Having conquered the music scene in their native Sweden, purveyors of dark electro-pop and socially aware lyrics The Knife have turned their attention to the rest of Europe.
Donegal rockers The Revs have been ensconced in Malmo’s prestigious Yellow Studios for the last three months working on the eagerly anticipated follow-up to Suck. Steve Cummins joins the group in Malmo for an exclusive listen to what many expect to be their breakthrough album.
Kopparberg want to reward great taste... We want tasty designers, artists, students, photographers or anyone with creative ability to amuse and delight us.
A straight-talking Swede renowned her famously candid – and frequently highly controversial – personal web-blog, European Commission Vice President Margot Wallstrom is not your typical Eurocrat. On a recent visit to Dublin, she took time out to talk to Hot Press about Tony Blair, George Bush, the Irish and the Swedes’ mutual love of alcohol, Bertie Ahern, Charlie McCreevey’s accent, Bono and Bob Geldof. And she even taught us a few Swedish swear words. Interview by Jackie Hayden. Photography by Liam Sweeney.
Where hip and hype go together, that's where you'll find The Hives who are buzzing to tell Stuart Clark all about Kylie, curling, punk rock, nice forests and bad Norwegian jokes
I am generally wary of national clichés, but I have to say the Swedish really are a frosty lot. I am excited beyond belief at the prospect of seeing the Thrills play in this exquisite, small venue and curious as to how they will do far away from adoring home audiences.
Charity albums don’t normally have the legs to stagger through to a second single, but then again few have been put together with such care and love. ‘Black Winged Bird’ sees Ireland’s international borders stretched slightly to include Sweden but it’s something we can overlook, seeing as The Cardigans’ Nina Persson turns in such a stunning performance on this elegant ballad.
The winter nights may very well be marching into the middle of winter days, what’s needed, then, is another sunny choon from the land that bought us Peter, Bjorn and John and their bona fide hit of the summer ‘Young Folks’. Sweden. So we have a blast of unadulterated alt power pop, along the lines of The Posies, The Thrills, Lilys, and Redd Kross. Retrotastic stuff.
Come early 2005, absolutely everyone is pinning their colours to the next-big-thing mast, and the smart money is on brother and sister Karin and Olof Dreiger, a duo who are already Grammy-winning types in their native Sweden. They may be a little late for the electro-clash revival, but their unorthodox synth sounds, spiked with reggae, Euro-pop and Japanese punk are little short of astounding.
The decision in Sweden to send the operators of the Pirate Bay website to jail will "send shivers down" some of the other sites that facilitate illegal downloading, IRMA CEO Dick Doyle has told Hot Press.
This coming Saturday, Belgium play Sweden in the opening game of EURO 2000. But don t panic things will rapidly improve after that. In a Foul Play special, JONATHAN O BRIEN tells you all need to know about this year s crop of contenders
Gone are the booming synths and melodic choruses. Instead, techno darlings The Knife have embraced their gothic side. But why are they dressed as birds?
He’s the classic indie shyboy who quit music to become a bingo announcer because he can't bear the rock 'n' roll gossip mill. Now Jens Lekman is back with his finest album yet words.
Peter Murphy meets Sweden's Soundtrack Of Our Lives frontman Ebbot Lundberg and discovers that Scandinavia has more to offer music than Roxette and their ilk
John Walshe talks to The Wannadies Pdr Wiksten and Christina Bergmark about their new album, Yeah, tribute bands, Swedish soft rock stars and the Abba legacy.
She's swapped her Cardigans for a blanket of mid-life melancholia. From her new home in Harlem, Swedish indie-babe Nina Persson talks about her downbeat new album as A Camp,
hooking up with a former Smashing Pumpkin and why life in a band can be like a prison sentence.
His tearful acoustic ballads have become a phenomenon. In a forthright interview José González discusses his terror of writing lyrics and meeting Craig David and tells of his parents’ flight from oppression.
From their earliest days in Gothenburg, WEST OF EDEN have fused Celtic and Scandinavian influences to come up with a unique sound. SIOBHAN LONG met them.
You can take the man out of Phibsborough, but you can’t take Phibsborough out of the man! Wayne Henderson talks about his lifelong love of Bohemians, the greening of the Championship and Ireland’s end of season trip to America.
Doubtless inspired by the news that their ‘Young Folks’ single is glued to the Hot Press windy-up gramophone, Peter Bjorn & John make their Dublin debut on August 12 in CrawDaddy.
Jose Gonzalez first made a name for himself with 'Heartbeats', featured on the Bravia ad, but this virtuoso guitarist and singer-songwriter is a serious talent.
Are they genuine punks or just an amped-up, radio-friendly version of the real thing? Good Charlotte‘s twin frontmen Benji and Joel wouldn’t like to say for certain.
Scandinavian alterna queen Stina Nordenstam is determined to keep the hype to a minimum and let her music do the talking – and so far the plan is paying off in spades.
Blogger faves and YouTube stars OkGo stepped into the A-league recently when they attended the Grammys. Biggest thrill of the night? Shooting the breeze with Mastodon.
The distressing news from America is that one of George Bush’s mates has been implicated in a seedy sex for favours scandal. But that’s enough about being in the Republican Party…
As popular with the Europeans as with their home crowd, Therapy? return to Lund for the first time in ten years. Shilpa Ganatra catches up with the lads to find out how their tour is going and what the rest of the year holds in store.
She’s been a regular festival goer since she first attended Féile at the age of 14. Gemma Hayes waxes lyrical on the joys of those sprawling, big days out
Most of us agree that the Eurovision Song Contest is a load of arse, but at least we can switch to another channel. The Irish Times' KEVIN COURTNEY, however, attended this year’s contest in Copenhagen - and got sucked into the black hole of rock 'n' roll
Thanks to medical advances, horrendous injuries, such as the one suffered by Mancester United's Alan Smith, need no longer spell the end of a footballer's career.
An Irish human rights campaigner travelled to Colombia recently – and returned with an alarming picture of a society where activists face the constant risk of murder by paramilitary gangs.
Kevin Doyle, Damien Duff and Robbie Keane all impressed as Steve Staunton’s reign as Ireland manager got off to the perfect start. Tony Cascarino examines how Euro 2008 qualification could be a little trickier though…
Even without a record deal, industrious Northern Irish reprobates watercress have a back catalogue to be proud of. jackie hayden meets band linchpin dan donnelly.
Even without a record deal, industrious Northern Irish reprobates watercress have a back catalogue to be proud of. jackie hayden meets band linchpin dan donnelly.
In the instant world of pop music, it would be fair to say that life can be a bit of a rollercoaster – as some of our homegrown teenybop maestros discovered in 2001. But WESTLIFE and SAMANTHA MUMBA are still riding high.
BY STEPHEN ROBINSON
Is Ireland really drowning in gargle? Is there no hope for the youth? and is ever more draconian legislation all we can do? Dermot Stokes sidesteps the hysteria to offer some sober reflection on the use and misuse of alcohol
Having survived their initial mauling at the hands of the British music press, Asia-obsessed psychedelists KULA SHAKER have returned for a second innings. Frontman CRISPIAN MILLS lays off the poppadoms for long enough to chat to JACKIE HAYDEN about his band's new album, Strangefolk.
A long way from there to here
With 35 years on the road behind them, THE DUBLINERS are the roots of Irish music. Interview: Colm
O'Hare. The Rolling Stones aren't the only ones celebrating 35 years on the road this year.
Singer-songwriter Leslie Dowdall now lives in the picture postcard perfection of the Wicklow Mountains. But Jackie Hayden finds a hive of internal activity within the external tranquillity.
Irish fiction continues to grow in both popularity and hipness. In this special feature we talk to three of its most prominent young exponents: John Connolly, Conal Creedon and Julie Parsons.
More people than ever may be smoking it but Ireland s marijuana laws remain among the most draconian in Europe. In the second part of our series on drugs in Ireland, STUART CLARK presents the dope on dope.
They once blagged a soccer scholarship to America as a laugh. Now back in the UK with a number one album, The Hoosiers are at the forefront of their very own scene: “odd-pop”.
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.
The current moral panic over binge-drinking is borne out of a 19th century Protestant ethic. Plus, The Hog’s Six Golden Rules for having a good Christmas.
In the first of a new Hot Press series, in which we ll be asking well-known Irish people to step onto a national podium, author and
publisher dermot bolger delivers his state of the nation address.
He's not a Christmassy guy, he says, but perhaps the season has made Jape's Richie Egan reflective. Patrick Freyne talks to him about the past, present and future.
On the face of it, the Fleadh Mor in Tramore had it all: blistering sunshine, hairy hippies, a stall selling glow in the dark condoms and a line up of rock 'n' roll legends that would be hard to match.
Canadian songstress Emm Gryner has toured with David Bowie and released a collection of Irish rock covers. Her new album might just be her most ambitious, and mysterious, yet.
It isn’t what it used to be – which makes it all the more important that Workers Rights should be properly protected. Some say that the Lisbon Treaty will help in that respect. Others profoundly disagree. We asked a representative of both sides to make the case for voting Yes and No...
If there were handouts for the shy and retiring, Dervish would be at the back of the queue. Never backward in coming forward, this Sligo/Roscommon ensemble have elevated audience rapport to an art form that's sadly all too rarely practised round these here parts. Lead singer, Cathy Jordan (the sole Roscommon interloper amid a quintet of Sligomen) delights in the more quirky and bizarre backgrounds to the band's songs and tunes. And somehow they all seem to treat a night flight to Kuala Lumpur with the same gravity as they would a skite to Kenmare. Dervish live and breathe on the road. Its interminable miles are the band's sustenance, its cat's eyes their compass to the next town, the next continent, and the next gig.
Poetry slam takes poetry out of the hands of academics and puts it on stage in front of an audience. But not everyone thinks this is a good idea, as a recent spat in Galway underlines.
By now one of the most esteemed events on the Irish cultural calendar, the Galway Arts Festival 2003 will once again bring you the best in contemporary theatre, literature, comedy and music
The days of pop dominance are over. The worm has turned, and a whole new slew of blood and guts rock and roll bands are coming through with records that carry more than a hint of greatness. The darkling posse is headed by the Kings Of Leon – but there are outfits from all over the world who will be vying for poll position over the coming 12 months.
With even the comparatively tranquil Euro 2004 marred by trouble on the Algarve, the issue of football hooliganism remains a live one. Now, one of its definitive texts has made it to the big screen. Craig Fitzsimons meets the men – and learns about the hard men – behind The Football Factory
Our correspondent gets his snout out of the suey trough long enough to watch Hal, The Revs and former Snow Patrol man Iain Archer participate in the Eurosonic talentfest in Groningen. Words and Photos: Stuart Clark
Great weather for ducks, they say. This island has been deluged. Inundated. East to west, south to north. And it is, if anything, worse to the east. The Rhine is already many metres above normal as far inland as Köln. By the time it subsides, billions of marks worth of damage will have been done.
Ahead of the band s heineken green energy gig in Dublin, PETER MURPHY talks to
NINA PERSSON of THE CARDIGANS about success, sexuality, self-esteem and joyriding!
To some it is the great white hope in the battle against illegal file-sharing, and the idea that music on the internet comes for free. But to others, it is another nail in the coffin for artists who earn a paltry sum for the streaming of their music.
catherine doherty clambers aboard the Heineken RollErcoaster and joins Revelino, The Nude, Mesner, and Abbaesque for a crazy white-knuckle ride into deepest Munster.
Where other bands moan about the music industry or spend small fortunes bringing their stage designs to life, Stereophonics like to keep it nice and simple. Or at least as nice and simple as it gets when you tour with U2, get advice from Prince Charles and see Slipknot with their masks off
ROCK IN RIO, which attracts 200,000 people, may be known for headliners like Sting, REM and Britney Spears. But this year, DERVISH played there too - and got a rapturous welcome. SIOBHÁN LONG reports from an extraordinary event
BLOODHOUND GANG might not be paragons of good taste, but they do live out the rock n roll lifestyle like no other band. JIMMY POP talks to STUART CLARK about swearing, drugs, porn stars and amusing Germans! Pop Pic-er: Declan English
Surviving the exit of Darren Emerson, as well as various personal traumas and professional challenges, Underworld have re-emerged with their most positive album yet in 100 Days Off
There have been a lot of musicians, but only one Beethoven; there have been a lot of artists, but only one Michelangelo; and there have been a lot of footballers, but only one Pelé.
LIAM MACKEY meets the Brazilian soccer legend who really does deserve to be called “the greatest”.
There are more outlets than ever before in Ireland offering tanning services. So why has the Government failed to regulate what is clearly a high risk activity?
LIAM FAY not a man who subscribes to Shaved Orientals swallowed his pride and morality recently to attend the PLAYBOY magazine 1st-anniversary-in-Ireland celebration bash.
There he met Miss December 1996, VICTORIA SILVSTEDT. Did he succumb to her boundless, eh, force of personality? Read on and find out . . . Pix: MICK QUINN
Endless traffic, skyrocketing house prices, vandalism, litter, corrupt planners, listed buildings being pulled down to make way for |ber-pubs and highrises. Doesn t Dublin deserve better than this? KIM PORCELLI talks to Irish Times Environment Correspondent FRANK McDONALD about his new book, The Construction Of Dublin, and some of the more controversial proposals to save the city before it s too late
Having steamrolled its way across America, and through most of Europe, it seemed as if U2 s PopMart extravaganza might come to grief in the most unlikely of places their homeland of Ireland. Now however, one Supreme Court case on, U2 are scheduled to play not just two Dublin dates but a newly-added Belfast homecoming as well. Interview: MIKE EDGAR
Massive Attack explain why they are outspoken opponents of the proposed war in Iraq, give high praise to Sinéad O’Connor and reveal how a porn soundtrack left them gasping for airtime.
He believes that country music can make people "turn their hearts away from sin." He also believes that Jerry Lee, Elvis and The Beatles failed to answer the call of Jesus and that many rock groups - U2 consPICUOUSLY not included - are now doing the devil's work. JOE JACKSON hears the gospel according to Ricky Skaggs.
You’ve grown your hair and want to make a bitching rock record. Who do you call? Arctic Monkeys tell Stuart Clark about their remarkable journey from Sheffield to the Mojave.
With compass in hand and their newly unfurled Map Of The Universe nestling comfortably on their laps, Blink are boldly going where few Irish bands have gone before. But what happens when they get to Cork and Ballybunion? Intrepid explorer LIAM FAY dons his rucksack, climbs aboard the Blinkmobile and survives to tell the tale.
With his work on the soundtrack to In The Name Of The Father bringing him into the full glare of media attention Gavin Friday takes this opportunity to put to rest any accusations of riding on U2’s coat-tails. Confident and brimming with ideas for his solo career, The Spotlight Kid gives the lowdown to an eager BILL GRAHAM.
When someone dies in a car crash, alcohol is routinely blamed. But a close look at the figures shows that, beyond the tabloid hysteria, the truth is sometimes very different.
Hotpress hitch a ride on the Wilt tour bus for the band’s whistle-stop tour of Europe. For tales of on-stage abandon, backstage debauchery and bizarre drumming accidents, read on. Plus Cormac Battle’s tour diary
By popular demand, ULRIKA JONSSON is coming back to Belfast to co-host this year's heineken-hot press awards. olaf tyaransen meets up with television's Golden Girl and hears about the world of the small screen, the men in her life, the poet behind the party animal, tabloid intrusion and the importance of Van Morrison in keeping her head straight.
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.
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.
Having already conquered Ireland and the UK, SAMANTHA MUMBA is poised to join Britney and Christina at the top of the American pop chart. Not bad for someone who two years ago was fired from a panto by Twink! Now, with her new album Gotta Tell You ready for release, the Dublin singer talks candidly to JOE JACKSON about drugs, sex and the break-up of her parents marriage
Andy Darlington travels to Manchester to meet the Stone Roses, an outfit who’ve progressed past the point of being just a band to become something altogether bigger...
When the offer came to produce the new Rolling Stones album in Dublin what answer could Don Was give but a resounding ‘Yes’. Mick, Keef & Co. are the latest in a long and impressive list of the man’s studio credits which includes Bob Dylan, The B-52’s, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt and Paula Abdu. But throw in the small matter of the career of Was (Not Was) and the musical rehabilitation of errant Beach Boys’ genius Brian Wilson and we’re talking major industry player here. Bill Graham takes up the story . . .
Find out what Brian Cowen thinks is in store for Ireland in light of the global financial crisis and the government's unpopular decisions on medical cards and education cuts.
Masturbating for charity – it was a new one on us. So whose idea was it? What was the purpose? Who would turn up? And what would happen in real life, when the doors to the Wank-a-thon were finally declared open? There was only one way to get the real SP on what promised to be one of the most bizarre events ever mounted in London. Send for our man Tyaransen: he wouldn’t make his excuses and leave! Or would he?
The pace is gentle throughout, with soothing tinkly arrangements of classics like ‘Green Grows The Laurel’ and ‘Bonny Light Horseman’ alongside lesser-known songs and tunes; the latter include an unusual jazzy interpretation of Robert Burns’ ‘The Slave’s Lament’, a march written by O’Leary for his newborn son Josef, and the title track co-authored by the two.
Music fans are now spoilt for choice with today's announcement that the mobile network 3 has now over 1 million tracks available for download from their online mobile music store.
Time-travel flick The Time Machine catapults Samantha Mumba to box-office fame (Top 4 in the US on Paddy's Weekend). Meanwhile, her very own Blair Witch project is well under way
Swedish cinema is not noted for its humour, its greatest exponent being Ingmar Bergman, who, for the uninitiated, is like Woody Allen without the jokes (or at least that's what Woody Allen would like to think). Which is a cliché of course, and one delightfully undermined by House of Angels.
Their long-awaited debut possesses a surprisingly large amount of variety, but the overall problem here lies with the fact that The Hoosiers simply don’t dish out enough quality.
The sophomore album from Swedish rockers Mando Diao is a schismatic affair. A few minutes of sheer brilliance like gems ‘Added Family’ and ‘Next To Be Lowered’ get our hopes up one moment only to frustrate them the next by been-there, heard-that mediocrity.
The sophomore album from Swedish rockers Mando Diao is a schismatic affair. A few minutes of sheer brilliance like gems ‘Added Family’ and ‘Next To Be Lowered’ get our hopes up one moment only to frustrate them the next by been-there, heard-that mediocrity.
It’s a record that provides more ballast for those who claim that the top end of the pops have dished out a creative pummelling to the murky underground.
John Walshe talks to Eamon Dowd, frontman with The Racketeers about a possible Christmas EP, what it s like to be big in Scandinavia and how their drummer got stabbed and arrested on tour.
There is nothing particularly new, different or innovative about the way they grind their axe, but they do it with such old-fashioned gusto and consistency that it's easy to get caught up in the sheer exuberance of it all
With a sound as unique and original as this, The Concretes certainly won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but if you’re a fan of cockeyed waltzes, broken-hearted ballads and wonderfully warm and uplifting pop melodies, then you won’t be wasting your money.
We could squabble over the Mercury Music Prize shortlist until the cows come home, but this year has seen some unfathomable omissions. For instance, how come Primal Scream’s Xtrmntr, a career high and easily the equal of 1991’s Mercury-winning Screamadelica, gets ignored in favour of their buddies Death In Vegas muscular but somewhat overrated Contino Sessions.
Half the Scottish indie glitterati (if not more) to play on the Reindeer Section's latest - and several new heavenly bodies become visible in the Bright Star Recordings constellation
Marianne Faithfull possesses a voice made out of Blue Velvet; cracked and compelling in its evocation of ruined innocence.
This wayward aristocrat has had a reckless career; in the last two years alone Faithfull's gone from fronting Brecht and Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins to gracing Metallica's 'The Memory Remains' with the kind of performance she could moan in her sleep.
From the glory days of the ‘80s to the ‘nul points’ indignation of recent years, Ireland’s Eurovision stock has taken a worrying slide. Can this year’s Moscow-bound representatives, SINÉAD MULVANEY and LESLEY-ANN, restore our standing as kings of Euro-cheese? n
On the back of five years’ worth of movies that either overtly or covertly address Iraq and the War On Terror, Rendition feels a little late coming out of the starting gates.
Travel back in time, say, to twenty years ago. At that time few people would have believed that at a time not far into the future we would be able to watch virtually every major film that was ever made in the comfort of our own home on our television screens.
Overall, Tyrannosaurus Hives is a fairly perfunctory attempt to merge a few different new-wave guitar styles, with ‘70s punk as the support scaffolding. But, like many of their contemporaries, The Hives don’t seem to have the willingness to progress and experiment that mark out the truly great bands.
They mightn’t stand a Roy Keane in Saipan’s chance of making it through to the group stage, but Jonathan O’Brien was impressed with Bohemians’ win in the European Champions League qualifiers
He was the man whose evidence put a huge hole in the stern of Pirate Bay, in a landmark judgement in Sweden earlier this year. Now the CEO and Chairman of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, John Kennedy, is set to speak at The Music Show, which takes place on October 3 and 4, at the RDS in Dublin. He will speak on the issue of illegal downloading and the threat it represents to the Music Industry, which is currently undergoing massive changes as a result of the impact of the internet. The Music Show is run by Hot Press magazine.
Dublin singer-songwriter MICHELE ANN KELLY has been nominated as “Advocate of the Month” by the Marriage Equality campaign, having declared her support for the concept of Marriage Equality by dedicating a share of proceeds from the sale of her current single ‘Time’ to the campaign.
So what do I think of the World Cup draw, I hear you ask? Well, like most followers of the beautiful game, and many people who know bugger all about it, my instant reaction was one of considerable alarm.
The Hype are one of countless brave bands struggling to make headway with no money to spend on recording and saddled with a manager in a similar plight
Morty McCarthy, drummer with the Sultans of Ping and unreconstructed Corkman, is teaching English in Stockholm University. He gives us the lowdown on local attractions.
JONATHAN O BRIEN is distinctly unimpressed by this season s footballing fare, and Leicester s omnipresence on TV coupled with Celtic s fallibility is doing nothing to improve his mood.
In 2000, Bertie Ahern condemned rich countries who contribute too little to Overseas Development Aid. Now, we have taken our place among the guilty parties.
Played one, lost one. No, it s not the bald statistics of Foul Play s recent unsuccessful foray into the world of badminton, but the statistically exemplary record that Howard Wilkinson seems destined to leave the England job with, following his team s horror-show against France at Wembley last week.
“ANOTHER great night for Swedish football” was the verdict of controversial rock critic George Byrne on the European demise of Manchester United at the hands of IFK Gothenburg, last seen being thrashed to within an inch of their lives by a League of Ireland selection.
His appointment may have surprised some observers but there s a simple explanation why, for the first time, a rock journalist has been appointed manager of the England football team
Italy to win the world cup. Germany fail to get out of their group. Ireland for the same group and navigate the last 16 but go out in the quarter-finals. Jonathan O'Brien peers into his world cup crystal ball and explains who'll do well - and why - in Japan and Korea.
Illustrations Niall O’Loughlin
As EURO 2000 gets into full swing, your TV-addicted correspondent finds himself entertained by the diverse charms of Big Ron, Bill O Herlihy and Eamon Dunphy
Far from leading to violence, studies show that the availability of hard core porn leads to a reduction in sex crimes. And besides, perfectly normal people enjoy it.
The Electric Picnic couldn’t have been any more inspiring (weather excepted). Now, roll on the Music Show....
Electric Picnic. It marks the end of the summer, and the beginning of the academic year when people start to trudge back to schools and college. It is a moment when you start to anticipate the darkness falling down around us, the days getting shorter and then shorter again, till the watershed weekend arrives when the clocks go back, and the winter comes stealing in.
Think you've got them all right? Or maybe you fancy a sneaky peak (you're only cheating yourself you know!). Either way, you've got the questions – we've got the answers....
He's the acknowledged elder statesman of Irish literature. But John Banville also has an intriguing parallel career as a writer of gumshoe potboilers. He talks about juggling personas - and about the dangers of dishing out bad reviews to other writers.
The British police have admitted to adopting a shoot to kill policy in their pursuit of Islamic terrorists. But already, with the brutal slaying of Jean Charles de Manezes, they have claimed the life of one innocent victim. So who will be held accoutable?
Or how the Christian right detected family values in the sex lives of penguins. But only the heterosexual ones. Plus: the bizarre parable of the Eyeballs In The Sky.
Folk centre with Sarah McQuaid: the forthcoming debut solo album from Nollaig Casey features contributions from such luminaries as Sharon Shannon, Rod Mcvey and Liam Bradley.
It sounds like a conspiracy theory. But fresh documentary evidence suggests that the US covertly orchestrated the establishment of the EU – and that a prime mover was an Irish-American secret agent who had had dinner with Hitler.
Q: Which top Irish quiz-masters’ pathological obsessions include Something Happens, Shamrock Rovers and the amount of shopping days left to the next Suede gig? A: George “You Started, So I’ll Finish” Byrne
There are those who believe that the future of music as an art form is seriously under threat from the rise of music piracy. Where will it all end? The truth is that no one truly knows.
RTE2 have plenty of live music action to keep us placated for the next few weeks - here's the line up of bands and when to catch them. For more about the Other Voices series, click on the link at the very bottom.
