With Paul McGuinness now taking care of business, The Rapture can’t be entirely kidding when they tell Stuart Clark that they have no problem with becoming the biggest band in the world.
There’s a buzz going around the Village tonight. New York’s latest great white hopes The Rapture are in town to play their first Irish show, and the sell-out crowd is a mix of those already well acquainted with the house of echoes that is their debut and those curious to see if there’s more to them than the ‘disco-Strokes’ tag they’ve been lumped with in some quarters.
When punk-funk art rockers The Rapture emerged a couple of years ago, they failed to translate tragic hipness into big sales. Road psychosis aggravated the problem, but they weathered in-fighting to ditch the DFA production and strike out on their own.
The most exciting merger of rock and dance since the heyday of The Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays and Primal Scream – meet The Rapture. Words Paul Nolan
NYC’s finest return from their suspiciously long hiatus with a Ewan Pearson/Paul Epworth-twiddled track about nothing really that sounds, well, pretty much like The Rapture. Good to dance to and nice to have them back and all, but we were expecting a little bit more.
As fantastic and great in every way that The Rapture are, this is a third single and it shows: it’s not got the disco anthem of ‘Get Myself Into It’ or the electro-cool of ‘Whoo! Alright — Yeah... Uh Huh’. It’s the New York troupe at their most relaxed and poppiest, even containing a “na na na na” singalong bit that eases the pain for those of us who miss it from the Kaiser Chiefs’ new material. Sigh.
They’ve spent the past four years pottering around the garden. Now, electro kingpins Groove Armada are back with a new album that features cameos from ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena among others.
This year's Trinity Ball is looking to be bigger and better than ever, with the likes of Buck 65, The Rapture, The Charlatans, Dizzee Rascal and Soulwax all among the artists announced so far
The good vibes in the air at Lovebox were enough to get not just the concert security, but also the St. John’s Ambulance paramedics dancing. Yeah, there was something in the air alright.
Fresh from strutting their stuff at Oxegen, Kasabian will be joined by The Rapture and Hot Chip to play a special show in Belfast as part of a new Channel 4 music programme.
Rather fatuously billed on the CD sleeve as “the ultimate global stringband”, Mozaik are Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Bruce Molsky (USA), Rens Van Der Zalm (Holland) and Nikola Parov (Hungary), and this album was recorded live in Brisbane two years ago with the lads playing 18 instruments between them. The recording quality thankfully captures all the rapture of a terrific gig.
In the continuing craze of genre- invention that’s sweeping the planet, LCDS are, apparently, a ‘discopunk’ act. You may get an idea of what this sounds like if I tell you that The Rapture have released some pretty ‘discopunk’ material, and I’d imagine Warp Records’ !!! (pronounced chink, chink, chink) fall into the same bracket.
As revealed in the current issue of Hot Press, there's a fab new festival in town - and it's got the likes of Groove Armada and Super Furry Animals among its world-class acts.
Unofficial curator of the New York club scene and head of a creative emporium many have described as a contemporary version of Warhol’s factory, LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is rapidly emerging as one of the biggest players in the U.S. underground. He tells Barry O’Donoghue how it happened
He used to be the ultimate indie no-hoper. But now JACK PEÑATE has discovered Krautrock, nu-rave and world music and released one of the year’s most engaging, and surprisingly accomplished, records. He talks about cultivating his eclectic side and discovering an outsider sensibility he describes as ‘joyous melancholy’.
Since the release of their sophomore album Antics late last year, New York goth-rock quartet Interpol have risen to the pantheon of great contemporary bands. In a rare in-depth interview, the group’s erudite frontman Paul Banks here discusses the making of Antics, their upcoming support slot with U2, the band’s peers in the NYC indie scene, The Strokes, Nirvana and David Lynch - and where one of the most acclaimed groups of recent years go to from here. Interview by Paul Nolan.
Never mind CD:UK, Top Of The Pops and Later With Jools – you really know you’ve made it when the phone rings and it’s Sparks telling you they love you. Stuart Clark hears about the irresistible rise of Glasgow hotshots Franz Ferdinand.
LCD Soundsystem's frontman James Murphy talks about working with Justin Timberlake, his Cork ancestors and recalls the time he almost hooked up with Arcade Fire
Our annual HP-7 summit brings together some of the pre-eminent movers and shakers in irish music to reflect on everything from backstage catering to the end of war, pestilence and famine. Your host: Stuart Clark.
U2 manager Paul McGuinness is among the most powerful players in the music industry. To coincide with the DVD release of U2’s classic ZOO TV Live From Sydney, he talks candidly about his relationship with the band and their controversial decision to move part of their business empire to the Netherlands in order to lower their tax burden.
Annual article: The Electric Picnic wasn’t just one of the musical events of the year; it also let us chow down and have a natter with some of the top pop combos of the day, including Bloc Party, Gang Of Four and New Order.
From A to Z, Paul Nolan and Ronan Fitzgerald introduce all the runners and riders for Punchestown – throwing in a baker’s dozen of acts who are not to be missed* along the way
Although there's been no official confirmation, the word on the industry grapevine is that this year's Electric Picnic headliners will include Bjork, the Beastie Boys, Primal Scream and Damon Albarn and Paul Simonon's new outfit, The Good, The Bad & The Queen.
U2 are about to unleash their new album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The world’s media are descending on Dublin. And Bono is back at the punch-bag, getting into fighting shape before the shit storm really explodes. The gloves are off. He’s got work to do. And he’s going to do it. Words Stuart Clark, additional reporting by Niall Stokes.
Having been available for the past four years as a white label 12”, Tim Wheeler’s collaboration with legendary dance producer Arthur Baker is finally receiving a commercial release.
If you can get over the slightly worrying sensation of a city of nine million crowded around one increasingly frayed hymnsheet, Yes New York has much to recommend it.
Danielle Brigham caught the hililghts from last night's Witnness bill. Feast your peepers on reviews of Badly Drawn Boy, The Thrills, Lemon Jelly and The Streets
Danielle Brigham caught the highlights from last night's Witnness bill. Feast your peepers on reviews of Badly Drawn Boy, The Thrills, Lemon Jelly and The Streets
One of the funniest comedy sketches I ever saw concerned the timelessly naff quality of Queen’s sartorial sensibilities. It was on an Armstrong And Miller show about four years ago, and was set in the year 2040. A guide was taking a group of tourists around a stately home, which was putatively an exact replica of Freddie Mercury’s real life abode. The titular comedians were paid actors playing – for “educational purposes”, understand – Brian May and the late singer, with Ben Miller’s skin-tight leather costume being an especially funny tribute to Mercury’s near-heroically outrageous fashion sense.
Yes, the incessant downpour ensured that Punchestown Racecourse often looked more like the set of a World War 1 epic than a music festival, but the rain couldn't dampen the 80,000-strong Oxegen crowd's spirits, not to mention the fiery performances delivered by Arctic Monkeys, Franz, The Who, the Chili Peppers and a cast of, well, hundreds.
Budget cuts almost spelled the end of Other Voices. But the team behind the Dingle music institution rallied around – with the result that this year’s line-up is arguably among the strongest in the history of the show
Music Review | Live
19% | 7 Sep 2006
They said it couldn’t be done, but this year’s Electric Picnic achieved the impossible by being even more joyous, vibey and action-packed than its predecessors. Hot Press was in the thick of things as 200 acts and 30,000 music lovers descended on one very big house in the country.
America may be a conservative place in many respects – but in fact we owe our modern sense of sexual freedom to great American pioneers, from Alfred Kinsey to Annie Sprinkle…
