The incredible visuals give each accompanying track a unique persona, and the number of mobile phones held high to capture the images onscreen are a testament to that.
Often quite beautiful, yes, and probably perfectly matched to the visuals, but it doesn’t make this an album to which you’ll necessarily want to return to again and again.
With little to offer in the visuals department – five blokes playing guitars whilst remaining stationary having lost its allure many years ago – The Thrills instead hope to get by on sheer pop class instead.
It may constitute the soundtrack to one of the most technically impressive concert films ever made, but once it's divorced from its constituent visuals, Stop Making Sense falls fairly flat as a document of Talking Heads' musical abilities.
UNIMAGINATIVELY BILLED as a hybrid of Forrest Gump and The Truman Show, this expensively-budgeted time-travelogue boasts an intriguing enough premise (two Nineties kids let loose in a Fifties TV show) as well as its fair share of highly inventive visuals, but owing to an excess of sub-Capra sentimentality and a grossly over-extended running time, it ends up spoiling much of its own impressive initial impact.
Donal Dineen launches his latest exhibition at the Galway Arts Festival this month. as we've come to expect from the DJ, TV presenter, filmmaker and photographer, music plays a big part in the new work
Jeremy Hickey, aka Rarely Seen Above Ground, has become one of the most acclaimed artists in the Irish indie scene. He talks about the intriguing origins of his unique musical style.
Our correspondent road-tests a rare but legal herb which might offer him an epic, life-affirming religious moment or make him feel like a mere atom in a speck of dirt up some earthworm's arse. How did he fare? Read on...
A far from scattered shower, DAEMIEN FROST are among the more interesting of dublin’s current indie crop, complex, original and conscious of the importance of video in gaining access to a wider audience.
HANNAH HAMILTON presses play and record
They were Ireland’s original of the punk species, and thirty years on from their debut, Paranoid visions are still fizzling with anti-establishment fury. The difference, they say, is that nowadays they are more likely to channel their rage through music rather than chuck a bottle through a shop window
Superheroes, talking animals, three fingered dressmakers and more populate the weird and wonderful world of the soon to be massive Empire of the sun and Edwin McFee steps inside the mind of main-man Luke Steele for a journey he’ll never forget.
RAIDIS NA GAELTACHTA seems an unlikely home for one of the most adventurous music shows on the Irish airwaves. Drop your prejudices and check out An Taobh Tuathail, says EAMON SWEENEY.
Hard Working Class Heroes, featuring big names and rising stars – and everything from rock to hip-hop – is set to provide a snapshot of one nation under a groove. Phil Udell reports
She's worked with Keane, Razorlight and Bloc Party. But young video-maker Aoife McArdle's true inspiration are the elegantly gloomy movies of '40s Hollywood.
Belfast boys General Fiasco may be one of the standout acts on the Oh Yeah showcase CD, but when HP catches up with the band, they're feeling a little, um, overexposed.
Tara Brady talks to director Pete Docter about the latest Pixar mega-hit Up, which tells the story of an elderly widower who sets sail on an Amazonian adventure.
The Lovebox festival returns to Dublin with a stellar line-up including Maximo Park, N*E*R*D, Paolo Nutini and Gorillaz Soundsystem. We talk to organisers Groove Armada.
They’ve performed in front of Will Ferrell and created a huge stir with their RTE debut. Just back from Edinburgh, Dead Cat Bounce are now setting their sights on the live arena.
Director PADDY BREATHNACH, producer ROB WALPOLE and writer CONOR McPHERSON take time out from polishing their latest haul of gongs to talk CATHY DILLON through the making of I Went Down.
Getting behind the scary image of the world’s most notorious band is not easy but PHIL UDELL manfully plugs away as SLIPKNOT’s SHAWN CRAHAN plays hardball
The inaugural Thirst event in Cork featured Paul Oakenfold, a DJ competition for some of Ireland’s best emerging spindoctors and 1,200 up-for-it clubbers determined to have the night of their lives
He brought the plight of the Guildford Four to the silver screen and shot a weepy film about the Irish diaspora. Now Jim Sheridan has made a movie with the sultan of bling, rap star 50 Cent. It’s all Bono’s fault, he tells Tara Brady.
A thrilling collision in the Guinness Storehouse between the aural and visual worlds, Wonky2 - brainchild of Leagues O'Toole - proved that at some parties, you don't have to check your mind in at the door
Intrepid explorer Olaf Tyaransen stops scratching his arse long enough to detail his ongoing struggle with mosquito bites, view a DVD package of Tsunami footage and inadvertently attend a Thai funeral.
Giant lemons, 100ft toothpicks and enough lights to put Las Vegas on full-scale UFO alert. Helena Mulkerns watches with gob well and truly smacked as U2's PopMart extravaganza opens for business at the Sam Boyd Stadium.
Pix: All Action
Following in the footsteps of Joy Division, The Smiths and The Stone Roses, Mancunian rockers Doves have continued the tradition of musical excellence for which their hometown is internationally renowned. With their new opus Some Cities in the offing, vocalist Jimi Goodwin here discusses apocalyptic weather, urban decay and those abandoned recording sessions with Madonna’s producer.
Live on your TV and your wireless, 2TV will be broadcasting all summer long. JACKIE HAYDEN goes behind the scenes on the show that shakes up Sunday mornings.
A new album, an exclusive gig and opinions on Velvet Goldmine, the Internet and life, love and happiness. STUART CLARK meets the legendary DAVID BOWIE.
These days he may be more famous for his movies than his prose, but in conversation Neil Jordan remains linguistically precise as he dissects the Hollywood machine, reveals his love for Lord Of The Rings and discusses his latest movie The Good Thief, starring Nick Nolte.
The Walls and The Jimmy Cake do their bit for European unity by bringing their music – and an insatiable appetite for the craic – to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Our reporter Danielle Brigham survives to tell the tale.
Computer games have been one of the remarkable growth areas of recent years in home entertainment. Colm O'Hare looks at developments in this intensely competitive field and predicts that – with so much mazooma at stake – it could become a veritable battle zone over the coming twelve months.
When I first started showing a real interest in music, and buying 7'' singles every week in Downpatrick's 'Sounds' for my 99p pocket money, videos weren't as available.
and didn’t like what he saw... Fatboy Slim tells Stuart Clark about an encounter with Man Utd so unpleasant that even Zoe Ball is thinking of switching her allegiance to Brighton. Plus: the highs of Normstock and the lows of So Solid Crew
Backstage at Creamfields, JOHN WALSHE talks to FATBOY SLIM about the joys of fatherhood, being one half of the posh and becks of the chemical generation; sharing a hot-tub with Baz Luhrman and how he got Christopher Walken to tap-dance
A defining personality of the seismic changes in Northern Ireland, Billy Hutchinson is a paramilitary turned politician, a convicted UVF murderer who spent 16 years in the Maze and who will now represent the PUP in the new Assembly. But if Hutchinson has abandoned violence, it hasn’t altogether abandoned him. As he reveals in this interview with niall stanage, there have been three attempts on his life by the INLA in the last 18 months.
Pics: Michael Taylor.
He might have been a young Einsten but instead MARK OLIVER EVERETT ended up as EELS aka a man called E aka the Souljacker. PETER MURPHY discovers how it all went horribly right
Following the lukewarm reception accorded Jackie Brown six years ago, Quentin Tarantino reached a crossroads in his career. now, following a prolonged retreat from the media spotlight, a rumoured struggle with writer’s block and his break-up with Mira Sorvino, the most influential film-maker of the nineties has made a stunning return to form with the explosive samurai thriller, Kill Bill. Craig Fitzsimons travelled to london to meet the director and discuss the film he describes as “the movie of my geek boy dreams.”
Thought that’d grab your attention! Having made his name with such arthouse classics as In The Mood For Love, Fallen Angels and Chungking Express, legendary Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai is back with the eagerly anticipated 2046. A dazzling collage of existential longing, wacky sci-fi and lurid pulp thrills, it confirms his status as, well, one of the real greats of modern cinema.
Softly spoken off stage and complete lunatics on it, Kila have torn up the rulebook with their wantonly eclectic mix of styles. music, inner anger, revolutions and, er, women who cure warts are all discussed, as the band’s Colm O Snodaigh talks to Peter Murphy.
From badass bunnies via political incorrectness to the mightiest drummer in rock ’n’ roll, it’s all in an interview’s work for Queens Of The Stone Age mainman Josh Homme.
The Kooks' first album was a million-selling sensation. As they unleash the long-awaited sequel, frontman Luke Pritchard talks about the death of his father, his feud with television presenter Simon Amstell and much more...
As The White Stripes prepare to unleash another work of scuzz-bucket genius, frontman Jack White talks about his Catholic upbringing and explains why, as a teenager in blue collar Detroit, he fell hopelessly in love with the blues.
For the person in the eye of the storm, massive success can involve a titanic struggle. Especially when, as you’re trying to keep your bearings, ordinary life jumps up to punch you in the teeth. Now, after death, birth, fatigue, grief, joy and the "mindfuck" that is "the tidal wave of success," it is time, says David Gray, to get back to the music. and – whisper it – maybe even have a little holiday.
The success of The Frames, Juliet Turner and Damien Rice, amongst others, has inspired a new do-it-yourself attitude among Irish musicians and bands, who are no longer prepared to wait for the imprimatur of a major label to get their records made. Here, Hot Press presents a step by step guide to becoming a DIY record magnate
The success of The Frames, Juliet Turner and Damien Rice – amongst others has inspired a new do it yourself attitude among Irish musicians and bands, who are no longer prepared to wait for the imprimatur of a major label to get their records made. Here Hot Press presents a step by step guide to becoming a DIY record magnate. Words: Tanya Sweeney. Additional reporting: Jackie Hayden
The success of The Frames, Juliet Turner and Damien Rice – amongst others has inspired a new do it yourself attitude among Irish musicians and bands, who are no longer prepared to wait for the imprimatur of a major label to get their records made. Here Hot Press presents a step by step guide to becoming a DIY record magnate. Words: Tanya Sweeney. Additional reporting: Jackie Hayden
London has long been recognised as one of the world's leading centres of entertainment and musical excitement - not to mention pleasure in all its multifarious manifestations. But when you really need it, do you know where to find it? Fay Wolftree brings you the insider's inside guide to Europe's premier rock 'n' roll metropolis.
Arriving in Dublin in the last sixties as a 16 year old guitar wunderkind, Belfast born Gary Moore embarked on a musical career that has seen him go through several metamorphoses and achieve numerous notable success in the process.
LIMP BIZKIT are a rock'n'roll phenomenon. Notching up in excess of 20 million album sales over the past two years, they're in the vanguard of the nu-metal movement that has seen guitar rock reclaiming its place at the top of the singles charts. In Madrid to catch the band live, PHIL UDELL first hears passionate words from the frontman, FRED DURST. But, amid a welter of controversy, the raging music is put on hold as Limp Bizkit's show in the Spanish capital is cancelled – an ominous foreshadowing of the events that will see their UK, German and Irish dates also sensationally cancelled
JJ 72 have been hailed by some critics as the finest thing to come out of Ireland since U2 - and no wonder. With a hugely impressive debut album under their collective belt, the expectations are even higher for the follow-up, I To Sky. They share with their illustrious predecessors a predilection for intense songs of spiritual yearning - and a desire to make music that truly stands the test of time. But is it rock'n'roll?
At the ripe old age of 50, when most of his peers are floundering in the doldrums, Nick Cave has hit a purple patch with Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album to date.
Has Madonna become the immaterial girl? Or will the Re-invention tour re-establish her as the foremost female icon on the planet? On the eve of her first ever Irish appearance at Slane, Peter Murphy takes a look at the strange twist the Queen of Pop’s career has taken – and how she is now fighting back, for all she’s worth.
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
The fact that it's just over ten years since Pac-man was wowing the world's computer buffs, shows the vast leaps that the gaming industry has made since. Hot Press investigates the cult of the console.
LET'S GO SHOPPING
Gerry McGovern embarks on a mission to steer you through the sea of software.
The technology which drives home entertainment is changing, and it's changing fast. Colm O'Hare takes a close-up look at what's happening in hi-fi, television, video and home cinema technology and discovers that the future has already arrived.
Well when you've conquered the world, what else can the biggest band on the planet do except go into space? BONO and LARRY discuss matters cosmic and personal with Olaf Tyaransen
This year’s genre-redeemers, here to re-prove that words are for losers who can't say it with music, are the pathos-laden, relentless, positively monumental The Uptown Racquet Club
New York-based Irish artist Catherine Owens will be getting her posh frock out on August 31 as her clip for U2’s ‘Original Of The Species’ battles it out for Best Special Effects In A Video and Best Editing In A Video at the MTV Music Awards in New York.
All is go for Wicklow band God Is An Astronaut, with their second album and download-only single released, a tour to support it and a publishing deal to boot.
Like the rest of the Ninja Tune posse, Hexstatic have always been a few steps ahead of the pack. After all, it was the Hex/Hexstatic/Ninja operation that originally explored the synergy between electronic music and digitally generated images, taken to the fullest extreme on tracks like ‘Timber’, included here on the accompanying CD-Rom. However, all this techno wizardry would mean nada if the music was sub-standard.
Retrosexuals ahoy. Like Sin City, Zack Snyder’s pounding adaptation of Frank Miller’s Greco-Roman graphic novel falls somewhere between live action and anime had the illustrations been provided by Tom of Finland.
THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT (Directed by Stephen Elliot. Starring Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Bill Hunter, Sarah Chadwick)
Hallelujah, brothers! Mercifully, the rain (which has intermittently fallen in bucket-loads throughout the day) has held off, and so the scene is perfectly set for peerless US noiseniks Sonic Youth to come along and do their alternately corrosive and blissfully melodic garage rock thang.
With the truly spellbinding vocals of The Tycho Brahe’s Carol Keogh captivating the audience from the off, the suprisingly formal guitar/bass/drums/keyboards line-up masterfully wove a supremely atmospheric, hypnotic wall of sound.
With two of the three main acts up for the Meteor Awards for Hope of 2006, it’s fair to say that the air of excitement about tonight isn’t merely that reserved for an everyday gig in the capital.
Like many of the studio greats, Disney’s first computer animated feature finds inspiration in a tale familiar to anyone who made it through kindergarten. This time around, however, the titular avian doomsayer has rather more guile than the featherbrain who walked right into Foxy Loxy’s supper-pot.
So how do you review a Kraftwerk concert? With four members, including two from the original line-up, the undisputed godfathers of electronic music would never really disappoint, particularly in an intimate venue like the Olympia. Yet, even as a huge fan, it is important not to get carried away and resign all objectivity.
Like the sinisterly puritanical Exorcism Of Emily Rose, Requiem takes inspiration from the case of Anneliese Michel, a young German student who, following a series of exorcisms, died in 1976.
Wonky was conceived for the eyes and ears as a celebration of the best live bands around sharing a stage with the best new electronic producers with the most entertaining visual backdrop possible courtesy of D.A.D.D.Y. and Del-9
Sountracks are getting weirder, that's for sure. No longer an excuse for stringing together the usual clutch of Motown classics, they are increasingly challenging audiences' sense of time and place by crossing genres and spanning generations.
Sountracks are getting weirder, that's for sure. No longer an excuse for stringing together the usual clutch of Motown classics, they are increasingly challenging audiences' sense of time and place by crossing genres and spanning generations.
Brought to you by the makers of Human Traffic, SW9 often plays like its predecessor’s older, more world-weary sibling. Its thematic preoccupations may be similar, but it’s a less frenetic and free-wheeling affair.
The animation empire’s apparent inability to produce a shit movie really is getting a bit sinister. Their uncanny run of form continues with The Incredibles.
Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith had harsh words for both U2 and Black Eyed Peas as the American funk rockers arrived in last weekend for their Oxegen and T In The Park festival headliners.
Co-written and directed by Dave McKean, Gaiman’s regular inker, with creature effects provided by the Henson Creature Workshop, the film momentarily recalls any number of spectacular rites-of-passage fantasies – The Wizard Of Oz, Labyrinth and Spirited Away all come to mind – while not being quite like anything you’ve ever seen before.
So raw it’s practically fucking dripping down your face, this remarkable Australian feature is just simmering with angst, sexuality and melancholy. That’s all my boxes ticked. Already laden down with awards, Ms. Shortland’s boozy, fucked-up coming-of-age drama features cinema’s most compelling Little Lost Slapper since a young Sam Morton donned a fur-coat and no knickers for Under The Skin.
Simple Kid effortlessly produces the kind of Beck-like sound that stoned hippies, stuck in their musty bedrooms with an acoustic guitar and an ounce, think they’re making.
JOHN LASSETER'S follow-up to the by-now classic Toy Story doesn't come close to reaching the sublime heights scaled by its predecessor, but that would probably be too much to ask.
U2 fans take note: Stealing Hearts At A Travelling Show will appear at Music Ireland '07. This is the first time this unmissable exhibition has been shown in Europe, so be sure to check it out. The exhibition will feature the designs that shaped the band for 25 years and the designers will also present an intimate Q&A session in the Red room on Saturday October 6.
Canadian director John Fawcett last dropped by with Ginger Snaps, a pleasing rush of lycanthropy, menstruation and goth angst in suburbia. Excluding the Nicole Kidman bits from Moulin Rouge, it was the best horror show of 2000. His delayed sophomore venture lacks the chic indie innovation of that earlier film, but it’s an intriguing knot of Celtic mythology, girl-ghosts and killer sheep just the same.
A DELICIOUSLY subtle, slice of cinema at its most unhurried and carefully-crafted, Cider Rouse Rules represents a resounding return to form for Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom, best known for his supreme coming-of-age drama My Life As A Dog
Attack Of The Clones turns out to be almost as awful as its predecessor, with only the occasional lightsabre fight serving to deflect attention from the demented ridiculousness of the entire enterprise
By all known rationale, this gig should be a disaster, a car-crash, Burroughs-in-a-GAP-advert awful. And yet, incredibly, miraculously, it’s not. It is fucking brilliant, a revelation, the best gig I have seen in this horrendous cattle-mart by some distance.
NOT FOR the first time, Ireland's echoing America in its current musical climate. Meat 'n' potatoes rock is, if not dead, then dozing, leaving the pop-kids and dance instructors calling the shots.
Fay Wolftree ponders whether or not attending a Pink Floyd concert was an inspired move or a momentary lapse of reason. Either way, the bell was in Earls Court.
Located just 10 minutes from central Budapest, the Sziget Festival is simply Europe’s biggest party. Taking place over seven days in August, it’s where Hungary and the rest of Europe collectively let their hair down!
Never quite attaining the knee-trembling brilliance of its soon to be seen sequel, House Of Flying Daggers, Zhang Yimou’s awe-inspiring swash-buckler, Hero is still a movie that simply begs, nay, pins you down on the ground and insists to be seen.
The Sabbath means no work and all play; The Last Post wrap up number two; Exile Eye find hip-hop equilibrium; and The Road Relish Singles Club says, We are ten
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
t's difficult to conceive of a more suitable environment for Decal's moody electronica or Coil's foreboding ambient compositions than the baroque surroundings of City Hall
The decision by the DEAF organisers to take electronic music out of the clubs and into more unorthodox venues is increasingly looking like a masterstroke. It's difficult to conceive of a more suitable environment for Decal's moody electronica or Coil's foreboding ambient compositions than the baroque surroundings of City Hall.
There could be no better illustration of how U2 have become global icons. Kick-starting the European leg of their Vertigo tour in Brussels’ King Baudouin Stadium on June 10, the old anti-sectarian favourite ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ electrified the crowd like no other. Here, however, it had been transformed from its original intent as a plea to end bloodshed in Northern Ireland into a hymn for religious harmony among the ‘sons of Abraham’ – Christians, Jews and Muslims.
“One… two… three… four. Is anybody aliiive out there?” Recorded at the final two shows of his record breaking ten-night stand at Madison Square Gardens last summer, this is The Boss’ most anticipated release in years.
Over three days, the cream of up-and-coming Irish and Scandinavian talent gave it their all. Killian Murphy picks out those that shone brightest. Click here. for live gallery.
PHIL KIERAN is a man of many talents producer, promoter, DJ, collaborator. Here, he talks about why the idea of a new Belfast scene is bollocks , teenage kicks and Drumcree!
Rogues Gallery, can be roughly – if fancifully – described as a Hallowe’en masqued ball staged on a decrepit ghost galleon. Featuring a cast of hundreds arrayed over two albums and 43 tunes, it’s an unruly assembly whose various belchings, bilgings and bemoanings lurch in tone and timbre from the bawdy to the doleful.
It was a safe bet that this year’s CREAMFIELDS festival at Punchestown racecourse would be the dance event of the year. hotpress brings you the vibe and the visuals. Photos: ROGER WOOLMAN
The opening night of a U2 tour can be fraught with peril. But in the Camp Nou in Barcelona tonight they exorcised the demons of previous tours and started on a winning note. Report: Olaf Tyaransen
Dateline San Diego, March 28th: with seven songs from their world-beating Vertigo album in the set, on the opening night of their world tour, it quickly became clear that – the occasional glitch notwithstanding – U2 have re-imagined their live set with remarkable success. Tara McCarthy asks: how do they do it?
"The Foos rock out royally, the reverberations from the kick drum dislodging confetti from the ceiling": Hannah Hamilton - and hotpress.com's three prizewinning guest reviewers - report from the Point's front line
The use of rock music for soundtracking and advertising purposes has opened up important new avenues for artists eager to get their music out to a mass audience.
Annual article: From the strange to the mundane, from poetic champions to pornographic novels, from maverick auteurs to great lost crime novels: it was a hell of a year to be a reader.
From the germ of a melodic idea through to the record that's played on the radio - Hot Press presents all you need to know about the art of songwriting. By journalist and musician PETER MURPHY. Part One of a three-part industry special.
Independent Irish acts have been enjoying unparalleled success recently both at home and abroad. We talk to some of the key bands, DJs, bedroom boffins, labels, fanzines, record shops and blogs who've decided to follow the DIY path to glory.
Music Review | Live
24% | 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.
