
and uplifting in spades. Predictably, ‘Half A Man’ builds to a swooping
crescendo, ‘The Moon & Me’ is brimming with vitality and substance, while
his heartfelt rendition of ‘Almost There’ is almost unbearably perfect. As
it was always meant to be, ‘My Declaration’ is an inspiration, intensely
stirring the senses with little more than a perfect falsetto and a string
quartet.
For all the romanticism and swoonsome sentiment, Baxter’s sound is frightfully muscular. Aided tonight by a string quartet, his set is bracing and uplifting in spades. Predictably, ‘Half A Man’ builds to a swooping crescendo, ‘The Moon & Me’ is brimming with vitality and substance, while his heartfelt rendition of ‘Almost There’ is almost unbearably perfect. As it was always meant to be, ‘My Declaration’ is an inspiration, intensely stirring the senses with little more than a perfect falsetto and a string quartet.
For all the romanticism and swoonsome sentiment, Baxter’s sound is
frightfully muscular. Aided tonight by a string quartet, his set is bracing
and uplifting in spades. Predictably, ‘Half A Man’ builds to a swooping
crescendo, ‘The Moon & Me’ is brimming with vitality and substance, while
his heartfelt rendition of ‘Almost There’ is almost unbearably perfect. As
it was always meant to be, ‘My Declaration’ is an inspiration, intensely
stirring the senses with little more than a perfect falsetto and a string
quartet.
For all the romanticism and swoonsome sentiment, Baxter’s sound is
frightfully muscular. Aided tonight by a string quartet, his set is bracing
and uplifting in spades. Predictably, ‘Half A Man’ builds to a swooping
crescendo, ‘The Moon & Me’ is brimming with vitality and substance, while
his heartfelt rendition of ‘Almost There’ is almost unbearably perfect. As
it was always meant to be, ‘My Declaration’ is an inspiration, intensely
stirring the senses with little more than a perfect falsetto and a string
quartet.
This Galway collective have been happily beavering away on the not-so-difficult second LP, Garden Tiger Moth, for a couple of years now while the initiated few held their breath.
Over the course of my HP career I've never been slow to volunteer for interviews involving the Heavy Rock community, as invariably they're a whole lot more entertaining to talk to than floppy-fringed Indie mumblers who "make music for themselves and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus".
Breathless, sexy, frantic – the album’s forty minutes include five minutes waiting around for a hidden extra track; don’t bother, it’s shite – Fever To Tell is a racket but an undeniably glorious one.
Phillips’ vocal style is of the quietly devastated Erin Moran/Aimee Mann school, backlit by Bacharach-and-Wilson-ish arrangements on ‘Another Song’, ‘Little Plastic Life’ and ‘Flower Up’.
On first listen, her latest outing offers yet more spiritually-inclined acoustic folk-rock, but it soon becomes clear that Where You Live is her strongest collection since her groundbreaking debut.
Beauty And Crime might not convert the masses but it’d be nice to think there’s a place for such literate otherworldliness in the big, bad game of rock.
SPROG are a four-piece funk/rock band based in Galway. They’ve been together since August 1993 and this demo entitled Scratch’n’Sniff, a six-tracker, was recorded late last year.
I’d caution the casuals, but if you are a fan then dive straight in. You’ll love this rich stew of subtle pleasures and nocturnes that’ll ferment and season with each listening.
You probably know the story by now. Ol' Bill was asked to supply the music to a series of Woody Guthrie lyrics a couple of years back; he promptly recruited Wilco into the project;
Ray LaMontagne could break your heart just by singing the alphabet. His voice, which sounds like it’s spent decades soaked in a vat of whiskey and tears, is a miraculous thing.
For excitement and edginess you’ve come to the wrong place, but when a lot of that these days means having the correct haircut or right brand of eyeliner, perhaps there is something to be admired in the way Athlete are resolutely unfashionable.
Consider both the facts and the odds. It would be more likely that a torrent of frogs would descent from the skies to land on the Palace of Westminster and then pass through six floors down to the Parliamentary chamber to squelch upon Margaret Thatcher’s head that that King Of America would be anything other than an excellent album.
ELEANOR MacEVOY has a lot to answer for. Without her that little vessel that goes lub-a-dub-dub every time a stethoscope gets near it would still be languishing in the advertising pages of the Irish Medical Times, all arteries and veins, but no soul.
Once Like A Spark is a brilliantly brief headrush, a mad dash through the realms of punk, rock and metal that is the perfect pick-me-up for anyone who’s tired of post-rock, fed up with the new wave of cooler-than-thou US supergroups and longing for a bit of old-fashioned blood, thunder, sweat and bollocks.
Thank god for small mercies. This is not one of those guest-infested albums featuring Rod, Eric et al hatched by some opportunistic label exec in cahoots with a modish producer keeping one eye on the meter and the other on a Grammy. It’s the Reverend Al doing pretty much as he’s always done.
Utah Saints could hardly be described as the world’s most prolific musical collective. After all, the aptly named Two is only the sophomore effort from Jez Willis and DJ Tim Garbett and the follow-up to their 1993 eponymous debut.
Sumptious strings herald the opening of Catatonia’s latest aural adventure, and you’re starting to think that maybe you’re being taken in a new direction, a pop towards high art. But then Cerys Matthews’ familiar tones enter the fray and you realise that no matter what Catatonia do music-wise, they are still going to sound like Catatonia.
IF PEDIGREE alone paid the rent, The Floors' mastermind David Donohue would be a made man. Always ten years ahead of his time, this Carlow-born film-maker, musician, songwriter and alternative entrepreneur first made his mark in 1989 with Put Blood In The Music, an excellent documentary study of a downtown New York downtown scene that included John Zorn and Sonic Youth.
"The Joshua Tree" clarifies how U2's vocation has become the revival and renewal of rock and the recovery of its most romantic values. It also highlights the group's new commitment to the song. Review by Bill Graham
It's Bruce and the band given a new coat of paint by producer Brendan O’ Brien, who through his work with bands like Pearl Jam, knows a thing or two about gut feeling and mile-high noise
Last winter, as the cold set in and rock ‘n’ roll seemed about as useful as a paper piss-pot, you could almost hear the voices from the back of Madison Square Gardens hollering, “Bruce, why hast thou forsaken us?”
Though often overlooked, some of U2’s most exciting and challenging music through the years is to be found hidden away on the flip side of their singles. From U23 to Melon bill graham rides the wild horses of the U2 back catalogue and finds that there’s quite a few thoroughbreds among their many cover versions and experimental remixes.
On Tuesday 23rd November, at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the Church & General Insurance Company present The Celebration Concert, featuring an extraordinary array of Ireland's finest contemporary songwriting and composing talents. In this four-page special, Jackie Hayden explores the background to the event and we profile the leading players.
Another one from the archives: in a feature from 1987 – as Michael Jackson releases Bad – Neil McCormick charts the phenomenal career of the enigmatic star.
30 years after the recording of Bitches Brew, the release of The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions comes on like Apocalypse Then The Sequel. PETER MURPHY journeys upriver into the heart of darkness and unearths still more evidence to confirm MILES DAVIS reputation as one of the most peaceful and influential musicians of the millennium.
